Bagby Hot Springs

The story

Deep in Mt. Hood National Forest, roughly 67 miles southeast of Portland, the forest swallows up the sound of pavement after a 1.5-mile hike through damp, old-growth timber along the Clackamas River corridor. What sits at the end of the trail isn't a manicured resort bathhouse; it’s a cluster of hand-hewn cedar log tubs, some split lengthwise and hollowed out like primitive canoes, fed entirely by gravity and timber engineering.

The water supply is pure, analog low-tech: naturally hot mineral spring water channels straight down wooden aqueducts and open cedar troughs into the tubs. There are no metal pipes, no electric pumps, and zero chlorine. If your log tub is running too scalding to sit in, you regulate the temperature the old-fashioned way—by physically diverting wooden flumes carrying steaming spring water in or topping off the cedar tub with cold creek water piped alongside.

Considered a long-standing Portland rite of passage, the springs exist in a sweet spot between wilderness soaking and rugged folk architecture. It’s a cash-only operation surrounded by ancient firs, where the scent of hot sulfur and wet cedar hangs thick in the rain, offering a communal soak that feels stripped entirely of modern friction.