Libertarian Glampers Finally Escape Burning Man Festival With Their Lives

It was touch and go for a while there.

The 2023 Burning Man festival was a complete disaster, literally so this time. Torrential rain pummeled the event, held in a remote Nevada desert, and thousands of attendees were stranded, as the roads leading into the festival were impassable muck. The grounds themselves were thick sludge, with ankle-deep mud. People reportedly wrapped trash bags around their shoes or gave up entirely and walked barefoot in the poo water.

It’s not a great party, no matter how high you are.

Hannah Burhorn, a first- and probably last-time festival attendee, told CNN in a phone interview that the mud and grime were everywhere.

“It’s unavoidable at this point,” she said. “It’s in the bed of the truck, inside the truck. People who have tried to bike through it and have gotten stuck because it’s about ankle deep.”

The mud was not the only thing ankle deep, as the site’s port-a-potties couldn’t get serviced.

Only emergency vehicles were allowed in or out of Black Rock City, which is otherwise shut off from the rest of the world, like Gotham City during the “No Man’s Land” plot line.

“Do not travel to Black Rock City!” organizers posted on Xitter. “Access to the city is closed for the remainder of the event, and you will be turned around.”

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Attendees were told to shelter in place at the festival, and it was unclear this weekend when they could leave their new purgatory. Attendees risked missing flights home, but that was the least of their problems. They were told to conserve food and water, and one participant has already died. However, nature’s hostility has not broken some attendees’ free spirit.

Here’s a real quote from the New York Times:

“Burning Man is an all-weather state of mind,” Star Heartsong, 43, a tech entrepreneur who came from Austin, Texas, had said earlier. He added that “when it’s time to leave, we’ll leave.”

Other attendees were less chill and fled the scene early. This included comedian Chris Rock and DJ Diplo who walked for five miles before hitching a ride on a fan’s truck. Celebrities such as Paris Hilton, who’s 42, and Rock, 58, seem like unlikely Burning Man attendees. This isn’t Vegas.

Law professor and self-described “radical centrist” Neal Katyal also made it out after a six mile hike. (Jeff Clark, who’s facing felony charges in Georgia, was disturbed that Katyal attended a “neopagan ritual.”)

Oh, and apparently Grover Norquist was there, which should cause all the attendees to reconsider their choices.

Norquist posted this freestyle poem on Xitter:

Burning Man yesterday after rain …. double rainbow.

The Playa was dry and walkable tonight.

All the artwork,the Man and the Temple were on display

A memorable year. More rain. Less dust.

Discussions of whether eating vegans counted as keeping vegetarian were strictly hypothetical

President Joe Biden was briefed on the developing situation, which led to discussion on social media regarding how the White House staff would even explain Burning Man to Biden, who we’ve just learned is very old. OK, Burning Man is a week-long outdoor countercultural festival. New York Times reporter Rick Marin once called it “a hallucinogenic state fair.” Presumably, you could just tell the president, “It’s like Woodstock but without any good music.” (Biden was 26 during the original Woodstock. People can sometimes mistakenly assume old people were always old.)

Biden can probably respond to a natural disaster that has people struggling to survive without proper sanitation and dwindling food and water. He can manage the logistics even if he’s not as young and hip as Grover Norquist.

Monday afternoon, organizers officially lifted the driving ban and attendees could finally leave. (Oh, if you are mocking people who couldn’t walk six miles in the mud and heat, you suck.) Tuesday morning, organizers posted:

There is an estimated 2-3 hour wait to leave Black Rock City. Everyone should get plenty of rest before starting to travel on the highway. Expect delay and be alert for debris from other vehicles on the highway at higher speeds. Travel Safe.

The wait was more like six to eight hours for some folks. Pershing County Sheriff Jerry Allen told the San Francisco Chronicle that a good number of “burners” abandoned their cars through the playa and others left behind trash and debris along the roads.

Well, at least it’s almost over, until next year, when people will inexplicably return for more.

[New York Times / CNN]

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