Welcome to the website for the Auto Tour of Old Growth Forests. Located primarily in the north-central part of Pennsylvania, the twenty sites on the Tour represent many different ecosystems, not only deep classic "big tree" forests. Most of the sites are within what is known as the Lumber Heritage Region, the 15 counties from which most of the timber resources were extracted in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Much of this area has now once more become a heavily wooded area, with over 2.5 million acres of Federal and State forests.

Learn more about what old-growth means and see how and why these particular sites were chosen for the tour. We'll explain the principles on which those choices were based and some of the history of Pennsylvania's magnificent forests.

Choose an Old Growth area from the map above of from the links below

North West section Anders Run Natural Area Hearts Content, Allegheny National Forest Tionesta National Scenic and Research Natural Areas Cook Forest State Park	North section Pine Creek Gorge Bark Cabin Natural Area Lumber Museum
North Central section Quehanna Wild Area, Wykoff Run Natural Area Johnson Run Natural Area Lower Jerry Run Natural Area Bucktail State Park Natural Area Cranberry Swamp Proposed Natural/Old-growth area, Sproul State Forest Forrest H. Duttlinger Natural Area	South Central section The Hook Natural Area Snyder Middleswarth Natural Area, Tall Timbers Natural Area Detweiler Run Natural Area Bear Meadows Natural Area Alan Seeger Natural Area

Into the Woods - Adobe PDF (5.9 Mb) - This presentation highlights some of the features you will see when traveling to old growth areas of Pennsylvania. Due to the large size of this file, it is recommended for high-speed internet access only.