The Best Things to Do in Juneau

Juneau Guid­ed Tours will not be oper­at­ing in 2020. Explore Juneau on foot with your local guide, who will high­light details from the min­ing era back in the late 1800s to the mod­ern city of today. Vis­it the State Cap­i­tal Build­ing, the Governor’s Man­sion and the Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church, with plen­ty of pho­to stops along the way.

Two lefts past the Alas­ka Marine High­way Juneau Ter­mi­nus is the road to Auke Bay Recre­ation­al Area. Inside, you’ll find Point Louisa, a tra­di­tion­al fish­ing ground for the Auke peo­ple (a sub­group of South­east Alaska’s First Peo­ple, the Tlin­git). Point Louisa is a good fish­ing spot with good water views, cov­ered pic­nic areas, and gen­tly slop­ing grav­el beach make it a fam­i­ly favorite. 

This trail was built to pro­vide access to the John Muir Cab­in. The trail is extreme­ly mud­dy in sum­mer and rub­ber boots are rec­om­mend­ed then, but it is a great snow­shoe and ski trail in win­ter. There are many huck­le­ber­ries and blue­ber­ries along­side the trail and most of the trail has been planked or has small bridges to pro­tect the under­growth. The cab­in is open to the pub­lic between 10am and 5pm. 

Juneau is one of only two capi­tols in the Unit­ed States that isn’t accessed by roads — only boats and planes can reach the city. But there is a stretch of paved road that runs north from town, past Auke Bay and towards Berner’s Bay. You’ll pass the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­east Alas­ka and the fer­ry ter­mi­nal before get­ting ​“out” of town. It’s a great trip, near­ly 50 miles out and back.

Near the end of the North Dou­glas high­way is a small half-mile trail lead­ing out to the north end of Dou­glas Island. The small beach there offers excel­lent views of Admi­ral­ty Island, the Chilkats, Lynn Canal, and the moun­tains behind the Menden­hall Glac­i­er. You’ll see sport fish­ers trolling for king salmon, and the occa­sion­al hump­back. The trail is wheel­chair acces­si­ble and used by tour bus groups, but go after 5PM and you’ll like­ly be…  ...more

This flat trail — a must for bird­ers — takes you past the Juneau Inter­na­tion­al Air­port run­way and into the famed Menden­hall Wet­lands. You’ll start by fol­low­ing the Menden­hall Riv­er until you get past the run­way. Then the trail veers left, but a small­er foot­path fol­lows the embank­ment above the Menden­hall out to where it emp­ties into Lynn Canal. Fol­low the main trail for about anoth­er 1.5 miles, past a small cov­ered shel­ter and the largest tree…  ...more

Sheep Creek was named by Joe Juneau and Richard Har­ris after mis­tak­ing moun­tain goats for sheep. The trail begins in the for­est, ris­es abrupt­ly, then drops into Sheep Creek Val­ley. The old min­ing build­ings are bare­ly stand­ing. The trail then switch­backs up. If the rest of the trail is hard to find, fol­low the pow­er­lines. Be aware though — the pow­er­lines are still ful­ly charged! 

This trail was named after John Lemon, one of the first prospec­tors to cross the Chilkoot Trail. It is rec­om­mend­ed that you wear water boots and long-sleeved shirts because of the mud and over­grown brush. There are many berries and, there­fore black bears in this area. 

This unmarked trail is named for Alaska’s Sec­ond Region­al Forester, B. Frank Heint­zle­man. He was also Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Gov­er­nor between 1953 and 1957. Moun­tain goats are often seen along this route. After cross­ing Jor­dan Creek, the steep ascent begins. It is pos­si­ble to hike from the Menden­hall Glac­i­er Vis­i­tor Cen­ter from this trail. 

Just before Echo Cove is Brid­get Point State Park, where you’ll find this well-main­tained trail. It mean­ders through muskeg, mature for­est, and grass­land until it reach­es a beaver dam and views of the Lynn Canal. Bears often vis­it the mead­ow, but leave it to fish the stream.

This hike begins on West Glac­i­er Trail (Menden­hall Glac­i­er) West Glac­i­er Trail (Menden­hall Glac­i­er) , which you’ll stay on from the park­ing lot past skater’s cab­in. Keep going. You’ll gain ele­va­tion as you hike the edge of the Menden­hall Glac­i­er down on your left. After a mile or so, the trail turns sharply to the left as you begin a long and stren­u­ous ridge hike that even­tu­al­ly takes you to the apex of Mount McGin­nis — the most per­fect peak…  ...more

Steep trail that is worth the climb: you’ll find excel­lent views of Gastineau Chan­nel, Juneau, and Dou­glas from here. NOTE: The 6^th Street trail head is no longer main­tained. Hik­ers must access Mt Roberts via the Basin Road trail head. 

This trail offers fan­tas­tic views of the sur­round­ing moun­tains. The trail is not main­tained and may be mud­dy in places. Above the tree­line there are many wild­flow­ers and small pools of water. Hik­ing boots as well as water boots are recommended. 

Don’t con­fuse this unnamed trail with Sheep Creek Trail (which is a rel­a­tive­ly flat, three-mil­er also worth your time). So how do you find the trail head? With your back to the water, it’s to the right of Sheep Creek and the hatch­ery build­ings, to the left of the first house, and at the top of the embank­ment that leads up to the road. Hike up to the pow­er line (from Snet­tisham Lake — Juneau is near­ly 100% hydropow­er), cross it, and then follow…  ...more

The trail is very mud­dy in sum­mer but is a great ski trail in win­ter. It leads through a muskeg mead­ow, through the woods to anoth­er mead­ow. The hills past this trail offer many more ski­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. The east­ern part of this trail is open to snowmobiles. 

