The Rainbow Gathering 2010

The last time the Rainbow People were here in Pennsylvania in the Allegheny National Forest, outside of Ridgeway Pa, I unexpectedly ran into the aftermath of the gathering. I had no idea that some 20 thousand people gathered in the forest in the ANF! No idea at all. It was a time in my life when I didn't pay much attention to the local news.

I was out in an area scouting for caves .... following up on a rumor of a cave location. I was on the road that must have been a main entrance to the gathering. What I saw shocked me! Piles of garbage all over. I got out and hiked around a bit to try to find out what was going on. I ran into a couple hippies who were cleaning up ... or attempting to clean up! They seemed surprised that I didn't hear about their gathering.

One area I saw, was "tamped down" to bare dirt or mud. It looked like a tornado ripped through a garbage dump. The hippies said they were picking up garbage, but really they were on a salvage mission and picking through the stuff for items they could recycle, or perhaps trade off.

It was a horrible mess. The damage I witnessed to the field stuck with me all these years.

I hadn't thought much about, the Rainbow People again after all these years until a few weeks ago, when I learned they were coming back! Back to our forest! ... Back to the ANF!

Naturally it brought back memories of the damage they left behind the last time they were here. As it turns out, after I spent the last two weeks on the internet learning about *all things Rainbow* ....I learned that in 1999, I walked into a mess two days after the event that was in the process of being cleaned up. That year some stayed behind and cleaned up for a couple months. And I was there only two days into the start of the clean up.

When I heard about this gathering, The first thing that came to mind was how big an area a group that big camping for a week impacts.

And, even though I may see eye to eye with some of them on political views, I can't give them a "free pass" when it comes to the unavoidable destruction that they do to the forest. Especially when I hear them talk about caring about the land, or the earth and call themselves "environmentalists".

But I thought about it long and hard, and decided to go there to witness it for myself .... This time during the event! Not two days after the event before the clean-up really got rolling.

In the following photo tour you will see lot's of destruction of the forest, from trails and paths cut through wetlands to temporary shelters built from live trees and plants. And even some streams and creeks altered a bit. Not to mention, camps and tents near animal habitat. I witnessed lots of "no-no's". Somethings "environmentalists" shouldn't do.

But on the other side of the coin, just to put their destruction in proper perspective, this group of over ten thousand people might have done about the same amount of physical damage to the land than just a couple of remotely located oil wells and their associated required infrastructure such as well pads, access roads, water supply, drainage, ponds and tank batteries and etc. I've seen very small oil operations with very few wells that ruined more area than all of these *over ten thousand* people did!

So yes, it's a shame they "tamped down" so many miles of trails, and tent sites, but I would describe their damage as "soft impact". Most done by spreading a tarp or blanket over the ground, and a lot done by people walking in bare feet. Not nearly the same kind of impact caused by power equipment the oil and gas producers use on the land.

And maybe we really should give them a "break" considering their idealistic motive .... To pray for world peace, rather than the motives of the oil companies, who are recklessly drilling the hell out of our national forest, putting in thousands of "stripper wells" for selfish, obscene profits. The Allegheny National Forest, our only national forest in Pennsylvania has over TWELVE THOUSAND WELLS!

As it turns out, the site of this gathering is near where the infamous "Shaboom Oil" was operating (google "Shaboom Oil" along with "drugs").

Shaboom was a drug lords money laundering operation who at one time was teamed up with Art Stewart and Durhing Oil, one of our "local mom and pop family operations". The owner of Shaboom was one of America's all-time biggest drug importers.

So when you step back and look at the big picture .... The Rainbow People don't seem that bad after all. Yes, they do damage to the forest, but so do other users. And no, two wrongs do not make a right. My concern is anything that destroys the forest, and I don't have any biases or prejudices. Oil companies ruin the forest, pipelines ruin the forest, logging operations ruin the forest, road building ruins the forest, and even hippie gatherings ruin the forest. But the commercial use of the forest hurts our forest way more than a large "family" camping for a week every ten or twelve years or so.

This year it was a very respectful, peaceful crowd. It surprised me how pleasant the whole experience was. I had no idea I was that loved by so many hippies!

It was a very well behaved bunch. The excessive number of cops on horseback "tearing up the trails and woods", were the most annoying thing out there, the mounted police, and the helicopter circling overhead. There could have been less cops, and less dogs in my humble opinion.

I would love to see the police, including all the various agencies that came out for this event and the stewards of the forest, like the Allegheny National Forest personnel, watch the oil producers and loggers as intense as they did this group!

I'd bet if they scrutinized any single one of the many oil producers this closely, that they would end up with more violations than these ten thousand plus had!

