Sock, bag, sock: that’s the unlikely mantra that bought me by way of Burning Man 2023, when heavy rains stranded tens of hundreds of us within the Nevada desert. This was my sixth time going to this not-quite music pageant, not-quite out of doors artwork exposition, not-quite social experiment (it’s all of that and extra). I assist lead a “theme camp,” which implies I arrange a gaggle of campers and we construct a shared area that every one Burners can get pleasure from.
I left for the desert on Saturday, Aug. 19, scrambling to get out of L.A. earlier than Hurricane Hilary arrived. I met up with my different leads that night time in Reno, about three hours southwest of Black Rock Metropolis, the place Burning Man is held. Once we arrived on playa on Aug. 23, the nights had been crisp and the times had been a great 15 levels cooler than they had been final yr. The winds had been gentle, the mud virtually nonexistent. The primary few days of the pageant had been an absolute dream.
I’m grateful for all of the connections I fashioned then, as a result of they had been about to be examined by a Burn expertise in contrast to any we’ve had earlier than.
The night of Thursday, Aug. 31, we’d heard rumors that some rain was anticipated. Rumors are about the one factor you need to go on as soon as Burning Man is in full swing, as a result of cellphone service is difficult to search out and unattainable to keep up. To organize for the climate on Friday we secured our shade constructions and bolstered our tents and tarps. Then, we headed out to social gathering.
Hours later I used to be wandering the open playa with a good friend when a wall of mud rolled over the Santa Rosa mountain vary heading proper for us. We huddled beneath a “tree” made up of LED gentle packing containers that created a shimmering rainbow and pulled on our masks and goggles — commonplace gear for Burners due to the conventional desert mud.
After an hour or so, when it turned clear sufficient to see The Man — the big artwork construction that serves as the middle of Burning Man till he’s consumed in flame within the ultimate days of the pageant — we began strolling again to camp. I used to be exhausted from days of constructing and partying and went to my tent and collapsed.
Once I awoke hours later, I heard rain on the roof of my tent. The edges had been being jostled as my co-lead secured one other tarp on prime. “Don’t come out,” she shouted. “Folks’s bikes are getting caught. It’s hilarious. Simply maintain sleeping.” I did.
Once I awoke once more, the rain was coming down tougher. I stepped out of my tent onto floor that had turned to mud that caked round my boots. Our camp had gotten a number of vinyl “Cocktails!” banners totally free from individuals who cleaned up after Coachella. Now, we used them to type a walkable path to our shared kitchen.
Exterior our camp, deserted bikes had been caught in packed mud. The pageant’s ever-present neon lights mirrored off scattered swimming pools of dusty water, making a surreal undersea feeling. We used a megaphone to supply meals to Burners trudging by way of the rain to their camps.
The following day, Saturday, showers got here on and off. Each sunken footprint created new partitions of mud that pocked the pageant’s desert “streets.” As one of many few folks finally answerable for getting all our campers — and all our stuff — out in just some days, I began feeling a crushing anxiousness. So, in true Burning Man fashion, I had wine as a substitute of espresso and joined my campers to heckle passers-by from our shared fireplace.
We additionally shared our ad-hoc survival discovery: sock, bag, sock. Sock on the foot to maintain it heat, plastic bag over sock to maintain it dry, and a sock pulled over the plastic bag to present you traction on the mud. Sneakers bogged you down — socks allow you to skip over the mud. All credit score to my campers, who developed the tactic collectively whereas I slept. Spreading the phrase far and vast was typical of the ingenuity and group discovered yearly at Burning Man.
When the rain lastly stopped that night, it was clear that The Man wouldn’t burn as deliberate. So, as night time fell, we discovered some still-dry plywood and crafted our personal effigy to sacrifice.
On Sunday, I woke as much as shouts and cheers. The roads had been dry sufficient for sanitation crews to entry and empty the moveable bathrooms throughout the road from our camp. We had been saved from utilizing the trash-bag-lined bucket I’d positioned in our camp’s bathe. However the radios tuned to the Burning Man station warned us to not attempt driving out. Scared campers had tried and their vehicles had been getting caught. However like many Burners we’d introduced loads of further meals, drinks and garments, so we weren’t in a rush.
Lastly, Monday morning, the solar got here out and stayed. We needed to spend an additional day on the Burn, and I’d needed to acquire myself by way of a number of darkish nights of the soul. However on Tuesday morning we shut the door of the U-Haul and drove off the playa, again to civilization and a thousand Burning Man jokes. I don’t thoughts. This yr jogged my memory why I am going within the first place — to not loosen up, however to be examined. And located.
Sarah Enni is an creator and is a narrative editor and producer for the “Scamfluencers” podcast.
