Burning Man - Part 1

preface

It's really hard to encapsulate the experience I've just had in an ordered way. I was at Burning Man for about twelve days. I went early and left late. I camped with a group of over a hundred Couchsurfers and helped to both build and tear down the camp. In between, many, many things happened. I will try to describe some of them.

Since returning, I've told a lot of people that I went to Burning Man. Some have known what it is and others have not. It's been challenging to explain it meaningfully to either group.

I had certain preconceptions of what Burning Man would be. I tried my best to shed them and experience it with an open mind, which turned out to be pretty unnecessary. The whole experience is so huge, so overwhelming, and so many different things to so many different people, that there is no preconceived notion of what it is which could possibly hold true, whether it came from reading websites and articles or from the stories of friends who have been there. 

I was wrong about Burning Man if I ever thought I understood it before I'd been. I did my research. I read the whole website as first-timers are instructed to do. I read online forums and asked questions of my friends who'd attended or knew people who'd attended in the past. I gathered as much information as I could about the practicalities of survival. I read about tents and shade structures and more elaborate accommodation including things like "monkey huts" and "hexayurts". I looked through shopping lists of camping supplies and made my own lists of non-perishable vegan foods. I read various accounts of experiences both good and bad from burners young and old. 

Before I had been, when people asked me what Burning Man is, I would often begin by describing it as an arts and music festival. That's the easy out. I couldn't really stop there though and then would usually call it a temporary city, a more apt description but one substantially wanting in detail. I'd mention that once you buy a ticket and go in there is no money and people don't sell things there. The organization does sell ice and coffee, but there are no other places to spend money within the city. Among the core principles defining the event, the two most important I would mention are radical self-expression which is very defining of what people do at this place, and radical self-reliance in the face of a challenging environment. The temporary city constructed is called Black Rock City and it's in the desert of Nevada, a few hours northeast of Reno. Everything in the city is put there by the burners. Roads are built, signs and intersections demarcated, and then the city is filled with people and their creativity in too many shapes and forms to possibly be seen let alone listed here in any meaningful way. So much of it is scarcely to be believed when looking on it with your own eyes. You must figure out how to survive in the heat of day and the cold of night amidst the wind and the dust and the beating sun. You must shelter yourself and provide your own food and water and when all is said and done you must bring all of your garbage including even your dirty water out with you again so that the desert remains entirely unblemished by this massive gathering and nobody would ever know we were there. 

This basic explanation I used to offer and perhaps still do feels woefully inadequate. I will try to fill in the gaps a bit, though I'm not sure how long that will take or how successful I will be.

the idea, what burning man is

I have known for a long time what Burning Man is, or rather I thought I knew. I decided it was time for me to go see it for myself. I knew it would be more than I thought it was, but I didn't know how much more. 

making the decision

I was squeamish about certain aspects of attending. I had read an article recently about the notion of discomfort and how we avoid discomfort sometimes at our own expense. I didn't want and I would never want fear of some minor (or even major) discomfort to keep me from what I knew to be an amazing experience. Although things like the heat, the dust, the camping, the food and water planning and the portable bathrooms were all concerns, I was also enthusiastic about tackling one of the Burning Man core principles of "radical self-reliance" and both confronting and destroying what I considered my irrational desire to avoid depriving myself of what for much of the world are luxuries. I was confident that the art and music and self-expressive aspects of the event would be more than interesting and I did have at least a vague notion that there was probably more to it than I understood, but I accepted that all I could really do was enter with an open mind and suspend judgement entirely, which was one of my goals anyway. 

research

I asked friends who had been to tell me about Burning Man and I read the Burning Man website and online accounts of the event, mostly for the purposes of figuring out what I needed to bring with me. I still wasn't sure how I'd deal with the practicalities of the event. One major dividing line was the decision to stay with a theme camp or not. I knew the Couchsurfers (a community of which I have been a part for years) had a camp, but I didn't want to sacrifice my experiment in radical self-reliance or hand over planning to somebody else on my behalf. A few people I knew had participated in theme camps that prepared food and provided water, obviating the need to do that planning for oneself. I wasn't sure how universal that practice was though research revealed the CS camp did not do that, so I could still organize my own food, water and accommodation but have some social support from people more experienced than I. The alternative was to camp alone or with a friend or two, but I found nobody interested in doing that and for my first time at this event, doing it entirely alone felt potentially isolating and unappealing. In retrospect, going with the CS camp (actually called Couchburners) was the right decision and gave me just the right amount of support I needed plus introduced me to dozens of awesome people many of whom I ended up spending time with and subsequently calling new friends.

going early

Having made the decision to join the Couchsurfing camp, I had been following the group on Facebook and keeping an eye on interesting bits of information and advice that floated past from experienced Burners and newcomers alike. Burning Man has been going on for 27 years I believe so there is quite a bit of advice to be had, though judging what is useful and what is not is not without challenges. Of greatest significance was the post from the organizers of the CS theme camp asking if anyone would like to come early to help build the camp. Those interested would receive early-entry passes thus bypassing the huge influx of attendees arriving just as the gate opens to the public as well as being able to participate very actively in the creation of the camp in the days before everyone else arrives. I did not weigh that decision at all. Almost immediately it sounded to me like a fantastic idea. Going early, extending the experience, participating instead of just being a spectator, all of these things sounded like things that would enhance my experience dramatically and in retrospect I was completely right though I think I did not realize how important it would be. I will talk more about my arrival and participating later, but I volunteered and figured I would show up on Thursday or Friday before the gate actually opened on Sunday, depending on my drive from Portland.

making lists and more research

I did briefly look into the prices of RVs for the sake of completeness of research, but the RV approach felt all wrong for me. Despite my reservations about the toilets being disgusting, I just wanted to not care. I wanted to be exposed to the dirt and dust and heat and not safely ensconced in a little hotel room I brought with me. I don't begrudge others who chose this approach, I certainly understand why they'd want to do so especially having now been there, but I wanted to be connected to the experience entirely and not provide myself an escape hatch that extreme. 

I had a two-person tent and a sleeping bag already. I was made to believe that a secondary shade structure above my tent was necessary to prevent my tent from becoming excessively oven-like, so that went on the list. I needed some sort of extreme staking capability to keep my tent from blowing away in the face of potentially 75mph winds. I needed tarps to keep rain water and dust at bay. I needed bandannas and goggles and a hat to keep myself sheltered from the sun while walking around. I perhaps needed a bicycle. I made lists of vegan food that would survive in the desert. I considered my options for cooking vs not cooking at all and eating only non-perishable items for the week. My lists grew but not so much that they became unwieldy. I felt increasingly confident as I split my lists into things I could acquire on the east coast and things for which I'd shop upon arriving somewhere in the west. 

packing

I'm accustomed to traveling with just a backpack. The backpack with which I normally travel cannot accommodate a tent and sleeping bag, so I had to modify my approach and switch to a large duffel bag and a smaller backpack which worked fine. I packed my usual week or so of clothing without a lot of extra items. Most of the extra camping and survival gear I needed I would acquire on the west coast. There was no reason to buy it and lug it across the country on a plane.

heading to the west coast

I had done more or less as much planning as I could do at this point. I knew that I did not want to fly in and out of Reno as many people do. Portland is a city I have grown to enjoy and wanting to spend more time there and knowing that car rental prices for a month could be had at reasonable prices I made arrangements accordingly planning to pick up my car and spend several days shopping and acquiring supplies before driving south towards the Black Rock Desert. The plan had been made as well as it could be on paper and now it was time to put things into practice and see what kind of craziness I'd gotten myself into.