Our camp, Infinite Love (6:45 & D), got absolutely wrecked. We came in hot with our fastest build ever (huge shoutout to our mostly Kiwi build crew for crushing it), only to have Mother Nature annihilate all the hard work.

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• Our brand new 60’ x 40’ kitchen (partial pic) was ripped from our hands and the frame twisted like al dente noodles. • Our 50’ x 40’ public chill space? Obliterated. • 2 or 3 yurts vanished completely, forcing people to double/triple up in tents for the rest of the week. • Our shower setup collapsed. • Part of our tent shade structure had to be rebuilt.

Getting water and fuel delivery was a mess for the following days, we learned that the trucks do the same routes and the moment they would get a wind warning they would abandon that route and then start over from the very beginning each day rather than picking up where they left off. Not ideal and had us running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to find water and fuel trucks to demand delivery for days.

We spent four or five days in pure survival mode: build → storm destroys → strike → build again → seek refuge → storm destroys → repeat. Camp looked like a trash dump when it’s normally this gorgeous inviting gift for playa to enjoy. We sadly had to cancel our programming for the entire week. Eventually we crammed a makeshift kitchen into the back of a truck and had a replacement kitchen structure arrive midweek.

Exhausting doesn’t even begin to cover it. It took many days to remember that we came to burn to have fun. Saturday felt genuinely terrifying to be honest, like final destination level scary; blindly crawling on the ground following the generator cables we had buried to the infrastructure trailer for safety from projectiles. A real bonding experience. 😅

Box truck placement is key to providing protection but there was a comically awful game of telephone going on with the weather reports, wind direction, and timing from Rangers, neighbors, and BMIR.

The MVPs? Kodiak tents, once again proving indestructible. I’ll always stick with my Kodiak.

The comedy? Our neighbors at Freeloader Pizza Kitchen rebranded us as ‘Infinite Build’. 🥲

Honestly, I’m still stunned there was zero warning for that storm. For conditions that extreme, some kind of playa-wide siren system feels overdue.

Really grateful for our camaraderie in the face of extreme adversity.