SPRINGERVILLE - At daylight Saturday, the crescendo started to build.

Many members of the Rainbow Family began to gather at a now grassless site called the Ring of Prayer where they would remain silent and pray for peace.

At high noon they would break their silence and celebrate, officially ending the Rainbow Family of Living Light National Gathering.

A mixed group, these Rainbows. They run from very old to very young. It seemed like every guy with a long gray beard was there except the members of ZZ Top. The hippie era continues to live a life of its own.

By 8 a.m., 50 or 60 were seated, silently meditating in the Ring of Prayer.

By 11 a.m. the number had swelled to about 2,000, according to a Forest Service employee who flew over the area.

As noon approached, about 30 children in the camp at Carnero Lake northwest of here began a parade into the Circle of Prayer. The crowd started chanting an ohm-like noise, holding hands and lifting them into the air.

This was not your usual religious crowd. Some were naked or only partly covered. Others shared marijuana. Some were taking pictures. Most of the Rainbow people never made it to the prayer circle.

After new arrivals Friday night, the Forest Service estimated the total number of people in camp at 22,000.

At noon, the prayers were over and the crowd broke into cheers, hugged one another and began partying. The climax of the event was the circle, but the gathering officially closes on Tuesday after a council selects a state for next year's event.

Tim Freebird of Arkansas, a Shanti Sena (or peace seer) for the Rainbows, said that doesn't mean everyone will evacuate.

"Some hangers-on will just stay around for a while," he said. "A pretty large number will stay to clean up the grounds and replant areas where grasses were damaged."

John MacIvor of Springerville, a district ranger in Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest where the event was held, said damage so far has been considerable.

"You can plant grass, but you never know if it'll take," he said. "The resource damage will last a long time, but we don't know exactly how long. No one has looked at it yet."

From early morning until noon, the camp was quiet. Voices were lowered, and there almost was total silence in the Circle of Prayer area.

At the nearby information center, John Roadrunner was in a unique situation. He was there to provide information, but he wouldn't talk.

He wrote notes. This is the 14th straight year he has remained silent on Circle of Prayer day.

"It's really interesting to be in the nerve center of the Rainbow camp silently," he wrote.

Of all the things in camp, Freebird said he was most pleased with the Kids Village, an area of camp set aside for children.

"Parents take turns taking care of other people's children, so all the parents have some free time," he said. "And you also don't hear parents yelling at children."

Almost continuous cooking operations take place in the Kids Village.

"There're usually things kids can eat with their fingers," Freebird said.

There was some discontent with A Camp, however. That is an area set aside for drinkers.

A man who called himself Zig and said he came from Albuquerque was especially critical.

"We gave them an area to camp and drink, but they agreed to stay in that area and police their own people," Zig said. "They haven't done either one. They cause us more trouble than any other group."

Zig did admit that he's partial to pot, rather than alcohol. "It's not a bad habit like alcohol and some of those drugs," he said.

Even Freebird, a soft-spoken, seemingly diplomatic man, had trouble doing his Shanti Sena duties Friday night, thanks to A Camp.

On Saturday morning, he talked to an irate man who was thrown out of the camp of some exuberant beer drinkers when he objected to the fire they had built. Because of dry weather, campfires have been banned.

Freebird went to the camp that night and ask the men to douse the fire. They berated him, and he left, too.

On Saturday morning, one of the beer drinkers, as he'd threatened to do, jammed the Rainbows' emergency channel with country-Western music.

Eric Nordquist of Portland, Ore., a free-lance photographer who was helping at the event, thinks lack of control is a problem.

"There's no head person," he said, "no one in control. . . . I don't think anarchy is the right word, but I don't know what it is."

There were eight arrests during the day Saturday, seven for motor vehicle violations and one for a marijuana offense.

Barry Burkhart can be reached at (602)444-8454 or at barry.burkhart@pni.com via e-mail.