Best Gate Road ever?

[Molotov]

I waited to exit Black Rock City until 3 PM Wednesday, Sept. 6. From Greeters to the pavement, Gate Road was fairly smooth and hard packed clay, compared to the dust covered holes and ruts that damaged my little camper in 2022 exodus. I had one pulse wait, then on to CR 34. Traffic on the pavement was slow but consistent, other than the few expected asshats passing dozens of vehicle in no passing zones. No road rage observed.

There was one dead Tesla on Gate Road that probably ran out of battery. As a Tesla owner, I would never risk taking my Model Y out there, despite there being a Supercharger in Fernley. I saw a few other Teslas on the playa, but they probably recharged off generators, far from an optimal charge rate, considering the amount of generator gasoline needed to provide a minimal charge.

What was sad, but amusing were the number of vehicles hopelessly stuck because the drivers tried to exit despite advice from the Org not to travel. I'm sure the tow bills to get some of them out will be astronomical.

In summary, my 2023 Exodus was my best experience since I started participating in 2014.

[golgotha-a-go-go]

This was my 25th Burn. Seen lots of exoduses.

Exodus this year was excellent, compared to last year's 8 hour nightmare and the longest I ever experienced. We left 2:30 & B camp at 10am and hit the pavement at 1:30 pm. That's how I measure Exodus: camp to pavement.

Pulsed around 6 times. Road was in great condition.

Gate Road Staff did an excellent job and I rewarded them with cold beer and lots of kudos and appreciation.

Great idea to split up the exiting traffic at the last pulse station into 2 forks, with the southern 4 lanes going wide left and the other 4 going straight to gravel road then merging into 2 lanes near the gravel with the left fork. Better than the mega merge of past years at the gravel. Someone really thought this out. Also, 2 lanes out at gravel was a great idea.

One note on GARS radio. We tuned in to GARS around 6:30am to hear of a 7-8 hour exodus time. Ok, we thought, sounds logical. We kept listening for a few hours and the recording was the same. We then switched to BMIR and the wait was only 2-3 hours. GARS was still broadcasting 7-8 hour exodus. Somehow GARS was not updated so glad we switched stations.

And yes, the abandoned cars near the exit were a sad testament to those who don't know the dynamic of the playa and rain or the other dynamics of BM. I'm afraid as more and more newbies show up we will find more behavior like this. Oh well....

I hope Gate Road staff can read this. Thanks again folks.

[some seeing eye]

Experienced burners were watching the weather report and observing the playa drying.

We left camp on 5&G at 4:38AM Tuesday morning with plenty of sleep and were on pavement at 7:30AM. They were not pulsing at that time, they would let 3-4 vehicles through from each of the about 4-5 lanes for each of the 2 splits.

There were 3 GPE people (thanks!) at the split to go around the mud zone cutting across Gate Road near 34. The BMORG had a wireless camera on the playa right near 34. The flow onto 34 was smooth. We did not see much coming out of Point 1 while we were on Gate Road.

I believe BMIR & GR were both misleadingly saying 5 to 6 to 8 hours at that point. The TwitterX BMTraffic did not seem to be as updated as years past.