Take out involves getting your boats to the Dry Bay Campground, established by GBNP&P, and adjacent to the fish plant where a long airstrip, that sees DC3s land and take off, is located. There is a park service cabin and human waste disposal unit located there. To get to the strip it used to be easy but these days lower water levels, increased gravel deposits and isostatic rebound, (as much as a half an inch a year), has dried up the approach. Known as "The Slough" it is a small left hand channel that even on a good day, everyone might be out of the raft walking down the gravel bars with the water only 3 inches deep. During mid summer, high water often keeps the slough open. But if you don't stop above it you will float another hour around a giant river bend to where you can stop at the lower end of the slough and then line your boats up the two miles to the airstrip. Once at the campground, it is a 30-foot high brushy cut bank to haul everything out to break down and get ready for the flight back. There is a way to charter a 4-wheeler and trailer from a local fisherman who will collect you at the top of the slough alongside the main river and move you to the strip. It’s a couple hundred bucks but so worth it. At the take out, a park service ranger or seasonal will get a trip report and a bear sighting report from you as you are frantically trying to dump human waste, deflate and clean rafts, breakdown frames and oars, everything to fit in the small Cessna 206, a Single Otter, or a Beaver on wheels. From Dry Bay there are only two options, to Yakutat, Alaska or to Whitehorse, YT via Skagway. There are two primary local flight operators and you do want to fly with the guys that are always flying the route through the mountains to Haines. There are Canadian flight services that do the Whitehorse run. It's a spectacular flight on a good day and white knuckler on a not so good day.
