Burning Man revellers begin exodus after flooding left tens of thousands stranded in Nevada desert

Muddy roads that left tens of thousands of partygoers stranded for days at a counterculture festival had dried up enough by Monday afternoon to allow them to begin their exodus from the northern Nevada desert.

Muddy roads that left tens of thousands of partygoers stranded for days at a counterculture festival had dried up enough by Monday afternoon to allow them to begin their exodus from the northern Nevada desert.

Burning Man organizers said they began to let traffic flow out of the main road around 2 p.m. local time -- even as they continued to ask revelers to delay their exit to Tuesday to ease traffic. As of Monday afternoon, they said about 64,000 people remained at the festival site.

Organizers also asked attendees not to walk out of the Black Rock Desert about 110 miles (177 kilometers) north of Reno as others had done throughout the weekend, including celebrity DJ Diplo and comedian Chris Rock. They didn't specify why.

The festival had been closed to vehicles after more than a half-inch (1.3 centimeters) of rain fell on Friday. The road closures came just before "the Man" was to be set ablaze Saturday night. The event traditionally culminates in the torching of the large wooden effigy shaped like a man and a wooden temple structure during the final two nights, but the fires were postponed to Monday night as authorities worked to reopen exit routes by the end of the Labor Day weekend.

Mark Deutschendorf, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Reno, said it should stay mostly clear and dry at the festival site Monday, although some light rain showers could pass through Tuesday morning.

"We are a little bit dirty and muddy but spirits are high. The party still going," said Scott London, a Southern California photographer, adding that the travel limitations offered "a view of Burning Man that a lot of us don't get to see."

The annual gathering, which launched on a San Francisco beach in 1986, attracts nearly 80,000 artists, musicians and activists for a mix of wilderness camping and avant-garde performances. Disruptions are part of the event's recent history: Dust storms forced organizers to temporarily close entrances to the festival in 2018, and the event was twice canceled altogether during the pandemic.