Extreme weather caused massive backups in the line out of Burning Man for the second consecutive year on Monday, and car rental companies are vowing to charge hundreds of dollars if they find a speck of that incriminating desert dust on their vehicles.
This year’s Burning Man “exodus,” the line of traffic heading out of the Black Rock Desert event, was obviously nowhere near as cataclysmic as last year’s. That’s because last year, people weren’t even allowed to leave on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, after Tropical Storm Hillary battered the event with extreme weather.
More video from @SFGate California parks editor @AshleyHarrell3, reporting from a dust storm at the 6-hour exodus line out of Burning Man pic.twitter.com/QsHVjC8pDX
— Dan Gentile (@Dannosphere) September 3, 2024
But this year, SFGate reports that extreme dust storms over the weekend caused the Burning Man exodus line to require wait times of an estimated ten hours. As seen above, low visibility and high winds had traffic at a standstill for most of the day Monday, the final day of the event.
The current travel time from Greeters to pavement is 6 hours. Share the road and avoid passing when possible. Stay safe out there! 🔥 )*(
— Burning Man Traffic (@bmantraffic) September 3, 2024
It was slow-moving traffic all day Monday according to reports on the ground, but the trouble seemed to peak around 7:30 pm. That’s when the official Burning Man Traffic Twitter account noted, “The current travel time from Greeters to pavement is 6 hours.” That summarizes the wait time between the Burning Man gate (the “Greeters”) and the actual paved roads.
But that is an incomplete assessment. SFGate notes that “Getting to the Burning Man staff at the event’s perimeter was an hourslong endeavor in itself,” and that one driver on the way out estimated, “I think we have over 10 hours to wait before we can go out.”
Penske Email “Burning Man Warning”
byu/Pure-Tap-1834 inBurningMan
More trouble likely awaits those who’d rented vehicles for the event, as KTVU reports on the exorbitant fees rental car companies are charging Burning Man attendees for taking vehicles out to the playa. The fees are not as bad as the $5,000 cleaning fee Penske Trucks was charging last year, but they're substantial.
Per KTVU, Alamo Car Rental at SFO is charging a $350 cleaning fee on cars they suspect went to Burning Man, while Palo Alto’s Hengehold Truck Rentals is charging a $500 fee. The exception is U-Haul, which encourages Burning Man rentals, and even sells decal kits to remove U-Haul logos for those who want to “decommodify” their vehicle properly.
Image: @aitherick via Twitter
