The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Burn: A Comprehensive Guide to Burning Man.

By Sean Kemp

This event guide was developed in collaboration with, edited by, and is published with full permission from Burning Man.

The first thing one needs to know about Burning Man is how the event came to be. From bonfires at Baker Beach to the current week-long event in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, Burning Man has evolved into a spectacle that must be seen to be believed. Now that Burning Man has been the subject of so much public scrutiny, it is important that the culture of Burning Man is both understood and preserved. This is especially true for the new generation of event attendees, also known as "Burners".

If you are planning on going to "the Burn", you must be adequately prepared to travel to and from, and be able to survive in, Nevada's Black Rock Desert for as long as you plan to be there. Travel options to and from the "Burning Man Playa" (the area of the Black Rock Desert reserved for Burning Man) are numerous, ranging from ride sharing to taking your private plane to the Black Rock City Airport. Travel on the Playa is typically limited to walking, bicycling, and obtaining a permit for a Mutant Vehicle (commonly called an "art car"). Disabled transportation is fully permissible (with proper permits).

In order to survive Burning Man, you must be adequately prepared. Building a camp in a dried out prehistoric lake bed is no small task. The right food, water, clothing, and equipment will insure that you will survive in style.

One must also be adequately prepared for the culture of Burning Man. Gifting Economy, the Leave No Trace effort, controlled burning, and all manners of Playa Etiquette are required knowledge in order to fully enjoy Burning Man. You must also know your rights in order to better stay out of trouble.

This guide is a repository for all this knowledge. There are step-by-step guides on everything from building a camp (including wiring it for solar power, building a bike rack, anchoring tents against desert winds, disposing of grey water, etc.) to changing a bicycle tire. Burning Man is waiting, and this guide will take you there.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sean Kemp
• Release date: Jul 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476135809

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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Burn:

A Comprehensive Guide to Burning Man

by Sean Kemp

Copyright 2012 by Sean Kemp

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Chapter 1 – What is Burning Man, and why should I go?

The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. -popular misquote of Mark Twain.

OK so maybe Mark Twain never actually said it, but those of us who have been to the City By the Bay know it's true. San Francisco is typically much cooler (even in the summer) than other cities, even adjacent cities, in the San Francisco Bay Area. In fact, San Francisco has the coldest minimum, maximum, and average temperatures of any major city in the United States for the months of June, July, and August.[1] This being the case, it is no stretch of the imagination to think that on June 21, 1986 (the date of the Summer Solstice) only 20 or so people were originally in attendance at Baker Beach in San Francisco.

Larry Harvey, creator of the first Burning Man, conceived of an eight foot tall wooden effigy in the shape of a man to be burned at the annual Summer Solstice bonfire, a tradition started by local sculptor Mary Grauberger. Larry and his friend Jerry James improvised a statue of roughly human shape and proportion with a triangular head, and they set it on fire at the beach. I don't know this for a fact because I wasn't there, but allegedly the group of 20 immediately doubled to 40 as onlookers were drawn to the flame engulfed man. I know I would have gone for a closer look if I was there; wouldn't you? And so began the Burning Man tradition.

The next few subsequent Summer Solstices following 1986 saw a Burning Man at Baker Beach. The next year, the Burning Man more than doubled in size to about 20 feet, keeping the now iconic triangular shaped head. By 1988, the Man was some 30 feet in size, and the crowd had increased to somewhere between 150 and 200 participants. It was in this year that Harvey gave the infamous nickname Burning Man to the centerpiece of the Solstice bonfire.

1989's Man was a 40 foot tall monstrosity. The burn was planned for after dark, but while the sun was still up the Man cracked and fell to its knees. The 20 to 30 Burners (as they shall henceforth be called) that showed up early had to put their backs into hoisting the Man back into a standing position. It was burned that year not fully upright in front of a crowd of more than 300 participants. Sometime during the burn, the Golden Gate Park Police crashed the party asking the infamous question: Who's in charge here? A local TV station recorded their failed attempt to call a halt to the festivities.

I can understand the police's concern in the matter. 300 people next to a 40 foot tall source of open flame on a wind-whipped San Francisco beach could have been a fire hazard, and there was potential for injury. However, since this event took place in the summer, the nearest trees (which were at the edge of the beach and not really so near) were pretty green, and the potential for serious or fatal injury was pretty minimal. Furthermore, it seems likely that they probably wouldn't have caught the ocean on fire, or the beach for that matter. At the time bonfires on the beach were not illegal, but the regulations at the time limited beach bonfires to 3' x 3'.

