2025 Playa Conditions

[FlyingMonkey]

Ironic that I have to travel closer to California this year to get away from the wildfire smoke.

Funny, I find myself once again driving West to get away from wildfire smoke. That really seems counter intuitive.

Anyway, have any locals been on Playa recently? How's it looking??

[trilobyte]

Yeah, we live in interesting times alright. Massive wildfires in winter (LA) and spring (Carolinas I think), and heard from a friend in Montreal who said the sun has been a shade of pink due to distant wildfire smoke in the upper atmosphere. In Las Vegas we just got hit with an air quality alert due to a big fire in California. It's cute that they think an AQI of 59 is bad, but having lived in the bay area during a couple bad years when it was over 1,000 where I lived... this feels like a walk in the park. Mind you, the air temp is 108F....

Playa-wise it is a different story indeed. I have been in touch with a number of people out there recently. They did get chased off the playa after the golden spike went in on the 26th, mother nature served up loud rumbly thunder, lightning, big dust storms, and some rain. But that all passed, and survey team was able to get their work done on schedule.

Recent conditions have been highs in the mid to upper 80s by day, and night-time temps in the 50s. It's been dry and playa conditions have been pretty great overall so far.

My partner and I were on playa in late June, and can confirm that overall conditions were pretty solid. At the time it looked like a pretty good pack, with no big dunes or soft spots observed.

[FlyingMonkey]

So, is everyone (both of you) prepared to ride out a super El Nino in the desert this year? Every year we think we have seen the worst weather possible and Mother Nature says "Hold my beer".

Im done tenting it. Last year broke my will. I had early entry and got the full experience.

[The Rod]

Seems like inclement weather at festivals is more and more of a thing these days. Though the risk of violent wind and torrential rain at BM has been ever present.

It really is just a roll of the dice to spend multiple weeks out there for the purpose of building jankety art installations while "camping" and just hoping for nice weather...