Thousands of participants face mud in "exodus" after isolation at the Burning Man Festival

Vehicles leaving the Burning Man Festival in the United States after the rain isolated the place – Photo: Matt Mills McKnight/Reuters

Thousands of Burning Man attendees began their “exodus” across the United States on Monday, as the Nevada desert counterculture arts festival wraps up its 2023 edition in a sea of mud.

Organizers posted online that they expected the vehicles to be officially allowed to leave around midday local time on Monday, but some participants told the Reuters news agency that a steady stream of vehicles had left since dawn.

According to the American news network “CNN”, the roads have been opened by the organizers.

The exit goes through an 8-kilometer unpaved dirt road to the nearest highway. Pictures circulating on the Internet showed huge recreational vehicles mired in mud to the edges of their tires, and some had boards under their wheels in an attempt to gain traction.

The festival is located about 15 miles from the nearest town and over 170 miles north of the Rhine.

Organizers asked those able to delay departure until Tuesday morning to reduce traffic.

For days, some 70,000 people were forced to stay put and conserve food and water, while the authorities blocked roads and exits, and ordered all vehicles to remain parked.

But meteorologists with the National Weather Service said on Monday that the rains were over.

Some festival-goers ignored orders to stay still over the weekend and tried to walk or drive to the motorway. Others continued the party even in the rain.

Videos posted on social media showed revelers, including some children, sliding through sticky mud, most of them covered from head to toe in the wet ground.

Each year, Burning Man attracts tens of thousands of people to the Nevada desert to dance, make art, and enjoy being part of a temporary, self-sustaining community of like-minded souls. This year’s edition opened on August 27 and was scheduled to run through Monday.

The festival began in 1986 as a small gathering on the beach in San Francisco, California, and is now frequented by celebrities and social media influencers. A regular ticket costs $575.

The penultimate night is usually reserved for farewells, with a giant effigy of a man being burned, accompanied by a fireworks display, which did not happen this year. But the organizers stated that this could happen on Monday night.