The airport camp is an amazing place. Volunteers come together every year to build, maintain and operate what is, for one week, the busiest airport in Nevada. Or is it the second busiest? I’m not sure but it is amazing anyway. I usually get up pretty early and head from my airplane to the camp. I sleep outside the fence with my airplane.

The camp is actually inside the fence. It is usually pretty chilly so if someone has not done so already I start a fire in our burn barrel. Soon it will be surrounded by locals and people from the city looking for a plane ride or waiting for a charter flight. See, not your typical airport waiting area. Believe me, nothing is like your typical airport. We have a great galley and great food and I am sorry to say that I did not get any pictures of that operation. We all pay into the meal plan and volunteer to make sure it happens. The food was excellent and plentiful.

Here are some of our volunteers, Ross and Anna and someone whose name I can’t remember, with seats on their trailer to watch something. Not sure what it is. Maybe they are just enjoying the evening.

On Saturday night we set up our bar in the Star Port lounge and served any and all who came by or were just hanging out at the airport. In case you don’t recognize him, the gentleman on the left, Blaze, is our airport mayor. The three lovely bartenders are from London and this is their first burn.

Although my picture supply is fairly sparse for some reason I seem to have several of the bar crew. They did a great job, both at the bar and from what I heard as Customs Inspectors at the airport arrival area. Sorry to say that they were not on duty when I arrived. Maybe next year.

So, here I am, hanging out with Sidney at the Saturday cocktail party. I was leaving the next day and I had not been to the hot springs in a couple of days so I was pretty grungy. But, you just deal with it. It’s not like your the only person with a little dirt under their finger nails. Sydney, like many others just kind of stumbled into the airport camp not really knowing anything about it but was amazed with what we have out on the edge next to the trash fence. If you come to Burning Man try to make it out. If you want a ride try to get out early in the day some morning early in the week.

Out away from the city the views are unobstructed and amazing and I’ll leave you with this sunset picture.

Photo by Sareh

Burning Man operates with a “Gift Economy”. Other than ice and a few beverages for sale at Center Camp nothing is allowed to be sold at the event. All of the bars, restaurants, discos, music, steam baths and everything else is gifted from burner to burner. Including the plane rides that I give. I have been told time and time again that their plane ride over the playa was the highpoint of their burn. Multi year burners have told me it was the most amazing thing they have done at any of their burns. So I try to get out every morning and gift rides as many rides as I can before the desert gets too hot and bumpy and before the typical afternoon winds kick in. A morning flight over the playa is amazing and once we get to altitude I let my passenger open their door so there is nothing between them and the city.

Photo by Sareh

Sareh did a really good job of documenting her flight. They all blend together a bit and now, a few weeks later, I can’t remember which day I gave which flight but I know Sareh’s was the first one in the morning because . . . she has a picture of me pushing Niner-Zero out of my parking/camping spot so I don’t kick up a lot of dust and blow it on the other airplanes and tents in my row. I still have long sleeves on, another sign of early morning on the desert. The temperature is usually in the mid ’50s at sun rise.

Photo by Sareh

After helping my passenger into the right seat, strapping them in and training them on opening and closing the door I do one last walk around inspection. Last year I quickly realized that I wasn’t making it clear to my passenger that the door would be opened in flight and that is the reason for the briefing. The first couple of flights when I told them to open the door they responded, “Now! While we are in the AIR!”. So now I make that perfectly clear. When the door opens their view is amazing and I often hear the most amazing comments through my headset as it opens. So now, I make it perfectly clear that we WILL open the door in the AIR and close it before landing. Although sometimes we just leave it open for landing if things don’t look too dusty.

Photo by Sareh

After departure we climb to the south before turning back to the city and entering the pattern at 5,500 feet. We fly clockwise just outside the trash fence around the event with the city is on the passenger’s side so I have never gotten the exact same view that they get. We circle about halfway around the city and exit at the northern most point.

Photo by Sareh

That region is referred to as the “Far Playa” or the “Deep Playa”.  Far from the “residential” areas. There is not much out there but every morning there is always something going  that I am sure runs all night. Lots of people gathered around a stage. You can see it here at the bottom of the picture just left of the lift strut. The mountain just visible in the upper left is my destination after leaving the scenic pattern. I fly behind it while descending to the altitude we use for our landing traffic pattern.

