A hunter who went missing Sunday morning in the Cohutta Wildlife Management Area was found hours later trapped in a steep ravine, in critical condition, thousands of feet below the surrounding ridgeline, setting off a nighttime rescue that required the U.S. Army's help to get him out alive.
Search and rescue crews received the initial report of a lost hunter mid-morning on Sunday near the Pinhoti Trail off Forest Service Road 64 in Fannin County, according to 11Alive. Georgia Department of Natural Resources Game Wardens made initial contact with the hunter shortly after 7 p.m. that evening, locating him several miles off trail and trapped in a steep ravine, per the Georgia DNR Law Enforcement Division. FOX 5 Atlanta also reported the hunter was found Sunday in the rugged terrain of the Cohutta Wildlife Management Area and rescued by helicopter.
Responders determined the hunter could not be safely carried out on foot, and nightfall combined with changing mountain weather ruled out a standard civilian aviation extraction, the agency's report notes. That left only one option: calling in the U.S. Army Camp Merrill Helicopter Rescue Team, whose crews are equipped to operate in darkness and rough terrain where typical medevac choppers cannot.
A Hoist Extraction in the Dark
The Camp Merrill team executed a nighttime hoist extraction from the ravine, lifting the hunter out and flying him to a nearby hospital for treatment, according to the same DNR account. Camp Merrill, home to the Army's 5th Ranger Training Battalion near Dahlonega, supplied the team for the extraction, per the U.S. Forest Service.
Why the Cohutta Backcountry Is So Unforgiving
The scale of the search area alone explains why locating one person took most of a day. The Cohutta Wildlife Management Area spans 96,583 acres across Fannin, Gilmer, and Murray counties, jointly managed by the Forest Service and Georgia DNR as public hunting ground, according to Recreation.gov. It surrounds the 36,977-acre Cohutta Wilderness, which combines with Tennessee's Big Frog Wilderness to form the largest contiguous roadless wilderness area in a national forest east of the Mississippi River, per Sherpa Guides.
The Cohutta Mountains are rugged, and the terrain made the search challenging. Forest Service Road 64 was used to stage the response, and the initial report placed the hunter near the Pinhoti Trail.
Peak Season for Backcountry Risk
Hunting takes place in the area, where black bears and white-tailed deer also live.
This rescue ended with the hunter alive and in a hospital bed rather than still unaccounted for.
