The conception of Burning Man first started by Larry Harvey & Jerry James in 1986 on a beach in San Francisco with a small group of San Fran locals who had free spirits of body, space, and time. They would come together to assemble a man, and then burn it together on a beach. Since then there has been a huge evolution of Burning Man. The Burn moved locations to Black Rock Desert in Nevada, and is now an event with around 50,000 people from all over the world, bringing a new celebration of art, music, culture, and community to the playa. Earth Guardians who are now a 501 c 3 non-profit have been at the fore-front bringing education of Leave No Trace to Burning Man since 1996. We camped with the Earth Guardians who always house the Traveling Trainers out on the Playa each year. We volunteered doing outreach with other volunteers, teaching a Leave No Trace awareness workshop, doing MOOP patrols and pick-ups ( MOOP- Matter out of Place i.e. litter), and going out to the burn platforms to talk with burners about the appropriate things to burn and not burn, and alternatives to burning entire theme camps, or toxic materials, aka PVC.
This year the circumference of Burning Man, also known for only a week as Black Rock City, was said to be the size of San Francisco, being the largest BRC yet to date. Also the Man was around 100 feet tall, on an amazing platform, which was also the largest to date. The event is truly remarkable, how 50,000 people can come together for a week, making a complete new city out in the middle of No-Where, and at the end of it only have a very small imprint on the playa. There is a reason why Burning Man has been touted as the largest Leave No Trace event, and it simply boils down to stewardship and all the wonderful people that stay and clean up the playa during and after the event.
Thank you to everyone at the Earth Guardians Camp, & all the Tahoe theme camps for making us feel right at home. We know this will not be our last burn! Thanks Karina & Tony and keep up the amazing work with the Earth Guardians.
Happy Burn,
Alexis & Topher
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