Except technically, no one saw him in Castaic at all.
Of course the dogs did track his scent there, but what they tracked showed he walked away from his vehicle, around the lake edge, across the dam and then away from the lake altogether, back down toward suburban Castaic and back near the 5 fwy.
To me, that indicates (unless he retraced his steps backwards back the exact way he left his vehicle, with no deviation from that path, or unless there was error with the dogs who tracked his scent), he got in a vehicle around where his scent disappeared, near the freeway.
I was just looking at a map. Bryce's scent path away from Castaic was neither on Lake Hughes Road, nor any main road in the area. He walked in areas where there weren't many roadways, until he approached his last spot. So he truly could have avoided patrolling police, easily.
And since his car was down an embankment, off a main road but it may have been hard to see from
a car driving on Lake Hughes Road.
In other news, I have submitted the video to the family for approval. There are some audio issues near the end but my biggest complaint is the length - 5 minutes. More than twice the length I wanted. I think that's a problem when it comes to holding the attention of 18 to 25 year olds, who were my target for the video. But it's hard to cut it down once you get everything together and edited!
And some of you might get annoyed that, despite the length, I didn't add too much detail. But I didn't want to overload people. I just wanted to get Bryce out there and known by more people. I hope the video helps with that. If it doesn't require much editing, hopefully we can link it soon.