The hiker tucked a cigarette between his lips as he squatted down near the trail.
There was a steady stream of bare feet on the path past the red wheelbarrow and tie-dye-clad man. Childless looked up to see a woman with a blanket and tent on her shoulders.
He flashed a peace sign as he welcomed home.
The 50th anniversary gathering of the Rainbow Family of Living Light is being held in a remote area of northern Colorado, and as many as 10,000 self-proclaimed hippie and counter-culture people are expected to attend.
The group was founded in part by veterans struggling with alcoholism, drug dependence and what is now recognized as post traumatic stress disorder, and held its first campout in Colorado in 1972.
The leaderless group has clashed with law enforcement over drug use and has drawn up to 20,000 people to previous national campouts. As of Friday morning, 3,400 attendees, including dozens of children, had arrived.
Dozens of police officers are watching the gathering in the Routt National Forest and have already kicked participants out of a lake where they were bathing, cautioned about open campfires and off-leash dogs, and inspected the vans, buses and dilapidated cars making their way down the long dirt road to
Last year, the gathering was held in New Mexico, about 70 miles north of Santa Fe. The Rainbows refuse to participate in the process of getting a permit from the Forest Service because of their First Amendment right to gather.
While the group claims no leaders, participants volunteer to pull off the gatherings, from tapping mountain springs for drinking water to digging latrines and hauling in communal kitchens The camp is more than a mile up the trail from the parking lot, so attendees need to bring everything they need for their stay.
Barry Adams was one of the group's founding members and he turned 77 days before the event started. Adams took a break in the shade after hiking up to camp and sang a song about how he needed a new way of dealing with modern society after leaving the Navy.
We were saved by it. We were looking after people instead of killing them. We attempted to heal each other in a different way.
Adams has attended most of the national gatherings since the first one, but he has had to hide from law enforcement officers who wrongly thought he was in charge.
He leaned against his walking stick in the shade and said, "We do it in peace and try not to harm the Earth." We're not perfect, that's for sure. We're not really people.
The levels of law enforcement this year are not too bad, according to Adams.
Some members of the Rainbow Family are working with the forest service to minimize the group's impact, but they still consider it an illegal gathering. According to officials, the Forest Service has issued about 100 tickets for various violations. About 600 tickets were issued last year.
Hilary Markin is a U.S Forest Service spokeswoman assigned to the federal team overseeing the gathering.
Markin, who has helped manage several past gatherings, said rangers are concerned about making sure human waste is properly buried, communal kitchens don't pollute streams, and that any temporary structures built for the camp out are removed when the Rainbows leave.
Forest visitors are asked to obey all local, state and federal laws.
Although marijuana is legal in Colorado, it is still illegal on Forest Service lands, and rangers are giving out tickets if they catch people with it. A group of campers built a mailbox, loaded it with marijuana and claimed that only postal inspectors could open mailboxes without a warrant.
The majority of Rainbow Family members are respectful and law-abiding, according to the forest service. Many Rainbow members feel that they are being harassed by law enforcement over small issues.
The rural nature of Routt, which usually only has about 25,000 residents, has local officials worried about public safety and health issues.
The closest ambulance to the gathering would have to make a three-hour round-trip drive to evacuate someone. The dirt roads leading to the camping area have been muddied by recent rains.
The gathering impacts public health and safety so we need to be prepared. There are a lot of people in a very remote area. There is an E coli outbreak.
In the shade of Kid Village, a long-time attendee said he hoped there would be less confrontations with law enforcement this year. Chavez went to Colorado with his dog to visit his family.
During his military service, he developed alcoholism that was helped by his participation in Rainbow. Attendees would like to be left alone.
He said being surrounded by the forest helped him maintain perspective on the world.
Chavez said it was a statement about how to live together with tolerance and respect. The mosquitoes are here because of something.
The article was originally published by USA TODAY.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
