Mount Hood Villages, OR

Mount Hood Villages is a Clackamas County CDP spread along the US 26 Hoodland Corridor on the west side of Mount Hood. The name gathers Brightwood, Wemme, Welches, Zigzag, Rhododendron, and nearby pockets of forest and homes into one statistical place. There is no single downtown doing all the work here; the highway, Sandy River tributaries, post offices, stores, schools, and forest roads stitch the communities together. Mount Hood National Forest is part of the everyday backdrop, shaping travel, work, recreation, and winter routines.

Residents formed the Villages at Mount Hood in 2006 as a local governing structure for the unincorporated communities, giving the corridor a shared voice while each settlement kept its own name. Zigzag's 1933 Civilian Conservation Corps camp and ranger station tie the area to the forest-service era, while the present-day map includes the Hoodland Senior Center, Highway 26 bus service, and trailheads toward Mount Hood. Mount Hood Villages feels like a string of small places with one road and one mountain holding the whole line together.