The weather was horrible at the time ... and the terrain is bad.
The last time this kind of thing happened in LA it was a well liked man in the Hollywood community missing on a drive from Las Vegas to LA. Family and friends searched high and low.
Over a year later he was found in his car having driven into some sort of water culvert ... so some such thing.
I can't remember where but there was a woman a few years ago that made a wrong turn in a snow storm. She was stranded several days but found alive.
He was found in the aqueduct on Hwy 14 in Palmdale.