They came, they prayed - some say preyed - and left.

For about four weeks this summer, about 7,000 of the free-spirited Rainbow Family - "the largest non-organization of non-members in the world" - converged on the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

The gathering caused several ruckuses in Pinedale and Sublette County, and faded as fast as it arrived.

"I don't think I've heard any conversations about the Rainbows since," said Bob Rule, owner of KPIN radio. "Once they left, it was a dead topic."

The Rainbow Family gathers during the first week of July to live in alternative communities with their own camps and kitchens, learn different cultures, and primarily pray for peace and harmony with the Earth.

But the rapid creation of a community nearly four times the size of nearby Pinedale didn't necessarily lend itself to peaceable relations among townsfolk, the U.S. Forest Service and its LEOs (Rainbow parlance for law enforcement officers), "drain-bows" (Rainbow parlance for slackers) who panhandled and shoplifted, Wyomingites unhappy with hippies, Sublette County residents concerned about the gathering's effects on the land, and Boy Scouts who had planned a conservation project near the gathering.

(The video below appeared on Trib.com during the Rainbow Family Gathering earlier this year)

The critics didn't like some Rainbows' alternative lifestyles including illegal drug use.

Rainbows make their decisions by consensus, and the decision to hold the gathering in the Big Sandy area came became final in early June.

That set in motion advance Rainbow teams to set up the site with water lines, latrines, fire pits and other infrastructure.

It also included meetings with Pinedale residents and a visit from U.S. Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who oversees the U.S. Forest Service.

The clash of cultures didn't help as the Rainbows, Forest Service and local law enforcement officials met, Rule said. "You're trying to have a business-type meeting when their form of government is anarchy."

The Forest Service's allowance of the Rainbow gathering irked Sublette County Commissioner Joel Bousman. It let the Rainbows camp without a permit, which in turn displaced the Boy Scouts who followed the rules to obtain permits, Bousman said. "If the rules are good enough for anybody, they're good enough for everybody."

The bad vibes were enhanced by the tragic disappearance and suicide of Sublette County Sheriff Wayne Bardin's son Garrett, whose body was found in an area near the Rainbow Gathering.

"Here in town, we were focused more on the sheriff's son than the Rainbows," Rule said.

The Rainbows' sometimes unhygienic personal care, and wearing their hair in dreadlocks, also astonished the townsfolk, he said.

But "Woodstock II," as it was known, didn't cause many problems beyond that, Rule said.

Not many townspeople went to the gathering itself, consisting of several large campsites spread over several miles of the Bridger-Teton Forest, he said.

But that's where the main action happened.

Garrick Beck, 59, has attended all but two of the annual gatherings since 1972, when the first event was held in Colorado.

This year, Beck camped with a group of artists from the East Village in the camp called New York Purple, which hosts a comedy club and a brunch the day after the major meditation event on July 4.

This year, Beck said he was encouraged to see the large number of young Rainbows - sometimes with their parents and grandparents - who are gaining an appreciation of nature, the responsibilities of caring for it, and taking seriously their work to make the gathering a success.

"These young people have got the values that the community is all about," he said. "This is not about aging hippies."

Trouble ahead

While Beck and other Rainbows appreciate the assistance of the local Forest Service employees, he sharply criticized the behavior of the special law enforcement group used to police the gathering.

Law enforcement, he and other Rainbows said, often stopped and searched vehicles without probable cause, issued warnings and citations from drug possession to driving infractions, such as failure to signal. Some of those charges were dismissed at the temporary federal court set up in Farson.

"The LEOs attempted to create an incident to sabotage the [gathering]," Beck said. "They were looking for trouble."

They got it on the evening of July 3, when several officers arrested a man for marijuana possession near the Kid Village.

A Forest Service press release said about 400 Rainbows surrounded the officers and began throwing sticks and rocks.

Officers arrested five people, one officer sustained minor injuries, and one Forest Service vehicle was damaged, according to the press release.

"This lawless behavior is unacceptable and we will not tolerate it," said John Twiss, Forest Service director of law enforcement said in the news release.

But the Rainbows at the scene told a much different story, saying the officers pointed weapons at children and fired rubber bullets and pepper spray balls.

Since then, the American Civil Liberties Union published a report contending the Forest Service law enforcement has engaged in systematic harassment of those who attend the Rainbow gatherings.

Twiss denounced the report. He has since resigned.

Meanwhile, some Web sites affiliated with the Rainbow Family are urging those who witnessed the July 3 incident to send statements, pictures and videos to the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which may be conducting an investigation of the incident.

The Office of the Inspector General in Kansas City, Mo., was closed on Friday.

Trouble behind?

Critics of the Rainbow Gathering said 7,000 people in the forest would cause serious damage to the land.

Rainbows have taken pride in cleaning up after their events, and said they would do the same this year.

Forest Service District Ranger Tom Peters said in late July the southwestern slope of the Wind River Mountains would sustain some lasting scars from the gathering.

The cleanup efforts were cosmetic and not a rehabilitation of the land, he said then.

This week, Peters said he visited the site in late August and still has concerns for the land.

"They did clean up, but it wasn't rehabilitation," he said. "It was very obvious thousands of people were there."

However, there might not be the longterm damage he initially feared, he said.

The land will need to go through at least one growing season for him to determine whether any invasive species took hold and to manifest any major problems, Peters said.

The Pinedale Roundup reported on the cleanup in late August with pictures of the sites. Some litter is evident in some pictures, while other pictures show sites of former kitchens and parking areas that have had nearly all traces of human activity removed.

That's the way Rainbows try to do it, Beck said.

Beck, who runs a gemstone supply business in Santa Fe, N.M., said the Rainbows probably will meet somewhere in New Mexico in 2009.

A loose-knit council has been meeting with Forest Service officials, and the system of bypassing the formal written permit system to get to crafting an operational plan is going well, Beck said. "We're looking at the best pregathering in maybe a dozen years," he said.

Reach Tom Morton at (307) 266-0592 or Tom.Morton@trib.com

Year Tracker

What happened in 2008: About 7,000 people trekked to the Big Sandy Area of the Bridger-Teton National Forest for the Rainbow Family of Living Light's annual Gathering of the Tribes.

Where things stand: Pinedale and Sublette County have returned to normal, and the campsites are recovering. The American Civil Liberties Union issued a report claiming the law enforcement agency of the U.S. Forest Service used excessive force at the gathering.

Coming in 2009: The Rainbow Family probably will gather somewhere in New Mexico.