Bagby Is Back: Oregon’s Most Loved Forest Soak Has Reopened

Bagby Hot Springs is open again. On October 29, the Mt. Hood National Forest reduced the Austin Fire closure area, and the new order (Forest Order No. 06-06-05-26-20) placed Bagby and its access roads, Forest Roads 46, 63 and 70, outside the closure. After a fire season that kept the gates effectively shut, the trailhead is open, the bathhouses are filling, and Oregon’s most loved forest soak is back on the list.

If you have never made the trip, here is what reopened. Bagby sits in a clearing of towering firs beside a tributary of the Clackamas River, about 40 miles southeast of Estacada. There is no driving to the water: you earn it with a 1.4-mile hike on Trail #544, a gentle climb through old-growth forest. At the end of the trail stand the bathhouses, where hand-hewn log tubs and round tubs are fed by a source spring of about 138 degrees and tempered down to a soaking range of roughly 102 to 105 degrees. The lower bathhouse holds three log tubs and a six-foot round tub in a community setting; the upper bathhouse holds one six-foot round tub on an open deck. It is rustic on purpose, and it has been drawing soakers into these woods for generations.

The practical details have not changed. The soaking fee is $5 per person, paid in cash at the trailhead fee box or by card at the Ripplebrook Store, and recreation passes are not accepted in place of the fee. The tubs are first-come, first-served, so expect a wait on a fine weekend, and expect to share the clearing with everyone else who made the hike. There is no cell coverage at the springs or on the approach roads, so download your maps before you leave Estacada, and follow the Forest Service route rather than the smaller roads a map app may suggest. The Forest Service warns against those shortcuts directly, and rockfall and landslides are common on Forest Roads 46 and 63 even in good weather.

Two honest caveats come with the good news. First, the reopening is not the end of the fire story: a closure remains in effect on nearby forest lands through December 31, 2026, so check the Mt. Hood National Forest alerts before you go, every time. Conditions in a burn-adjacent forest can change with one storm. Second, winter is arriving on schedule. Bagby does not close for the season, and the day use area normally stays open as long as hosts and managers can reach it, but Forest Roads 46, 63 and 70 are not plowed or maintained for winter travel. Once the roads become impassable, the site goes unmaintained until spring, usually April, and the Forest Service strongly discourages driving in once the roads are snow covered. A mild, settled stretch can still make a fine winter trip; a storm week like this one is a reason to wait, and to check our Oregon road conditions page and our guide to Oregon hot springs in winter before you commit to the drive.

A word about how to visit well, because Bagby takes heavy use and earns it. Alcohol is prohibited at the springs, a Forest Service rule in place since 2002. Soap and shampoo, including the biodegradable kind, do not go in the tubs. When you finish a soak, empty your tub and fill it half full, so the water cools for the next bather. Bring your own drinking water, because there is none at the site, and pack out everything you pack in, plus any trash you find along the way. The log tubs were built by volunteers, the site is run by a small concessionaire under the Forest Service, and the place stays lovely because soakers treat it like a borrowed treasure.

Bagby has closed and reopened more times in the last few years than any soak in Oregon: a pandemic closure, vandalism, restoration work, a reopening in May 2024, and now a fire closure lifted. Through all of it, the clearing at the end of Trail #544 has stayed what it has been since a prospector named Bob Bagby found the springs in 1880, a quiet room in the forest with hot water running through cedar pipes. It is good to have it back.

Everything you need for the trip, including the current status note, directions and the full listing, is on our Bagby Hot Springs listing. If Bagby’s roads turn wintry before you get there, the statewide map will point you to a soak whose road is plowed.