Raining Man: The Playa Is a Mud Pit, and the Desert Party Is on Hold

Burning Man is closed until at least midday tomorrow following heavy rains on Monday, leaving caravans of hippies, models, entrepreneurs, ravers, reporters and Sherpas mostly milling around the mud in Nevada.

Organizers of the annual art-festival-cum-desert-dance-party are asking participants to postpone their arrival and, at their request, law enforcement officers are turning back vehicles at several points. In other words, legions of techies attending have been flummoxed by analog rain.

Fortunately, for those trying to figure out how to kill the time, the folks at Fresh Bakin have already created “The One Day Reno Guide for Stranded Burners.” Look, DJ Dan and Rob Garza of Thievery Corporation are playing at the Lex Nightclub, so not all your Burning Man provisions will necessarily go to waste.

Meanwhile, some observers think “one genius” believes Mother Nature got things all together backward:

Dear God: You were supposed to prevent Burning Man attendees from “leaving.”

— Dave Pell (@davepell) August 26, 2014

Incidentally, the weather in San Francisco is glorious, with a zero percent chance of rain and noticeably less parking competition than normal. (Just sayin’.)

Re/code reporter Nellie Bowles is already inside and camping in the Ideate camp on the mucky Playa, having arrived in the middle of the night Sunday. So, hopefully the weather and Wi-Fi will improve for some lively dispatches, not exclusively about mud. (Don’t worry, she brought a tarp.)

The livestream from Black Rock City, Nevada, is working well again, on which you can see people biking and moving around easily now, although there are some big clouds looming (and not the storage kind, either):

Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream

And here’s the full statement on Facebook:

Organizers of the annual Burning Man event are asking any participants traveling to the event now to postpone their arrival until at least Tuesday morning. Black Rock City has shut down following rainstorms that left standing water on the playa, leaving it un-drivable.

At the request of Burning Man organizers, Nevada Highway Patrol will be directing traffic away from Highway 447 at Wadsworth. Also at the request of organizers, local law enforcement have also begun turning around traffic at the event entrance on Highway 34 northeast of Gerlach. Drivers are being instructed to find a safe location to park until the expected re-opening of the event on Tuesday.

Organizers expect the rain to dissipate and the playa surface to dry out by midday Tuesday, and participants will be allowed to enter the event again.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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