[3] The name first appears in 1721 in the Historia naturalis curiosa Regni Poloniae, Magni Ducatus Litvaniae, annexarumque provinciarum, in tractatus XX divisa, written by Gabriel Rzączyński, who also was first reported man to climb the mountain.

On the northeastern slope, along yellow tourist trail, there is a cross, commemorating one of the first victims of the 1939 Invasion of Poland, a Border Defence Corps Corporal, Franciszek Basik.

In the 1990s more than 10 hectares of forests were cleared for construction of ski trails, which resulted in protests of ecological organizations both from Poland, and former Czechoslovakia.

Pilsko has a tourist mountain hut, 1,330 metres (4,360 ft) above sea level,[6] near a junction of hiking trails.

Pilsko was the site of a 1980 incident (pl), when a group of athletes with their coach were lost in a blizzard and fog, resulting in three boys dying of hypothermia.