Burning Man : The Lee Coombs Story 2008 (part one)

Wed 27th August



Burning Man is the highlight of my year and I always look forward to the whole experience from getting there to staying and then coming home. Because of where it is the whole experience is very different every time. Let's face it Black Rock City is planted squarely in the middle of the playa desert in Nevada.

This is one of the most remote places in the whole of the United States. Syd Gris @ Opulent Temple had agreed to fly me in from Reno straight into Burning Man in a single engine Cessna with only 5 seats. I sat up front and chatted to the pilot and I have to say this is definitely the way to do it. Absolutely stunning views of the mountain scenery then Pyramid Lake and then Burning Man appears from the distance. I thoroughly recommend this!

So we get in and I realise that no one is there to pick me up at the small cabin that they call BRC airport. The thing to do when this happens is climb on an art car and hope that they can drive you somewhere close.

Everyone is a friend at burning man and if you need help you will get it almost straight away.

So now I have to find my wife Kim and friends who had already arrived.

The site is shaped like a huge horse shoe about 6 miles if you follow it round and 1 ½ miles across in the gap at the bottom. My new friends with the art car (which was an old silver Nissan car with the roof chopped off and a frame welded on with a giant swinging chair hanging and a massive sound system blasting) gave Dylan Rhymes (who I found in my bus still out from the night before) and I a lift straight across the playa to the Deep End.

This is where I thought my people would be, so I started walking around and soon realised that I couldn’t find anyone.

All you can see is crazy mutated cars and odd looking shelters and tents that all start to look the same after awhile. This really is like looking at a post nuclear war zone in the future or Mad Max if you like.

There’s only one thing to do, go into the Deep End and get a cocktail! The perfect way to start Burning Man! (The Deep End is an institution of BM, it is a giant film set like structure that looks like an old Wild West town, it’s basically an all day open air club and it goes off from morning to night non-stop).