Also note the time the friends saw him near the cables: 1845. That was pretty late. Darkness was about an hour or more away.
at 1:08 video text says: A short time later, other hikers encountered Likely further down the trail, and later reported Likely appeared fatigued. @1:17 Continuing with him briefly, they told investigators he refused assistance and the hikers continued down ahead of Likely. @1:24 Their's was the last reported sighting of Mr. Likely.
If you match that blue dot with satellite images (Gmap4 link), you can see there is a pretty rugged chute there. But I agree that Likely would have had to traverse a more gentle drainage and get really high to fall into that chute.
At the apparently slow pace, it could easily have taken him that hour to get to those switchers above Trailside. Making it more probable to miss the trail there and less that he would leave the trail intentionally.
