On PC, how do i restore my quest progression in "Picking up the Trail"

While i was playing Fallout 3, all of a sudden "Picking up the Trail" completed itself when i was no where near Lamplight Cavern.

Looking on the the wiki this seems to be an existing bug for PC

It's possible that this quest will be considered "completed" and begin the next quest before ever entering Vault 87. This can be a problem if this occurs before asking MacCready to open the gate to Murder Pass and/or Joseph to restore power to the computer console, as the dialogue options that prompt them to perform these tasks are no longer available after the quest is completed. Thus there is no way into Vault 87 at this point. In the PC version, however, one can use the console command tcl to switch off collisions, which will allow simply walking through the gate blocking the way to Murder Pass. Once on the other side of the gate, use the tcl command again to re-engage collisions and then proceed on into Murder Pass. ^[verified]

while it gives a solution on how to continue the game by skipping parts, i want to actually restore my progress of "Picking up the Trail". how can i do this?