Wow thats too bad, kind of scary cause it can happen to even experienced outdoors men.
I had a close call one year: Myself and 3 other close friends were climbing Mt Hood (11,235 ft) and we got caught in a whiteout storm. Before that it was a beautiful sunny day. Knowing the area very well we knew what to do, 1st we tried just waiting it out because there are too many crevasses and cliffs to go wandering about basically blind. Once we figured it was getting worse and getting caught on the mt with only a days worth of food and water, we used our compasses to traverse the mt until we got to a land mark we knew existed and followed again our compasses back to the lodge. The key was we knew the area very well before hand.
The old boy scout training came in very well indeed.!
As a local, were they 15 miles down the wrong road ?
How far beyond that to a cabin, town, etc. ?
One should be able to walk 2 to 3 miles per hour unless the snow was really high...without snow shoes or a x-c ski.