Apparently it hasn’t been mentioned here yet, so I’m just going to mention my assumption about what really happened:
He met someone while hiking, and went home with them. Turned off his phone. Got back the next morning and discovered a lot of effort had been made to find him, so he quickly made up a cover story. He can’t admit the real story because he was cheating on his partner, or he’s a closeted gay, or whatever.
Simplest explanation.
