A Tourist at the Rainbow Gathering By Jim Beyer
A Tourist at the Rainbow Gathering By Jim Beyer
The 2013 Rainbow Gathering was held at Skinner Meadows, 10 miles up a gravel road from Jackson, Montana, in a region called the Big Hole. The Big Hole is a well-watered high elevation, flat basin surrounded by mountains. The Rainbow camp was perched in low hills, accessible by a single maintained Forest Service road. I rode my BMW R1150GS motorcycle to the gathering. I packed a heavy, two-man, threeseason tent, a sleeping pad, a good down sleeping bag, a mess kit, a change of undies and socks, shorts, Hawaiian shirt, sandals, and a gallon of water on the bike. I rode through 90 degree heat down the Bitterroot Valley through normal summer tourist traffic. The ride up
Lost Trail pass and then down Chief Joseph pass were blissful. I rolled into Wisdom and
Trading Circle at a Rainbow Gathering bought some food at the only market there, five bananas, three apples and bottle of wine. A
chatty 50-ish fellow named Al told me“ all about the gathering. He said it was so bad that people were already leaving, because of brawling, marauding gangs of thieves, rampant dope use, sexual abuse, giardia, and all manner of mayhem. As the mosquitoes swarmed and attacked, I thanked him and told him“ Now I really have to go to see that.”
I had a hamburger at Rosa’ s Cantina in Jackson and talked to the proprietors, Tom and Terry about their impressions. As Terry took my order, she complained about the 20 Montana Highway patrol men who had rented the entire Jackson Hot Springs Lodge. She said the police were busy ticketing( mostly warnings) the locals for broken windshield and having mud flaps positioned too high on their pickup trucks.“ This is the Big Hole, everyone has a busted windshield,” she told the reporter from KUFM-FM radio. Terry related that everyone had been very nice and had paid their bills. The two of them were very upbeat about the gathering and had bought extra provisions to feed the travelers. The bar was empty at 3 p. m. but they expected an up-tick in patronage. When I stopped by the next morning, there were three local cowboys at the bar drinking whiskey and eating burgers, while four Rainbows and three other locals were eating lunch in the booths.
Public opinion about the Rainbows was split. One hand lettered sign on cardboard along the road offered“ free haircuts”. The three young cowboys were talking among themselves and two admitted to going up to the camp to see what was going on. They also complained that the gathering would cost the taxpayers $ 30,000, possibly to pay for all the extra police protection. The Jackson School yard was filled with dozens of US Forest Service Law Enforcement SUVs. Apparently the Forest Service sent every law officer in the state to Jackson. The federal officers patrolled the road next to the camp, but I did not see anyone get out of their air conditioned SUV, nor did many roll down their windows, except to stop in the middle of the road to converse with other officers. When the FS cops drove on the road, the people would yell a warning to the Rainbows down the road that the police were coming. I did not see any uniformed officers in the camp, but presumable there were plain-clothes FBI and DEA agents in the crowd.
At the junction of the county and Forest Service roads there was a greeter“ road block” They welcomed everyone with“ Welcome Home” and offered directions to various camps. I found that most of the directions were confusing and vague. I continued forward and kept asking directions. It was not easy to handle the top heavy BMW on rough ground so I had to be careful where I went. After driving up and down the road, getting off to see a panoramic view of main camp and instructions by Jim from California, I finally found a place to park as near to the main camp as I could get. I parked the bike between a car and a tree on a slope. Basically the bike was stuck so that it would not move.
I unpacked the tent and carry bag and carefully mountain-goated down a rough trail into camp. The first thing I saw was a portly, elderly gentleman emerging from a tipi. He was buck naked and seemed to be a nudist, complete with shaved genitalia and all-over tan. That was the only naked person I saw, except for three topless girls by the main fire.
The main camp was some 500 feet down the hill from that road. The majority of activities took place at the main camp but it seemed that many people chose to camp in or, near their cars, trucks, or buses in the parking lots beside the road.
Everything in main camp had to be carried down a steep slope, and presumably carried out again-up that hill. There were no engines allowed in camp, therefore no generators, no vehicles, no electricity and no amplification. Various Rainbow groups set up community kitchens and activities camps. The kitchens fed the people for free, out of huge woks and pots that were heated by wood fires. There was very little propane in the main camp, and very little ice. Wood was abundant so every large camp had a cooking fire and communal fire to huddle around during the night’ s cold.
Starlight was the only illumination, except for fires, the occasional candle, kerosene lamp, battery powered head lamp or Chinese-made solar-powered yard lights. It was dark unless you brought your own flashlight. The camp had trails marked with deadfall logs along the edges. The trails were mostly foliage free because thousands of people had trampled the sage brush into the ground. Unfortunately, trails did not always take you where you wanted to go, so you had to make your way through mature sage brush and over uneven ground. Not fun if you were stoned and light-deficient.
The weather was moderate. During the day the temperature rose to about 80 and dipped to 40 at night. At the same time, the temps in Missoula reached 100 and barely dropped to 60 just before dawn. It rained on Wednesday af- The West Old & New Page 11