MOOP Map Live 2013: Day 1!

Greetings MOOP maniacs and line sweepers extraordinaire! It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for all year. The 2013 DPW Playa Restoration All-Star team is proud to present the very first glimpse at this year’s Burning Man MOOP Map.

Burning Man Playa Restoration 2013, Day 1.

Burning Man Playa Restoration 2013, Day 1.

The MOOP Map is a graphical representation of what we discover as we comb the Burning Man site for Matter Out Of Place. Find out more about how it works here, or read on to see the first day’s MOOP score!

Burning Man Playa Restoration 2013, Day 1.

Spirits were high on Monday morning, as 90 eager Line Sweepers took their first steps into the city grid. The weather was warm, winds calm, playa smooth from a recent rainstorm. Stretching out across three city blocks from John Frum to Laissez Faire, the line marched forth to moop an impressive 76 city blocks in a single day.

Burning Man Playa Restoration 2013, Day 1.

The job of mooping every inch of Black Rock City may be a monotonous one, but it’s incredibly important. Burning Man is the world’s largest Leave No Trace event. If we don’t fulfill our agreement with the Bureau of Land Management and restore the desert surface to a relatively pristine state, we can lose our permit to gather here in the Black Rock Desert. The Resto All-Stars are the last line of defense, here to erase any remaining traces so our city can flourish again next year.

Want to support the Resto team? There’s one simple way to do it: Leave No Trace. Moop your camp, control your cigarette butts, don’t let wood chips hit the dust. The more you do to stop MOOP from happening, the more you ensure that Playa Restoration will be completed successfully, so Burning Man can happen next year.

 

Burning Man Playa Restoration 2013, Day 1.

As the day’s heat faded on the breeze, Restoration team leaders gathered at the Black Rock Saloon for the “MOOP Map coloring party” — a daily meeting to discuss the day’s findings, check the data and begin the process of documenting what we found, and how clean each block was when we arrived.

Burning Man Playa Restoration 2013, Day 1.

Burning Man Playa Restoration 2013, Day 1.

This tireless team starts each day with a 7:30 meeting, puts in a full workday on the desert, then continues filling in the MOOP map until dinner at 6. It’s a labor of love, and you would be surprised at the passion the Resto All-Stars muster for this, Black Rock City’s biggest community art project.

Without further ado, I am proud to share our findings with you. Here is the first look at the 2013 MOOP Map, a work in progress that will continue to evolve as we learn more about how well Burning Man 2013 fulfilled its mission to Leave No Trace. Click the image to see it bigger.

Click to enlarge!
Click to enlarge.

REMEMBER: This is a work in progress, not the final map. Obviously.

MOOP Map Legend:
MoopMeter-2013day1GREEN: GO! GO! GO! The Line Sweep moves quickly because it’s clean. Minimal time and effort spent in this location.
YELLOW: Caution! The Line Sweep moves at a stop-and-go pace. Moderate time and effort spent in this location.
RED: Full stop. The Line Sweepers are on their hands and knees. A ton of MOOP. Extensive time and effort in this location.

Wondering what the black dots are? Those are the locations where we found larger items left behind on the playa last week: trash bags, abandoned tents, scaffolding, anything bigger than a bread box. All those items have been removed, but we do record their GPS points.

That’s all for today, sports fans! Tune in again for the next thrilling installment, as the Line Sweeps round the 10:00 corner and head toward their destiny: ESPLANADE. What MOOP awaits them, lurking in the dust just around the bend? Come back soon to find out.

See more photos from Playa Restoration 2013 on Flickr.

About the author: The Hun

The Hun

The Hun, also known as J.H. Fearless, has been blogging for Burning Man (and many other outlets) since 2005, which is also the year she joined the BRC DPW on a whim that turned out to be a ten-year commitment. Since then she's won some awards for blogging, built her own creative business, and produced some of the Burning Blog's most popular stories and series. She co-created a grant-funded art piece, "Refoliation," in 2007, and stood next to it watching the Man burn on Monday night during a full lunar eclipse. She considers that, in many ways, to have been the symbolic end of Burning Man that was. The Hun lives in Reno with DPW Shade King, Quiet Earp. You may address her as "The Hun" or "Hun". If you call her "Honey" she reserves the right to cut you.

