Sheep Mountain Heli Drop.

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 

A google search taught me that sheep drops are real.