Pole Creek Wilderness, Remote wilderness area in Owyhee County, Idaho.

Pole Creek Wilderness is a remote protected area in Owyhee County that spans high desert plateaus. Deep canyons cut through layers of red and black volcanic rock, with some of these gorges dropping several hundred feet.

Pole Creek Wilderness was created by the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, the same law that established five other wilderness areas in Owyhee County. Together these six areas, known as the Owyhee Canyonlands Wilderness Areas, added 517,025 acres of protected land in Idaho. The act set aside the Pole Creek canyons and plateaus as federal wilderness.

Pole Creek Wilderness lies within the Owyhee Desert, part of the northern Basin and Range ecoregion, though its water drains to the Snake and Columbia rivers. Mule deer, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, sage grouse, hawks, eagles, falcons and songbirds live here alongside many rare plants. The whitewater rapids of Pole Creek draw paddlers.

Visitors need to bring enough water and food before entering, since there are no shops or services nearby. A reliable map or GPS is necessary to navigate through this roadless terrain.

Pole Creek Wilderness holds no designated trails, so route-finding across the sagebrush plateaus and into the canyons is entirely up to the visitor. The canyons of Owyhee County, cut into rhyolite and basalt, have been described as the largest concentration of sheer-walled volcanic canyons in the western United States.