The center functions as an interesting, interactive hub of all the elk viewing in the state.

We watched these two step cautiously across the stream and disappear.įrom Benezette village (heart of the 835 square miles of elk country in the state) we drove several miles uphill to the modern Elk Country Visitors Center off of Winslow Hill Road. Bull elk weigh anywhere from 700 to 1000 pounds. Elk are clearly much larger than deer, larger than everything in their family other than the moose. The bull was shy but unafraid as it slowly walked away and as we followed. A second bull joined us (lots of bull, for sure!) on a well-worn path through the woods. The animals entered the clear and sterile waters of the Sinnemahoning. The young folk among us were urban dwellers, but they knew a live elk when they saw one! I knew for certain we were tourists when I heard Catherine exclaim to Brent, our driver, “Stop! It’s alive! I saw it move!” She was right, a bull elk was moving there amidst a group of out-of-towners taking photographs. We had passed the mouth of Medix where the stream mixes into the larger Bennett Branch Sinnemahoning (a polluted water due to acid run off from the nearby coal fields).

President also got to do a little casting. We had just passed Medix Run, the stream where George Harvey learned to fly fish when a kid, a stream where at least one U.S. We joined several other vehicles pulling off to have a look at things.

On our first approach to Benezette along State Route 555, we knew we were getting close when we came to a roadside picnic area with what appeared to be a large statue of an elk. Along with wife Leighanne, son Brent, and Catherine (Brent’s partner), I enjoyed a ramble through the little mountain town in Elk County, Pennsylvania. I recently stretched my “Pennsylvania Wilds” horizons by visiting the western headwaters of the Sinnemahoning, the elk country near Benezette, PA.

Medix run elk county pa