BLACK ROCK CITY, NEV. — Where do I start? How do I explain what it was like at Burning Man this weekend? Maybe you’ve heard bits and pieces. Here’s the TL;DR: Saturday night a brutal dust storm hit the festival, with gusts of wind measured at 52 mph. Shade structures, yurts and artwork were damaged, and fine dust slipped through the closed windows of RVs; several people were injured. 

On Sunday night after Burning Man’s gates opened, the bad luck continued. And as a result of a one-two punch of hostile weather — an intense dust storm followed immediately by around an hour and a half of rain — I found myself stuck without a place to sleep. 

Backing up, let me offer a disclaimer. A veteran Burner might classify my experience as a skill issue. And sure, it was. After all, I had opted to part with my belongings in order to ride into Burning Man on a bus. (Burning Man offers buses into the festival from Reno and San Francisco.) I hadn’t had a backup plan, and I didn’t keep a tent on my person. All of this flies in the face of radical self-reliance, a key principle of the event.

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So if anything, let the following dispatch be an illustration of how some first-time Burning Man attendees were caught unprepared by rough circumstances. 

Reporter Timothy Karoff's gear became caked with mud as rain descended on Burning Man Sunday night.

Within minutes of my arrival on the playa, my sneakers were completely caked in mud. Not a thin cover of mud, but a two-inch thick clump so heavy it made my Nikes feel like moon boots. And then there was my bike, with mud all over its chain, gears, wheels and brakes. 

Rain happens at Burning Man. Sunday’s rains weren’t that extreme or long-lasting, and wouldn’t have been particularly notable aside from the fact that they coincided with........

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