Summary:
Geologist's Cabin: 35 55'29"N 117 04'55"W, 4400 feet elevation
Van: 35 55' 37.86N 117 01' 06.91W, 3100' elevation
Remains: 35 49' 10.17N 116 57' 38.93W, 2400' elevation
Sunset (in Los Angeles) on 7/23/1996 was 8PM.
Moonrise was 1:19PM and it was up all night.
It was a new quarter moon that night.
Could they have waited in the van until sunset then followed the light of the moon to the west? That would possibly explain why they climbed over the 400' rise.
(Elevation taken from Google Maps "terrain" view)
By a straight line the van and remains are separated by 8 miles. From the van to the geologist's cabin was less than 4 miles but was uphill 1300 feet. Even though there is a difference of 700' from the van to the remains, there is no downhill path between them. They had to climb over a rise of approximately 3500', meaning they climbed 400' from the van elevation. I crawled the Google terrain map and if they had decided to go downhill the logical path would have lead them straight down Anvil Spring Canyon and back to the West Side Hwy.
The path they selected is not obvious. Maybe they were trying to find Barker Ranch. It's in the basic direction (west) they chose.
Of course, all of this is based on an assumption that the remains were found where they died and not dragged there by beasts. Does anyone know the nature of the remains? Was there a complete skeleton or just a part?