Doug, thanks for the update. It sounds like a very big search. And they ended up only a few kilometers from the search base! It reminds me of an incident some years back up in Denali Park. Two young women, summer employees of one of the hotels, decided to do a short backpack in the park on their days off.

Long story short they really got lost, but kept walking. NPS did a big search, lots of volunteers, helicopters, dogs, the Full Monty. The rangers thought they had defined a big enough search area. However, two fit (but clueless) young women can walk a long way. The walked clear out of the search area.

The search had gone on for many days, with no clues found. The girls were from outside of Alaska, only up here for summer jobs. The parents flew up here. The head ranger was actually sitting down with the parents in his office to tell them that nothing had been found and the search would be soon winding down. Suddenly the cell phone of the mother of one of the girls rang. It was the missing daughter! "Mom...help...we are lost!"

Turns out they had actually wandered way out of the search area, actually outside the park boundary, and slightly closer to the main highway. Luckily they ended up on a hilltop and got a marginal cell signal. Rather than do the seemingly obvious thing and call 911, the first thing the girl did was call her mother in North Carolina! Except that her mom was now in Alaska, in the head rangers office, getting the sad news that they might not find her daughter.

You just never know.