"...did I miss something that indicated he was doing something wrong?"

My comments were aimed at a young man who apparently just set off blithely into the wilderness with absolutely no thought that anything bad could happen to him. La-la-la-la-la-la...

They didn't say that he was out of bounds, but that was the impression that I received, when he discovered that there was no one else around, no trails, etc, and he fell 20-30 feet off an embankment. Do they usually have cliffs in snowboarding areas?

He said he wasn't paying attention to his surroundings. He certainly didn't seem to know the country at all, either where he was or where he was going.

What happened to his friends? Did they go for help when they couldn't find him? Did they just take off?

So he decides to follow a ravine, with snow up to 4.5 feet deep? Getting wetter and colder all the while?

He said he felt like he was in a big maze. So stop moving, stupid!

No mention of attempting to make a fire, or even of having firemaking materials/equipment with him.

He didn't seem to have any knowledge of how to make or find a shelter. If he hadn't stumbled across an old plane fuselage, what would he have done? Would he have been dead by the time they found him?

He's going to Mammoth in February. Let's see if he makes the news then.

Cynical Sue