I HATE when the forum erases my responses!
basically, I was writing that I've camped in places in mt. hood and while there are places you can go where no one's around, the places most often camped are legit and marked. you drive up, park in a designated (sometimes paved) stall in front of your site, pay your fee to the wooden box, pitch your tent in the designated area next to the firepit. then you can wander off to go pee in a brick and mortar bathroom, complete with showers.
it may not be roughing it, but you also can't hack up the forest for your firefodder. You have to grab a bundle from a store, a local merchant, or a park ranger. I'm assuming this is to prevent the forest from being hacked and mangled by the thousands of visitors each weekend. and also since the BLM (bureau of land management) is responsible for maintaining the forests' health. in this case, the local Salem forest service officials might work in conjunction with BLM, but the USDA Forest Service does not maintain oregon forestry to my knowledge (unless they are an entity under the larger BLM umbrella).
I also had some notes about the complex relationship fed/local authorities, corporate/local loggers, environmentalists, and none-of-the-above citizens have with the "ownership" and stewardship of the oregon forests. in short, there are deep cultural and political rifts between many groups in oregon that I witnessed while living there for 10 years.
anyway, here you go,
http://www.mthoodterritory.com/camping.jsp
lots of places are described, including ready to operate RV parks in Mt. Hood.
in my opinion, it's one thing to say I hiked to the top of a mountain and fell off the side but quite another to set up camp in a designated area, within which in many places exist properly paved stalls with actual buildings, and fall off a broken section of a designated trail that should have been repaired and at the very least marked off.
if you don't like the highway and pothole analogy, then consider that in southern cali where I grew up and now live again, numerous places along the coast and beaches are marked off as unsafe and have guardrails, signage, and no-tresspassing sections.