A week after the renowned Burning Man festival began in the Nevada desert, thousands of partygoers who were stranded at the rainy event grounds experienced a nightmare. After a strange late-summer storm with rain converted Black Rock City into a mud puddle, the event venue was closed to automobiles.
But on Monday, when the slushy roads had dried sufficiently for them to travel, the campers eventually started to leave.
The Burning Man festival was first held on Baker Beach in San Francisco as a tiny celebration of the summer solstice in 1986 by Larry Harvey and Jerry James. The festival's name comes from its culminating activity, the final-night burning of a huge wooden building known as "The Man." Along with a fireworks display, a wooden building named "The Temple" is also set ablaze.
Until 1990, when the government stepped in, the celebration was held each year at Baker Beach, according to The New York Times. After that, it moved to Nevada's Black Rock Desert, where 350 revelers participated, an increase from the 35 who came to the first Burning Man in 1986.
The location in the Black Rock Desert is on top of Lake Lahontan, which was once there 15,000 years ago.
Over 60,000 people attend the festival each year, producing art and community thereby converting it into a transitory city. The festival's dates for this year were set for August 27 through September 4. A standard ticket is $575.
More than 70,000 "burners" were reportedly present in Black Rock City this year, according to local media.
Burners typically arrive in groups and establish themed "camps". The event operates under the "gift economy" theory, where participants offer goods or services without expecting anything in return.
The festival is notoriously linked to nudity, promiscuity, and drug usage, which is unfortunate. According to The Reno Gazette Journal, the majority of the 16 arrests made at the event last year were for narcotics possession.
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