Home

My two most intense trips at this Gathering were serving on the Bank Council, running the Magic Hat every evening at dinner circle, and attempting to sit all the way thru Vision Council, an endeavor I was going to have to decide to fail at on the fifth day. These will be the subjects of separate discourses. This post will be mainly about the general environment of the Gathering, mainly for those who didn't get to come.

The walk in from the first Bus Village was a fooler. After climbing only one 50 foot hill at a 30% grade, a jeep road followed a creek for only about a quarter mile to the Main Supply tent, at an intersection with another road. I was thinking this one would be easy walking.

Walking in from there, looking south, you saw two wooded ridges on each side part in the distance to a wide meadowed valley. The trees all seemed to be the same species, some kind of pine, tall and narrow with straight trunks. There were lying on the ground some of the most perfect building posts you could find in the wild. There were no aspens and few other deciduous trees. The meadows were covered with patches of short grass in many shades of green, and short bushes with gnarled trunks and branches, and grayish leaves that looked and smelled like sage but weren't. (We were advised by some of the naturalists in the crowd that they were mildly poisonous.)

You could see the tents and structures on the other end of the valley as soon as you entered, and I was always getting the feeling that things were a lot nearer that they were. It was two miles from the entrance to Kiddy Village and the population center at the other end, and was not able to just casually go back and forth to my truck. Main Trail followed a jeep road all the way in, the road followed a meandering creek with several channels requiring the construction of several bridges, and there were no steep grades anywhere along it. It was easily handicapped accessible. Another bro and I switching off had no problem getting Robbie Gordon in his wheelchair all the way from Teepee Village to Main Supply. But there were still some long distances to be covered, and tired feet were a continuing accompaniment to my activities.

East from Main Circle the meadow went up the side of the valley for several hundred feet, at more than 30 degrees incline, to trees barely visible at the crest. Turn around 180 and you saw the snow capped peaks of the Bitterroot range, the Continental Divide and the border with Idaho, in a perfect picture postcard view, framed by the nearer hills of the valley. In the foreground was a low circular wetland of yellow green (mercifully unmolested by any of the gatherers). Main Circle itself had no firepit nor Peace Pole. The boogie pit was dug at the edge of the meadow on a ridge just before it descended to the wetland a few hundred feet away, and the Pole was placed on another low ridge which ran halfway around the southern side. Some sticks were placed upright in the middle of the meadow, denoting the compass directions in the pagan manner, and a circle of stones surrounded them.

I placed my daytime tent in the back of Information, which was just south of the aforementioned ridge south of Main Meadow at a proper 100 feet from the stream - so that all the stuff I needed for the dinner circle banking movie would be near to the workplace. I spent more than half my time in the middle of the valley; going to the most populated parts was an excursion.

The altitude was about 7000 feet, the latitude was 45, the sun set fully to the northwest at almost 10 PM, and the last bit of blue was not gone until 11.There were times when it was COLD. I would get up just before sunrise to go to the shitter, and the thermometer I had typically gave a reading of 32 degrees at that time, right on freezing. The lowest reading was 28, occurring twice. My truck's body would have frost on it. In late afternoon in the meadow in the valley it would be warm enough for comfortable nudity. However you would want your clothes back as soon as you walked into the woods. The slightest wind quickly made wind chill. I would be starting the morning in sweatshirt, dress and another skirt underneath, and stocking cap, and be wanting to take them all off by about 10 in the morning. It got cold again within about 20 minutes after sunset, and I soon would be in my ankle length quilted overcoat. I would have to leave my truck (where I commuted to every night) in the morning with a backpack for all the clothes I was going to need later that day. The rain when it came was usually a brief shower, sometimes thunderous, seldom lasting more than an hour or so. The only time it was cloudy and rainy for a whole afternoon and night was on the 3rd.

The agr meeting happened in that weather, we were sitting on logs and chairs back of Bliss Kitchen with showers falling on us intermittently. We went around the circle introducing ourselves, then Papabear asked a few good questions for us to go around again answering (Why are you on agr? What was your first gathering like and has the gathering changed for you? were some of them). We talked about stopping the flaming. I asked everyone to take off their hats for a minute so others could get a better look. Some really lively discussion happened, and it was enough to keep a lot of people staying and attentive even tho the rain kept returning.

The springs were flunked for buggies by both the FS and the county, so all water had to be boiled or filtered. Sometimes drinking water was easily available, sometimes it wasn't. I resolved to bring my own little filter kit the next time, and started stashing some water in my tent at this one.

The traders started spreading their blankets on Main Trail just a little further to the south from Info, as is their preference, since they like to be where many potential customers pass. After a few days they were talked by various passers by into making a street going off to the east. The street kept getting longer until it met a channel of the creek, then it bent to the north to avoid it, then bent back to make a semicircular path back to Main Trail. Just before the Fourth there must have been over a hundred blankets, and the biggest crowd to be seen regularly at the gathering. It was the scene of several good drum jams. I scored a tie dyed dress and a knit hat early on, then went thru a lot of almosts. The place emptied promptly on the eighth, there was no problem with hangers on during clean up.

There was a fire on the afternoon of the ninth, up on the ridge over the valley near the second Bus Village. I was way down in the valley at the Vision Council at the time, and immediately decided that trying to get up there in time was futile unless it really got big. We were also advised to stay behind in the camps and watch for looting and other kinds of taking advantage of the diversion of attention during the emergency. I stood near enough to overhear the chatter on Sarah's radio, and heard how the fire had been put out in about 20 minutes. It took me a while to find the smoke up on the ridge, and it disappeared fast. A few people hiked up the mountain with buckets of water from the creek, but their efforts were used mostly in the mopping up efforts after the fire was out. The best rumor I heard was that the cause of the fire was someone playing with an aerosol can (would appreciate any more reliable explanations).

The best kitchen was Handi-Camp, in Lower Bus village, which regularly had scrambled eggs and bacon in the morning. The best music I heard was one evening in front of Prithi's Krishna camp when a set of reggae people joined the devotees in Rasta Rama chanting. The rainbow happened the evening of the 30th, myself seeing it in back of Info, down in the valley meadow.

-Butterfly Bill