Glad they were found, at least they made it to a camp area! I guess it’s always easy to analyze it after the fact, but it seems like there would be some sort of signage at a camp pointing them towards a road?
I did an Adventure race once, and we had a list of thing that were required in our packs. When the race was done i decided to leave a couple of the items in my pack for good; a compass, lighter, and knife. I haven’t been in this kind of trail situation since i live in a metro area, but you never know!