I get the impression from reading the report that they called the search themselves when they finally got around to dialing 9-1-1 Sunday after running low on food. Then the weather had to clear and they were picked up Tuesday.

As for fire, I agree. While the article doesn't say whether they had a capability to cook or even heat water, we can infer that they didn't have a capability to heat food because all they mention is Powerbars. Just being able to heat water for tea, soup and cocoa would be huge for morale and core warmth. Store your kit inside a Ti kettle. I'd bet their kit was very space/weight limited though since they were snowboarding.

That said, a blanket would have been good for the shared bodily warmth thing, and I'd have had a change of socks. But first I'd have had a small GPS with designated waypoints between my starting point and destination.