The area around Storm King mountain contains miles of dark and eerie-looking woods once you leave, or miss, some of the local trails. There are areas where even in the middle of summer the forest barely allows sunlight to reach the forest floor which is covered by centuries of dead vegetation. Even with a map and compass I’m guessing it’s not too hard to get lost around there as many still missing hikers have found to their sorrow.
When I taught at West Point, I was responsible for Land Navigation training, a skill that all cadets were required to master. When assigned the responsibility, I was surprised to learn that some years before, land navigation training and the qualifying test had been changed from an individual task to a buddy task, in part because of the rugged terrain in and around West Point. This, of course, meant that up to one half of the cadets might not be able to navigate without their competent buddy. Not good. We got that changed, but the safety naysayers fought it all the way up to the Superintendent. Some cadets did get lost, but eventually they all learned this essential skill.
Unfortunately, the advent of GPS has meant that navigation skills are no longer thought to be so essential and training has suffered. I wonder if West Point has returned to the buddy system for Land Nav training. If they have, these two were probably the less skilled of their team.