Tips - Getting Back to Your Camp Easier

butterscotch · Post by **butterscotch** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 5:42 pm

Great... Now I have the "Laaaand of the Loooosst" words and theme music bouncing around in my head. Heh.

Anyone have any good "I got lost and then..." stories at Burning Man?

I was trying to think of one of my own... but most of them involve going in circles OUTSIDE of Black Rock...

Seems I acquire at least a partial "sense of direction" there...

Stories? Do tell! Do tell! Thanks!

~Aimless

Rusted Iron · Post by **Rusted Iron** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 4:20 pm

I've been adding to my modest stockpile of solar lights, for the last few months.

I picked up a few bright LED lights at Costco; really nice and not too expensive for a two-pack.

For anyone who lives in the East or Northbay and is near a Yardbirds Hardware, they're selling a four pack of standard (non-LED) lights for $17, this weekend only, (I think).

If we have solar lights in front of our camps, we'll be bound to wander into the wrong camp, anyway. Could be entertaining...

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 5:52 pm

You dont need to remember the street name, just know they are alphabetical starting at the first street in from the Esplanade. So Catharsis could be shortened to "C". So lets say you are at 8:30 and "C", you just need to say your ABCs as you cross each intersection in.

Look at the man when you get to the Esplanade. Notice which way he is facing. When you get ready to go home, walk around the Esplanade until he is facing the same way he was when you first arrived on the Esplanade. Your radial street should be around there somewhere, maybe.

Isotopia · Post by **Isotopia** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 10:19 pm

Look at the man when you get to the Esplanade. Notice which way he is facing.

NO!

As mentioned, the Man will be rotating randomly so that can leave to some confusion. Use the location of the Man as one of the three reference points - if navigating by Polaris.

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 10:40 pm

I try not to rely on the man as a landmark so after the burn I'm not totally lost. Look at the things that don't change. The trash fence, Center Camp, the lamplighter posts that ring the esplanade and form a cross with the man in the middle. I also remember the city is laid out in a C shape and in a grid. So...case in point last year I was out past the esplanade but not quite to the man when a dust storm hit. I got lost and didn't have my GPS. So I started walking carefully through the dust and eventually I found a lampost. I looked for a second one, then a third. They went straight and didn't curve so I knew it wasn't the esplanade, it was one arm of the cross. I followed the lamp posts which got me to the man, then from there I made a mistake and ended up going to the temple. I knew where I was at that point so I backtracked, went past the man to center camp and knowing the grid I was back at camp quickly. The man burns, the streetsigns vanish, I'll stick with the relatively stationary things.

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 10:41 pm

Damn, Iso ... I was *trying* to create a little disorientation .... as in "oh fuck! He's TURNING!"

*sigh*

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 10:44 pm

geekster wrote:Damn, Iso ... I was *trying* to create a little disorientation .... as in "oh fuck! He's TURNING!"

*sigh*

Don't you see enough of that after the man burns and the street signs vanish? I remember the shock of trying to find my way back to camp my first year. Sheer panic. The only thing that saved me was the AEZ tower.

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 10:50 pm

Once you understand that the city is built in an arc and Berlin is at 3, Center at 6, and Tokyo at 9. Navigating to any address in town is a fairly simply matter if you can visualize where you are going and where you are. If you don't know where you are, you just head into the esplanade and determine where on the arc you are. It isn't that hard to find yourself again, just gotta remember not to panic, find a known reference point, and go from there. Center camp and the pavillions survive the signs being removed.

spectabillis · Post by **spectabillis** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 2:06 am

geekster wrote: Center camp and the pavillions survive the signs being removed.

The signs survive Center camp and the pavillions being removed.

Rumor's float that certain anti-commerce terrorists are planning to take them out.

JezebelinHell · Post by **JezebelinHell** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 3:10 am

Since no one else has a story...
In 2003 I hooked up with a random girl while riding on the Double Decker Bus on Sunday night. When the action got a little too heavy for such a public location, we hopped off and headed back for my camp, making a quick (and probably less than helpful) stop at the Absinthe bar. Needless to say, the landmarks were gone, the street-signs were gone, and we were slightly less than sober and badly in need of a semi-private enclosure. About the third place we stopped to ask where the hell we were, we were told, "You're home here." After explaining to the helpful random burners that we needed to get to one of our tents so we could get to fucking, it was explained to us that we had wandered into the Tantric Love Shack. So, rather than fucking on the hard ground in my tent, we got to fuck on a bunch of pillows with incense burning and romantic lighting. Getting lost kicks ass!

