Not on Sheep Mountain and not my photo.
Saturday was Juneau’s annual Sheep Mountain
Helicopter drop. For a while I was calling it the Sheep Heli drop until someone
asked what sort of sicko drops a sheep out of helicopter. There have never been
any bighorn sheep in Juneau area and the name Sheep Mountain is a perpetuated mistake.
The old miners confused mountain goats and sheep. There are mountain goats on
Sheep Mountain and rumors of sharks. Nobody has the desire to change the names to
Goat Creek and Goat Mountain and they probably never will. There is a Goat
Creek and Goat Mountain elsewhere in the borough of Juneau. Just to be clear, a
group of skiers were dropped that got dropped on the summit of Sheep Mountain.
I know you were worried about the sheep.
Taken right before I hopped out.
Anyhow, the Sheep Drop was fun at ridiculous levels.
Gerry Landry photo, Unknown skier near Shark Lake.
There’s absolutely nothing noble about climbing into
a helicopter and hopping out on top of mountain. The helicopter landed and I grabbed
my pack and skis out of basket hanging under the helicopter, sat down on top my
gear, and waited for the helicopter to fly away. I paid $79 for a five minute
ride.
North Side of Sheep Mountain, Gerry Landry photo.
I could have given the money to the poor and climbed
the mountain on foot. I could have gone to the Bernie Sanders rally Saturday
afternoon and maybe helped make America free again. I don’t think we are free.
I will say that. But rather than join the struggle for a better future or join
the effort to help those less in need, I spent $79 for a five-minute helicopter
ride and burned more than my share of fossil fuels.
Helicopter taking off at Sheep Creek Beach.
We met the helicopter at the Sheep Creek beach and rode up in five
groups of five. Once we hopped out, we huddled over packs and didn’t stand up
until the heli flew away. The helicopter made laps to the beach to pick us all
up. Coastal Helicopters charges about $1,800/hour and it took an hour to carry all
the groups to the summit (25/$1,800 + tip). The summit of Sheep Mountain is a
plateau about an acre large and it makes for a great lunch area for a group of
twenty-five people. Once we were all on top, we sat down and ate breakfast
while scanning the landscape. By and by we decided to ski to Shark Lake. It’s
called Shark Lake due to a subspecies of great white shark called the Snow
Shark (Pistris skierus), endemic the
east side of Sheep and Clark Peaks. That or maybe they call it Shark Lake
because it sits between Sheep Mountain and Mount Clark. Shark is the marriage of Sheep and Clark.
Sheep Mountain near day's end.
The snow conditions
were great on the east side of Sheep Mountain all the way down to Shark Lake. At
the bottom I realized the day was going to be work, even with the heli drop.
It’s 2,200 back to the summit of Sheep Mountain and this was a drop, not heli
skiing. They drop you off for a heli drop and from there you are on your own to get home. Heli skiing is different. They pick up you at the bottom for heli skiing and repeatedly carry back up,
and they take you back to town. Heli skiing is for lazy, rich people. One day I
will do that too if I am lucky enough to get rich.
Near Shark Lake Skin Track
The average college student graduates with $37,000 in student loan debt.
Furthermore, Americans are beholden to our employers for our very lives because
health insurance is tied to our employment. We could literally die if we don’t
get a job for a corporation of government agency and continue to work for them until
nigh unto death. The cost of health insurance
in the US is high enough that we spend most of our lives paying health
insurance and student loans. That’s what I do. However, on Saturdays we can burn shitpiles of
jet fuel while riding in helicopters. Nero fiddles. Sharks ride in helicopters.
Summit of Sheep Mountain looking south.
Once we got to Shark Lake, we skinned back to the top of Sheep Mountain,
having opted not to ski up Mount Clark. Then we dropped off the north side of
Sheep Mountain and down a steep gully through some of the nicest skiing I have
done in all year. The powder was earned though because it was tough getting
out. My skins are getting older. So am I. I don’t notice my skins are losing grip until
I try skin something steeper than the ridges on North Douglas. Still I cursed
appropriately when my skins slipped and it didn’t take that long to get back to
the summit of Sheep Mountain. Some time in the morning my lunch had a minor
disaster occurred. It wasn’t a disaster like the fact that millennial Americans
are screwed. Wages have been flat and declining for forty years so if you are
under 40, decline is all you know. I
brought cheesecake in a plastic container, the lid popped off, and it
commingled with my peanut butter and honey sandwich. It tasted good though I
won’t put it in recipe book. I don’t have a photo.
The last run of the day was off the west side of Sheep Mountain in the
direction of Perseverance Trail. The snow by afternoon had loosened up and felt
like dreams. It’s hard to describe just how cool it was. There is a drainage
you can take from Sheep Mountain that leads to the end of Perseverance Trail.
Then you walk out. Eventually we made it to the Perseverance trail but by way
of the wrong drainage. Because we took the wrong drainage, we spent about an
hour crawling from snow line, through brush and old mining equipment with skis
on our backs and finally made it to the trail. We even climbed through a mine
shaft to get through. I wonder if that is a new experience in humandom. Millions
of people ski and many people have climbed through mine shafts but I wager the climbing
through a mine shaft has never been part of a ski trip. I could be wrong. Once to the trail and out of
morass of brush, we walked out to the trailhead. I got a ride to a restaurant
and made it just in time for my food to arrive. I was three hours late for the
Bernie Sanders gathering so I didn’t go.
Selfie
Selfie
A google search taught me that sheep drops are real.
