DENVER -- A 51-year-old hunter is recovering in a Grand Junction hospital after falling into a creek and down a 50-foot waterfall.

The Pitkin County Sheriff's Office said James Heinritz slipped and fell into a creek about seven miles from the Placida Trailhead Monday afternoon

Heinritz was carried down the creek and "tumbled approximately 50 feet down a waterfall," said Patrol Director Joe Bauer.

Heinritz' brother Gary Heinritz was with him and stayed with James Monday night and then hiked out Tuesday morning and notified the sheriff's office.

A Flight for Life helicopter flew three members of Mountain Rescue Aspen and a flight nurse to a landing zone within a mile of Heinritz Tuesday evening, Bauer said.

Rescuers reached him around 7 p.m., Bauer said, and "rendered first aid and then executed an extensive, technical lowering of the injured to the helicopter landing zone."

Heinritz and the rescue crew spent the second night at the landing zone and then flew the injured hunter to St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction Wednesday morning.