Firewood, Christmas trees, mushrooms, huckleberries and holiday greenery are the Mt. Hood forest products visitors gather most. A few need a permit every time, others are free in small amounts for your own household, and anything you plan to sell needs a commercial permit. Amounts, seasons and open areas change, so check the Forest Service page for your product before each trip.
The Forest Service sorts every harvest by who it is for.
Personal use means you keep what you gather for your own household. For berries, mushrooms, holiday boughs, cut greenery and small transplants, Mt. Hood has dropped the permit for modest amounts. The Forest calls this incidental use: no paperwork and no fee, but each product has a daily or yearly cap, and none of it may be sold, traded or turned into something for sale.
Commercial use means you plan to sell, barter or trade the product, or to take more than the personal amount. That takes a paid permit from a district office, and some products start with a special request form that can take up to two weeks to review. Berries are the exception: Mt. Hood offers no commercial berry permit at all.
Firewood and Christmas trees always need a permit, even for your own home.
FirewoodFree personal-use permits, load tags, cutting maps and the fire rules every woodcutter has to follow.Read the guide 
Christmas treesHow to get a tree permit, choose and cut a tree the legal way, and gather holiday boughs.Read the guide 
Mushroom pickingPersonal-use limits, where picking is open, and how to harvest without harming the patch.Read the guide 
Berries, greenery and moreHuckleberries, boughs, beargrass, transplants, cones and other products, with the permit rules for each one.Read the guide Open the Forest Service page for what you want to gather. Each one sets its own season, amount and harvest method.
Download the free Motor Vehicle Use Map, plus the firewood, mushroom or Christmas tree map if your product has one.
Look for fire closures, road closures and fire restrictions the day you go. A permit never lets you into a closed area.
Firewood and Christmas trees always need one, and so does anything you plan to sell.
Track how much you take, and leave plenty behind for wildlife and the next visitor.
Do
Don't
What is the road prism? It is the strip along an open Forest road that runs from the top of the cut bank on one side down to the foot of the fill slope on the other, ditch included. The road itself has to be open to motor vehicles, meaning it is not gated, bermed, blocked or signed closed. The Forest's road prism diagram shows a few examples, and the current Motor Vehicle Use Map shows which roads are open. Our alerts page lists current road and fire closures.
It depends on the product and on what you plan to do with it. Firewood and Christmas trees need a permit even for home use. Small personal amounts of berries, mushrooms, holiday boughs, cut greenery and transplants need no permit under Mt. Hood National Forest's incidental use policy. Selling any product, or taking more than the personal amount, needs a commercial permit from a district office.
Only with a commercial permit. Federal rules bar selling or trading products taken under free or personal use, and that includes wreaths, crafts or other items made from them. Commercial permits come from Mt. Hood district offices, and some products need an approved special request form first. The Forest offers no commercial berry permit, so wild berries from Mt. Hood can never be sold.
No. Mt. Hood National Forest does not allow forest product harvest in any designated wilderness or in the Tilly Jane Proposed Wilderness, and Christmas tree cutting is banned in wilderness too. Research natural areas, Camp Baldwin, and recreation, heritage and administrative sites are also closed to gathering.
No. Mt. Hood National Forest issues permits to individual people, not to groups, businesses or organizations. Each person in a group may gather their own personal-use amount without a permit. If the group plans to sell what it gathers, or to collect more than the personal limits, at least one member must buy a permit and be there during the harvest.
Personal-use firewood permits come from the district offices in Dufur, Parkdale, Sandy and Zigzag, or by mail with the Forest's application form. Christmas tree permits are sold on Recreation.gov, by local vendors and at some district offices. Commercial permits for other products come from district offices, sometimes after a special request. Office hours vary, so call before you drive.
Rules change. These pages are the source of truth.