Sheep Creek (Packraft)

Look at a map, choose the longest valleys from the nearest mountains. Work outward from Anchorage, and you’ll have several lifetimes worth of trips by the time your eyes reach the contours of the Alaska Range. One of those inevitable and seductive trips, so close by, starting in the alpine and descending many miles to the great Susitna valley, is Sheep Creek.

There are some hazards along the way, namely great masses of log jams and well armed, good country people.

Sheep Creek pours forth from the rugged, couloir-striated peaks of the Talkeetna mountains. A broad swath of soft tundra drapes across the mountains’ shoulders just below their ragged peaks and snow-streaked gullies. At the saddle of one of these ridges, Crossover Lake marks the entry point for Sheep Creek packraft trips.

It is possible to walk or fly into Sheep Creek, with all common routes passing by Crossover Lake. Roman Dial recommends the “Independent Sheep” route, which starts at the Craigie Creek road near Hatcher Pass. After a 21 mile or so walk, packrafters paddle down ten miles of the Kashwitna, then pack up rafts again and hike up to Crossover lake and then Sheep Creek. Alternatively, Brad Meikeljohn and Luc Mehl scoped out a “Cheap Sheep” one day walk-in from near the Parks Highway. Roman Dial’s route demands a minimum of four days. Cheap Sheep is a perfect one day trip for superhuman travellers. Or paddlers can fly in to Crossover Lake in about 15 minutes ($72.50 each), departing from Fish Lake off the Talkeetna spur road.

Regardless of how you get there, Sheep Creek is just a few hundred feet downhill and about 2 miles from Crossover Lake. Stay to hiker’s right of the creek that descends from the saddle near Crossover to minimize alder bashing. The bushwhacking isn’t bad, as alders have grown tall enough on much of the hillside to allow passage beneath them. The forest down by the put in is dreamy, a surreal open forest covered with ferns, and not a devil’s club in sight.

Although the Sheep’s headwaters are rowdy, the creek mellows by the time it makes sinuous braids through a verdant and forested floodplain below Crossover lake. There are a few rock gardens below the put in, but at lower to moderate water levels they are not difficult. Then the river flattens out even more for a tedious few miles that include braids and probably strainers (a “strainer” is a tree or brush that blocks passage across the channel and creates a drowning hazard).

The rapids pick up again as Sheep Creek leaves the mountains. At low water, these rapids are very tight boulder gardens requiring intricate maneuvering, but with little consequence of flipping over. At moderate to higher water, they would be chaotic and more challenging Class III rapids.

Just about the time the rapids taper off, you will see a very prominent ATV crossing of the river, including a cut in the bank on river left. It is accessible from Caswell Lakes Road, including a hike out from the river over an ATV track that is impassable for most cars and trucks. Use this takeout! Downstream is a demoralizing morass of log piles, strainers, and thoroughly unnavigable water.

Sheep Creek is a 20 mile or so paddle if you take out at the ATV crossing. It is about 10 more river miles and god knows how many more hours if you choose to hike around the lower river strainers to the Parks Highway.

If the whitewater doesn’t excite you, try pulling out and investigating the private property marked with signs that say things like “No warning shots; Price of ammo is up.” These good country people may shoot you. Or give you a ride back to your car when you emerge, lost, from the woods after walking out of the log jams on lower Sheep Creek below the normal takeout.