This is a beautiful, easy hike through the temperate rain forest around Ward Lake. On the day we visited, there were only a few people there, so it was very peaceful. There are campsites available.

We stopped in Ketchikan on a cruise on a nice sunny day in early June, and since we had already been here before, we opted for a nice hike around Ward Lake. It was easy to find the public bus schedule online. We got off the cruise ship and walked 5 - 10 min to a bus stop.. We planned to catch the Silver line bus (northbound) at the stop at the corner of Front & Dock streets, but there was road construction there, so we just walked up Dock St to the large glass sheltered bus stop in front of the Tongass Historical Museum. We got on the bus, paid the driver $2 per person (exact change) and asked the driver to let us know when he gets to the Ward Road stop. About 20 minutes later, we got off the bus and walked about ½ mile up Ward Road to where it dead ends, and we there saw the trailhead sign for, “Frog Pond Trail”. We walked the Frog Pond Trail for about ½ mile, where it ended at a paved road, and we saw the entrance to Signal Creek Campground. We turned left into the campground, and headed for the lake where we picked up the circle trail to walk about a mile around the pretty lake. On our walk we passed by a couple of nice picnic areas with large log shelters with fireplaces and picnic tables. We also passed a few locals out fishing and hiking, but for the most part we were alone. We hiked back down Frog Pond Trail and Ward Road back to the main road, realizing that we would have a good wait for the southbound Silver bus, so we caught the northbound Silver bus as it came by sooner (again $2 per person), and we just rode it until it turned around to drive its southbound route back to town. All in all, a really nice outing.