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August 18, 2005
Section Local

'Mutant fest' leaves big memories for local residents

Brian Mittge

The mutants have left the forest. The Autonomous Mutant Festival, a 10-day celebration of counterculture "freak" life in the national forest south of Randle, ended Monday.

The pulsing electronic music, clown and trapeze shows, banjo picking, rocking pirate radio station, amateur tattooing and recreational drug use didn't appear to leave much of a mark on the forest where the group camped near the Cispus River, according to Jack Thorne, public services assistant for the Cowlitz Valley Ranger District.

"This actually was relatively benign in a resource management sense," Thorne said. "From what I've seen, they've been pretty sensitive to not doing any more damage than necessary (to the forest).

A few dozen people stayed on after the official Monday end date to clean up, he said, but most had cleared out. Saturday, he said, was the biggest night of the event.

The Forest Service estimated about 500 to 600 people attended the event, but they were dispersed out over a web of forest roads and gravel pits. There was no real central area for the event, except perhaps the 2801 road itself.

It was the largest event ever held in the Cowlitz Valley Ranger District, said Thorne, who has worked there for 17 years.

He said there were some law enforcement contacts, but said Christine Lynch, head law enforcement officer for the Cowlitz Valley Ranger District, would provide details. Lynch did not return repeated telephone calls.

Thorne said whenever a law enforcement officer noticed drug use, legal action was taken, perhaps an arrest or citation.

There are limits, however, to what can be done about such a massive gathering, he said.

"When you have 500 people and maybe six law enforcement officers and it's the middle of the night, you're in a bit of a difficult situation there," Thorne said.

The gathering took the Forest Service by surprise.

The location was announced on the mutantfest.org Web site only around July 31 -- less than a week before the event's scheduled Aug. 5 start date.

The Forest Service didn't find out about the event until Aug. 8, a Monday. It was able to get a permit signed by the middle of the week -- halfway through the event.

There was only one report by the Lewis County Sheriff's Office that it believes was linked to Mutant Fest, although it can't confirm that the person involved was a part of the gathering.

The sheriff's office received a report at 543 a.m. on Aug. 10 of a suspicious person in a parked car in Randle, according to Chief Criminal Deputy Joe Doench.

A deputy made contact with Brandon A. Knight, 22, in Morton, where he was driving with the headlights off.

Doench said Knight, Kelso, told the deputy he had been using LSD. The deputy assumed, but did not ask, that the man was part of the Mutant Fest gathering, Doench said.

Knight wouldn't cooperate with the deputy, Doench said, and resisted handcuffs. The deputy shot him with a Tazer, and eventually pepper-sprayed him before taking him into custody for suspected driving under the influence.

Knight was taken to the Lewis County Jail in Chehalis, and was released to his mother at 1030 a.m. with the recommendation that she take him to a hospital for observation, Doench said.

While she was driving south on Interstate 5 at milepost 76, Knight attempted to jump out of her car, according to Chehalis police. She managed to pull over before he could leave the car.

According to the Washington State Patrol Trooper Stephen Robley, the mother sat on Knight until a Chehalis police detective came by to help her.

Knight was taken by ambulance to Providence Centralia Hospital for observation. There is no notation on what happened to him after that.

August 12, 2005
Section Local

'Mutants' encamp in Gifford Pinchot

Brian Mittge

RANDLE -- It took 13 days for Fearna HarlaQuinn to hitchhike from New York to Washington, but now she has finally found a circus to call home. After spending three nights sleeping under bridges in Seattle while looking for a ride to Randle, she has taken her place amongst the "mutants" spending the next few days camped out on a forest road in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.

HarlaQuinn, 20, has always admired the boisterous life of gypsies and pirates. In June she quit her job in Milwaukee, Wis., and decided to see the country. She shaved her Mohawk to make it easier to hitch rides.

"When I was young I wanted to run away with the circus, but I didn't know how," she said of her wanderlust.

For the next three days, a spot 10 miles outside Randle is playing host to what might be the nation's most uncommon home-grown circus.

The "Autonomous Mutant Festival" has staked out a network of forest roads near the Cispus River for its first-ever visit to Lewis County.

Hundreds of young people with a gypsy spirit are bringing the hills to life with pulsing electronic beats of music and the mellow buzz of various intoxicants.

The gathering is part circus, part punk concert, with a sprinkling of back-to-nature backwoods camping and the occasional banjo or accordion hoedown.

The festival is "an annual free non-commercial gathering for the healthy evolution of life and culture ..." the group's Web site says.

