21, volunteers belonging to the “Bugle Corps” spend their time from 4 or 5 p.m. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings through Oct.

Although there’s a special Elk Scenic Drive that runs for 127 miles in the region and contains 23 viewing sites, your chances of seeing elk are best in the areas known as Gilbert Farm, Winslow Hill, Dent’s Run, Pine Tree Natural Area and Hicks Run.ĭuring the elk mating season, a Pennsylvania Game Commission staffer is on hand to answer visitors’ questions at the Winslow Hill viewing station. They also stay there through much of the spring as the snow melts and foliage greens come up first along the water, according to Colwell.Įveryone has his or her stories about spotting the elk. Although heavy snows can limit the areas you can visit in an ordinary car, the elk do move into the valley where the Bennett branch of the Sinnemahoning Creek flows (along Route 555) to forage for food and get water in winter. Or, I’d head for elk country in winter or spring when most visitors are gone but the elk are still very much in residence. Given a choice, I’d return in late summer when herds of female elk, their calves and yearling males graze peacefully in plain sight at prime viewing points including Winslow Hill and Dent’s Run. Although elk once roamed all over Pennsylvania, overhunting and changes in habitat had wiped them out by 1867. Today’s Pennsylvania elk trace their roots to some 177 elk that were trapped in Yellowstone National Park and resettled here between 19 when the Pennsylvania Game Commission wanted to re-establish them in the state. This section of the state, including parts of Elk, Cameron and Clearfield counties, is home to an estimated 800 elk that make up the largest herd of free-roaming elk east of the Mississippi River. You can listen to the calls of wild elk and see them, too, by spending time in northwestern Pennsylvania’s Great Outdoors. It happens, all during the elks’ mating season that begins in September and winds down by mid- to late October.īut you needn’t travel thousands of miles and spend hundreds of dollars to have this Rocky Mountain-style experience. on a moonlit night and listening to the bugle calls of wild elk, echoing from one hillside to another.

Female elk call