Black Rock Desert is under water; what does that mean for Burning Man?

Jenny Kane

Reno (Nev.) Gazette-Journal

The Black Rock Desert in northwest Nevada has been inundated with water for the past two months. It is starting to dry out, but it was still quite water-logged as of March 19, 2017.

BLACK ROCK CITY, Nev. — The site of Nevada's famed Burning Man festival is now a giant mud puddle that in some spots is a foot-deep lake.

So some Burners, who hope to buy tickets this month to the 68,000-person campout that begins Aug. 27, are concerned that the wet conditions could endanger its federal Bureau of Land Management permit. The wild, annual celebration of self-expression and art lasts for a week through Labor Day.

Beforehand, participants build a temporary city in the desert about 90 miles northeast of Reno. Afterward, they tear it down and haul it away, leaving no trace of its previous existence.

Renee Aldrich of Reno, Nev., and several of her friends had heard about the shallow lake that the Black Rock Desert has become for the past month or so. So they grabbed their kayaks and headed north.

"We had to wade a little bit, but not terribly far. I'd say it was up to our knees," said Aldrich, who traveled two hours north from Reno.

Someone posted a hand-painted "Nude Beach" sign at the shoreline before they arrived.

It's not uncommon for the playa to be a soggy sandpit in the late winter, spring and early summer, said Mark Hall, the BLM's acting Black Rock Field Office manager.

But because of the drought-busting wet weather on the West Coast, northern Nevada's unofficial race track might take a bit longer to dry out. In October 1997, then fighter pilot Andy Green in his Thrust supersonic car broke the speed of sound and nabbed the world land-speed record at more than 763 mph.

What the Black Rock won't be: a new permanent lake.

"That’s why we’re a desert. This is a part of the world where, given the winds, lack of humidity and the like, it is dry," Hall said.

The effects of the drenched desert floor will be an unnaturally high spawning of fairy shrimp, a tiny sea monkey-size critter that hatches when the playa is wet and is dormant when it dries out.

"These critters live at best for only a couple of months. They hatch, they grow, they breed and then they die. When the playa gets flooded again, the cycle repeats itself," Hall said.

The freshwater fairy shrimp are related to lobsters, shrimp and crabs. Migratory birds and some desert animals use the occasion to have a seafood feast of sorts.

Many of the back roads surrounding the Black Rock Desert, about an hour north of Pyramid Lake, still are impassable because the ground is made of soft alkali dust and vehicles can get stuck easily.

The playa actually is the lake bed of the Pleistocene Era's Lake Lahontan, born about 15,000 years ago. Still-wet Pyramid Lake is its biggest remaining piece.

Still, locals have been traveling up Nevada 34 to the playa's numerous entry points.

Trekking out in bare feet, water socks and Teva sandals, Aldrich and her friends were able to make it up to the water's edge with their kayaks.

"It was like nature handed us a gift," Aldrich said. "It's a rare occurrence, and it felt really magical to see it like that."

Even when the water dries, the playa still will be filled with moisture for a while just below its cracked surface.

The water already is beginning to recede, leaving bear paw-sized plates of sticky, drying silt drying in the sun. Once the snow begins to melt further, the Quinn River, which starts in the northern part of the state near the Oregon border, is expected to drain more water into the playa.

Until then, enjoy the nude beach — carefully.

Follow Jenny Kane on Twitter: @Jenny_Kane

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