Burning Man festival goers brave dust storm in Nevada

 Burning Man festival goers brave dust storm in Nevada



Amid the madness of this year's psychedelic symposium at Black Rock Desert, Burning Man participants on Tuesday found themselves absorbing the brunt of a punishing dust storm.

Pictures of the festival show the 'community' inundated with thick choking clouds of sand, with some well prepared participants using gas-masks to fight through the earthly gust while others seem to embrace the natural phenomenon.

Day three of the event has seen tens of thousands facing massive traffic jams to get to a remote stretch of Nevada desert for the annual Burning Man festival.



The highly-anticipated art and music festival runs over nine days from Sunday until September 4 in Black Rock Desert, which is about 120 miles north of Reno.

Black Rock City has been transformed into a 'metropolis dedicated to community, art, self-expression and self-reliance' where about 70,000 people have descended upon.

In a matter of days, volunteers for the event built what is likely to be the state's busiest airport in the middle of an ancient dry lake-bed. 

The airport, formally known as 88NV, is built every year and averages as many as 800 takeoffs and landings a day before it's taken down completely at the end of the event. 



According to the event's website, dozens of art installations were constructed before the end of the weekend, some made from wire, others as patterns on the ground and some as immersive experiences.

Stunning photographs show the larger-than-life art installations that are the focal points of this year's festival theme of Radical Ritual. 

The Radical Ritual theme this year is to honor rituals that humankind has made, including the festival.

The event's website says: 'Burning Man is permeated with rituals. These rites speak of soulful need; the desire to belong to a place, to belong to a time, to belong to one another, and to belong to something that is greater than ourselves, even in the midst of impermanence.

'Throughout all ages temples have been built in order to induce these feelings.'



Every year, several 'temples' are built according to a theme and on the last day, they are burned down in a ritualistic ceremony.

The festival, which began in 1986 as a bonfire, has erected a temple commemorating the Golden Spike and participants are invited to visit the shrine and make offerings that embody what Burning Man's culture means to them.

The premise of the Burning Man festival is that almost everything is created entirely by its citizens, who are active participants in the experience.

Since money is practically outlawed on the site, 'Burners' are urged to barter for commodities and in the past fans have taken to social media to swap items such as crystals for festival tickets. 



The remote week-long rave is often described as 'where Mad Max meets Woodstock'. 

Thirty years after its first incarnation, the event is populous with tens of thousands of people attending the dried up lake where the event is held which becomes Black Rock City.

However, the festival risked relocation this year due to a pool of standing water, prompting officials in June to warn there was a possibility that the event could be moved from its location two hours north of Reno in Gerlach.

The desert basin is transformed into mud every year by the run-off of melting snow, but this past season's high precipitation formed the lake, causing fears that the playa would be muddy and impossible to drive across.