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Eight hours of a traffic jam after the Burning Man festival

Cars, vans, and RVs pave the way in Nevada's Black Rock Desert after the end of the Burning Man festival.

Nine days of partying, one day stuck in traffic: Apocalyptic conditions prevailed in the Black Rock Desert in the US state of Nevada on Monday (September 5) after the Burning Man Festival.

A cross between "Mad Max" and Woodstock, Burning Man, was created in 1986 by a group of artists from San Francisco. In 1991 the Festival event was moved to the desert. Since then, the festival has grown and become more international every year.

Some festival-goers were stuck in traffic for 12 hours before leaving the site.

After the XXL festival had to pause for two years due to the corona pandemic, 80,000 techno fans, artists, and pyrotechnicians celebrated in the parallel world of the temporary city of Black Rock City since August 28. Highlights included fire-breathing octopuses and rhinos and a staged brawl in a Mad Max III-inspired Thunderdome. Conclusion of the event since 1989: the burning of a giant wooden statue - the "Burning Man."

Temperatures peaked at 40 degrees during the week, and on Saturday, the festival was hit by a sandstorm that covered everything with dust and forced the organizers to close the entrances and exits to the site. And it took hours to get back to reality from Black Rock City.

At least the temperatures were more pleasant after sunset

Photos were posted on social media showing 15 kilometers of lanes clogged like in a disaster movie. "The waiting time for the exodus is around eight hours," confirmed the organizer and gave tips on which route traffic jams could be avoided. Some visitors even had to wait twelve hours before leaving the festival site.

Even the kilometer-long traffic jam didn't seem to hurt the atmosphere. A visitor summing up this year's festival on Twitter said: "Burning Man was magical and brutal and hot and dusty and epic. Exactly how it should be.”