This year was marked by weather perturbations. Twice during the building weeks, the city and construction were halted by rain and/or hail, creating delays in building the man or the temple. The man was finished Monday at 5pm and the Temple was opened Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.
It’s not unusual to have the Man or the Temple unfinished by the time the city gate opens.
A Monday morning rainstorm has shutdown the city once again but this time during the arrival. The rain transformed the city in a muddy pit and all traffic was suspended until it dried out. Several hundreds of people got stuck at the entrance for 24h. The luckiest of them got stopped in Reno, where they had still a bit of civilization. The unluckiest were stopped on the sandy access road where they could not move and had to wait until the gate reopened.
For us, those already inside, it was an uncanny feeling, the city was quiet: no art car, no music, no bikes. Everybody was hunkering down at their respective camps. Even Center Camp was closed, no one could get to it without serious boots and a risk of sliding on the muddy sand. Black Rock City is built on an ancient lakebed, when it rains the sand becomes a muddy sticky super slippery waterproof paste. That paste keeps sticking to your shoes, tires, feet creating a mud cake. Every few feet, you’d accumulate an inch of mud at the bottom of your shoes, creating mud platform shoes.
All morning it was just chill, even cool. The roads were slowly drying and the city started moving again. By late afternoon, it was business as usual except the Monday rush of new people did not happen, so the city felt empty.
The gate reopened around 6pm on Monday and the people stuck on Gate Road finally trickled in.