On Thursday, about halfway through the 10-day festival, nude sunbathers basked along the Cispus River, while men carefully practiced tai chi nearby underneath a geodesic dome and a green parachute. In a barren quarry, a woman mixed songs from a laptop computer with scratching turntable rhythms, while anarchist posters hung high on the rock walls like beer ads at a baseball park.

One man walked down the dusty road, giving piercings to lips, noses and less public places. Someone else made a tattoo gun out of a car stereo motor and ballpoint pen.

"A do-it-yourself aesthetic is one of the defining features," said an Olympia woman who gave her name as Onyx.

Some attendees enlisted the aid of alcohol, marijuana, psychedelic mushrooms or LSD to enhance the mutant experience.

One, who went by the name Smeagol, went from campsite to campsite, honored the barter spirit of the event by asking if he could do any work in exchange for magic mushrooms.

A new friend told him to simply do something good for someone else, then dropped a spot of liquid from a tiny plastic vial onto Smeagol's hand and told him to lick it off.

"I've never used acid before," Smeagol said. "What can I expect?"

His companion advised simply to think positive thoughts.

"It's about the feeling, the love," he said.

Meanwhile, other people brought their children along. Many of the youngsters played in a screened-off area next to a bus with a sign saying "powered by vegetable oil."

A 22-year-old from Portland, who didn't give her name, brought her 4-year-old son Jeremy, but only after visiting last Sunday to ensure the place was safe. She liked seeing other children there, and was glad to give him exposure to a wide variety of people.

"Not many kids get to see this kind of thing," she said. "It makes him a lot less likely to want to rebel."

Midway down the road, a pirate radio station, broadcasting at 88.5 FM, took over the airwaves, powered by two car batteries a day. Its antenna, duct-taped to an alder branch, seemed to have a broadcast reach of only around one or two curves in the road.

A health tent offers bandages, hydrogen peroxide, male and female condoms, and health brochures such as "Survival tips for living on the streets" and "Lesbians and HIV are you at risk?"

Many people mentioned their pride that the group always picks up its trash, leaving the forest with barely a trace of their presence.

Attendees seemed to delight in theater.

A group from New Orleans called the "Circus of the Tiny Invisible" urged passers-by to purchase anvil insurance, then bonked them with a giant stuffed fabric anvil hanging from a pole.

They later held a circus event -- with a sign labeled "applause" on one side and "applesauce" on the other. The event culminated in the "flaming ramp of death," when a face-painted clown named Ed rode a tiny bicycle over a board he lit on fire.

A fellow clown called himself Lowrent. He wore a furry one-piece costume, and said his discovery of clowning changed his life.

"It's like picking up a guitar and realizing you should have been playing for years," Lowrent said.

So is he a mutant? He answered the question by looking at his fellow campers, dressed in everything from tutus to faded T-shirts.

"Everyone here is wonderful. It must be some kind of mutation," he said.

The clowns were one of many groups who used portable generators to power lights or walls of speakers blasting out music from reggae to experimental electronica in camps with names such as "Olytopia" and "Flower Shop."

The term "hippie" isn't too welcome among the mutants.

One camper offered a joke during the intermission of a punk concert in an old quarry.

"What did the tree say to the hippie?" he asked, then answered himself, "Trees don't talk, you (expletive) hippie!"

A few East Lewis County residents have ventured up to sample life with the mutants.

One mutant couple caught a ride to Randle in the bed of a pickup truck. Its Glenoma driver and passenger decided to come up to the gathering, and spent Thursday afternoon chatting between gathering sites called "Plague Water" and "Katabatik."

Later that day, three cars of current and former White Pass High School students found the right logging road. They parked next to "Circus of the Tiny Invisible."

"The people -- they're so out there, (but) I'm down with this," said Shad Holt, who plays football for White Pass, and who arrived in a car with a National Rifle Association sticker on the door.

"A lot of the older folks think it's pretty weird. Freaks. I think it's tight," said Eric Baldwin, 21, Randle.

It's the first time the festival, in its eighth year, has come to the Gifford Pinchot. Last year it was in the national forest outside Mount Shasta, Calif. It is often held outside Eugene, Ore.

The Forest Service learned about the event only recently. Cowlitz Valley Ranger Kristie Miller said her first meeting with the group Wednesday was standoffish -- few of the campers wanted to look her in the eye, she said. Thursday morning, she was optimistic a representative of the group would sign a camping permit, with rules designed to keep camps and dug latrines away from rivers and creeks.

