Wow, when she stayed put, she really stayed put! While it makes sense to simply stop where you are when you get lost after a few days you would have thought she tried something after calming down and thinking out the situation.

I checked the provided coordinates on Google Earth - her camp was literally 500m from the AT and 700m from a railway bed road in heavily forested rugged terrain. She obviously didn't go much out of sight of her tent for many of those 27 days. If she had just packed up and walked in a southerly direction she might have self extracted. The K-9 search teams even missed her by even less of a distance so if she was staying really close to the tent she may not have left enough scent for the dogs to pick up. I wonder if she may have had a soft tissue injury that didn't show up in the autopsy that may have dissuaded or even prevented her from leaving her camp?