"I think after the first day I would have traveled by night back the way I came, hoping to get back to the main road. Not sure how far that might have been, maybe dozens of miles or more."

Good point. The usual advice is to stay put, but if you know you only have one day's worth of water left, do you use it on a night trek or stay, hoping for rescue the next day? If you stay and rescue doesn't come, do you walk out the second night without water?

I worked in an underground mine on the border of Death Valley for a couple of years. We had a couple of "mishaps" with the four-wheel drives in the valley. Twice we walked out at night. We never went out alone, always had plenty of water, and knew the area well, so that probably isn't a fair comparison.