A slightly off topic reply to...
>>>>They also resorted to cannabalism to survive <<<<

I read this books about 2 years ago & was pretty shocked to learn that it only took a week or slightly longer before these folks resorted to cannabalism. During that first week they had some, not a lot but some food, mostly chocolate IIRC. I was left with the impression that they were driven not by starvation but by hunger to cannabalism. (In a more temperate climate it would probably take that long to convince me to eat a banana.) OTOH, it took them over a month to come to the decision to have a couple of the stronger guys walk out looking for help. That's how they were eventually rescued. If the situation is desparate enough to resort to eating your dead then I don't believe that it's unreasonable to expect that all other avenues of help should probably have already been explored fully.

I don't want to imply that the group had a strong desire to resort to abominable practices. Their decisions are at least curious though, given the strong religious backgrounds alluded to in the book and the education levels involved.

Just food for thought, hold the bananas please

Ed