James Johnson is an avid hunter and it’s not like him to get lost. But when he did it Wednesday, he kept a cool head and lit a fire. Searchers spotted it from a helicopter the next day.

The camp hunter who went missing Wednesday and was found by a helicopter a day later never lost his mind in the wilderness south of town.

James Johnson, who turns 54 on Sunday, traveled to the Medicine Bow National Forest area Wednesday to bag his elk, with only one additional day of hunting allowed in the area.

It was just before dark when he climbed the wrong ridge, Johnson told Cowboy State Daily Saturday.

“The ridges all looked the same when I got there,” he said, describing many sharp vertical ridges in terrain accessible only by foot.

He had two choices: he could continue wandering trying to find his way back to his truck, or he could use the fleeting sunlight to build a shelter and a fire.

The temperature was dropping, the snow was falling and the wind was picking up. Johnson chose a shelter.

He arranged his limbs in a makeshift shelter and used a flint he had with him to ignite nylon game bags, which – he discovered on the fly – make a very good fire starter. They burned just long enough to dry out the wet wood he had collected, Johnson said.

Around 1 a.m. the first large flakes of a 2 to 3 inch snowfall began. At 3:30 a.m., the wind raged.

Johnson stayed awake, mobile, and stoked his little fire all night. He knew that the sun would rise around 7:30 a.m. and that the terrain would allow for nice areas of sunshine around 8 a.m.

At 8 a.m. he put out his fire and hiked to a high ridge, intending to use it as a vantage point. He thought he saw a logging road from there, but he didn’t. So he climbed “another ridge” in the sea of ​​identical ridges and eventually found a stream.

Having long abandoned all thoughts of his truck, Johnson followed the water downstream, thinking that at some point he would have to cross a road. He saw no signs of bears but noticed fresh mountain lion tracks – probably left a few hours before he saw them. Johnson wasn’t worried about wildlife: he had both his rifle and his handgun. But the only wildlife he saw was a gray squirrel, he said.

The creek has never crossed a road. This led Johnson to the Encampment River, which encountered a river trail. Johnson followed the trail to Commissary Park, near the Colorado border.

That’s when searchers aboard a Classic Air helicopter found him, waving his arms and unharmed.

I thought they were looking

Johnson thought his wife had called search and rescue; I thought people were looking for him.

Still, he was honored and grateful for the response of the 20 Carbon County sheriff’s and search and rescue personnel who deployed Wednesday evening and Thursday morning when he did not return home.

“I want to thank our search and rescue and the sheriff’s office – they are underestimated, I believe,” he said. “They were definitely invested in trying to find me. This is something I think people need to know.

Johnson said he would like to encourage people to donate to their local search and rescue groups.

Not normal

Friends and family described Johnson as a strong person and a knowledgeable hunter. That’s also Carbon County Sheriff Alex Bakken’s understanding of him, Bakken told Cowboy State Daily Friday.

The sheriff was surprised to learn that Johnson had not returned home as expected. Bakken, a volunteer searcher himself, and others searched large swaths of the national forest Wednesday evening, then called off the search around midnight as the snow arrived.

They set off again in the morning with Johnson’s 20-year-old son — who frequently hunted with Johnson — to help them narrow down some likely routes.

Searchers found Johnson’s vehicle at the end of Jones Creek Road. They established a command post and sent three teams of three to feed.

“There’s no way to have a four-wheel or side-by-side vehicle in this area,” Bakken said, adding that Classic Air has been a big help in search and rescue. The service agreed to send a helicopter over the area.

The helicopter crew spotted Johnson around 3:15 p.m., Bakken said. Searchers converged and were able to guide Johnson out of the area just before dark.

Bakken said Johnson was about five miles from his truck as the crow flies, but he must have traveled much further than that with the elevation gain, pivots or turns and winding road he found. Johnson estimated he walked about 20 miles in total.

Bakken called Johnson “super lucky” that things weren’t worse. “If this research had taken place on any other day, I don’t know what the outcome would have been.”

Johnson said he had no doubt he would pull through. He couldn’t explain it and he said it wasn’t due to his own abilities, but he was confident he would find a way and return home before dark on the second day, he said .

Claire McFarland can be reached at [email protected].