A heat pipe that employs a metal woodpile capillary wick. The heat pipe includes an outer enclosure defining a chamber therein that contains a working fluid, an evaporator section for converting the fluid to vapor in response to being heated from a heat source, and a condenser section for converting the vapor back into the fluid in response to cooling from a heat sink. The wick is positioned within the chamber in contact with the enclosure and extends between the evaporator section and the condenser section. The wick includes a plurality of layers each having spaced apart parallel thermally conductive bars defining channels therebetween, where the bars in adjacent layers are oriented in different directions and where the condensed fluid flows through the channels in the wick from the condenser section to the evaporator section.