GIFFORD PINCHOT NATIONAL FOREST — After negotiating miles of serpentine roads through these remote woods, participants in the annual Rainbow Family Gathering were rewarded with a simple, unique greeting at their long-sought campgrounds Friday morning.
“Welcome home,” the glowing strangers said.
To the world, the thousands who gathered in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Skamania County for the first day of the national Rainbow Family Gathering event were homeless misfits, delusional dreamers and dirt-covered hippies. Inside these all-inclusive grounds where the outside world mattered little, they were brothers and sisters, one and all.
Since 1972, the Rainbow Family has held events in national forests across America during July. The nonprofit group is unique in that it has no official leaders or members. This year’s event in Washington runs until Thursday.
Attendees said the event is an opportunity to leave behind their daily grind, pray for world peace and bask in nature’s beauty. The gathering included outdoor enthusiasts, counterculture activists and spiritual seekers from across the continental United States and Canada.
“This is like paradise for me,” remarked Gabe Hampton, a 32-year-old from Ocean Beach, Calif. “People are just doing things out of love.”
Participants danced, sang and took nude mud baths inside the swampy Skookum Meadows area. After parking their vehicles, attendees walked as far as four miles with their personal belongings before reaching the main campgrounds.
Officials with Gifford Pinchot National Forest said they expected more than 10,000 people to attend the gathering.
Underneath a canopy of magnificently tall trees, Hampton and his girlfriend, Rose LaChance, sat around a midday campfire surrounded by friends new and old, listening to acoustic guitars and smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. Most of the 40 or so people in their “O.B. Grateful” section hailed from Ocean Beach or San Diego.
They had plenty of food, several bands’ worth of musicians and the joy of friendship. The cares of the outside world could wait.
LaChance marveled at the selflessness exhibited by her fellow Rainbow Family attendees. She and Hampton had been on the campgrounds for seven days, well before the gathering officially began.
“A lot of people don’t work much in real life, but out here they’re digging and hauling wood,” said the 38-year-old caretaker from California. “They get a new sense of self.”
Campers dug trenches for bathroom facilities. The trenches will be covered in dirt when they fill with waste. LaChance and others noted they believe the Rainbow Family will leave the campgrounds cleaner than they found it.
Everyone gets “more courteous” when they realize how much they need those around them to survive in the woods, she added.
Not that affection or respect were lacking on the campgrounds.
Harmony Cohen-Wolff, 40, of San Diego, greeted LaChance with the enthusiastic embrace of reunited friends long ago separated. Cohen-Wolff, a holistic health practitioner, came to Washington looking to free herself of modern life’s trappings, namely technology.
“Even though those things create advancements, they also create separation from the Earth,” she said. “There is so much sadness, war and darkness on this planet. We’re able to raise the frequency and heal some things on the planet.”
Participants barter with each other for goods. Cigarettes are a hot commodity. So is food. Most dishes are vegetarian.
Jeff Sanchez, 25, hitchhiked from Florida over the past month and a half before arriving at the Rainbow Family event. Clad in a hat, scarf and overalls, he declared, “This is like my church.”
“You can take so many ideas from so many people,” he said, noting that he had floated from kitchen to kitchen and camp to camp.
He disagreed with outside perceptions that the festival is merely an excuse to get high in the woods.
Illegal drugs are available on the camp site, Rainbow Family gatherers said. But attendees cautioned that drugs, other than marijuana, play a small role in the gathering. Some use psychedelics in hopes of attaining a higher plain of consciousness. Cocaine, heroin and alcohol are mostly shunned on the grounds, attendees said.
There were rumors that federal marshals would sweep the area. Groups alerted each other by shouting “guns in the woods” or “six up,” denoting the number of lights on a police unit.
Across a improvised path coated in clumpy mud existed a series of teepees known as Teepee Circle.
Dressed in a Che Guevara T-shirt, Josue Holguin sat in front of one of these triangular structures making twisted balloon animals for children at the site. The Montreal, Canada, resident wore an orange octopus balloon like a crown.
“We live our lives and work and this and that,” the 32-year-old cook said. “Here we can be at home and be comfortable.”
Less than 100 yards away, Alicia Betkey, 18, relaxed in the nearby “Washington Represent” camp. The Tracy, Calif., resident had previously attended four regional Rainbow Family events, but this is her first national one.
What attracted her to the event was the culture of love promoted within the camps.
“Everybody is accepted,” said Betkey, who had red hair and wore a bikini top. “Everybody is loved. Nobody is judged.”
Ray Legendre: 360-735-4517, ray.legendre@columbian.com//www.facebook.com/raylegend//www.twitter.com/col_smallcities
