Home > News

No pot of gold for Rainbows
By Lou Christopher
achris25@mscd.edu

Photo by Lou Christopher/achris25@mscd.edu 'Rainbows' dance around a drum circle on July 1 at Big Red Park in the Routt National Forest during the 35th annual Rainbow Family Gathering.

More than 15,000 people came together as one family to promote world peace for the 35th annual Rainbow Gathering in Big Red Park at Routt National Forest near Steamboat Springs.

People began arriving around the middle of June and continued to come and go through the second week of July.

The gathering consists of people from all walks of life who call themselves Rainbows, better known as hippies to the rest of the populace. Rainbows gather once a year for such as visiting with old friends, contemplating and praying for world peace. Some of them imbibe and consume a plethora of different drugs, despite the negative connotation that it brings.

This year’s gathering was not without drama, as the National Forest Service and the Rainbows clashed about the legality of the event happening at Big Red Park.

In September 1995, the Forest Service established a regulation stating that noncommercial groups of 75 or more people must obtain a permit before using National Forest land. The permit, according to a National Forest Service news release, helps to alleviate the adverse human impact on the land, including pollution from inadequate site clean up, soil compaction and fire danger.
Colorado has experienced a dry season for most of the summer, making the state prone to fires. The mountain pine beetle increases this concern, as they bore into pine trees and kills them, leaving them dry and susceptible to a fire.

The Rainbows’ safety was an issue, according to Kent Foster, supervising forester of Routt National Forest. Foster was concerned the dry conditions and fires needed for kitchens and general use, along with the danger of lightning, posed a devastating threat to the campers.

“I am worried about folks being trapped in here with only one way in and one way out,” Foster said.

One of the Rainbows applied for a permit, despite no recognition of leadership or organization within the group.

According to a Forest Service news release, the application for the permit was received June 20, a week after the event became an illegal gathering due to an excess of 75 people. The permit was denied because it did not meet the criteria set forth in the Code of Federal Regulations and because other organizations had already applied for and been approved permits for land use during this time.

“The permit issue, in my opinion, is exclusively designed for the Rainbow Family, and nobody else,“ said Patrick, a long-time Rainbow attending his 15th gathering, who would not divulge his last name. “It’s a sneaky, weasely move by the government to try to regulate people’s expression.”

His theory was not shared by all gathering participants.

“The Forest Service denying us the right to camp was totally justified,” said Bo Yu, a first time Rainbow, concerning the denial of the permit. “Any time you have 10,000 or more people gathering in an area, you’re going to have some sort of fire danger or health issues.”

The permit would allow the Forest Service to bring in more help via the proper channels.

“I understand the Forest Service is worried about a bunch of hippies destroying the forest,” said Alex Spero, attending his second gathering. “What they don’t get is that 90 percent of us are looking after the other 10 percent who don’t bury their shit and pick up their trash.”

The Rainbows didn’t tread as lightly as they might have thought. More than 50 miles of new trails, expanding as wide as 12 feet, were created in a five square mile radius in a three-week time frame, according to Diann Ritschard, public affairs specialist for Routt National Forest.

She said the soil compaction that took place will take time to undo and will need to be reseeded to prevent erosion.

According to Ritschard, a very small percentage of Rainbows stayed on to help with the clean up.
Mounds of trash were left behind, including large items such as mattresses, lawn furniture, tents and filled garbage bags.

The impact and damage done by the Rainbows, while not intentional, was substantial. The local hospital was left with over $100,000 in unpaid bills. The Forest Service is estimated to have spent more than $750,000 to pay for extra team members as well as local resources and supplies that had to be purchased. The Bureau of Land Management, the state of Colorado, Routt County and the local communities are estimated to have spent more than $1 million total for extra law enforcement, social services, emergency management and health and human services, Ritschard said.

Income for the local communities had not been tallied as of press time.

Trash wasn’t the only problem the local community had with the Rainbows.

More than 1,205 citations and warning notices were issued to Rainbows between June 12 and July 7. There were 13 arrests, including seven felony arrests and four warrants served, Ritschard said. Charges varied from possession of drugs to illegal gathering to assaulting a police officer, and included minor charges such as following too close to another vehicle.

A federal magistrate was brought in for the gathering, and court was held daily a few miles away. Court was held every weekday for two weeks, and those whose cases were on the docket and not heard that day had charges against them dropped.

World peace was still on the docket for the Rainbows and a great deal of prayer and meditation took place despite the conflict with authorities.

On July 4, silence was held during the morning hours until a giant prayer circle was formed with the crowd “oming” and praying for world peace.

Travis Spero, attending his first gathering, equated the gathering and the contemplation to the 100th monkey theory. Japanese monkeys, called Macaca Fuscatas, had been observed eating sweet potatoes with dirt on them. One monkey decided to clean the dirt off the sweet potato in a nearby stream. Other monkeys saw the first monkey clean off the dirt, and eventually, after a period of many years, every monkey started cleaning their potatoes, not just in that tribe, but throughout Japan.

“The point is that if people pray for world peace and if they really care about it, maybe eventually the rest of the world will catch on,” Travis Spero said.