The story of those whose cars got stuck in the mud while the man was burning

Lori Earl walked alone through the desert outside Black Rock City, Nevada.

The British Columbian mother, wearing braids and a rhinestone-studded hat that said “Love,” was heading to her 1985 Dodge Ram truck, which had been stuck in the desert outside Burning Man all Labor Day weekend. It would be nice if the mud had hardened to the point where she would be able to get out, but she didn’t get her hopes up.

“You can plan for chaos, but you can’t plan for it,” she told SFGATE.

Earl’s vehicle was one of hundreds of vehicles stranded after rare summer rains soaked the desert floor. She and her teenage daughter, Bella, ended up with front-row seats to the disaster, but they were in a different situation than most of those caught up. While almost everyone was desperate to leave, Earl and her daughter had just arrived. All they wanted was to get in.

“We sat in our truck for nine hours trying to figure out what to do,” Earl told SFGATE. “We were watching a mass exodus of people stuck in the mud trying to get out.”

Their ordeal began a week ago with a drive from Curtis Island, a remote island off British Columbia that requires three car ferries to reach Vancouver. The road trip from the island to Black Rock City was supposed to take 20 hours, but Earl’s truck broke down three times, extending the trip to more than four days.

Earl had been to Burning Man once before and was determined for her daughter to experience it. After hours of waiting in line at the gate on September 1, the couple was finally able to see the entrance. They were second in line to show their tickets when officials decided to close the gates.

“Gate Road is temporarily closed to all traffic in or out of (Black Rock City),” Burning Man officials said It was published on X that afternoon.

The Earl hoped to reopen the gates. They’ve come this far, so what’s a few more hours of waiting? She filmed videos as Burning Man greeters walked in giant steps around the ticket area, accumulating mud on the bottoms of their shoes. “It’s the return of Frankenfeet,” Earl says in a video.

The entrance was quickly filled with vehicles whose owners were trying to escape from the mud. Earl and her daughter watched as one by one they were trapped and surrounded by orange safety cones. As drivers tried to navigate the mud, tow trucks flew by and offered $500 to help, Earl said.

“(The burners) won’t back down,” she narrates in another video. “They said we’re done. We’re out of here. We’re not taking the roads. We’re just running for it. No one’s going to stop us. That’s what they said. How desperate.”

When Earle catches one of the vehicles on video managing to free itself from the mud, she’s thrilled. “You did it! You did it! You did it! You did it!” Says. “You’ve got this. You’ve got this front-wheel drive. Come again. We’ll miss you. Thanks for coming.”

When the rain stopped, a bright double rainbow stretched across the sky, directly over Earl’s truck, and I snapped a photo. She kept hope alive, and after several hours, the opportunity presented itself.

“The greeters left the gate and said, ‘Do whatever you want,’” Early told SFGATE. She and her daughter decided they would go ahead and try to enter Burning Man. They didn’t get far when their wheels got stuck in the mud.

“It was hard after going through so much,” Earl told SFGATE. “But we’re certainly not going to sit in a camper overlooking Black Rock City and stay there.”

They searched their truck for essentials and put them in two backpacks, placing Burning Man tickets and a car pass on the windshield. Earl’s daughter thought it would be a 10-minute walk, but Earl estimated it would be closer to 30 minutes. It turned out to be 40 minutes.

“We got through the mud and talked about resilience and self-reliance and the things that are at the heart of Burning Man,” she said.

Earl and her daughter arrived at their camp on Saturday and had an “amazing experience,” she said. As they enjoyed the festival and camped with old friends, more rain fell, and more burners tried to escape despite warnings about getting stuck. Some four-wheel drive and high-clearance vehicles were able to leave, but many got stuck in the mud.

Andrew Glover and his partner were among those trapped. When SFGATE found them in a low area very far from Gateway on Labor Day, they had been stuck for more than 24 hours, with Glover trying to pry the car’s front wheels out using a dinner plate. He was angry.

“We helped a few people out. Then he left us here,” Glover told SFGATE. Glover said he was watching as Burning Man marshals drove up and down the nearby playa area, but only stopped once to ask the men if they Need water. “We said, ‘Hey, do you have a shovel?'” “They laughed and took off,” he said.

Glover booked a hotel for later in the week and a flight to see family in England. But he also didn’t want to pay $1,000 for the tow truck (which was the offer he received). “We made a choice,” he told SFGATE. “Burning Man was saying no one was leaving, but they were. A lot of people left. We left when it got dark, and we accidentally bumped into this.”

A group of other vehicles also remained stranded that day: an RV rented from Cruise America and its U-Haul trailer; A silver Nissan Altima with very little clearance; Audi TT with four flat tires; And many other vehicles covered in mud, surrounded by safety cones or covered with messages like “I tried,” “Wash me,” and “Fuck you.”

Back at Earl’s truck, which was halfway through the gate next to the vehicles lined up to exit the festival, Earl wasn’t sure if she would be able to move or not. The desert land has dried out a little, but not completely. But when Burns saw Earl’s predicament on their way out, they abandoned their cars and came to her aid.

One man advised her to get some air out of her tires while another helped her move some plywood into a better position. Other people gathered in the back of her truck to push as Earl pressed the gas pedal. It took about five tries, but eventually the camper was able to dig its way out of the mud.

Instead of joining the line to get out, Earle pointed her truck toward Black Rock City. She wasn’t about to miss the chance to burn the man and the temple, even if it meant waiting in another hours-long line to get out and go home. On the way out, the mother and daughter were filled with gratitude.

“After four days stuck in the mud, having a group of strangers come together to pull our monster out of the mud was a happy moment we will never forget,” Earl said.