I hope all is well with Jack Mahler, I see he's taken a jaunt off route. That's a pretty long way to go if he's hitting Clint's Well, but if you need food/water, etc. It's gotta be done.
I'm guessing he found the trail impassable from the snow last night, and decided to take a detour to reach Mormon Lake. Hopefully I'll talk to him when he gets there, and find out what happened.