As if by wizardry, Black Rock has sprung to life, the party’s started, and everything everywhere is going off at once.

The city is ringed in light, the art cars and blinky bikes are out in number, and everywhere you look, everyone seems to have hit the ground running.  The Center Cafe is good and crowded, the speakers and performers are going round the clock, and the yoga dancers and poi spinners are holding court in the center of the space.

Monday was a funny day, in that there seemed to be a higher-than-normal number of people wandering around the playa who looked fresh and clean. Their outfits were shiny and new, and their skin had yet to acquire a base coat of playa dust.

The hard flat playa is perfect for surfboard sailing this year.

By today, though, everyone was coated  homogeneously, and you weren’t able  to tell who’s been here for a day, a week, or a month. The temperatures were in the mid-80s (nice!), but the wind kicked up and was blowing at a steady 30 mph most of the day.

The population of the city doubled overnight, to more than 30,000, and of course there were plenty more people on their way in. By tomorrow, we’re guessing, we’ll hit an average peak population somewhere north of 50,000.

And the folks of Black Rock City went around and about, determined to make the most of these precious days. Here are a few snappies from the first full day of Burning Man 2011:

The Temple of Transition came and went from view, depending on how hard the dust was blowing.

Read more »

Some of the remaining bikes at the ranch were loaded on a flatbed and brought to BRC

Maybe you’ve picked up one of those green bikes that you see all over the playa, the kind that seem to pop up magically when you need them most. You need a bike, you find a bike,  and then you leave it for the next person who needs it.

There are about 1,000 of the bikes circulating around Black Rock City, a shared resource for the people who get around exclusively by foot and bike (and art car).  Yesterday, the crew from the Bologna Hole, the bike lovers who help you when your bike has problems, were bused out to the work ranch. Then they picked up the so-called Yellow Bikes (even though they’re green) and rode back 12 long hot miles to the playa and dropped off  bikes around the city.

“Normally I ride about 100 miles a week,” Jamie was saying at the Depot before they headed out. “So it’s going to feel really good to do this.”

They don’t take all 1,000 bikes from the ranch to the city this way, but, like so many things here, it’s a tradition to take the last ones to the city by human power. And so the crew adhered to their strict training regimen (plenty of beer and smokes), and headed out to the ranch.

The Bologna Hole crew loaded into buses at the Depot for the ride to the Ranch.

The bike program started in 2006, when there were so many bikes left behind after the event it became logical to repurpose them for the next year. And so they did. “We worked on them right out there,” Reno Travis was saying as he pointed to a field of baking sagebrush at the ranch. “We got all the leftover bits and scraps.” And that’s also how the group got its name: You make bologna out of leftover bits and scraps of meat. (There’s another connotation associated with bologna hole, of course, but we’re not going to go there today. But you can safely assume that the crew is aware of the reference, and  vigorously embraces it.)

Anyway, the crew got a big lift the next year, in 2007, when they received a donation of 1,000 bikes from a donor moved by the Green Man theme that year. They’ve kept the vast majority of those bikes in service ever since.

And yesterday was the day they finished up their prep work for the year, reconditioning the bikes and getting them ready for Burners who need them.  Need a bike, find a bike, then leave it for the next person. One of the many things that works around here.

Once they picked up their bikes, it was time to ride the 12 miles to Black Rock City

Read more »

The Striding Man is up in all his glory

It really won’t be long now. The months and months of prep are finished, you’re on your way or about to leave, and everyone already here is  getting ready for you.

The city really is different in this run-up week to the event. The number of people and the readiness of the theme camps, especially, remind us of what it was like during the first day or two of the event five or six years ago. Back then, it seemed, the gates would open and there’d be a mad dash to get everything set up. These days, there are more people on the playa early, and there’s a lot in place and ready to go right from the start of the week.

The weather has been hot, but there’s a cooling trend forecast for the coming week. The nights have been really warm, but it seems like you’ll want to remember to bring something warm to wear at night as the weather cools.

There's plenty of art installed on the playa already, and more is arriving by the hour.

The lines to get into the city are getting longer, even though it’s only those people with early arrival passes being admitted now. Yesterday afternoon, it was an hour or more wait to get through the gates. The greeter’s station was busy, with plenty of hugs and rolling in the dust and bells gonging to announce the arrival of first-timers.

The official opening is tonight at midnight, and there will be a huge group of people down at the gates to usher in the newcomers. Then, finally and officially, Burning Man 2011 will be underway.

The Man burns in six days.

The Temple of Transition is nearly complete, after three amazing weeks of work by the crew and the people of DPW, especially the Heavy Equipment folks. Kiwi, the mastermind of the Temple team, is ready for people to arrive. The team had to break camp yesterday, which was another long day of work. "People ask me, 'How can you build something so beautiful and then burn it,'" Kiwi said yesterday. "Just watch me," he said. "We built it to burn it."

Read more »

As anyone who has walked back to camp after watching the sun come up out at the trash fence will tell you: the playa is big. Really big. Gigantic and huge to boot. But it’s even bigger than that. Really. Really. Big.

It’s so big the only way I can explain it is to show you a picture and hope that you click on it:

This is a 110 megapixel panoramic image I shot of the Black Rock desert last Wednesday. It’s made out of 42 individual images, and stretches all the way from the Temple of Transition all the way back to Gerlach. Click on the image to see the whole thing in high-rez interactive animated detail.  Requires Flash and a full water container. Extra sunscreen would be a good idea, too.

Marlee and her anvil

The installation of the last spire  is another of the key milestones in the building of Black Rock City. And it’s a big reason to celebrate. The work is nearly at an end, the guests are about to arrive, and it’s time to make the transition from work to play.

Yesterday afternoon, workers from all over the city got together in the near playa by the Jub Jub camp to put in that last funky, janky spire, which was “decorated” by all the various work crews here. Then there were cool refreshing beverages, and a bit of socializing. We may be under-describing the activities, but you get the idea.

Marlee supervised the blasting of a 100-pound anvil into the air. Why did they do this? Well, one big reason was because they could. She and her dad do it in the default world as well, and strange as it may sound, they know exactly how to engineer the blast for the maximum pop and maximum safety.
Which is not to say that you want to try and catch that anvil, because as we mentioned, it weighed 100 pounds. It took a pound of black powder and a special launching base, but the resultant boom and lift were truly amazing. The anvil soared almost gracefully into the hot desert sky, then crashed back into the playa to general hoots and hollers. The bang was big: even seasoned DPW workers were startled by the power of the thing.

Then there were beers, and a sledgehammer toss, and a pizza party, and general merriment. Yesterday had been one of the hottest days so far this year, and it felt good to catch a little shade and rest. And maybe admire the work that’s been done here.

BooYa can really toss that hammer.

This is the biggest Black Rock City that’s ever been built. Retro reported this morning that there had been more than 50 miles of “roads” laid out. (The city got bigger by two streets this year, and many of them were widened, too, so the footprint of the city is larger than it’s ever been.)

Many of you might be on the right by now, or just about ready to leave. It won’t be long until the gates are opened and we can truly get this thing going. As Logan said, “Let’s do this thing.”

What follows is a gallery of pictures from the get-together, featuring a lot of the people who’ve been working hard out here for so many weeks for you.

Read more »