Power lines like that can go for very long distances through complete wilderness. It was a safer bet to do that than take a chance at going the wrong way deeper into the boonies.
Ok, story appears to be true. However, he was a few hours march in either direction to civilization, and he knocked out power to an entire town for two days, so yeah, I'm going to stand by what I said, he should have just followed the lines. Either direction you go, you're going to hit something man-made eventually
he should walked