Storms, Steel, and Survival
Tinkering with Time, Tech, and Culture #9 — After the Burn #2
Burning Man always throws curveballs. This year, the desert came at us hard — with wind that ripped shade to pieces, rain that turned streets into rivers, and mud that clung five inches thick to our boots.
But instead of breaking us, the storms welded Weird Steel together.
When the Sky Turned
The wind came first. One moment camp was calm, the next it was howling, ripping through tarps and yanking shade poles sideways. Our big structure started to buckle under the strain. My son didn’t hesitate.
He ran straight into the storm, grabbing down flapping straps, planting his feet, holding tight while the rest of us scrambled to unhook the bungees and release the canopy. It was his first real test of the Burn — and he showed exactly what’s good about this community. You don’t just watch. You step in, shoulder the weight, and hold on until everyone else can catch up.
The rain followed, and the city transformed. At first it was just puddles. Then the clay turned slick, and boots grew heavy, five inches of mud caked on every step. Streets turned to glue. Our bar tent flooded, couches soaked, people huddled together as water pooled at their feet.
One woman taking shelter unraveled in the chaos — shouting, lashing out, crying. It felt like Tourette’s, but maybe it was just the storm breaking her spirit. A few of us guided her carefully down the street to the med tent. By the time we returned, others had already peeled off their shoes and walked barefoot across the Playa, leaving their bikes behind to collect in the morning.
The Couch Lift and the Morning After
The couch ride came the morning after the big storm, when the city was still soggy and battered. We raised the forks fifty feet into the air, just a couch strapped on top, no seatbelts yet. As we creaked upward, I remembered the story of “Dave” — the guy who once dumped the forks down while people were strapped in. We laughed nervously, holding tighter on the way up and down.
From above, the damage was clear. You could see the line drawn through Black Rock City: puddles spread across the 9:00 side, while the 3:00 side stayed dry. RVs on our side gleamed unnaturally white, as if they’d been power-washed by the storm itself.
When we came back down, my son and I took a ride out onto the Playa. For the first part of the week I’d made him ride the tenner bikes — those $10 specials that give you the true original vibe of Burning Man. But that morning, for the first time, I let him ride an e-bike.
We rode past piles of abandoned bicycles and pushed deeper into the Playa, exploring the far edges of the city where the dust stretches quiet and wide. That’s when I found the unexpected gift.
On the top floor of the Moonlight Library art piece, way out in deep playa, I spotted a small bag with a piece of paper sticking out that simply read “take me.” So I did.
Inside was a “Lucky You” bag: a rabbit’s foot patch, custom wood-carved burner dice, a notebook, and a pen. On the back of the bookmark that stuck out was scribed: “9 of 20 hidden on the playa.” No name. No hint of who placed it. Just a mystery.
I had stumbled into an Easter egg of the Burn. A hidden artifact, left by some unknown gifter, meant to spark joy for a stranger. For me, it was proof again that even after storms and mud and chaos, Burning Man still finds ways to surprise you — if you’re willing to ride out into the dust and look.
Guma Lights the Night
The weather slowed us. We didn’t get camp fully wired or Guma’s LEDs online until Wednesday. But when the dinosaur finally came alive in light, it felt like we had reached paradise. Suddenly Weird Steel was firing on all cylinders — bar open, fire breathing, music playing, lights glowing.
That same day, we finally assembled the Flower Bar — the top section of the famous Flower Tower that lit up the Playa back in 2017, shooting fire into the sky. We mounted the Flower Bar onto our camp bar and hustled through the BORG’s flame-effects inspection. The process took longer than it should have, the rules seeming more restrictive every year, but by Wednesday night we had our permit in hand. The Flower Bar bloomed again, spitting fire over Weird Steel, completing the resurrection of camp.
By Friday, Guma hosted a wedding. Two of our campmates stood beneath her steel ribs, exchanging vows while the LEDs shimmered around them. The whole camp gathered, cheering, some crying, all of us family for that moment.
It was proof that the storm didn’t just test us — it bound us together, welded by steel, fire, and persistence.
Neighbors and MOOP
Exodus showed the contrast. Our neighbors, Pink Heart, were impeccable — tidy, MOOP-free, a camp you’d be lucky to land next to. Across the street, the windward side, trash blew everywhere, spilling into our lines. Out past G Street, whole free camps collapsed into garbage heaps, piles of abandoned gear waiting for someone else to clean.
And the bikes — thousands of them, scattered across intersections and corners. Some still blinked, their LED headlights and taillights pulsing days after the storm, batteries stubbornly beating like the last heartbeat of a city already dissolving.
The Bike-Upgrade Game
So we made a game of it. Monday night after the Temple burn, we invented the Bike Upgrade Challenge. You had one hour to scavenge a bike, fix it enough to ride, then swap it for something better if you could find it.
It started with a pile of wrecks at 9:00 & A. We pumped air into flat tires, sprayed lube on frozen cranks, and coaxed four bikes back to life. From there, the race was on. I upgraded three times, trading for better frames and smoother rides, but didn’t win. Nobody kept their prizes. It wasn’t about the bikes. It was about play, about squeezing one last laugh out of the wreckage of the city.
The storms had tested us. The mud had slowed us. But in the end, we endured. And as the Temple fell and the city emptied, the ones who stayed behind — the builders — kept the fire alive. That’s another story.
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Next up: Ashes and Echoes — Music & Magic. From grilled cheese and advice to gifting USB necklaces, the Burn revealed its magic in unexpected ways.
🎵 Listen to Ashes and Echoes — the album that carries these stories in music.