" Hutter stepped off the path for a moment, and then couldn’t find it again."

Ben East was a writer for Outdoor Life, and for many years covered survival stories. He wrote several books about people who got into trouble in the outdoors. He had this advice for hikers -

"Never step off a road or a marked trail unless you're ready to spend the night in the woods."

https://www.amazon.com/Books-Ben-East/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ABen%20East