Photo by Sareh

That altitude also puts me below the peak  of “Razorback”.  So we will soon cross the railroad tracks on the left and fly low behind the mountain and come out from behind it on the right. When we are behind the mountain the city is not visible at all and it seems like we are in different world. Then we  cross back over the tracks and enter the landing pattern for Black Rock City Airport. The entire ride takes about 20 minutes in the air.

Some days, in the afternoon, I gift a ride to Soldiers Meadows Airport. A small gravel strip about 20 minutes north of Black Rock City. What is the attraction? Hot Springs! Clean warm water, and lots of it!  The airport and hot springs are in a higher and less sparse area. There are actually things growing there. I took Kim, one of our airport volunteers with me one day. After landing we pushed Niner-Zero off to the side of the runway and then walked to the nearby ranch and got a ride to the hot springs. They own the springs and charge $10.00 a person to use them and that includes the ride and you can even use the flush toilets at the ranch.After several days using porta-potties this IS a big deal.

The springs are the size of a large swimming pool and about 4-5 feet deep and  are surrounded by grasses. The water is bathwater warm. After soaking until it becomes uncomfortable you can climb out onto the deck and into dry air which is refreshingly cool. After laying out on the deck you will be dry in about 5 minutes. Then repeat the process . There are no man made sounds out there, just the wind in the grass and gurgling water. It is amazing and also works wonders on removing playa dust.

So, this is my gift to the other burners. I often think that I enjoy it more than they do! I’ll just post some more pictures of smiling faces.

Photo by Sareh

Photo by Susan

After a beautiful day on Sunday we got word that bad weather was expected to arrive in the early morning hours Monday. Rain, wind, lightning and hail. When we heard this at dinner time it did not seem possible but I went out and put some tape on Niner-Zero at points where I know the rain would leak in and checked that all was secure.

Around dusk I headed into the city and low and behold there were TWO community bikes in the bike rack at the airport. Last year I did not see a single one available anywhere for the entire event. So I biked into the city and then spent the next hour and a half riding around the open playa checking out the art. I knew that as soon as I parked it someone else would take it so I decided to cover a lot of ground while I had the chance.

Photo by Dean

Later I parked the bike at Center Camp which can be seen in the center of the inner circle in this picture. It was dark, of course, and as I was walking around I heard a familiar voice behind me calling my name. I turned around and there was Ash and her boyfriend Mitch. We had met out on the playa last year but as I turned around I did a double take. There were two of her! Ok, but only one of him. Yeah, for real. This year she brought her identical twin sister Allison with her. This was Allison’s first burn.

So, how did I meet meet Ash and Mitch LAST year? I was hanging out in the bar named “Sharkies”. It is both a bar and an art car so it cruises around the open playa while the patrons sit around the bar on the inside enjoying the open bar and good company. At one point the bar tender handed a drink to me to pass back to the guy steering the tail. Apparently only the driver in the front can’t drink and drive. Anyway, I turned around, passed the drink to Ash and then she passed it to Mitch and he gave it to the “tail driver”. We all introduced ourselves and went on  to  have a great evening together on the playa.  At some point we got out and Ash and I played a round of “Tether Fire”. Just like the “Tether Ball” of your youth except the ball is on fire. Lots of fire. It was a lot of fun but if you ever do play, you have to remember to duck when you are not in a position to hit the ball. Don’t ask me how I know this.

So we went on to have another amazing evening on the playa together. No tether fire this year although we did go to the bowling ally and check out a lot of incredible art. The moral of the story? You don’t have to go to Burning Man with anyone else. As soon as you arrive you have almost 70,000 new friends. That is one of the best things about Burning Man. I headed back about midnight. Yeah, I had to walk. I wanted to be fresh and rested to give rides the next morning.

But, it was not to be. About 4:00 AM I was woken up by a light rain and tried to go back to sleep but after a while I realized that was not going to happen so I got up and headed into the camp. By then the initial rain was over but as the sky lightened we could see more off to the west and south drifting our way. The worst of it arrived around 6:00 or so and by 7:00 they closed the airport and the main gate. Then it got really bad. Rain, lightning and hail. Everything that was forecasted except for the wind. Thankfully.

So we all congregated under our shade structure/dining room. Good thing the shade structure was also water proof. But, as the morning wore on it became necessary to push the expanding puddles of water on the roof to the edges to avoid having the entire thing tear or collapse. As it turned out we had no problems with it and it served us well as a shade structure for the remainder of the week.

