Industry News
Burning Man is held every year from August 27 through September 4 in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada and creates a temporary city that promotes art, self-expression, and self-reliance. The temporary city is named Black Rock City, with the festival’s mission being to guide, nurture, and protect the more permanent community created by its culture. It all started in 1986 at Baker Beach, California, with a population of 35, and today boasts a population of over 70,000 people.
Last year the Black Rock City (BRC) Snow Club added a new addition to Burning Man, a 14-foot tall and 62-foot-long portable dry ski slope. “The focus (of the Ski Slope) is on spreading the love of snow sports and to give people the opportunities who don’t have the chance to go to the mountains,” Dylan Hogan said, founder of BRC Snow Club.
Looking at this summer the BRC Snow Club has made some upgrades and improvements to the portable dry ski slope. They just finished building the slope for the second time at an event called unSCruz which is a local Burning Man event held every year near Santa Cruz. “The build took longer than anticipated due to some challenges caused by damage from the rain at Burning Man last year, and we’re currently fundraising so we can fix the damage and make some improvements so we can add a removable jump on the middle level,” Hogan said.
- Related Article: What is Burning Man?
Improvements to the portable ski slope include converting the lower ramp section from all wood to a scaffold-supported ramp. This will allow for faster setup, easier transport, and more flexibility as they grow. “We set up the drop-in platform in the correct position this time (which is 0.5m higher than at Burning Man), which bumped the upper ramp’s angle up by about 7º, leading to a much faster slope overall,” Hogan said.
They also extended the runout so that shredders could slide safely to a stop on flat ground. “One of our fundraising goals is to purchase more material so we can extend the runout further for safety,” Hogan said. The goal is to add more of a runout for riders to stop instead of sliding straight into the dirt. The BRC Snow Club is also adding a kicker (jump) to give the people what they asked for which is the opportunity to send it!
The BRC Snow Club has started an online fundraiser with these objectives:
$8,000: Kickstarter is all-or-nothing so we’re setting our goal at what was pledged (but never received since we didn’t hit our goal) last year. This will help us cover some operating expenses (storage, transportation, etc) and repairs to the slope after the torrential rains of 2023.
$15,000: Now we can extend the runout so that shredders can slide safely to a stop on flat ground. We will also squeeze in a small kicker (jump) for you to send it off the middle section!
$20,000: At this level, we can convert our lower ramp section from all wood to a scaffold-supported ramp, as well as add some LEDs to light it up for disco sledding!
Above $20,000: We’ll go wider, taller, longer, harder – wait, not that last one. We designed the ramp to be easily scalable, so the more funding we receive, the bigger we can go! Expanded riding surfaces, additional features, enhanced lighting – anything is possible!
The overall goal is to upgrade and have the portable ski slope ready for this year’s Burning Man in August.“We’re stoked for this year’s burn! The slope has been a huge hit with participants every time we’ve put it up, so we’re hopeful we’ll be able to raise the funds needed to do the repairs and improvements we have on our agenda,” Hogan said.
If you cannot make Burning Man this summer, do not worry, plans are being made to transport the portable ski slope to other locations, Hogan said.
For more information visit the BRC Snow Club’s website.
