That’s me on the far left of my fellow Inglorious Coasties, after we’d climbed Deer Peak (outside of Ketchikan, Alaska) circa 1995. Now bear with me here: to protect his identity (and ego), we’re going to call the photographer of this image Seaman Farmer. That’s not his real name or title. And don’t worry, Seaman Farmer survived his flight. But just barely. I’ll explain:

This is the last shot Seaman Farmer took of the group before jumping off a mountain peak.

All nine of us had port call in Ketchikan, Alaska that morning, and decided to go on a hike up the nearby mountain. It’s a fairly challenging hike (about 3000ft), especially since it was icy. And we were sporting flannel and mom jeans. Gimme a break!  It was 1995; who wasn’t?

Anyway, Seaman Farmer, here brought a bottle of Peppermint Schnapps to celebrate our summit with, but… no one really wanted any. Do people really drink peppermint schnapps? Some of us took a token sip but instead, we all passed cameras around and documented our heroic ascent for each other. (Tech note; this particular image came from a bizarro, disposable panoramic 220 camera I brought, which explains the poor image quality… ’cause that camera’s seen some shit!)

Right, so that’s where this particular shot came in.

After tossing my camera back to me, Seaman Farmer decided to pound the entire bottle of schnapps himself, ending the machismo with a wild toss of the now-empty bottle down the mountain side. Pretty sure it broke on some rocks, as glass does. And then, just as the rest of us start to give him hell for it, Seaman Farmer belts out a hearty Wooooooot! followed by a See you bitches at the bottom! and then

He just straight jumped off the top of a mountain like superman.

Only he didn’t fly very much.

After the first few (milliseconds) hundred feet, we could barely see him somersaulting down anymore.

You see, although Deer mountain’s not really a huge mountain, the peak just happened to be above the cloud line that day. We sure could hear him, alright… the WOOHOOooooooo turned into multiple oh SHITs and then into, well, shrieks that I just don’t know how to spell.

And almost as suddenly as he’d jumped, he went completely silent. Like, head-trauma-silent.

So four of us started winding our way down the general direction of his trajectory (constantly yelling for/at him down this crazy steep, snowy mountainside) and the other four started running back the way we came, hoping to get help back at the boat.

I was part of the team that went down the way he jumped, and by the time we got about halfway to where we guessed he must have stopped… the other group had made it all the way back to the ship and had sent the H-65 Dolphin helicopter out to find and retrieve him. Even though it was only twenty minutes, it felt like an eternity before we finally heard the helicopter’s blades chopping through the snowy air. We never once heard Seaman Farmer, after that sudden silence.

It was an impressive rescue to watch. I mean I’d seen the rescue team practice quite a bit in the water, but never on a snowy mountainside. The helicopter team got him back to the boat, where he was then sent to the local emergency room. The four of us trying to climb down to Seaman Farmer’s destination eventually made our way off that mountain a couple hours later, fully exhausted.

After that I didn’t see Seaman Farmer for many months. When he made it back to active duty again, his face was a total patchwork of scars and stitches.

I’m glad he was alive after all that, but damn… wear your helmets when out on the slopes, kids. And don’t superman off the mountaintops, k?