Burning Man — an annual desert festival for rich people and tech bros jonesing for a transformative, soul-seeking excursion — got a little muddy this year as heavy rain soaked the festival grounds and trapped attendees in Black Rock City. The folks who got left behind were probably seething with rage as they watched an RV-hauling RAM TRX carve a path through the mud with no problem.
The video of this bold feat is a good one, posted on The Social Media Site Formerly Known As Twitter by Brendan Cobgill. Take a moment to revel in its glory:
The bed of the TRX is loaded down with camping supplies, and there’s no doubt the RV itself is a bit of a challenging haul on even the best of days — but no amount of ankle-deep mud could slow the TRX down, and they managed to haul that RV right out of the slurry of festival soup. If RAM doesn’t use this in its marketing, it’s really missing out.
According to Cobgill, the TRX owner reached out to share a video of the aftermath, as a group of people scraped mud from the rented RV. Since there was no damage, the RV’s owner was pretty stoked about the video.
The festival site in northwest Nevada was pummeled by two months’ worth of rain in just 24 hours, leaving the desert grounds a muddy mess. Roads in and out of Black Rock City were closed on Friday night, with event organizers issuing a “shelter-in-place” warning the next day. Attendees were asked to delay their departure until Tuesday, even though roads officially opened to traffic Monday afternoon, when wait times on the road out were averaging about seven hours (which, all things considered, isn’t abnormal for Burning Man).
CNN reports that the festivalgoers still managed to have a good time despite the conditions, which is an absolute relief. I don’t think I’d have been able to sleep tonight knowing the elite were having a difficult time. Now that they’ve been introduced to the power of an off-road pickup truck, though, I imagine we’ll see plenty of similar pickups hitting the desert next year. Meanwhile, check in on the burners who weren’t so lucky here.