30 Comments on “MOOP Map Live 2013: Day 1!

  • Fiver says:

    I’d love to create the 2013 HD moop maps as I have the past few years (overlaying the moop map with the high res satellite image) but I haven’t been able to track down a 2013 satellite image of the event site. Did this not happen this year?

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  • The Hun says:

    Fiver, I love those maps and sure hope a satellite image is out there somewhere.

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  • Travis says:

    Is there anyway to submit photos of our camp from when we left. We took images of our camp after we spent an entire day on our hands and knees and there is a big black and red dot on our camp. It’s really embarrassing. We are looking for our pics now but missing something that big in a part of our camp we didn’t use. Sigh, this just ruined my day.

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  • The Hun says:

    Hey Travis, if your camp hasn’t been scored green/yellow/red yet, don’t sweat it. If you did that level of mooping, your score will probably reflect your efforts. The black spot is just one spot where anybody could have dropped a trash bag; the amount of MOOP on the ground is what will determine your score.

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  • Pele Bunny says:

    Hey,
    AMAZING all the work you guys do!! If there is a red dot, how can we find out what it was…especially if we know we did not leave any big items on our land…
    THANKS!!
    LOVE ALL YOU DO!
    XX
    Pele

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  • Tattoogoddess of blood bath and beyond says:

    The Hun,
    please be aware camp kimono on 3 and f left behind a couch and a coffee table. We wanted to take it with us but we were stacked to the gills with other moop that had been left behind. I think some how this should be documented for further years in the city as they did moop, but someone else came by and picked it up estentally covering their asses. I don’t know how this could be done. Maybe DPW doing rounds in the city and looking at camps who have left and taking notes? It sat there for a day and a half so I know they weren’t coming back.

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  • Travis says:

    Thanks The Hun,

    It was a lot of work Our biggest concern is that we did not have a magnet. I have been watching ever sense because we love our spot and hope to earn it again.

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  • Jane Maru says:

    HEY YA’LL: BIG THANKS FOR YOUR TIRELESS EFFORTS! IMPRESSIVE.

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  • papatua says:

    Why oh why isn’t this high res placement map published BEFORE the event? Or is it and I just don’t know about it? I explored a lot but looking at this map shows me there were many camps I would’ve liked to swing by just to say Hi and ask them what their deal was. :P

    I mean I know camps are published in list order in other places, but as a visual learner, this map is *SO MUCH MORE USEFUL*

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  • papatua says:

    Also, thanks The Hun and all of the Resto crew. You’re my heroes!

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  • Gumby says:

    Love your work and your hearts. Thank you for all your efforts in keeping it real.

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  • sadnameless says:

    Papatua, I was thinking exactly the same thing!! Who do we have to blow to get the 2014 map before the event?!?! :)

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  • The Hun says:

    Pele Bunny, if you are part of a theme camp, then Placement representatives will eventually have that info — but please be patient, we are still working hard out here and it will take a long time to get all the data together!

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  • The Hun says:

    Tattoogoddess of blood bath and beyond: NEAT. Love when that happens /sarcasm

    I’m glad somebody came and picked it up. The deal is, if it is not left behind, we don’t record it (obviously) — but you can report that to the Placement team if you want to.

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  • The Hun says:

    Thanks everybody!!!

    And about that hi res map: It comes out pretty dang close to when Burning Man starts. At that point, I’d guess the entire staff of BRC is running around like headless chickens, which is probably why the map doesn’t appear on the Internet.

    That, plus things change constantly, so it is not even 100% accurate.

