The Rainbow People are gathering in the White Mountain National Forest

[peakbagger]

They pick a national forest to visit every year, this year its the Whites, specifically in the block of the forest called the Kilkenny's. The forest service is not happy as the group is not willing to fill out any permits or commit to any special planning. The expected crowd is 5 to 10 thousand people for a week starting July 1st to the 7th although preliminary groups have already been starting to show up. Various volunteers attempt to minimize the impact of the event by setting up latrines and water supplies in advance. They have been doing these events around the country for 50 years on national forest lands so the government ships in staff from around the country to try to minimize impact. The PR on the event is definitely bi-polar, either speaking of these events in glowing terms or making them sound like its a hippie invasion.

Getting to it from the AT is not easy, It can be done by heading North from the Northern Presidentials and then down to the Appalachia parking lot and taking a combination of local trails in the Randolph Area to connect up with trails to Pond of Safety and then north along a snowmachine trail to the location. Probably a long days hike for most.

[Deadeye]

At least the blackflies will be well fed. What do 5-10 thousand people expect to do while hanging out in the north woods?

[psyculman]

The net affect of this event leaves behind the opposing damage of what it claims to be. Irresponsible freedom.

[peakbagger]

The Forest Service claims that they spend between $500K to $700K to deal with each event. The local towns and county do not have budgets for this, they just have to hit up the local taxpayers as NH towns and counties are very dependent on local property taxes to pay the bills. The FS budgets a trivial amount to the towns for Payments In Lieu of Taxes (PILT) but the joke is they in the past frequently don't have the money and pay only a percentage of the already small, budgeted amount.

The large valley this event is occurring in is very rarely visited by the general public, only one hiking trail that is the remains of a longer older one and reportedly good brook trout fishing. The nearby city of Berlin NH's water supply is fed from it. They have a modern treatment system but it is going to mean long term impacts. Given the lack of visibility, the FS has been doing what it can do well and that is growing trees, in this area Northern Hardwood stands. There are a few summits around the valley that count on bushwhack lists and when I have hiked up them, the woods are some nice big hardwoods, sugar maples, yellow birches ash and beech with full canopies and not much understory interspersed with patch cuts to provide open and edge habitat.

Usually when events like this occur, the folks with the cardboard signs will be camping out at nearby major intersections begging for money and the Walmart parking lot will have a contingent of beat up vans and campers of transients for a week or so before and after.

[Tatoosh]

And local animal shelters will get animals left behind. Experienced one of these gatherings where I lived around 2005 and it is a net negative to the local communities and residents.

[peakbagger]

There is large state fish hatchery just down the road with big steel gate that normally is unlocked. No doubt the state and forest service is using it as a staging area. Plenty of fish runs full of brookies.

I saw an interesting analogy about these events, its effectively a re-enactment of the sixties hippy scene. An opportunity to let the freak flag fly one more time. The problem is, its going to attract a minority of folks with problems who actually think its going to solve their problems.

[LazyLightning]

My friend said it's a mess up there with people getting summoned to court left and right for "destruction of wild life". Somebody claimed they wanted to buy all the water in a grocery store and the owner said no so some of them started peeing on the vegetables (unconfirmed but not unlikely).

[peakbagger]

There are only two grocery stores in town. One of them is Walmart with a parking space for the local police to park. The other one is a small place, I suspect the contents of their water shelf would fit in the back of SUV. I live locally and quite frankly, I have not seen many participants in town. The normal ATV crowd is far more noticeable and on occasion more annoying.

There has not been a lot on the local news mostly recycled press releases with stock photos from different spots in the WMNF. I did see one of the participants complaining that they need to do the events out west where there is more open area. The road they are on is lined with mature woods and pretty deep drainage ditches, therefore anyone driving there has to park along the side of road and walk, potentially several miles. It has been raining almost daily for a couple of weeks so the entire site must be a mud pit.

[dudeijuststarted]

Considering "light" means "knowledge and reason" in enlightenment parlance, I'd say this Rainbow Family of Living Light's flame burned out a long time ago, if it was ever sparked at all.

