AUSTIN, Texas — With the temple now torched and the celebration in the Black Rock Desert now ended, Burning Man 2023 did not come without its challenges.
A summer storm left thousands stranded in ankle-deep mud, which led to closed roads and traffic jams for many days.
Holly Waters is an Austinite who has been to Burning Man six times. She went this year, and had to get creative under the conditions.
"We fashioned trash bags. I took, like, I put on my boots, I put a big contractor bag on each leg and then I like, bungee-corded it around my neck and I walked around like that. It held up pretty well," Waters said.
Many attendees like Jim Ellinger said they followed the advice of the Burning Man Organization, which was to stay where they were. Now, the cleanup begins to remove city structures, pick up trash and get rid of burn scars.
"One of the principles of Burning Man is LNT – Leave No Trace. They've been doing this for 30 years. There are people there with little shovels that pick up teeny, tiny pieces of dirt. This year's clean up will be much, much harder, all done by volunteers. It will take weeks," Ellinger said.
Waters admits one of the more stressful parts of all this was being forced to return to the real world on their deadlines under unforeseen circumstances. Still, she said she looked as it as an "opportunity for growth."
"It was kind of even more like a cathartic release, but yeah, I don't know. It's just an extra element of an opportunity to survive and thrive and, you know, work with your community," Waters said.