I would hunt it from the south side of the North Fork. I drew the Toutle bull tag a few years ago and the DNR roads go right along the mud-flow border. We saw a lot of elk in the far corner of the Toutle unit off north of the 3000 line. Otherwise, hiking into the WDFW area from the highway is ok, long hike in an out though. I've volunteered down there several times and see elk almost every time, but a lot of them were across the river on the south side of river on the gravel bar (see first comments above for better access).