Creating artificial refugia through the use of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipes to capture hylid treefrogs has been examined in the Eastern United States and Caribbean, but has not been evaluated in the Pacific Northwest. We compared the effectiveness of ground-based and tree-based PVC pipes for capturing the Pacific Treefrog (Pseudacris regilla) in northwestern California. We recorded a total of 464 P. regilla captures. Probability of use increased asymptotically over our 28-d sampling period and was higher (6–20%) for tree-based than ground-based pipe refugia. Tree-based pipe refugia caught 81% more P. regilla than ground-based pipe refugia but latency to first detection did not vary significantly. Probability of use was higher for pipe refugia that had been used in a previous study than for new pipes, but age did not influence capture rate or latency to detection. Our results support the hypothesis that tree-based pipe refugia are more effective than ground-based pipes for capturing P. regilla, as well as the hypothesis that P. regilla actively discriminate among refugia. Using tree-based PVC pipe refugia to monitor P. regilla may be more effective than current techniques for addressing many research questions.