Nevada’s Burning Man Festival made headlines this year when the 75,000 ‘Burners’ (the name for festival goers) were stuck by torrential rain, rather than the usual hot weather, but 2023 also had another claim to fame, a dry ski slope.

The Black Rock City Snow Club, which has had an ski themed camp at the festival for several years, fund-raised $40k to create the slope with scaffolding 5 metres high and 18m long.

Before the rain the main concern had been how the plastic surface would stand up to the usually hot desert temperatures. The slope operated well for the first half of the festival before the rain and it even had its own version of fine powder, as alkaline remnants of the ancient dry lake bed create a fine white dust.