This large unit has easy public land access from the urban sprawl along the Columbia River. The majority of public land is Yacolt Burn State Forest, Gifford Pinchot National Forest and other state lands. Fairly sizeable tracts of private land, mostly timber companies, are interspersed throughout the area. The northern portion is basically all Weyerhaeuser Company land with a couple chunks of National Forest on the east and small private holdings on the west in the towns of Amboy and Yacolt. The Columbia River forms the southern border, where the public state lands meet the river’s edge, it is highly fragmented with small residential properties.

Check into Weyerhaeuser recreational permits for hunting.

The National Forest consists of rugged steep forest with the rocky Silver Star Mountain topping out at 4,377-ft. This is steep country with thickly timbered north slopes and talus rock slides between Bluff Mountain, Little Baldy and Sturgeon Rock with few roads. Outside of the National Forest, the unit becomes much more mild. Closer to the borders it continues to open up and flatten out holding farming and rural residential properties with the southern border draining into the Columbia River.

Douglas fir and western hemlock are prevalent throughout the unit and have been heavily logged over the years outside of the National Forest making a large patchwork of browse that the deer prefer. There are large tracts of private timber company owned lands within the unit. Numerous creeks and draws choked with buckbrush and timber dissect the region, interlaced with a variety of warm and cool season grass meadows and fields typically used for grazing cattle, sheep and horses with a touch of farmland for timber, hay and grains.

There are sizeable tracts of National Forest and state land highly broken with private. Hunter access is easy, but a GPS is recommended to know exactly where you stand. Also, Weyerhaeuser recreational selected permits for the hunts now include gate keys and are issued on a first come first serve basis for a small fee.

There is limited public camping within the unit. If you are more interested in a bed and a shower and being closer to gas stations, restaurants, and a grocery store, you have lots of options in the Columbia River valley to the west.