They told people where they were going and when they should be back!
They stopped traveling when they realized they were lost!
They build a shelter!
They had the means to make a fire!
Actually they did pretty well, all things considered. The only critique I might have is that if they knew a storm was coming, maybe they shouldn't have ventured out. The article notes a lot of stranded motorists, so perhaps it was not known that a storm of significance was moving in.
Of course a PLB would have been helpful, but I'd be willing to bet that most people have never so much as heard of a PLB. Only in circles such as these (i.e. ETS) do people even have an idea what PLB stands for.
Last year (Jan - Mar, 2007), I took a very thorough wilderness travel course through the Sierra Club. They covered a number of safety techniques very thoroughly. The text they used was the highly regarded Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills, 7th Ed. In the class, the topic of PLB's never came up and I don't believe that they're in the text either (certainly not in any of the assigned sections, but I don't think PLB's are there at all). In the outdoors community, people are only just now starting to learn about PLB's, so I can hardly fault anyone for not having one.
Not to pick on poor Aaron Ralston, but perhaps some good can come out of accidents like his and the recent SAR efforts for those climbers on Mt. Hood: people are now finding out about PLB's.
As for the two fire fighters in question here, they passed the only test that really matters: they lived to tell about it.
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