The first part of the trail fol­lows an old tram­line where there are many berries. The right branch of the trail leads to the dam, which was built in 1914 to cre­ate hydro­elec­tric pow­er. The oth­er trail leads to the reservoir. 

The trail starts near Nugget Creek dam and hikes through the small veg­e­ta­tion to the Vista Creek Shel­ter. It pass­es through incred­i­ble chasms to above the tim­ber­line. Bears and moun­tain goats are often seen here and there are min­ing ruins along­side the trail. 

This makes for a good half-day to overnight hike that leads to a small lake with a fee cab­in. Peter­son Lake isn’t a clas­sic beau­ty of an alpine lake, but its low­er ele­va­tion (only about 750 feet above sea lev­el) means a longer hik­ing sea­son, and it is a peace­ful spot to relax and row around a pret­ty lake edged by a gar­den of float­ing pond lilies 

As glac­i­ers retreat, plants move in to occu­py the recent­ly exposed land in a process called suc­ces­sion. This entire trail is a clas­sic exam­ple of Ice Age suc­ces­sion, since you’ll pass from mature for­est to scrub trees to rocky moraines as you approach the glac­i­er. There are pic­turesque views along the Her­bert Riv­er, and while the hike is most­ly flat and one of the area’s eas­i­er walks, it’s long — about 5 hours round-trip. After four miles, the…  ...more

As you approach the south side of Her­bert Riv­er, there’s a turnoff that ends at the Wind­fall Lake trail­head. The trail, some of which is planked, fol­lows the Her­bert Riv­er through the for­est. A spur trail once led to Her­bert Glac­i­er, but because of beaver damming it is no longer acces­si­ble dur­ing the sum­mer. How­ev­er, you can ski to Her­bert Glac­er via this trail in win­ter. This is a three-mile hike to a For­est Ser­vice cab­in on picturesque…  ...more

The Auke Lake Trail was orig­i­nal­ly built to access the John Muir Cab­in. It also pro­vides access to Spauld­ing Mead­ows, an excel­lent place for Nordic ski­ing dur­ing the win­ter. The trail pro­vides views of the Chilkat Moun­tains, Admi­ral­ty Island, Gastineau Chan­nel, and Mts. Stroller White and McGin­nis. The trail also offers plen­ty of bird­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, espe­cial­ly now that a recent $1.2 mil­lion update was com­plet­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Alaska…  ...more

A side trail from Per­se­ver­ance that breaks off 2 miles into the hike, this trail is gen­er­al­ly mud­dy because of the beau­ti­ful water­falls and snow that resides on the moun­tains until ear­ly sum­mer. (And there’s extreme avalanche dan­ger in win­ter.) But it’s a great day hike, and if you keep to the left you can access the alpine high coun­try of Mount Juneau. There are beau­ti­ful alpine lakes and wild­flow­ers along the way as you gain over 1,200…  ...more

Dri­ve to the end of Thane road and park at the dead end, where a nice water­fall sets the mood for this three-mile hike through a beau­ti­ful rain for­est. Mud and exposed roots make for dif­fi­cult foot­ing, but the trail is flat — a rar­i­ty around here.

Adja­cent to the Air­port and acces­si­ble off Rat­cliffe Road, this trail runs through the wet­lands between the main­land and Dou­glas Island. It’s a great walk for fam­i­lies, bird­watch­ers, and exercisers.

This side trail leads to the edge of the AJ Glo­ry Hole, a mas­sive chasm with 800 foott deep walls. The mine pro­duced mil­lions of dol­lars in gold dur­ing its oper­a­tional life. The hole was cre­at­ed in a process where min­ers would blast under a mound of earth and have it col­lapse. This allowed for easy min­ing of the ore and then the hole could be blast­ed a lay­er deep­er. The hole is rough­ly ¹⁄₂ mile long and ¹⁄₃ mile wide and has ver­ti­cal walls.…  ...more

This trail was designed to be a hik­ing and ski­ing trail, and while there usu­al­ly isn’t enough snow for great ski­ing, recent upgrades have made this an excel­lent hike through the woods. Big trees, good foot­ing, and the remains of mines make for an inter­est­ing walk, and watch for por­cu­pine and deer. You’ll be hik­ing near the Tread­well Ditch, which col­lect­ed water runoff from the lakes above and turned it into hydro­elec­tric pow­er for miners.   ...more

This trail winds its way back to three cab­ins in Point Brid­get State Park. If you’re inter­est­ed, find out more infor­ma­tion about Cowee Mead­ow Cab­in, Blue Mus­sel Cab­in, and Camp­ing Cove Cab­in. It begins by quick­ly descend­ing from mud­dy mead­ows through for­est and into a broad val­ley. Anoth­er mile on this easy, well-main­tained path brings you to Cowee Mead­ows cab­in. Here you’ll find won­der­ful views of the sur­round­ing moun­tains, just a few…  ...more

The trail is very steep from this point to the sum­mit. When the weath­er is good, some peo­ple walk over toward Gran­ite Basin on the ridge. There are mar­mot, spruce grouse and black bears seen here often. 

This trail was named for a local forester and is an unde­vel­oped route. There are many flow­ers and blue­ber­ries as well as salmonber­ries along the trail. The trail begins with a mod­er­ate grade but­steep­ens quick­ly and becomes wet with no switch­backs. The trail dis­ap­pears above the tim­ber­ling, but you can con­tin­ue on to Carin Peak if you wish to do so. Water­proof hik­ing boots are recommended. 

Wind­ing through old-growth for­est, this trail is main­tained for hik­ing year-round and cross-coun­try ski­ing when there is enough snow.