Sick some of those drug sniffing dogs on a few of the oil producers working in this same area and see what you come up with! But you might have to retrain the dogs to sniff out cocaine instead of marijuana!

My visit to the Rainbow Gathering 2010-

We got to the site in the mid morning. Even this early in the day it was starting to get real hot. But we were all "clean cut", and despite a few of us wore tie-dyed shirts, we all looked more like off duty cops, than weekend hippies!

We went in through the main gate off of FR 119. Through what they call "A" camp. A camp is supposed to be for those who choose to consume alcohol. This is the "welcome home" greeting camp. These are not your standard Walmart greeters! Instead picture a scene out of a Mad Max movie! Maybe like a camp set up outside the gates of Thunderdome!

As our neat, clean, well groomed group approached the gate, all the occupants who were welcoming the others before us, started all jumping around shouting "six up, six up, six up" over and over again, obviously a warning of our presence. I assumed they thought we were cops or maybe undercover forestry workers. Which were weren't so it was pretty funny! They jumped around, scurrying about, like scared monkeys in the jungle when a predator was in their midst!

After passing through "A" camp, it was a very long trek mostly downhill toward the "main meadow". It started out through a fairly shady, big tall open woods, but then turned and followed "Queen Creek" downstream through a brushy, wet, swampy area that used parts of an old abandon railroad grade at times.

Soon we noticed more and more tents and camps set up to ether side in the shady woods, that were mostly Hemlock and Pine. Not too long after we came to some bigger camps built around kitchens.

After passing through a few bigger camps or kitchens, we entered the "main meadow" near the information tent and the map of the area.

We decided to cross Queen Creek to the west near the biggest swimming hole, and head toward the "trading circle" something we all wanted to see.

In the main meadow, we saw a group of mounted state police on horses and just by chance they happened to be going the same way we were, so we followed the police over the creek and toward the "green path" that went from the Trading Circle to the state area called "Granola Funk".

Hiking along the green path I noticed that the 8 or 10 mounted police do more damage to the woods than say ten thousand barefoot hippies do! The horse hooves chipped and chewed up the exposed tree roots and in soft places, sunk deep pockets into the trail. The horses actually do more physical damage than say even the illegal dirt bikes and ATV's! The environment might have faired better had the cops been on four-wheelers with big soft "donut" tires (pun intended)!

After our visit to the Trading Circle, we headed over to "Granola Funk". To enter the stage area, we went up a really cool set of stairs and through a gateway that looked like a piece off a "Survivor" set (the popular TV show!).

And the stage itself was a masterpiece that looked like it could have been a movie set piece. Very well done. Just to the left of the entrance to Granola Funk, there was a thatch hut that was really cool looking, one of my favorite sites, BUT it was made mostly from live plants and tree limbs!

A real "no-no" for an environmentally friendly camper! It looked cool, but we can't all go out and cut live trees and bushes for shelter!

After visiting the "Funk" we crossed some really cool, well made bridges and wandered through an open woods, past more big camps and kitchens, back toward the open fields and the main meadow.

By not it's mid afternoon and really hot in the blazing sun! It topped out at about 96! It was hot, with no clouds in the sky and no wind!

We decided to head back to the cars, and we tried to go back a slightly different route to stay in the shady woods as long as we could. We did see a few nudists walking around, but not really that many. And truth be told I didn't see one person openly smoking dope! Nor did I smell it! I sorta wish I did! Don't get me started on the smells!But just imagine ten thousand hippies baking in the hot sun for a week and the only water holes were muddy, stagnant, bacteria filled "swimming holes" in Queen Creek.

A very attractive topless hippie chick, in a pool near a bridge we crossed, did graciously offer to wash my hair for me, but as sweet an offer that was, I didn't want that stagnant water in my relatively clean hair! It was hard resisting having my hair washed by a cute topless hippie chick ... but my friends were way ahead up the trail calling to me.

About half way back to the car, there was a garbage pile along the trail and I picked up an armload to carry out to help with the clean up effort. I always try to carry out more than I hike in with. And I will probably go back this weekend just to help carry garbage out of the area.

After touring the gathering area, on our way home, I did talk to the woman who owns the big gas station/deli/sub shop in Sheffield (the Citgo station) and she had nothing but phrase for the Rainbows! She said this past week has been her most profitable week ever, and that she didn't observe or experience ANY shoplifting at all.

I would highly recommend that anybody who might be remotely interested in checking it out, attend one of these gatherings! There is nothing to be afraid of. Overall, the group is very friendly and respectful!

Peace and love!