5.6 miles of hiking • 1250' elevation gain •
We decided to drive out to Catherine Creek to avoid the storm in the Portland-Vancouver area. What we didn't realize it was still hunting season, and this is evidently a very popular area. We arrived to see a group of hunters dragging out a buck to the TH. We were wearing blaze orange and thought maybe this was the only group of hunters. However, we ran into a few more hunters, and then saw a group of four hunters perched over a forested area above one of the trails! We felt very vulnerable and decided to stay in the open. We visited the arch and also made a small loop on the trails that are south of the Tracy Hill region. We decided to cut the hike short since we had to get home for Halloween trick-or-treater's, drive home in the stormy weather and just didn't want to be a possible target any longer!
