I keep going back to the original mistakes they made. Missing their turn, picking a bad alternate route from a road map, not knowing the area, not understanding that they didn't have enough gas to endlessly wander around unmarked forestry roads.

A PLB or sat phone could have gotten them out of trouble sooner, but those are a hard sell to even a hardcore geek / preparedness nut family.

They could have avoided all the trouble in the first place with a GPS navigation system. There are plenty of sub-$500 systems now where you can carry detailed road maps of multiple states and never have to wonder if you're on the right road. I've held off purchasing one but I think it's getting to be time. I just wish they had one with sat photo overlays. Or Google Earth on DVD.