[atraildreamer]

I remember a "King of the Hill" episode where something similar occurred. The park solved the problem by shutting down the snack bar and locking all the toilets. The unwanted "guests' soon departed.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHGt4A0oLnQ

[Traveler]

Sounds a lot like Trail Days in Damascus with a significant crowd of 20,000 or so. Trail Days, like many large gatherings has had some crime issues over the years, but is otherwise mostly peaceful with the usual crowd problems of litter, traffic/parking, lodging, wear and tear on the camp grounds, and nuisance issues stemming from alcohol, drugs, and close proximity with others having a differing points of view. Because Trail Days has been on-going for 35 or so years at the same location County and/or Town authorities know what to expect and are able to accommodate a fixed site festival.

The difference between these events is the Rainbow Family events are typically much smaller than Trail Days in terms of attendance, historically ranging from a few thousand to about 10,000 over roughly 5-6 days (this year USFS estimates between 3,000 and 5,000 attendees). Location selection is based on a world wide group consensus and may be in US national forests or other countries which likely is the driving factor in attendance.

Due to their structure, this group has a poor reputation with regard to NFS permitting (which is reportedly being sorted out for future events) for large groups and as with any crowd of size has had their share of crime and nuisance issues. To that end, the Forest Service has a specialized group of personnel that is dispatched to US locations to deal with large groups of this type in National Forests who put together resource protection plans, sanitation logistics, traffic management/parking plans, community involvement/information, and stipulated remediation following the event (much like Trail Days) along with any location specific issues that may arise in these different locations. Reportedly, the group does have people who understand and support LNT efforts and provide site remediation over several days following the event. The Rainbow Family will appoint a group to coordinate with USFS and will stay on-site for remediation efforts.

Frankly, I don't see much difference between this and other events of this type. The Rainbow Family is an offspring and celebration of the "counter culture" movement that started doing these events in 1972. Trail Days is the celebration of the hiking community culture, similar roots if not goals.

The issue this year is the limited access into the area the event is being held in that will likely be disruptive to parking and trail usage. Vendors do not usually complain about increased sales of goods, though it probably depends who they are speaking with at the time. The disruptions will be minor in the scope of life, but still annoying to endure. Traffic will be higher than usual in early July, parking will be tighter, supplies may not be as plentiful. Visually, Trails will likely be peppered with flowers on trees, a poem or two stuck to a rock, along with some oddly dressed people (though before pointing at that, we should look at ourselves more closely), making planning the operative word.

The good news is, we will probably all survive this event somehow, much as we did Woodstock, Burning Man, Coachella Valley, Trail Days, and Jersey Shore.

[Lone Wolf]

never has there been 20,000 at trail days. not even over the 3 days combined

[gpburdelljr]

never has there been 20,000 at trail days. not even over the 3 days combined

From this site:
https://www.visitdamascus.org/traild...ker%20culture.

“Trail Days is the biggest event of the year in Damascus and the world's largest celebration of the Appalachian Trail! Each year in May, the town swells to an estimated 20,000 people for a celebration of the Appalachian Trail and hiker culture.”

[Alligator]

I've been to both Trail Days and a national Rainbow Gathering and there were a lot of similarities.

[wornoutboots]

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm Dirty Hippies!!!!

[greenmtnboy]

It would be great if it were a wholesome, friendly gathering without uncalled for behavior. I remember one in a Florida national forest where what came out of their mouths was disgusting--and sad. People looking for a "Woodstock" type experience, ie sex and drugs and selfishness and irresponsibility do not make for a positive group of people.

[FTK]

How did it turn out? We had them here a few years ago. They didn't get anywhere near the number of people they said they expected to attend. They did have people who stayed behind for days to clean up.

[gpburdelljr]

How did it turn out? We had them here a few years ago. They didn't get anywhere near the number of people they said they expected to attend. They did have people who stayed behind for days to clean up.

There were only about 2200 people.
https://indepthnh.org/2023/07/05/for...illegal-drugs/

[peakbagger]

There was a crew of volunteers that worked with the national forest for weeks after the event. It was record wet year in NH until late summer so they did a lot of damage to the area they were camped in just walking around. Many participants complained that they need to hold these events in areas with better weather.

[rhjanes]

There was a crew of volunteers that worked with the national forest for weeks after the event. It was record wet year in NH until late summer so they did a lot of damage to the area they were camped in just walking around. Many participants complained that they need to hold these events in areas with better weather.

Then there was this years Burning Man. Our neighbor has gone the last two years, as a worker. He has enjoyed it. Sleeps in the back of his truck and trailered in everything for him, his daughter and a few other people in their group. Rains hit and they were mostly OK. His daughter HAD to catch her plane back to work, so she was one hiking out in ankle deep desert mud after all the rains. He was delayed two days getting out.