So, what happens when you walk on a rain soaked playa? You magically become taller. Amazing! Heavier too. It really makes a mess and it also leaves craters on the playa and eventually it breaks off and then with the next step you just pick up a new batch. This is why they closed the gate, the airport and allowed no driving on the playa while it was wet. The cars that were inline and on the playa had to stay put until the gate reopened. Those on the pave roads were turned around and had to head back. To where was a big question for many but I understand there were a lot of great parties in parking lots all over that part of Nevada.

It rained on and off for a few hours and the entire playa became pretty sloppy. Standing water everywhere. Here you can se some more rain moving in from the south west and we got quite a bit of lightning also.

By early afternoon the rain stopped, the sun came out and we sent Murph out to test the playa for us. He seems to be picking up a little less mud but things were still a mess and would be until everything dried out more. As we were eating an incredible dinner (thanks Uncle Plex) we noticed that a line of headlights was moving along the “road” from the gate to the city. The gate had opened after being closed for about 12 hours.

The “flight line” and runways were starting to dry also and a we all became a little spoiled as there was no dust at all. Not to worry though, it would return in a day or two. By evening we were all wondering when the airport would reopen. There were pilots waiting it out at several nearby airports. Some had not gotten the word and had flown over during the day but then had to depart without landing. There were hundreds of charter flight passengers stuck in Reno. We were hoping we could start flying by late morning on Tuesday but would have to wait and see.

But, we were able to open the airport bar! So, for those of us who had made it in before the rain,  the festivities went on as planned. On this evening we had Taz, Drunkin’ Pilot and Dee Zaster tending bar. How can you not have a good time with this crew mixing drinks? In case you are wondering, the bar crew does NOT drink alcoholic beverages while working. Here they are seen taking a short break.

Photo By Dean

Finally, the posts on Burning Man. I have been getting a lot of requests from friends and family but ultimately some pilots who have been following my blog suggested that they might finally get the low down on Burning Man by visiting me in person. NOT NECESSARY! Stay home, PLEASE, this is what you have been waiting for.

First I would like to thank Sareh, Dean and Susan for sending me some photos from our rides out over the playa together. Without them all I would have are the pictures I took on the ground. As it turned out I did not take many of these either as I decided the more time I spent documenting the less time I would spend experiencing. So, thanks guys! Between the four of us I think I have enough pictures to put a few posts together.

I got a good night’s sleep in Winnemucca and headed out to the airport after a quick breakfast. The Black Rock City airport opened at 6:00 but the gate to the festival would not open until 10:00. Everything was in order and I packed my gear back into Niner-Zero and departed just before 9:00 in the morning. It was a beautiful morning and the flight was amazing and only about 40 minutes in length. I pretty much followed the railroad tracks from Winnemucca to Black Rock City. I was able to cut some corners over some low mountains and that saved a few minutes and my arrival was uneventful.

Photo by Dean

Although taken a few days later this is a nice view of our airport although it does not show the two (yes two) runways we had this year. The airport is located at point five of the Black Rock City pentagon. Our camp is just inside the city at point five. The airplanes are parked outside the fence. Some of us just arrive in our planes and head into the city for the week, others have an RV or structure in the airport camp while some of us, me for example, camp in tents with our airplanes. The airplanes in the very bottom left corner are in “transient parking” and were gifting rides to burners when this was taken. The location is easy in and easy out. Near the end of the landing runway and also the beginning of the take off runway. The two runways was an huge improvement over last year. No more waiting for two or three airplanes to land before departing or having to go around on landing because the airplane that just took off created too much dust, making the runway difficult to see.

After I landed I parked close to the runway and an interceptor loaned me a sledge hammer so I could drive my Fly Ties into the playa and secure my airplane. Then he drove me to the gate in his golf cart and I entered Burning Man just after the gate opened at 10:00 AM. I was even able to give a couple of rides on the first day there. Since I had full tanks leaving Winnemucca and had not burned much fuel in the short time it took me to fly to Black Rock City I had to limit myself to passengers weighing in at about 130 pounds or less. So it turned out I gave rides to two lovely young ladies and I was left contemplating keeping the tanks fairly full for the remainder of the festival. Solely as a safety measure, of course.

Last year I arrived on Monday and did not take any scenic flights until Tuesday and by then the city was pretty much filled in. Much like it looks in the first picture of this post which was taken mid-week this year. But when I went for those first two scenic flights this year the gate had just opened and the city looked pretty sparse. I wish I had a picture so if either of you two see my blog and have pictures, get in touch!