Rainbow Family members hold an impromptu jam session Tuesday as the annual counterculture gathering, this year held on Forest Service land near Lyman Lake in the Wasatch National Forest, continues. Rainbows make decisions by consensus and endorse no hierarchy in their camp. (Leah Hogsten/The Salt Lake Tribune) |
By Linda Fantin
The Salt Lake Tribune
Steven Hawking did not have to attend a Rainbow Family reunion to understand chaos theory, but for nongeniuses the experience can be helpful.
For starters, there is nothing like a naked, hairy 50-year-old man squatting in a meadow to remind you of the power of spontaneity.
But individual _expression_ aside, the Rainbows have turned the Uinta Mountains into an outdoor laboratory demonstrating how, with time, order can emerge from undesirable randomness.
The Rainbows are a vast, leaderless collective of latter-day hippies, anarchists and street people that congregates once a year on public lands to espouse peace and denounce the trappings of the real world, or as they call it, Babylon. They make decisions by consensus and endorse no hierarchy. They call themselves "the largest
nonorganization of nonmembers."
But, for all their counterculture vibes, Rainbows are highly organized. They construct elaborate kitchens and campsites using miles of PVC pipe and water-filtering systems. They have a sophisticated system of radio checkpoints and their own security. They even have an information booth.
A Rainbow gathering functions much like a commune. It is an experiment in peaceful living and a study in adaptability.
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Hitchin' a ride: For the first to arrive in the Lyman Lake area of the Uintas, parking options were limited only by a car's clearance (or not, judging by the occasional muffler in the road) and the driver's definition of camping spot. They parked as close to the trailhead as possible, reserving the best spot for people living in buses and vans.
It wasn't long, however, before the Rainbows were forced to establish park-and-ride lots several miles down the hill. The first shuttle, an old yellow school bus, broke down, and now, any vehicle with two or more passengers is considered a Rainbow shuttle.
The system does not exactly conjure up images of the 2002 Winter Games. There are no schedules and the waits are shorter, too. But Rainbow shuttle drivers are every bit as friendly, efficient and resourceful as their Olympic counterparts. Our driver crammed six adults, 10 sacks of groceries, three watermelons and several
overstuffed backpacks into a new Jeep.
He rented it, he said, at the Salt Lake International Airport. "I just said I was going camping, and they gave me this," he said.
As the Jeep passes through the shuttle checkpoint, a Rainbow woman speaks into her walkie-talkie to whomever is listening. "Could someone please locate 'Freedom' from the healing arts/yoga camp and relay where to drop the watermelons and other supplies?" she asks.
Just when you think that has got to be a rhetorical question, the radio crackles to life:
"At Bus Village."
"Copy that."
Tolls and trolls: This particular checkpoint -- which only shuttles can go past -- is not the Family's idea, but that of the U.S. Forest Service, the federal agency in charge of containing the campout. It was the Forest Service that forced the creation of the park-and-ride lots in
the first place and, at one juncture, even required shuttle drivers to surrender their licenses to keep them from sneaking more cars closer to the gathering site.
Eager to minimize confrontations with rangers, veteran Rainbows serve as the gatekeepers. Even the inhabitants of the alcohol, or "A," camp get into the act, bellowing belligerently at cars to slow down. Drive too fast and you just might miss the A-camp "wanted" sign pleading for "beer, whiskey, pot and white women."
A more dramatic example of Rainbow self-policing is evident wherever rangers on horses congregate. These mounties are more menacing than the field hands assigned to check foot bridges and monitor wildlife habitat, and are therefore magnets for the more antagonistic Rainbows. To avoid conflict, other Rainbows volunteer to be bodyguards for the mounties. And you thought guarding the parking lots was the assignment from hell.
On Tuesday, six
mounties rested at the edge of Trading Circle, a poor man's flea market where Rainbows trade everything from bongs to Beanie Babies to Power Bars to sugar packets.
As a woman held her baby up to pet one of the horses, a bodyguard radioed for backup.
"Um, these guys say they are going to be here all day. I repeat. All. Day. I'm gonna need some relief. Do you copy?"
Just then a white-bearded man with saggy breasts wandered by.
"What would you do if I kicked your horse?" the man queried.
"I'd probably arrest you," the ranger replied.
In an instant, a husky enforcer in fatigues was standing between the man and the horse, yelling at him to walk away. Now.
"I didn't say I was going to kick him," said the haughty Rainbow, walking away. "You know, this is still the United States of America. I still have the freedom of speech."
Mostly, however, the rangers and the Rainbows tolerate one another. And occasionally, the Rainbows offer a little payback.
On the trail leading to the Trade Circle, two mounties are ordered to stop by a teenager named Pooh-Bear, her friend, Stripes, and a kitten named Piglet.
"This," says Pooh-Bear, "is a troll roadblock. Do you know what a toll is to a troll? A toke, smoke or a joke."
Let's just say the Rangers paid the toll, there was much laughter, and leave it at that.
Food for the soul: Each evening around 6:30, Rainbows and their blissware -- Rainbow-speak for eating utensils -- wander into the Main Circle area for the evening meal. The food is paraded in on handmade carts and strong shoulders from dozens of kitchens set up around the expansive gathering site. The menu -- and the quality -- is impressive, with vegan, Kosher and meat-lover
entrees.
The bakers at the Lovin' Ovens supply an estimated 400 whole wheat rolls a day for the dinner party, each hand-rolled and baked in ovens constructed from earth and stone.
Even the Forest Service rangers rave about the food -- although they are only allowed to smell it, said Ranger Bernard Asay. They don't want to take any chances.
Cakes -- wedding and birthday -- are available on request, and on Tuesday night, Melissa Johnson, who is employed in a bakery in Northern California, is making a mean chocolate frosting for someone special. Her son, Nicholas, just turned 6.
This is Nick and Melissa Johnson's first Rainbow gathering. They came here at the urging of college friends who live in Arizona.
They are sharing their camp with Stephanie Hodges, a veteran Rainbow from Minnesota, and her kids. The Johnsons, however, don't know if they'll be back.
On Sunday night, when temperatures dipped, Melissa walked to her car in the lower parking lot to retrieve some blankets for her kids and found it had been towed. The next day, she was told her bumper was sticking out 4 inches into the "gutter."
"I'm like 'Where does the gutter start and where does it stop?' " Johnson recalled. "It's nothing but piles of rocks down there."
When the Johnsons finally hitchhiked to Evanston, Wyo., to retrieve their car, the windshield had been cracked and the driver's door was jammed open. It cost $450 just to get it out of tow.
They had planned to use some of the money to buy Nicholas' birthday presents, but, for now, the cake will have to do. Melissa fumbles in her tent for the candles and emerges with a glowing cake, singing "Happy Birthday." Nicholas, his yellow plastic bowl hooked by a hemp cord to his belt loop, is ecstatic.
Order out
of chaos.
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