"He’s not stupid, in my mind he’s not going to go off a main path and down a sheer drop or cliffs unless he’s been forced down by someone who could have been following him."
This is a hard statement for me. He went with someone he really didn't know to a place hours away from where he was staying and without any people he really knew. That's not exactly a great choice. If he could make that kind of choice, anything else is open to possibility. So sure, in my mind he could have chosen what he thought was a shorter route and ended up on a goat trail and gotten lost. Not hard if your are a person who is in an unfamiliar place and does not know orienteering. And it's not a slam. Not everyone thinks the world is out to get them and plans for option Z happening. But when you end up with option Z and you don't have a plan, it can be a problem.