True...but remember that there are no car rental agencies near the cruise ship docks...they are at the airport (four miles and a five minute ferry ride away) or the one on this side of the water is two miles or so from the ferry docks. It would be a real pain to rent a car coming off a cruise ship and they are very expensive. A cab tour would be a better option. As for bears, it is still early in the salmon spawning season...they are not yet swimming up stream, so Herring Cove bears will be hit or miss. In Sept/Oct when the fish are spawning, they are more of a sure thing as they feed from the estuary and then we would only bother driving out there (it's a gorgeous drive, by the way) at twilight or early dusk....or the crack of dawn. The bears avoid being out during people hours.

Okay, thanks for the info. I will start looking at other options.

Hey Treebud,

I will be in Ketchikan on July 8th and already rented a car through a Budget Rental Car (904-247-8308) that will pick you up at the docks and will have the car waiting for you. They are only 15 mins out side of town and actually on your way to this beautiful park were people camp and site seeing. Ask the wonderful people at the car rental and they will steer you in the right direction.

Good luck treebud, I personally hope we'll see bears only from a very very good distance during our vacation to Alaska next July/August.

I'm trusting our friends who live in Anchorage and will take us hiking. I guess is not the same wildlife as in our domestic Alps. We never saw many wild animals and certainly not bears or wolves. I should not have seen the movie "Into the wild" lol