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Whiteout in Black Rock City

Posted Sunday, September 02, 2007, 4:37 PM by Lonely Planet

We're waiting to take an art tour of the Burning Man collective when the whiteout hits. The tour goes ahead anyway; the idea of not being able to see any of the art appeals to the sense of illogic that governs Black Rock City. As we strike out onto the playa, our dragon-bus' horns bob in the 50-mile-an-hour winds that fill the air with dust.

Tank Girls, touregs and Mad Max villains emerge from the haze, protected with bandannas, goggles and gas marks. We look down from the top deck of the flapping float at our samurai escorts who jog alongside the dragon.

The first stop is a sculpture made of two trucks. I walk away from the bus and, within 50 metres, I am alone in the playa dust. It's just me, a sea of colourful flags and a metal pole bristling with bike reflectors. The only sound I can hear, other than the whistling wind, is a soundsystem playing Johnny Cash's slow-motion cover of Nine Inch Nails' song about an 'empire of dirt'.

The festival seems far away... until a cyclist clad only in a Viking helmet wavers past. Nudism is one of the many forms of uninhibited self-expression at this tribal gathering for America's subculture.

Back on the dragon, the next strange shape that appears in the blizzard is the Man himself. He lacks a head as he's being rebuilt following an arson attack. Our last stop is the Seattle glassblowers collective, who will be producing art all night using a kiln adorned with glassy off-cuts.

Nearby, a gang of burners wearing pink jump suits and fuzzy rabbit ears parades by. Following in their paw prints is the syringe-toting 'inoculation squad', intent on eradicating those pesky bunnies. It'll take more than a windstorm to stop the surreality on the playa.

James Bainbridge is at Burning Man researching for a Lonely Planet book on worldwide festivals; check out the next in his series of blogs from the festival here soon. You can see more of Jonathan Clark's photographs at www.art-clark.com.