Heading south to the Point Bishop trail, my plan was for an easier day. While it is flatter, this trail turned out to be one of the hardest hikes I've been on. Take the tangle of roots and rocks from the Mt. Juneau trail I attempted the day before and have it go through a swamp.

Once again I left the hotel nice and early at 3 p.m. The ride to the trailhead is about 6 miles each way and the trail is 7.7 miles which I figured would be doable since it's flat.

Riding out of town there was a little bit of traffic, but Juneau is small and I was soon pedaling along the mostly quiet Thane Road. Traffic in Juneau is some of the most respectful of cyclists I've ever experienced.

After a quick stop to admire the spawning and dying salmon in Sheep Creek, I made it to the trailhead. The start is a little confusing as the road ends and an obvious dirt road continues but it has a menacing 'No Trespassing' sign. The actual trail is an overgrown path slightly right of the dirt road.

My first obstacle was a sturdy looking bridge that looked dangerously bent out of shape. Despite beams thicker than my legs, it was twisted up like something in a funhouse except 20 feet above a roaring creek. None of the beams were split though, so I decided it probably wouldn't snap under my weight.

The trail continues in a similar fashion for the first two miles with bridges and later planks and later smaller planks making it possible to cross the wetlands that are continually reclaiming the trail.

After a while, I looked at my phone to check my progress and it looked like I must be close to the halfway point. Instead, a short time later there was a sign for DuPont Beach and another arrow pointing to Pt. Bishop 5 miles away. I was barely a third of the way there. I'd made terrible time!

The nice part was that since it was 5 p.m. I knew there was no way I could make it to Pt. Bishop. So of course I decided to keep going. Just to check.

Sure enough, the trail after DuPont Beach is a barely visible path through the wetlands. After going a couple hundred feet, I was stepping in mud up to my ankles. Fortunately, it's easy to follow the trail because if you get off trail it's impossible to make forward progress through the dense vegetation.

I turned around and headed the short distance to DuPont Beach getting there just in time to see the first of many cruise ships and various other boats go by while I was there.

Despite, or maybe because of, the extremely rugged conditions, this was my favorite Juneau adventure so far. Sometimes it's nice to get shut down by nature and then just have to sit and watch the cruise ships go by.

If you really want to complete the whole hike all the way to Pt. Bishop you'd probably want to plan on extra time and seriously muddy conditions. Or you could cheat and hire a boat.