There's a constant back and forth between some scenes where there's snowfall, a noticeable layer of snow on the ground and even some steam coming from the characters' mouths and noses, and some others during which the weather appears to be cold but visibly less unpleasant, with no traces of snow on sight. All of this happens without any kind of significant time and/or location lapse between scenes, so there's not any order or logic to it.
When the fourth person arrives the property owner tells them the others had decided to go ahead to the clearing to set up. The property owner said that they had left an hour before and that the location is about four miles down the trail. So there is no way that the property owner could have walked a total of 8 miles in one hour.