Does bikepacking need to be off road exclusively ?, or can it merely be the “style” of baggage she was using to carry her gear on a bike that might otherwise not have eyelets to mount racks and panniers, which would then have made it a bike tour ?.

Theres a LOT of unanswered questions, including under what circumstances you lose your tent and sleeping bag. Possibly as they were in the pack bags that were fastened to the bike, she had no way to carry them when she abandoned the bike, Seems you would understand those are pretty important to survival and you don’t leave those behind. I’ve read stranger stories of survival or not in the woods, including the story of Ginnie Largay who died on the Appalachian Trail, or near it, in Maine. That one really had me puzzled. We might never get answers to this story that make sense,