Rain on Rainbow Family event

U.S. Forest Service denies permit for group's gathering

Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News

Friday, June 23, 2006

The U.S. Forest Service said late Thursday that it has denied the Rainbow Family a permit for its gathering early next month in the Routt National Forest north of Steamboat Springs.

Also, an unspecified number of Colorado State Patrol troopers, sheriff's deputies and municipal police officers from across the state will soon join a 42-member National Incident Management Team already at the Rainbow Family's intended gathering site about 35 miles north of the resort town. The request for more police came from Routt County Sheriff John Warner.

Kimberley Vogel, a spokeswoman for the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest, said she is "very concerned" about how the weeklong gathering, slated to begin officially July 1, will play out.

So far, those arriving early for the 35th annual Rainbow Gathering of the Tribes for World Peace & Healing have simply been issued citations - carrying a penalty of up to six months in jail and/or $5,000 in fines.

The Rainbow Family has held a major summer gathering every year since 1972, and some 20,000 counterculture campers were anticipated by the scheduled start date this year.

When or if tougher enforcement - such as eviction from the Forest Service land - might begin, Vogel wouldn't say.

"We can only deal with as much as we can, with the resources that we have," Vogel said. "We're having to prioritize.

"At this point, we are treating them as individuals who are not abiding by the law, and they are getting citations. As other infractions occur, those will be treated as appropriate, whether it's by citation or arrest, or whatever the case might be."

The permit application, submitted Tuesday by an unnamed Rainbow member, failed on two counts, Vogel said.

The proposed event area is accessed by just one road, an estimated 60 percent to 70 percent of the landscape is dead or dying from the extensive beetle epidemic, and conditions are ripe for large fires.

Also, a Forest Service statement concerning the rejected permit said that the Rainbow Gathering conflicts with existing uses for businesses that have "priority permits" for activities planned in the area at the same time as the proposed Rainbow event.

The permit issue has been a contentious point in recent days.

Reached Thursday evening, Rainbow spokesman Henry the Fiddler said he hadn't heard that an application had been filed or that it had been rejected.

He also said that reports of a growing police presence also came as news to him. He said he had no other comment.

At least 218 citations for camping without the required permit have been issued so far to early-arriving Rainbow Family campers showing up at the Big Red Park area of the Hahns Peak/Bears Ears Ranger District.

All gatherings of more than 74 people on Forest Service land require a free special-use permit, and permit holders must adhere to the conditions placed upon it.

That's not the free-spirited Rainbows' style.

On Tuesday, more than 200 Rainbow Family members had confronted a group of about 15 Forest Service law enforcement officers at a checkpoint, encircling them in a manner the officers found hostile. The officers, concerned for their own safety, drew their weapons - but then retreated to their vehicles and left.

That checkpoint has not been staffed since the Tuesday incident. But on Thursday, a new checkpoint was established farther west of the gathering area.

While deliberately not organized, many Rainbow Family campers share a distaste for the constraints of mainstream society, and many of its members see the Forest Service's permit requirement as an unnecessary intrusion into a constitutionally protected affair.

brennanc@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2742