PARQUE VENADO — In a steady stream since early June, hundreds of people have been arriving here in the Jemez Mountains. By July 4, an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 will be camped out under firs and aspens around a giant meadow for the decades-old annual national gathering of the Rainbow Family of Living Light.

They come with dreadlocks and short hair, some wearing sandals and some clad in boots, some driving SUVs and some hitchhiking across country. Among them are lawyers, a train-riding vagabond, Vietnam veterans, a mountain climber, runaway teens, a former Continental Airlines pilot, musicians and those just curious about the whole affair. They are Christians, Buddhists, creationists and anarchists. Some smoke pot. Some don't. Alcohol is discouraged, but some drink it anyway.

With only volunteers, they'll build latrines, kitchens and water pipelines, creating a temporary village in the woods and dismantling it before they leave.

They have no leader, no official spokesperson. They call each other brother and sister and they come together to pray for world peace.

They call the gathering home.

A town prepares

Small farms and pastures mark the entrance to Cuba, N.M., a small town west of the Jemez Mountains and 20 miles from the gathering. "We have 1,200 people and that's including schoolchildren," said Vandora Casados, the Cuba village clerk and treasurer.

A week ago, there were already more people at the Rainbow gathering than in the village.

People in the town didn't know much about the Rainbow Family when word got out that the nearby mountains had been chosen for the annual gathering. There was some of the usual concern about a bunch of pot-smoking hippies invading.

The Forest Service hosted a community meeting attended by 150 townsfolk. Several people from the Rainbow Family, "Bajer" among them, answered questions and showed pictures of past gatherings. "They put the townspeople's minds at ease," Casados said.

Apparently so. "One of the bar owners invited us all over to her bar afterward," Bajer said.

A multi-agency incident command team has set up shop at the offices of the Cuba Ranger District and the Bureau of Land Management, ready to direct curious visitors and Rainbow Family to the gathering. They hand out little courtesy bags with bottled water, tissue and hand sanitizer.

Two big "Welcome Rainbow" signs hang outside the local family-owned Mickey's Save Way grocery and Save-Way Variety Store on Cuba's main street.

The grocery's manager, Martin Herrera, said thus far he had nothing but good things to say about the Rainbow Family. "We haven't caught anyone stealing. No one is panhandling," he said. "They've been respecting us real well."

He's selling cabbage, broccoli, brown rice and flour as fast as he can order it to people running the kitchens at the Rainbow camps. He figures his sales are up at least 10 percent. "They don't buy much meat," Herrera said. "They must live on veggies and sugar."

Herrera said he set up outside outlets so Rainbows can charge their cell phones.

At the variety store next door, manager John White said Rainbow campers are buying socks, tobacco, T-shirts and American Spirit cigarettes. White's mom and dad met at the original Rainbow gathering in 1972. "I heard all these stories about the gatherings. I thought they were just pipe dreams of Rainbow happy hippies. Then they end up here in the nearby forest."

The road to a gathering

Forest Road 126 turns off Cuba's main street and climbs steadily into the cool Jemez Mountains. Where F.R. 126 turns into 69, the dirt road to the Rainbow gathering, the Forest Service sign is peppered with bullet holes.

Gordon Phillip Gay, known as Red, sat near a big "Welcome Home" sign at the Forest Roads 69 and 70 intersection, ready to direct traffic. He's watching for alcohol imbibers he can send to "A-camp" off from the main gathering. "Some call it the anarchist camp, but I think you have to be well-read to be a good anarchist," Red said.

The Forest Service has made the narrow dirt road one way for a dozen miles to control traffic flow during the gathering. Law enforcement, fire trucks and emergency vehicles can still drive the road both directions.

Red, 55, hitchhiked from Seattle to the gathering, his 33rd. "I have a legacy of long friendships from the gatherings," he said.

Red has noticed some changes at the gatherings. People used to find out the location of the annual get-togethers by word of mouth. Now all the information is online. "You can GPS the exact location," he said.

Robbery is a growing problem, too. "People are jumping out from behind trees and taking backpacks off others, stealing from them. I don't know what we're going to do about it," Red said.

But he thinks the Rainbow peacekeepers, the Shanti Sena, should handle it, not federal law enforcers. The family has more practical punishments. When peacekeepers busted a group of teenage thieves at the Texas gathering a few years ago, they made them fetch and carry stuff for others as penance.

Welcome home

A row of cars, trucks and school buses converted into rolling kitchens stretch along the dirt road for more than a mile near the Rainbow gathering.

