Rainbow Family Members Setting Black Hills Camp

HILL CITY, SD - Law enforcement officers continue to monitor growing numbers of aging hippies and other free spirits camped in the Black Hills National Forest. They call themselves the Rainbow Family of Living Light. And by early July, they could be eight or ten thousand strong in the isolated woods near Deerfield Reservoir. But early camper Adobe Kochina says Black Hills residents shouldn't worry about the group. "Just t a bunch of hippies in the woods," he says. It's a bunch with a 43-year history of mammoth gatherings in national forests across the country. The stated goal is to pray for peace and harmony, and enjoy time in beautiful forest environments with others of like attitudes. Drugs and crime sometimes follow along, however, and law-enforcement officers have already made drug and driving-related arrests involving people who came for the gathering. "I expect the majority of these people are here to enjoy the Black Hills, to enjoy the beauty of it, but it also always brings in a few people that are going to create the problem," says Capt. Jay Evenson of the Pennington County Sheriff's Office. "And what we've been running into are some of the harder drugs, whether it's methampetamine or speed, as well as marijuana. So we wante for those things." Evenson and other Pennington County Sheriff's officers are at the camp every day. So are resource managers and law-enforcement officers for the U.S. Forest Service. Their intent is to keep things peaceful and clean as possible and prevent damage to natural resources...more