Rainbow Hippies To Return To Nevada?

25,000 or so often naked flower children could be coming back to eastern Nevada for the 43rd annual Rainbow Family Reunion in the beginning of July according to the groups ‘unofficial’ website.

Established in the early 1970’s the Rainbow Family is loose connection of hippies and other counter culture types that meet annually in a national forest somewhere in the United States in the beginning of July. According to rumors on the groups unofficial Facebook page this years gathering will be held in either Utah or Nevada. The last “Family” gathering in Utah was in 2003 near American Fork in the Ashley National forest. The last time the Rainbows came to eastern Nevada was over a decade ago at the Great Basin National Park and the last time they ventured into Elko county was 25 years ago to the Jarbidge area.

The Rainbows complained that they were harassed and so shabbily treated by Elko county law enforcement that they would never return a promise that then Sheriff Jim Miller greeted with joy.

Deputies reported several drug related arrests and confiscated small amounts of marijuana, black tar heroin, hallucinogenic mushrooms and other controlled substances during the 10 day long event. However for a gathering of well over 10,000 people there were virtually no reports of any crime either at the site in Jarbidge or from the nearby towns Rainbow Family members passed through on the way to and from the site.

The same was true of the Gathering held some 15 years later at Great Basin.

Despite the lack of violence, the Gatherings have not been without controversy.

According to the wikipedia report, the environmental impact of the Rainbow Family is often significant, easily overwhelming the meager resources available at most National Forest campgrounds. Members of the Rainbow Family have previously used nearby medical facilities and have left significant bills unpaid, as well as costing local animal control agencies who treated parvovirus amongst the dogs at the Rainbow Gathering in 2006. Though the Rainbow Family removes its trash after a gathering, the Forest Service has criticized their cleanup efforts as being only “cosmetic” and “not rehabilitation by any stretch of the imagination.” Cleanup crews have had to bury compost piles and cover fire pits.

However the Rainbows received high marks for their clean-up efforts after the Utah Nationals in 2003. “The Rainbows did a good job of cleaning up the site and following through with their commitments to restore the site,” stated Stephen Ryberg, district ranger for the forest’s Evanston and Mountain View districts. “Things went well from a resource standpoint.”

Summit County health officials also had a positive assessment of the site, said Bob Swensen, environmental director for the agency.

“My opinion is, it looks as if no one had been there,” Swensen concluded. “I’d have to give them an ‘A’ for their cleanup.”

In Montana in 2000, then governor Marc Racicot declared a “state of emergency” because of the alleged coming environmental destruction of the Rainbows on the National Forest. A year later, Dennis Havig, the District ranger from the nearby town of Wisdom, commented that “There were 23,000 people here and you can find virtually no trash. There’s an aspect of diminished vegetation, but you’d have to look hard to see the damage. The untrained eye isn’t going to see it.”

At the California National Gathering in 2004, in Modoc County, after public health officials reported speaking with their counterparts in Utah, opted to take preventive measures apart from law enforcement, which the Utah individuals found to be the source of many of the problems encountered at their event. The Public Health Department reported that the Forest Service officers were observed being confrontational and antagonistic towards the Rainbows at the Gathering site, which “did not facilitate a cooperative response from the Rainbows,” the report states. “The explanation that was given is that this was an illegal gathering because no permit had been signed. However, even after the permit had been signed, this attitude was unchanged.”

In addition to conflicting reports concerning clean-up after the event the biggest complaint against the Rainbows is one from merchants who operate near the parks over the dearth of spending from the Rainbows.

Money is not used (or not encouraged) at the gatherings and camps set up kitchens to feed people wither free of charge or in a barter system.

The only other complaints at least from the Jarbidge and Great Basin gatherings came from other tourists some of whom found the casual nudity encouraged at the gatherings disconcerting.