Rainbow Family's prayer for peace goes undisturbed by authorities
Hector Gutierrez, Rocky Mountain News
Published July 5, 2006 at midnight
Federal and Routt County authorities kept a low profile Tuesday as thousands of Rainbow Family and Living Light members gathered for their traditional Circle of Peace prayer service.
The U.S. Forest Service expected Tuesday to be the biggest gathering day for the nomadic group because of the prayer service. About 10,000 members of the Rainbow Family have showed up for the weeklong event, which is half of what the Forest Service and Routt County sheriff's deputies expected.
"We're going to be low-key (Tuesday)," said Diann Ritschard, information officer for the Routt National Forest. "The Colorado State Patrol is still on the highways providing public safety. We're still doing walk-throughs, but the Forest Service is not in any way going to disturb the peace prayer."
Authorities said they expect an exodus of the thousands of Rainbow Family members out of Routt National Forest to begin after Tuesday's prayer service.
The low-key enforcement was a change for Forest Service officers, who have struggled since last month with the droves of people congregating in a four-square-mile area about 35 miles north of Steamboat Springs.
Officers have had to issue more than 500 violation notices to Rainbow Family members since June 12 for illegally occupying U.S. forest land without obtaining a special-use permit. The permit was denied because of the high fire dangers.
The group's presence ended up displacing other forest-service visitors who did obtain the proper permits, Ritschard said.
Officers and sheriff's deputies also occasionally had confrontations with Rainbow Family members they attempted to question, Ritschard said. In one instance, Forest Service officers and deputies said that rocks and sticks were tossed at them when a throng of Rainbows surrounded the officers, who were on foot.
A mounted patrol that came to help the officers also was met with rocks and sticks, Ritschard said. Three officers had minor injuries.
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