danger ranger ~ rides again

The transformational power of Burning Man has inspired many attempts to recreate the experience in a variety of places & times, both real & virtual. Scores of official Burning Man Regional groups are scattered around the world & their scheduled events fill the calendar. Over the years, a wide spectrum of Burning Man influenced events have taken place. The major efforts (some come & gone) include Permaburn, Burning Girl, Ephemerisle, Water Woman, Bunny Burn, Wasteland, Figment, Lucicidity & others. Many more lessor events have ranged from scheduled gatherings in public places like bars, parks, & campsites, to private properties like backyards, ranches, & even larger acreages purchased by individuals or groups for the specific purpose of community gathering. The variety of these purchased places include a jungle preserve in a foreign country, an entire mountaintop, & several sizable tracts of desert (one of these being the location for Element 11 Regional Burn) which I attended in 2015

I recently attended a small weekend gathering on one of those desert properties, this one with a river running thru it. A predominate feature of this 116 acre property is a 100 foot high escarpment. It was probably created at the end of the last ice age some 12,000 years ago, when a glacial lake ice dam broke, suddenly releasing a flood of water, probably about 30 feet high & a mile wide, which carved the basin where the river now runs.

There is not much “natural” environment here, since cattle ranching has been the predominant use across the western US during the past 150 years. This old pickup adds character to the road in.

The top of the escarpment is mostly sagebrush, but I discovered a small playa, which I named Oroboros, after this little creature which crawled out to greet us. I carried him off quite a ways into the sagebrush before releasing him.

The river basin below the escarpment on this property has more than 60 large cottonwood trees, probably more than 100 years old. The base on some of the trunks is 5 feet in diameter.

My camp is a small 18′ travel trailer pulled by a big truck, which I named Brutus. When I first came to Black Rock more than 30 years ago, I slept in a tiny pup tent. But now, at my age, I really enjoy the comfort of a tiny house.

And I do appreciate the nice sunsets in my life.