Isotopia · Post by **Isotopia** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 9:32 pm

Damn, Iso ... I was *trying* to create a little disorientation .... as in "oh fuck! He's TURNING!"

Well, um, I don't want em' stumbling into MY camp like some Maginot line of refugees - unless they're coming to pay homage to my beauty and magnificence.

Got that?

butterscotch · Post by **butterscotch** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 10:21 pm

I might have to file this one under "National Lampoon's"...

My friend and I had made it though bumper-to-bumper leaving Burning Man 2004 Traffic on Sunday (which turned into a "Fun in the Sun" fiesta sharing your leftover food and limbo under "Do Not Enter" tape until things cleared...)... and went to the "kick-ass" buffet in Reno (the name escapes me... a little help here? heh.)... it was 10 pm at night and only 4 hours to Sunnyvale, California via the 80 West for a warm bed and (hopefully) a 1-hour shower....

We were both sleep-deprived... but what was a final 4 hour jaunt?

We got onto the 80 freeway with my friend at the wheel... and relaxed... laughing about our adventures... calling friends to see if they were okay...

It was so spectacular... miles and miles of night sky... and only one or two cars on the horizon.... The traffic we expected never showed.

Two and a half hours later (Midnight+) we pulled off the freeway for gas and supplies... and when we returned to the onramp... there was only one... for the 80 East.

80 East? That's strange we thought. Usually when you pull off and there is only one on/off ramp... its in the same direction you... were... traveling... in.

In the words of Bill & Ted... we looked at each other and said... "Noooo Way."

Yep... that's right... We had spent the last 2 1/2 hours traveling in the WRONG DIRECTION into the heart of the desert. No wonder we didn't see any cars or city lights!

2 1/2 hours later (3 AM) .. we were back in Reno. One hour later (4 AM) we were desperately knocking on random Bates motels... (one that had the especially creepy "We clean up the bodies every morning" kind of feel) and getting prices that ranged from $150 - 249 for a night's stay.

I don't know what happened to my friend then... He got this look in his eye and told me two things:
1. We were driving all the way back.
2. He was doing the driving (which had been all his to this point).

We dragged ourselves into my friend's house at 8:00 AM... and what I felt was the greatest madness of them all:

At 8:30 AM... My friend left for work.

~Aimless (The horror. The horror.)

robotland · Post by **robotland** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 6:05 am

Despite having a rudimetary grasp of geometry, I repeatedly surprised myself with my misinterpretation of the increasing distance between "hour" roads as you head outward from the Esplanade...Not so bad on bike, but when you're hotfootin' around it can sneak up on you....Penalty of having lived on a grid for so long.

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 11:56 am

Yeah. If you are going some distance around the city, even to an address on the same street, you are almost always better off going in at least a block or two and around. Going from one side to the other side, better off to go all the way in and right across the playa.

That's one of the reason the "back streets" don't get a lot of traffic.

_fool · Post by **_fool** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:32 pm

butterscotch wrote:I might have to file this one under "National Lampoon's"...

We dragged ourselves into my friend's house at 8:00 AM... and what I felt was the greatest madness of them all:

At 8:30 AM... My friend left for work.

oh, i can top that. i have to be in austin, texas, at work on wednesday morning. i start in reno around 10am monday after a fine night's sleep and immediately leave my wallet on top of my car when pulling out of the gas station. burned 2 hours looking for it and finally calling in and cancelling all my credit cards. thanked the lord for my emergency cash in the glovebox, $200. enough to buy me gas and some snacks then, wouldn't be enough with today's gas prices :/ plowed through to denver, got in to my sister's place around 5am and managed to wake her up by door-pounding, crashed, slept til noon, drove back to texas. was going slowly due to the bonus 600 pounds of cargo in my otherwise speedy vehicle (i hauled SO MUCH water home. sigh.) made it home around 4am, and reported to my *first day of work at the new job* 4 hours later. i was pretty useless that day.

supersurly · Post by **supersurly** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 12:36 pm

butterscotch wrote: At 8:30 AM... My friend left for work.

~Aimless (The horror. The horror.)

That's pretty crazy. Reminds me of my favorite drive into BM though. My girlfriend and I left Bend OR around 10ish at night, drove the entire night under the large moon, through the desert to arrive right as the sun was peaking over the hills. We saw a couple cars an hour and took a nice walk in the hills outside the playa just for fun.

Tips - Getting Back to Your Camp Easier

sources for solar lights