Inside Burning Man’s latest weather fail

BLACK ROCK CITY, Nev. — Rain and heavy wind over the past 24 hours have repeatedly shut Burning Man’s entrance and airport and largely paralyzed the event Friday morning, as organizers told attendees not to drive until the playa dries out. 

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If you zoom down to the mud level, Black Rock City is not as dreary as you might imagine, though. A muddy walk up and down the event’s 4:30 Street on Friday morning turned up numerous Burners not only making the best of the inclement weather but seeming to deeply enjoy it.

At Stoop camp, several mud-splattered Burners were drinking Fireball and eating pancakes.

“The mainstream media portrays it in such a wrong light,” said one Burner who identified himself only by his playa name, Bone, as he complained about previous news coverage of rain events in Black Rock City. “In 2023, they were like, ‘there are diseases, they’re eating people.’” 

“Flesh-eating bacteria!” chimed in another Burner whose playa name is Shadow.

“Meanwhile, I’m like, dancing with beautiful European women,” Bone continued, “and having the best time of my life.”

“The playa gives you what you need, not what you want,” he added. “Put that in your article.”

Burning Man’s location on a dry lake bed in the Black Rock Desert makes it nearly impossible to navigate when rain falls, as the wide-open expanse turns from dust to sticky mud. A weather station close to the event captured 0.22 inch of rain over the past 24 hours as of 10 a.m., according to Clair Ketchum, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Elko. Ketchum said the risk of rain will continue throughout the day.

“There’s going to be a chance of showers today, right around 40% chance, and it’s going to be a bit breezy out there,” Ketchum said Friday morning. “There could be some patchy blowing dust in the afternoon, and then we’re going to get a little bit of sun.”

The only entrance into the event closed at around 7 p.m. Thursday because of “whiteout conditions and strong winds,” according to X account Burning Man Traffic, and then reopened around 10 p.m., before shutting again early Friday morning. The gate remained shut at 1 p.m., as did Burning Man’s airport. 

“The gate into and out of BRC is temporarily closed due to wet conditions from rainfall. We anticipate it will take several hours for the road to dry up and reopen for traffic,” the traffic account reported around 5 a.m. Friday. 

Rampart, Burning Man’s mobile hospital, was quiet Friday morning. One of the biggest concerns when it rains during Burning Man is that people who need medical attention will be unable to get to Black Rock City’s medical facilities or get off the playa. 

At the Earth Guardians camp, an outreach and communications group that educates Burners on “leave no trace” principles, several volunteers were circled up and discussing the best footwear for playa mud. They sported an array of options, from Crocs to boots to plastic bags over boots to socks on top of rain boots, which everyone agreed was the most effective. One volunteer claimed the camp was responsible for the sock innovation, which has since become standard anytime Burning Man turns into a Mud Burn. 

“You can give Earth Guardians credit for coming up with this,” one volunteer said. 

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For some Burners, the best footwear is no shoes at all. Hunter Scott-Bartz was standing barefoot in the mud at Sakenoma camp on the Esplanade on Friday. He was barefoot even before the rain started, he explained, and likes when water mixes into the alkaline dust, because he finds it exfoliating. Also, the mud can be art.

“I have been scraping it off of my feet and other people’s feet, and making things out of it,” he said. “I made a bird.”

He also made a lemur, a small man with large genitalia and a stand-alone penis. And this wasn’t the first time he had sculpted playa mud animals. Scott-Bartz has made them during three of the past four burns, and he does it in honor of his late younger brother, who was a sculptor. 

“He was nonverbal, and the main way that me and him connected was through art,” Scott-Bartz said. “… Me and him would bond by me giving him modeling clay and sculpting together. I’d teach him things, and he’d make monsters and gargoyles.”

When his brother died two years ago, Scott-Bartz had a lot of clay sitting around his house, but he didn’t have the courage to touch it. “It was difficult. It is difficult, but then I came here, and it rained again and again. Every time it rained, I would f—king bust out a sculpture, just like he would,” he said.

One thing Scott-Bartz always found remarkable was that his brother spent hours making intricate creations, but then he would start laughing and just crush them. 

“I loved it so much,” Scott-Bartz said, because his brother’s method was more about “the act of having the clay and something to make than it was making a finished product.” And just like sculpting playa mud animals, he said, it was about sharing beautiful moments with others.

The mud could dry out by Saturday when a full day of sun is forecast, according to Ketchum, the meteorologist. He encouraged everyone to properly protect themself from the sun and Burning Man’s notorious dust.

“Be careful with the wind. It can be breezy out there,” Ketchum said. “And the dust, that can be an irritant. Make sure you wear plenty of sunscreen. You don’t want people getting burned. Otherwise, the weather looks pretty good.”

The risk of rain returns Sunday morning, just as the majority of Burning Man attendees plan to leave. That could complicate the mass exodus of tens of thousands of people. But on Friday morning, exodus seemed far from top of mind on the playa. 

A little after 10 a.m., rays of sunshine began piercing through the clouds, and all around Black Rock City, Burners began to howl.