Very interesting picture ..... we know he reached 2300 feet ..... darn anyway ... at 2400 he would have broken through and been OK
I also noticed the NTSB report says he had contacted them to say he was going to climb to 4000 feet .... so in other words the left turn and decent was not intentional..... (earlier I had speculated he was turning around and descending to get back to where he had visibility.)
Looking at the picture also explains the pilot saying he had encountered "another" cloud layer which would be the one at 2400 feet ...... and if you look closely you can see another cloud layer above that , and in the distance is a strip of clear sky he would have headed for and been close to where he planned to land.