I very much like the idea of a centralized yurt-storage service. A couple
of thoughts:
- There's a guy who did this last year for me ("Black Rock Hexayurts").
He charged a very modest price last year ($75), but raised it to $300 this
year. Sadly, his service quality was poor; yurts were not on-playa on the
date promised, the yurts were buried under lots of his other camp "stuff",
and he was rarely around when you went to find him. A solo person,
unorganized, with poor standards is NOT the solution. (I found a different
solution this year, but would still like a quality service.)
- Charging for this in advance of the burn is reasonable. The service
must incur a fairly substantial investment to make this happen; having a
predictable number of people / yurts is crucial to viability.
- It's also reasonable to require that Yurts be packaged to specific
requirements. Because people are not likely to always comply with them, the
service should have some spare supplies - tarps, ply, etc. - to "fix" those
that are not delivered properly (at either end). By the way: 1/4" ply adds
a huge amount of weight to a wrapped bundle; I used 1/8" satisfactorily.
- I LOVE the trolly solution pictured in this thread. These could
actually be made of ply & some wheels with carriage that could be broken
down for storage year-to-year. We could actually have / make a half-a-dozen
of these to help people get yurts to their camp quickly (and back). Some
form of generalized clamp-to-bike-seatpost needs thought up, so people can
use their own bikes.
- I know a couple of camp leaders who store trailers near Black Rock
City - generally on privately owned land. Storage costs can actually be
fairly small.
- Purchasing used semi-truck containers isn't back-breaking. They can be
had for a few thousand bucks. This can be recovered over a couple of burns,
easily.
- I'd also consider some form of construction / arrangement inside the
trailer so that yurts can be pulled off the truck randomly - without having
to unload all yurts before one in the back can be unloaded. This reduces
density, but increases practicality.
- We'd have to have people scheduled to be at the truck for
early-arrival, and staying post-burn, so people who are there in those
times can collect / drop-off their yurts. This should be volunteer effort.
- Costs / money collected for this service should only go to cover the
hard costs involved; labor should be volunteered (in the spirit of BM). It
should operate as a non-profit. (Note: This means, actually, targeting a
very small profit each year. Having run a non-profit, I've discovered that
unexpected costs always arise, which wipe out that small profit....)
I'd be happy to consider spearheading this, but would only do it if we had
a fair groundswell of support.
Maybe we should start a new, properly titled thread to discuss this?
-jb
On Monday, September 22, 2014 4:10:51 AM UTC+9, BurnerDan wrote:
>
> Hey y'all ~
>
> When I saw the headline for this post, I imagined yurts at some stage of
> tear-down and loading getting blown astray - or worse, being abandoned (so
> I'd be interested in how that quantified).
>
> Of course, reading it revealed a problem pretty hard to miss on the roads
> away from BRC - just as darxus reports. Bringing the large amounts of
> stuff - from art to experimental dwellings to costumes and consumables are
> all part of what make the experience what it is - so we deal with it
> better.
>
> It's legitimate to call out yurts specifically. There are more every year
> (because they're such as cool dwelling solution), but that really means we
> need to solve the transport problem. It's kind of unique to yurts because
> it's possible and tempting to flap a stack of insulation boards on your
> roof rack and drive. They're light. But as noted, they're also fragile.
>
> Even though they're modular and collapsible, they do take up significant
> space in garages, etc.
>
> *Conceptually simple solution:* Store them more or less on the playa.
> As I understand it, many organized camps have storage containers left on
> adjacent non-BLM land which are transported to & from campsites for each
> year's burn by BLC "facilities" guys (someone help me out with their
> official name... and contact info, please).
>
> *Real-world wrinkles:* ..Attendance uncertainty,
> maintenance/repair/remodel/replace and on-playa logistics. None of that is
> easy, I got a little look at that by making almost 30 yurts, getting them
> to people (mostly on-playa), dealing with supplier delays, weather delays,
> entry delays, people not coming after all, unforeseen "variation" in
> user/owner setup and breakdown etc. Then, "What's worth saving?" - which
> means cleaning up dust, messed up tape, dings, etc. I'm pretty sure a
> significant percentage of yurts come out of the garage 5 years after their
> only burn and just land in the trash (carbon/general environmental
> footprint???).
>
> So it's not a "simple" solution. But is there a better one? It's
> certainly not a one solution fits all world either. Camps and other groups
> carefully collect yurts and put them in the camp storage. But not every
> camp does this for everyone all the time.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Dan
>
> On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 7:49 AM, <[email protected] <javascript:>>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> http://blog.burningman.com/2014/09/environment/moop-map-2014-roadside-poop-hexamoop/
>>
>> 'The second, more surprising 2014 trend: hexayurts. Large numbers
>> of broken hexayurt panels wound up littering the highway, scattering
>> little bits of styrofoam through the sage. Solution: Strap your hexayurt
>> panels more carefully, so they won’t bend and break when you hit
>> highway speeds.
>>
>> “Wrap your yurts! They fly away, and once it hits the sagebrush,
>> it’s over,” says Ninjalina, Highway Cleanup Assistant Manager. The
>> prickly branches catch bits of foam and wood as they blow past in the
>> wind, creating an extended trail of littered brush.
>>
>> “My truck alone picked up 64 contractor bags of trash, 30 tires,
>> 20 yurt panels and a bunch of miscellaneous stuff,” Ninjalina says.'
>>
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