The Pennsylvania Game Commission will host eight free fall driving tours across state game lands from Sept. 20 through Oct. 18, 2026, opening a wide-angle look at the habitat work that shapes small-game and big-game hunting on public land in Pennsylvania.
The 2026 slate runs the length of the Commonwealth. Cambria County’s State Game Lands 108, a 23,086-acre tract on the Allegheny Front, opens the season on Sunday, Sept. 20 with a self-guided 7.5-mile one-way tour beginning at the game-lands access road three-tenths of a mile north of Frugality along State Route 53. Highlights include a rehabilitated strip mine that has been converted into pheasant-release small-game habitat, a study area for grassland-nesting birds and black bear, endangered northern harrier hawk and short-eared owl habitat, and herbaceous openings planted to feed wildlife.
State Game Lands 57 in Luzerne and Wyoming counties follows on Sept. 26 with a 30-mile route requiring high-clearance four-wheel drive; conservation-partner crews from the National Wild Turkey Federation and Ducks Unlimited helped complete the habitat projects along the loop. Somerset County’s State Game Lands 111 hosts a 7-mile one-way tour across 10,286 acres on Laurel Ridge on Oct. 4, and Bedford County’s 12,000-acre State Game Lands 26 runs a 7-mile route on Oct. 11 with a narrated STQRY Guide app tour visitors are asked to download in advance because cellular service on the tract is limited.
Berks County’s State Game Lands 110 — a tract of more than 10,000 acres that extends into Schuylkill County — also runs on Oct. 11, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., beginning at the Mountain Road gate about 5 miles west of Hamburg Borough. Elk County’s State Game Lands 311 hosts a tour on Oct. 16, and the calendar closes Oct. 18 with tours on State Game Lands 67 and 211.
Every tour is free, held rain or shine, and open only to street-legal vehicles.
For hunters, the tours are also a scouting tool. Habitat crews, biologists, foresters, and game wardens ride the routes to answer questions and explain what species the openings, cuts, and food plots are built for — information that translates directly into where to set up on opening day of grouse, pheasant, deer, or bear season on the same tracts.