Bajer, aka Charles L. Winslow, a big man with shoulder-length graying hair and full beard, lives in a cabin in the Sierra Nevadas. He looks like he would be at home on a porch in his Virginia home state with a shotgun across his knees and hound dogs sleeping at his feet. Over the years, he's volunteered with the peacekeepers, the scouts and the cleanup crew.

Bajer (pronounced Badger) attended the first Rainbow Family gathering in 1972 in Colorado and every annual gathering since. He's a leather crafter, an artist and a devoted carnivore. "Some people push to make the evening circle meal vegetarian only. I push back," he said.

As Bajer talked, dark-uniformed, solemn U.S. Marshals in SUVs drove past the crowded entrance to the gathering's main trail. "Slow down," yelled several of the Rainbow Family. Shortly after, four Forest Service rangers on horseback left the trail and crossed the road. As they did, they were heckled by some of the Rainbows.

The tension was palatable.

The Rainbows are still angry about last year's Wyoming gathering, when a law enforcement officer allegedly shot a couple of peacekeepers with pepper-spray balls. The peacekeepers said they were trying to keep an agitated crowd calm after law enforcement officers chased a man into Kid Village and arrested him.

Bajer started down the trail to the main field. By July 4, there will be tents scattered among trees for a 5-square-mile radius around the meadow, Bajer said. Some are grouped into camps of different themes or around one of 20 outdoor kitchens. There's Christian Camp, Teepee Village, Phat Kids and Granola Funk.

Bajer stops at the Quiet Camp, where some of his fellow meat-eaters hang out.

As people walk by they call out a cheerful "Welcome Home!"

"Uncle Sam," aka Zeke Goodwin of Oklahoma, is a stone mason who builds many of the stone and mud mortar fireplaces at the gatherings that are torn down during cleanup. He said he's a disabled Vietnam veteran who was forced by a superior to shoot 16 wounded Viet Cong captives.

Uncle Sam is a regular at Rainbow gathers. He couldn't talk about what he'd done in 'Nam until four years ago. "I come here to heal," he said.

Feeding the hungry

Bajer walked down one of several tree-lined trails leading to the meadow and paused at Rumorz Café, where people drop by for coffee, doughnuts and to hear, or start, a rumor.

Two teenagers carried a gigantic log into the camp, staggering under the weight and set it down for a bench. One, Sam Carpenter of Redding, Calif., earned his Rainbow moniker MDC (master doughnut chef) the night before by making doughnuts for five hours.

A little further down the trail is the Milliways Camp, a major kitchen that bakes pizzas every night in Dutch ovens. Huge pots are ready for cooking soup, pasta and other dishes.

Kitchens like Milliways will feed more than 1,000 people a day during the gathering. All the food is donated and everyone eats for free. "None of this food gets wasted," said Eric Betkey, a kitchen volunteer from Northern California who works on oil refineries in Louisiana. "Whatever we don't use by the end of the gather is taken to a food bank."

Some of the Milliways volunteers proudly show off the camp's water filtration set-up. Water is piped from nearby springs through the filters and into jugs for drinking, cooking and for passersby to fill up their own bottles. Another row of buckets stand ready for compost and dishwashing.

A call to circle

The trail ends at the field ringed by tents.

The Kid Village kitchen volunteers were prepping dinner. A group of tow-headed boys lined up with plates in hand groaned dramatically when told it would be another half hour. The smell of herbed sourdough rolls fresh from a wood-fired metal barrel oven hung in the air. The Kid Village kitchen feeds the entire Rainbow Family on July 4th. "Last year we served 12,000 and it took nine hours," said Jelly, the kitchen coordinator, pushing back black dreadlocks. "We're going to be busy.

The Rainbow Family calls July 4 interdependence day. All the Rainbow Family and any visitors who happen by are invited to join hands in one gigantic circle around the meadow to pray for peace after a silent meditation.

Conch shells sound the call to the evening circle at 6 p.m. Kitchen volunteers from various camps bring whatever they've cooked. Bajer told the group someone at the gathering had trashed a Cuba motel room. Bajer promised the Rainbow Family would pay for the damages. "I have the guy's name that trashed the room. He has three days to find me or I post his name and number on the information board," Bajer said.

In the evening sun, a rainbow appeared on the horizon. A cheer went up from the Rainbow Family gathered in the meadow.

Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.

BY THE NUMBERS

Number of people expected at Rainbow Family gathering: 10,000 or more

Number of federal, state and local law enforcement and resource staff overseeing gathering: 50

Cost of federal oversight of 2008 Rainbow gathering: $340,628