That is probably very true...it would have been even easier to walk down the other road less than a mile and found Bear Lake Lodge with everything he needed. He wouldn't be able to call from there but at least he would have secure facility to operate from.
I also think this time of year it must be pretty competitive with the bears and treking any more than you need to I would think to be not a good thing.
Ah, but the point is he obviously didn't know the lodge was there because he was lost. In the 21st Century U.S., using much higher ground to try to get a cell signal should be intuitively obvious and would have taken at most a couple hours.