Not uncommon for some people to take side trips while leaving the main pack behind. Mostly this is just an afternoon trip but it may extend, or get extended, to 24, perhaps even 48 hours.

I once took a side trip that I thought would only take a couple of hours and a thunderstorm moved in. I set up a small tarp and hunkered down. I brought my stove so I could heat soup and tea. Before the storm moved on it was dark. I think I could have safely made it back but navigating thorough a swamp at night, and across a couple of small but steep ridges that would be easy to fall on, seemed like an unnecessary risk. I was warm, dry, well fed and watered where I was. The trip back could wait.

Come the morning I was surprised to find the swamp flooded and the normally placid streams running through it to be swift and strong. I'm not sure how I would have fared crossing them at night. As it was I had to detour around the worse of the swamp I had cut across on the way out. This changed a two hour hike into a six hour ordeal. I got back to my camp worn, tired, out of food except for a small survival reserve of a couple of Cliff bars.

I wouldn't have died if someone had taken my main pack. I was only a hard day's hike away from civilization and still had access to water and food for a day or two. But it would have been rougher than I would enjoy. With little in reserve I would have been vulnerable if anything went seriously wrong. If I broke a leg, got sick, or snake bit I would have been in dire straits and in serious trouble.

Point is that you don't mess with people's stuff. If there is any chance at all that they will return you need to leave it be. They may have taken a side trip and got delayed.

I tend to cashe my gear well away from the trail and to camouflage it but one never knows. Wind, driving rain, animals, could expose it and there is a good chance anyone who knew what to look for would find it. I further try to make it clear, by wrapping the pack in a tarp and having everything neatly bundled together, that the gear has not been discarded or abandoned. A couple of times it looked like someone might have been near my cashe but it was all still there.