At Fischer's Store in Randle, clerks say they've seen literally hundreds of the campers. Most have been polite, said clerk Stacy Chambers, but a few sit outside on other people's cars. The restroom in the supermarket has also needed more vigorous cleaning than normal, including a literal hosing out Thursday morning, she said.

The mutant festival continues through the weekend.

Ed the Clown at the Circus of Tiny Invisibility said he'll have a great show tonight.

"Don's miss the Friday night show," he called out, "where I will catch a hot dog shot into my mouth at 85 mph from a high velocity cannon!"

Chronicle photographer Adam Amato contributed to this story.

Brian Mittge covers politics, the environment and Lewis County government for The Chronicle. He may be reached by e-mail at bmittge@chronline.com, or by telephoning 807-8237.

What is an 'autonomous mutant festival'?

Words from attendees at the eighth annual Autonomous Mutant Festival, held this year south of Randle.

"It's a big collective of people exercising their freedom to make choices. We're trying to be free from established order."

-- Damian of Arcadia, Calif.

"This is a gathering where people are really conscious. There's not trash all around in five minutes. I think that's amazing. We're gonna leave without a trace. People need to learn that in general. There's a mean and a nice. I'm nice. I'm a nice mutant."

-- Josh from "the Redwoods" in California

"All my friends are here from around the country. (It's) reuniting people."

-- Isabella from Santa Cruz, Calif., and Eugene, Ore., lead singer of the band Evil Caravan

"Technofreak. Everybody's kind of an anarchist."

-- Onyx from Olympia

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Chronicle, The (Centralia, WA)

August 17, 2005
Section Opinion

Food for thought

Gordon MacCracken

Just thinking IT'S A GOOD THING people involved in the Pinchot Partnership, who met Friday in Randle to work on plans for timber sales acceptable to environmentalists and the forest products industry alike, didn't wander up the Cispus River and cross-pollinate with the fun-seekers at the Autonomous Mutant Festival.

Coming up with timber harvest proposals on which often widely divergent parties can agree is difficult enough, and it wouldn't have been easier had a jumble of alcohol and illegal hallucinogenic drugs been tossed into the mix.

In other words, it's challenging to make good forest policy when you're talking to the trees, and the trees are talking back.

IN THEIR VISIT to the Mutant gathering, Chronicle reporter Brian Mittge and photographer Adam Amato had no trouble spotting people using LSD, marijuana, psychedelic mushrooms and, in a bow to tradition, humble ol' alcohol. I guess U.S. Forest Service leaders will have to figure out how much of that was tolerable on national forest land.

Proving they'll go to nearly any lengths to commit journalism, our men did observe nude sunbathers on the riverbank, but did not happen upon the set for a pornographic film said to be under production at the festival.

Maybe that shows Mr. Mittge and Mr. Amato are men of virtue and strong moral character.

Or maybe they just couldn't find it.

IT'S IMPOSSIBLE not to wonder what would have happened if a few of the Mutants had turned up at the Morton Loggers Jubilee.

Ever see anybody try to climb a spar pole where no spar pole exists?

IT'S TOO BAD everybody can't meet Helen Willard, the bundle of energy now living at Prosser who was an organizer for last week's 75-year reunion of the Chehalis High School class of 1930.

Most of us can only hope to have as much vigor three-quarters of a century after receiving our diplomas.

Come to think of it, most of us can only hope to be on this side of the grass when that anniversary rolls around.

IF YOU MISSED last week's Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce forum about community needs, and if you're a cable TV subscriber in the Twin Cities, you're in great luck The event is being telecast four times a day through Monday.

Just don't let me hear you say you don't have anything to do during the next few days!

OK, THE SOUTHBOUND INTERSTATE 5 rest stop near Scatter Creek in South Thurston County must be bigger than it looks -- a lot bigger.

That's the natural conclusion after police dogs found a corpse at the busy, regularly used rest area. The body, it appears, may have been on the site for more than a month (a month, incidentally, that has included some toasty weather).

The mind boggles, if not the scent glands.

THINK ABOUT THIS when you consider the Longview 6-year-old who drowned Sunday at South County Park near Toledo

First, the family shouldn't have been in the water there at all. The pond is posted as being closed to swimming.

Second, family members told authorities the child couldn't have been under water for more than two to four minutes.

Now, sit and stare at your wristwatch for four minutes. Four minutes is a long, long time to lose track of a 6-year-old when you know that child is swimming.

The boy's death is a tragedy, all the more so because those who were there with him, whether they will admit it or not, easily could have prevented it.

Gordon MacCracken is assistant editor of The Chronicle. His column appears each Wednesday. He may be reached at 807-8234, or by e-mail at gmaccracken@chronline.com.