Range Rover at "Not Burning Man"

[Dogpilot]

Motored my not too heavily modified Range Rover Supercharged up to the "Not Burning Man" event. Actually was one of the few times to have not flown into the event. My buds and I normally build the airport, something we will never do for the organization again. This was the best burn in our combined 36 burns in the USA and abroad. Since there where no arcade rides, people had to actually interact with each other actually actually do "Radical Self Reliance." It was a wild time with little injury or problems that develop from normal ORG run events. Yes, we had to have solutions for poop and stuff, but not too big a problem. Folks did small art or entertainment venues and the big art cars showed up to gives us music and colors to light up the playa. We had a rear projection system where we showed "Rick & Morty" to get folks warmed up to go out to party like only Rick Sanchez can do. The RR did its job providing a good platform to run the system and carry all the massive amount of support inside and on the Front Runner rack.

All in all a great time on the playa. Now I need to clean the car for a month. Pics from early on, perhaps more later.

 

[Deleted member 9101]

I've always wanted to go there.

 

[krick3tt]

I have wanted to go also but other things always seemed to come first.

 

[HUMMER/Expeditions]

Playa is absolutely amazing place to go,
if you continue driving far north end of the playa there are over 30 hot springs totally hidden.

If you drive north west of the playa you will end up right under the mountains at the edge where you can find 100s of geodes

At night if you have a black light with you , scorpions glow everywhere.

Playa is for sure worth going to see,

make sure 100% to have maxtrax and hi lift jack if you are going alone,
Surface looks dry but in many spots it’s a death trap for a truck, if you get stuck alone you are screwed,
Hilift and maxtrax are your only hope

few years ago Australian guy was stuck there for over a week, nobody could get to him to get his truck out.
After the trip to playa except to clean your vehicle for 5 days 8 hours a day ?

 

[Dogpilot]

It is no joke about getting stuck on any of the dry lakebed playas. Luckily I had that figured out back in the 70's when doing my summer field studies for my geology degree in Deep Springs Valley (White Inyo Mountains). My buds and I where looking at some stuff on the weekend we saw while doing our mapping projects. So we drove across that playa. while it looked perfectly dry, some of it was just a dry crust 2-6" thick over what is essentially "baby ********." I personally don't use a high lift for those situations. I get by and always have, with old strips of carpet and armloads of sagebrush. We normally do fly to the hot springs during the event, there is a small crappy strip there. Never driven.

Some shots of what stuck in the playa means. You need to remember this is an area where nobody may come by for several weeks and cell is and was; non-existent. Back then, when we got back to Big Pine, our base. We simply drove the old Series Land Rover down the Owens river for a mile to clean it off. Those old stealth tractors could drive in the water to just below the top of the fenders. No interior or carpets to hurt. No electronics to fry or engine parts to get finicky. You just had to move the plug from the convenient holder on the frame to the block the hole in the Flywheel clutch housing, so it stayed relatively dry. The hole was there to let the ever-present small English style leakage to drip out I've been driving these beasts since the 70's and the new Defender will be #10. The contrast between the two still cracks me up.

 

[HUMMER/Expeditions]

Good old Land Rover and California BEAUTIFUL.
I only use the hilift jack with the tire strap to lift a tire,
It saved me countless times, but I see the danger behind it.

In this picture we were planning to get the burning man playa, by crossing the mountain range, but we got stuck in many places and progress was bad.

i
Must say MY RESPECTS TO THOSE WHO ORGANIZE AND ATTEND BURNING MAN EVENT, after the event of 100.000 ppl, you can not find one single trash or a trace that anyone been there.

 

[Dogpilot]

Yeah, you did good. Miss my old classic. I must say that not having ORG involved was the best burn ever and most that attended where long timers and have respect for the land. Aside from enough urine to solve CA's water crisis on the playa the functioning anarchy worked out well. There where an abnormally low number of injuries and only one medivac. A parasailor that equalled the low altitude record of 0' AGL, ouch. Normally I had to coordinate 3 medivacs a night and the medical group had to deal with a myriad of examples of human shortcoming in judgement.

Using the Defender to build the airport, what a joy but it is really just a tractor with a nice body.

 

[HUMMER/Expeditions]

Wow what an amazing picture, thank you for sharing.
that’ tractor is the most amazing tractor ever made.❤️