In 1990, everything changed. The crowd had grown to 800 or so, and the Society of Carpenters led by Dan Miller (the chief engineer of 1990's Burning Man) constructed and brought the Man (as the Burning Man is commonly called) to its full upright position. Before the Man was burned, however, the Park Police showed up again to serve and enforce a ban on burning. They allow the Man to be built and stood up, but he had to be moved elsewhere to be burned. This caused the Cacophony Society of San Francisco to propose that Burning Man be moved to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada (where Burning Man has been held every year since with only one exception), and the time of the event was moved to Labor Day Weekend.

The Man was disassembled into some of its smaller constituent parts in order to be stored in a parking lot until it was ready to be moved to the Black Rock Desert. The attendants of the parking lot, not understanding the significance of the small wooden structures, chainsawed them into scraps for disposal. Working tirelessly, Harvey and his crew managed to assemble the Man with a mere two hours to spare before the scheduled departure time. Only 90 Burners made it to the desert to see David Warren burn the Man down, many of whom were unprepared for the harshness of the desert climate. They were, however, all ready for the ensuing cocktail party while the Man burned down.

In 1991, Harvey was awarded a grant by the Capp Street Project for the Man to be installed at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco. This year also saw the first Art Car (artistically modified automobile), Danger Ranger's 504 PM Special (More on Art Cars in Chapter 4). The first survival guide was made available to the 250 attendees of this year's Burn. This year the Bureau of Land Management required a recreation permit for the event to be held. They also filed an Environmental Impact Statement shortly following the Burn. This is taken directly from the statement[2]:

After the event was over, within a week of inspection, no trace of the burning ceremony or the camp site can be found.

Thankfully, the early Burners were thoughtful enough of the environment that they left no noticeable trace of the event. Were it not for their painstaking care, the event would have long died out. It is due to this school of thought that Burning Man has survived, and the code that Burners now live by is Leave No Trace. Therefore, as Burners we must all take it upon ourselves to do the same and make sure that our fellow Burners do as well, but I will discuss this further in Chapter 5.

The event continued to evolve in 1992 with the advent of a fashion show and an art show. For the first time, artists brought their work to the Playa (the common name for the Black Rock Desert) to be displayed under the desert sun; art has been a part of Playa culture ever since. Michael Michael (also known as Danger Ranger) founded the Black Rock Rangers, an organization formed in the spirit of the Texas Rangers for the safety of all Burners. (More on the Black Rock Rangers in Chapter 12.) The first Donner Award (for having a close brush with mortality) was awarded to a pilot who managed to land his Cessna aircraft upside down on the Playa. Java Cow was first sighted on the morning of the Burn, asking Burners if they wanted cream or sugar with their coffee; he has since been sighted on the morning of every Burn. Kimric Smythe put on the iconic Exploding Man fireworks performance on the night of the Burn, and this time 600 Burners were in attendance to watch the 40 foot firework-laden Man burn down.

The 1993 camp was laid out in a circle about the Man, with a central street leading towards him. Kerosene lanterns were lit at night along this street, lighting the way to the Man. And so began the order of the Lamplighters, white robed Burners who til this day light the lamps on the way to the Man as the day turns to dusk. The first Theme Camp was created by Peter Doty. His Christmas Camp offered free fruitcake and eggnog to all, and Doty himself dressed at Santa Claus when giving the delectables away to passers-by. This was also one of the original inspirations of the Gifting Economy (See Chapter 7). This year's 40' Man was burned with a crowd of a thousand Burners looking on.

Over the next few years, the Burning Man community's population grew exponentially to 2,000 in 1994, to 4,000 in 1995, and up to 8,000 in 1996. In 1995, Burning Man became the most populated community in Nevada's Pershing County, earning the nickname Black Rock City. As a result, the event became the object of increasing public scrutiny. CNN coverage, e-mail lists, on-site newspapers, documentaries, and legal criticism from local and federal law enforcement and also land management authorities all cast their watchful eye on the event. Fortunately, due to the tireless work ethic and environmental consciousness of the mid-'90's Burners, all involved authorities gave the participants of Burning Man sky-high ratings for safety and leaving no trace . . . even though a large number of mud people were reported to be celebrating the aftereffects of a rainstorm that caused a full double rainbow in 1995. Needless to say, the festival was allowed to continue uninterrupted. Oh yes, and the most important advent predating the turn of the millennium was the introduction of a Burning Man Theme in 1995. This year's theme was Good and Evil, meaning that all camps, art installations, events, and so forth were (loosely) based on this theme. 1996's theme was the Inferno.

By the end of 1996, Larry Harvey saw it fit to create a committee to handle the management of Burning Man. The current volunteer infrastructure was barely able to manage the geometrically increasing Burner population. As a result, the committee decided to move the Burn to private land, the Hualapai Playa. In 1997, Burning Man was held on private land