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.
