While that's not exactly true for an experienced hiker, it certainly doesn't make sense for a 4-year-old.
So I'm 95% sure that Paulides made that up.
Can you name the child involved? If Paulides doesn't give a name and date for the claim, then assume the story is

.
When he does give the name, it will probably check out as wrong info. For example, Paulides claims in the book that 17-year-old Jay Toney was found 8 miles from where he went missing. In reality, all the reports about the incident say that
Toney was found less than 5 miles from where he went missing, not a difficult distance to travel in two days (hell, you can go four miles in couple hours).
Nah, he definitely leaves stuff out.
For example, he acts like people removing clothes in cold conditions is inexplicable, when that's
exactly what people with hypothermia often do.
You'll also notice from that link that people in terminal hypothermia try to dig down...another thing that would make it tough for searchers to find them.
Thomas Eldon Bowman, a child that disappeared, is
thought by authorities to have been a victim of serial killer Mark Ray Edwards, who kidnapped and killed other children. Left that out.
Bruce Howard Kremen is
also thought to be one of Mark Ray Edwards's victims. Left that out too
In other cases, he leaves out/changes the names and dates altogether. How the hell can you verify his claims?
He treats eyewitnesses like they 100% accurate, and discrepancies like they're evidence of crazy things happening. Cops know that real eyewitnesses ALWAYS have discrepancies.
He treats after-the-fact stories from 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds like they reflect reality. You know that 4-year-olds claim fantastic shyt all the time.
I had a 4-year-old tell me that she had gone to Cambodia with her sister and climbed a tree and saw a dragon. (Her parents were actually taking her to Cambodia the next week.)
Let's break down one story - the Jamison family. Mother, father, and daughter disappear in the woods, bodies found years later, miles from their truck. Definitely creepy, but...
The
Jamison family deaths don't seem so "mysterious" when you look at all the shyt the family had going on.
* Both the parents had mental health issues (the wife was bipolar and the husband had serious depression)
* both had drug issues
* the wife had been acting batshyt crazy for weeks before the disappearance, telling people she was a witch and that she was seeing ghosts and accusing neighbors of poisoning her cats
* the wife wrote an 11-page hate letter to the husband that was found in the car,
* neighbors said that they both the husband and wife had looked gaunt and emaciated in the days before they disappeared
* there was a massive ongoing feud between the husband and his father. The father (who was rumored to have ties to the Mexican Mafia) had threatened to kill him twice
* the family was so scared of the father they went to court and had a protective order taken out against him
* the family had had a creepy-ass White Supremacist for a boarder who the wife had threatened with a gun and kicked out of the house (he was considered by police to be a suspect)
* the wife's mother claimed that her daughter had pissed off an insane religious cult and the cult had her on a hit list
* the family owed people a ton of money
* there were meth labs in that part of the mountains where they disappeared.
This was seriously such a F'd up family that they're the EXACT kind of people you expect something to happen to. Did one of the crazy parents decide to end it all and pull a murder-suicide? Where they just drugged up and do something stupid in the woods? Did a drug deal go bad? Did they stumbled upon a meth lab they weren't supposed to see? Did the father of the husband, or the White Supremicist, or the people they owed money, or the "cult" (I think that was probably crazy duck tales from the family) pull a hit on them? There's a ton of possible explanations.
Here's some books about actual search-and-rescue operations to counteract some of the total bullshyt being shared in this thread.
Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon
The Last Season