Actually, I have done some camping/hiking in the Carolinas. Yes, you lose visual contact rather easily. Yes, it's easy to get turned around and lost in wooded areas, especially when navigating rough, uneven, or mountainous terrain that prevents you from following a straight line. No, sound doesn't travel nearly as well, making echolocation vastly more difficult. But, like I said, I have a hard time believing Sophia could've gotten very far. One, the terrain would force her to move slowly and carefully, especially if she didn't want to twist an ankle or something. Two, knowing, or at least suspecting, that zombies were wandering those woods, I'd like to think she was trying to make as little noise as possible and, thus, moving cautiously. Three, once she was lost, if she was panicking and truly freaking out, it's hard to imagine she wouldn't have been calling out, screaming her head off for someone to help her. Plus, like I said, you have to believe the girl knew her mother would come looking for her, making it more likely for her to be calling out.
But I'll concede the point that she could've wandered beyond earshot in the time between when Rick left her and when the search party reached the church, especially if she ended up going in the opposite direction.
The real mistake was in Rick telling her to run back to camp. He should've just told her to stay put.
Um. I'm pretty sure he
did tell her to stay put. Unless I'm imagining it, Rick told her to hide and then wait for him to come back for her, but if he wasn't back shortly, she was to follow the stream and head toward the road. Maybe it was crap editing and they meant to show her wandering off after Rick dispatched the walkers, like she'd waited 5-10 minutes but then got scared that something happened to Rick and the zombies would come back for her. Or maybe the girl was supposed to look like a moron, thereby providing us with our missing girl MacGuffin. But within
seconds of the zombies passing her hiding place, she stepped out and wandered into the woods. WTF?! I'll give her a pass on being too frightened to pay much attention to Rick's instructions about following the stream and in which direction the road was, but the part about hiding and waiting for him? No. Sorry. Considering she was clinging to him for her life moments ago, I can't believe she wouldn't wait for him to come back, that she wouldn't cower in the shadows waiting to be rescued. At least for a few freakin' minutes.
That's what infuriates me and makes me want the little girl - the character, not the young actress - dead. Flesh-eating zombies are roaming the countryside and people
still can't get kids to listen.