Since you bring it up, an outdoor skill almost "Lost" (good choice of words for this thread) today is "Dead Reckoning".   Its simply paying attention to landmarks or what we call "Landmark Navigation" without a compass.  Desert is really bad in that the landmarks may be none to be had or if they are at a long distance.  The only real beacon you have is the sun and its time dependent  The absolute worse is "Jungle".  Jungle you have no landmarks except trees and there can be no sun.  

What you do is note "markers" where ever you go.  This is not a conscious thing because if you have to think to do it, you will forget to.  It needs to be second nature and taught as young as you can teach them.  Its a go in and out approach where you remember where you been by what you saw.  Ultimately this is the lacking skill set that killed this woman.  She got off the path and by the time she realized she was lost didn't know how to get back.  We call it turned around but even no recognizable landmarks, you walk in an ever expanding circle eventually you see one.  No two trees, rocks, or mountains are alike.  Mountains are good.  You seek a high point and you can see the mountains around you.  Its better to be yards from a trail and spend hours to backtrack to a mountain you know than miss the trail completely.  

A great movie if you guys haven't see it is "Backcountry" a true story based on a couple attacked by a bear while hiking, obviously a don't do that movie, but there's some very good points.  The very first mistake was injury should have turned back, bailed as we call it.  The boyfriend took her cell phone which even with out a signal could have had a compass, light, and even GPS.  He refused a map.  Ultimately after the attack it was her recognizing landmarks that got her home.  

It would have been much easier had they not only had a map but before they even started made note of where they were going and what landmarks are around it.  Trail followers are not going to navigate.  They're just going to follow the nice path.  That's alright.  What kills them is the "What if".  Then things like I noted that land mark and I told someone where I was suppose to be on that day can save your life.  Not doing so is like boating without a life preserver.  

Here at the National Park and Forest we call those folks "Spandex Warriors".  What they are, are people not really accustomed to the forest but think they are because they follow trails and have all the neat spandex gear.  We call them "Warriors" because they more often than not come off as experts if you talk to them and you have to restrain yourself from laughing seeing the have on shorts sometimes sandals even.  Three steps off the trail, they got problems.  They damn sure aren't like "Hunters" that will go into somewhere hoping nobody has been there ever before.  A hunter you learn dead reckoning or you spend a lot of time being lost.  "What if" is the killer.  What if I'm lost?  What if I'm not on the nice path?  

I was in the mountains on foot Saturday.  On a motorcycle ride and my aging prostate, I couldn't make it to the restroom.  I stop and by holding onto trees go down almost a straight incline  There and behold the neatest path you ever saw.  I was thinking "No way in hell people made that path".  I was right too.  A few minutes later my friend and I was talking and bear came up not six yards behind us.  My point being, animals make some damn fine paths.  Paths don't always lead anywhere more than a logging trail does, the next clump of trees.  We have to decide the direction.  Even my pee stop, up was the road, down was Gatlinburg way down the the valley.  Every "Y" and every "turn" its not the navigation point, that funky tree, that rock, and if you cant remember it mark it, a twig pattern, rock pattern, basically Hanzel and Grettle bread crumbs.  Make a game out of it like a car game.  My point is here, over there is that and down there that.  

A good way to practice this before you set off on the hike from hell is to go into a small wood you won't die in, any straight line gets you out, but big enough you don't see major landmarks.  Guess what you learn this skill you don't get last as often in cars either.  You just do it naturally.  

I'm also a boater so I'll leave you all with a boaters saying of mine.  "Its not important you know here you are, only where you are going and when get there." Many times navigating a river in the pitch black dark I've let quests sweat as they ask me "Do you know where you are" and I reply "No".  Eventually I'll tell them "I'm going upriver as long as I know that the only thing I need to know is when I get there."  Following a trail is like navigating a river at night.  Its the same thing.  Where hikers blow it is just like boaters, its the "upriver", the general direction.  Where I'm going is there.............point at it.  If your direction is the wrong direction for way too long, its time to take stock.  Mountains are like rivers, they may go this way or that way but ultimately you path leads this way.  

Like I posted, you always know here you are.  Lost is not knowing where you are going.  How long before they start looking for you is a very big deal, because time increases the area to be searched.  

Rescue is dependent on someone knows where you are, where you are suppose to be.  Waiting on rescue where nobody thinks you are is a fools errand.  E TN just sent hundreds of people out looking for a little girl and she was a mere 8 miles away in an RV big as a bus.  They were found a couple guys riding ATVs stumbled on them not even looking for them.  That was over a week "AFTER" they started searching.  

I've spent over half a century doing outdoor adventures.  You won't like this and it goes against public school teachings, waiting on rescue is the last resort not the first.  Everyone who dies in the wilderness, its their last hope when they close their eyes for the last time.  

You do this stuff long enough everyone gets lost.  Learn the skills, take the gear even if its minimal, leave your travel plan, have your scheduled check ins (with buffer and keeping in mind those intervals set any search area), and getting lost just becomes part of the adventure.  Not a good idea to rely on luck and that's the first thing said when searchers find someone, "Lucky they did".  

Tj

BTW, If you note the map where the body was found, she lost tack of the trail was "up".  Trails are continuous lines.  If you are down from the trail, you go up, you will always find it, always.  Down, side to side either direction, maybe maybe not.  That's just geometry.  The problem is without any landmarks of even a general idea of direction, she may have crossed it many times and not know it.  In fact unless she hugged a tree fatal, probably did.

Tj