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Burning Ski

Yes, you can ski at Burning Man. Burners test the dry ski slope at Lake Lahontan Ski Resort, the first and only artificial ski slope in Black Rock City. Photo: Jamey Mossengren
Yes, you can ski at Burning Man. Burners test the dry ski slope at Lake Lahontan Ski Resort, the first and only artificial ski slope in Black Rock City. Photo: Jamey Mossengren
Words: Lily Krass Ritter

There’s no snow at Lake Lahontan Ski Resort, but the queue to drop into the resort’s best (and only) ski run is buzzing. Dance music blares as a bearded man in a bathrobe drops in for a front flip off a kicker in the middle of the 14-foot-high hill. Sixty-two feet (lengthwise) of dry skiing above Black Rock City awaits, Burning Man’s first-ever ski slope.

Dylan Hogan—who also goes by his DJ name, Major Trouble—first dreamed of skiing at Burning Man after he saw a video online of a snowboarder sliding down an artificial slope in the middle of China. “Immediately, I wondered if we could bring a ski slope to Burning Man,” he says.