Front page article from Jackson Hole News dated Wednesday, July 6, 1994 END OF THE RAINBOWS by Mark Huffman * Annual gathering culminates in a communal prayer for world peace.* In a meadow high in the Wyoming Mountains, thousands of members of the Rainbow Family of Living Light imposed ritual silence on themselves Monday from dawn to noon, hushing each unnecessary sound, speaking when required in whispers or with sign language. Twenty-five miles away in Big Piney, population 454, the three cash registers at the Mini Mart made more noise than 13,000 hippies did at their Snider Basin camp. Three cashiers worked full speed, with customers lined up and another half dozen employees rushing to keep shelves full. Rory and Robyn Mack, managers at Big Piney's only 24-hour store, said business was triple last July Fourth as Rainbows came and went around the clock. "Everything we get has had to come extra," Robyn Mack said as she restocked potato chips and a delivery man tried to get his dolly past. "The Rainbows, they're very obvious around here." Rory Mack said most residents adjusted to the invasion of the Rainbows, philosophical descendants of the 1960s' hippies who had come to Wyoming for their 20th annual gathering, intending to celebrate freedom and pray for peace. "There's lots of them coming down," he said. "After they've been up there two or three days, they've seen the woods and many of them are from urban areas and they want to go to town." Mack said the Rainbows "have been little trouble as far as we're concerned. "A little shoplifting, but a large majority are really nice," he said. "If we have a bus of Boy Scouts stop, some will steal gum." Big Piney firefighter Dennis Wagstaff, preparing the July Fourth parade, agreed. "I haven't heard any complaints," he said. "I went up there the other day. I had fun." And Randy McNinch, whose grandfather homesteaded outside of town, said residents were accommodating. "In the beginning I think a lot of people had reservations," he said. "But the people of Big Piney are resilient, they live year to year with drought and rain, and they can live with this. And it's actually turned out to be kind of interesting." In the "main meadow" of the Rainbow gathering, hundreds of people sat facing a simple totem pole in the middle of a large basin. There was just about no noise, and hardly a word. >From time to time someone would walk toward the totem, bow or kneel. Some looked like Indian holy men, wizards and Hare Krishnas, bikers and flower children of various types; one man was painted blue everywhere he wasn't covered by an Indian print skirt. Naked and nearly naked people were common, including a man wearing nothing but a wrist watch; but there were also women in conservative long dresses and shawls, day-tripping cowboys, suburban gawkers in Bermuda Shorts and golf shirts, and one fellow wearing a 1994 Jackson Hole July Fourth T-shirt. We've seen a lot of unnecessary risk-taking," said Ron Jablonski, spokesman for the Forest Service Incident Management team overseeing the Rainbows. There was fast driving that caused a variety of accidents ­ none fatal ­ and at least four forest fires. One burned 9 acres on Sunday and gave a dozen Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management firefighters a look at New Age firefighting in action. "We had people running barefoot and naked into the fire to fight it," Jablonski said. "It was a real problem; they got in the way." Some Rainbows also ran to the fire and "ommmmm"ed to turn the blaze away from their nearby camp. Jablonski said the wind was in an unusual and favorable direction, but he didn't credit prayers. More useful, he said, was the airborne bombing with a firefighting chemical. But Jablonski gave the Rainbows credit for trying. More than 1,000 people quickly set up a half-mile bucket brigade and passed water to the fire. The same type of cohesiveness was apparent, he said, in the food handling and sanitation set up by the family, and by the fact that the Rainbows had laid more than 3-1/2 miles of PVC pipe for their drinking water system. Jablonski said he couldn't imagine living the wandering life led by many of the Rainbows. But he said it would be a mistake to think that because they were different that they were stupid. "They include every kind of professional, doctors, lawyers, people in every walk of life," he said. "Don't judge them by the way they look, the way they smell or what they have pierced." As noon approached, several thousand people gathered around the totem pole, closing in more and more tightly. Finally, packed body to body, they began a long droning sound that rose and fell. They joined hands, put arms over shoulders. Around the edge of the meadow, hundreds of yards away, thousands more joined hands, forming a rim of a wheel of which the totem pole was the hub. When noon came, there was a shout. Those around the pole began dancing, those at the outside of the wheel ran toward the middle. They began a drumming and dancing session that went on until dark. Over the drums there was a sound of flutes and guitars, a harmonica and a violin; a man played the bagpipes, another blew the saxophone. "There's a lot of energy here," said a woman who said her name was Nevada. "I'm really beginning to feel the clarity of the gathering." "We were frequently challenged about why we needed guns when these were supposedly such peaceful people," said Jackson Police Chief Dave Cameron, helping Sublette County and the Forest Service patrol the Rainbow Gathering. "We told them our weapons were simply a tool, that it had protective value for us and them. "Some were insistent about it and attempted to blame us or the people there for the misuse of guns," Cameron said. "But a vast majority of people were very appreciative of the fact that we were there." Besides traffic accidents and offenses, fires and cuts and bruises and burns, there was little in the way of official crime. One man was arrested for an alleged sexual assault. But Sublette County Sheriff Jack Cain said the charge may turn out to be unfounded. Another man started fights in town and at the camp; he was caught by Rainbows and turned over to officers. "It could have been worse," said Jablonski, who said the event "was interesting." "I think it was an experience I wouldn't want to have done without," said Jackson Chief Cameron. "It was an interesting group of people. And it just goes to show it takes all kinds." In town, rancher McNinch said the event was "like a carnival. "It's been an experience," he said. "A cultural exchange."