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  • anile says:

    We have the same issue as Travis. We mooped to the nth degree, and are proud of our 5 year green history. But I see a black dot on our plot’o land at 3:00 and Eslanade. Thank goodness we took pictures! I’m surprised that several of us have similar concerns that others left stuff on our plots.I hope it all comes out in the end. Thanks to the Playa Restoration Team for your amazing work! Huzzah!

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  • Vertumnus says:

    Way to go team. !

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  • Status Red says:

    How would one go about finding out what was left at/near their camp? When we left our camp site it was completely clear, but now I see a big black and red dot at/near where our camp was.

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  • JV says:

    Awesome job as always, restoration crew. This aspect of the event is highly unique and important.

    One thing that struck me about the map is that it appears the vast majority of the city is taken up by placed camps. Is that correct? That’s neither good nor bad, in my opinion, just interesting and something I hadn’t noticed before.

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  • The Hun says:

    Status Red, read the previous comments for a bit more info on that.

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  • The Hun says:

    JV, that is certainly what it looks like, and the map is pretty accurate so your assessment is likely to be correct. I personally have about the same amount of information as you do on it :)

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  • Sheila says:

    LOVE. LOVE.LOVE uuu!!!

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  • skymonkey says:

    Thank you so much guys!!! You are fully awesome and I am sending each and everyone of you a big hug!

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  • Frenchy says:

    Great big thanks to the crew even if we all moop and make sure that nothing is left we really appreciate the work you guys are doing. Great big hug to all of you
    Till next year lot of love… ;o)

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  • CTP says:

    Speaking as someone who ran a busy theme camp for many years, the resto crew can generally tell if you left a mess versus if some douchecanoes dumped their trash on your spot on their way out. They know it happens every year, and can happen to the best of us. Keep your photos at the ready, but don’t lose any sleep over it yet.

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  • otterromp says:

    Thank you all so much for your incredible effort. :) I’m happy to see green where our camp was. We checked and double checked to make sure we were spotless. I did notice a red dot and know exactly what it was. We were ready to head out and went to say goodby to some neighbors. When we came back someone had left a bike on the road in front of my truck?? As we finished tidying up no one ever came back for it. I stopped some rangers that were passing by and they said people dump those all the time. Unfortunately I had no place to put it so I propped it against the street sign. :( This made me sad. BUT our area was green :)!

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  • Young Blood says:

    I’m really happy and excited to read about so many people from camps putting in a lot of effort on their part to want to come up green and prove that they know what they are doing and show it! It makes walking around on Playa all day with a moop bucket and moop stick, staring at the ground in front of you for hours trying to discern if a small piece of TP is hiding under that small pile of dust or potentially finding a 15ft pole of bamboo hidden under a dune, exciting. Yes, exciting, because the better you do your part, the harder it is for us to find moop which makes it harder for us to focus and not walk deliriously off into outer Playa. I fully accept that challenge and I’m proud to say that most of the dunes I have raked the hell out of, that are 2 feet high with the thought of possible things hidden underneath, come up fairly clean and most of the Resto map as you can see is green. After having so many people come out to this beautiful location, being able to see first hand the possibilities and change that a community can make and affect those that are around them, is a blessing and encouragement to what I do as a career in life. And let me tell you, cleaning up after people is not easy! Thank you for all your support, energy, and hard work to make Burning Man what it is/ will be, and for taking the conscious awareness to clean up after not just yourself but the ones that surround you as well!

    Cheers, love and light,

    Young Blood
    DPW Recycling Crew
    Playa Restoration Team

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  • vertigo says:

    Our camp was black-dotted on the Day 1/2013 map. I spoke with our camp clean up crew about this. Each one of them confirmed our real estate was spotless when the left Tuesday morning. Also, our early crew found moop (e.g a AA battery, etc.) half stuck in the playa the morning after arrival. Further, our neighbors were blackdotted in an area they barely used. So there are definitely some unknown moop sources occurring out there.

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  • The Hun says:

    Right on vertigo. We all know that people sometimes drop off their trash in other people’s camps (grrrrr). The black dots are big stuff like trash bags, so don’t worry about that coming back to haunt you.

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