The Unpacking List — Stuff to Leave Home

“Mo’ stuff mo dust.”

a.k.a. the fuck-it list. “Evap pond? Fuck it.”

What this is: The inverse of a packing list. Every list you’ll find (including Crunchy Mama’s, including Fred’s own) is an omnibus list — everything anyone might conceivably want. Nobody’s supposed to bring all of it. This document is the other half: the stuff that shows up on those lists that you can confidently not bring.

The rule: “Much of what you bring won’t get used, and most of what you forget, someone else will have or you’ll live without.” Every item costs you three times — packing it, hauling it, and cleaning the playa dust off it in your driveway in September.

How to use it: Run this list after you build your packing list, as a subtraction pass. Cross out first, buy second.

The five tests

Apply to anything on the fence:

Did I use it last year? No → it comes off. Two years running → it doesn’t come back.
Will someone in camp have one? Yes → their problem, not your cargo space.
Does it survive the playa? No → either it’s already sacrificed, or it stays home. Don’t bring precious.
Does it create work? Anything that needs washing, draining, charging, refilling, or hauling out wet is a chore you packed on purpose.
Is it a contingency for a contingency? Backup-of-a-backup gear is where lists go to die.

⛔ The floor — do not subtract from the official list

There is one list this document does not apply to: the org’s Personal Survival Checklist.

Every other list is an omnibus list — everything anyone might want, assembled by addition. Those are what a subtraction pass is for. The official checklist was assembled the opposite way: it is already the minimum, written by the people who run the medical tents. It is the thing you subtract down to, not from.

Practical rule: run this document against Plaid and Crunchy Mama. Run the official list as a final addition pass. Cut first, then check the floor, then buy what the floor is missing.

A few official MUSTs are items an aggressive cut tends to take out. Named here so they don’t get lost:

Fire extinguisher — no ambiguity, it’s a MUST. So is a fire blanket, one tier down.
Battery-powered AM/FM radio — this is not the two-way radio this document cuts. It’s how you hear BMIR 94.5 when something is happening. A receiver, not a transceiver.
Rain gear + footwear — cut this in a dry year and you’re re-litigating 2023. It’s cheap and it lives in the bottom of a tote.
Prescriptions in their original containers — the container part matters, not just the pills.
1.5 gallons of water per person per day. Never trim water. If camp is providing it, confirm that in advance — “camp has water” is an assumption until someone says it out loud.
Extra set of car keys — both the org and Plaid flag this independently. AAA does not come to Black Rock City.

The 10% rule

Plaid’s 2022 list is a useful natural experiment. It has 254 items. Plaid tagged priority herself, and she tagged 25 MUST and 26 NICE. Everything else — 244 items — she left untagged.

The author of the omnibus list thinks ~10% of it is essential. That’s not this document being harsh. That’s the packing list agreeing with the unpacking list.

Corollary: the un-tagged 90% isn’t wrong, it’s optional-by-default. Treat any untagged item on any list as a cut until it argues its way back in.

Omnibus lists double-count

Plaid’s list contains baby wipes 3 times, safety pins 3 times, and chapstick, sunscreen, small flashlight, ear plugs, poncho, notepad, and spray bottle twice each — because they’re organized by location (on person / backpack / drawer / bath kit), not by object.

That’s correct for a checklist and a trap for a shopper. Run a dedupe pass before you buy anything. You need one box of baby wipes distributed to three places, not three boxes.

Kitchen — the single biggest overpack

Camp kitchens are where the omnibus lists go completely off the rails. If you’re eating shelf-stable + commissary + gifted food, most of a kitchen is dead weight.

❌ Griddle, grill, pie irons, second stove — one burner covers hot water and heat-and-eat.
❌ Full cookware set — one pot. Maybe one pan. Not a nesting set.
❌ Dish tub / three-bucket wash station — dishwater is MOOP, and you haul it out. Wipe-before-it-dries + a spray rinse handles one pot/plate/cup.
❌ Cutting board, knife set, spice rack, cooking oil, hot pads, trivets — these belong to a cooking camp, not a person.
❌ Paper plates in bulk — one metal plate you actually wash beats a stack of trash you have to burn or pack out.
❌ Cooler (if your food is genuinely shelf-stable) — a cooler is an ice logistics commitment, a seepage problem, and a giant box. Skip the whole chain, or accept you’ve signed up for ice runs.
- The tell is the shopping list. Plaid’s “KEEP COLD” tab reads: eggs, butter, cheese, tortillas, sausage, hot dogs, buns, almond milk, green juice. That list is the ice commitment — daily runs, cash for ice, a drain plan, and a wet box to clean in September. If your food list looks like that, you didn’t choose a cooler, the menu chose it for you.
- Fred’s exception, 2026-08-22: cooler’s coming anyway — not for food (still shelf-stable), for ice for drinks (Mai Tai batch). Knowingly accepting the ice-run commitment; ice isn’t far from BRC.
❌ The cooking-camp tail — cutting board, frying pan, saucepan, measuring cup, strainer, cooking utensils, pizza cutter, kitchen towels, clothespins, wine opener. Every one of these is on Plaid’s list. Every one of them assumes you’re cooking a meal.
⚠️ Keep: a can opener. The one kitchen item people cut and then regret at 2am holding a can of chili. (Pop-top cans dodge this entirely — Plaid’s “Ravioli - pop top cans” is the smarter move.)
❌ Anything glass.
❌ Family-size packages — if you can’t finish it in a sitting, it becomes a stink problem in a hot tent.

Shelter — the wind tax

❌ Cheap big-box EZ-Up — “basically a kite waiting for its moment,” and mangled EZ-Ups are harder to bring home than they were to bring out. Bring a real one or bring shade cloth.
❌ Backup tent — unless it’s genuinely your road-trip sleep plan, a spare tent is a contingency-for-a-contingency.
❌ Rebar + rebar toppers (if you’re using lag bolts) — pick one anchoring system. Two sets of hardware, two sets of tools, twice the MOOP risk.
❌ Carpet and rugs — they trash out and go in the dumpster every year. Use mats you’ll actually reuse, or nothing.
❌ Extra tarps beyond two — the third tarp is always still folded on the way home.
❌ Ladder / step stool — borrow it during build, don’t own it on playa.

Water & shower — the “should I even” category

❌ Evap pond — don’t build one. They go septic, they don’t evaporate, and you end up hauling the water anyway. Consensus from people with 15+ burns.
❌ Shower tent + frame + curtain + drain plumbing — this is a camp-scale build. Solo, it’s a lot of hardware for something you’ll use four times.
⚖️ Shower rig at all — decide as a pair: rig + pan, or neither. Half a shower setup is pure dead weight. A 1-gallon garden sprayer (Fred’s pick) or baby wipes are fully legitimate answers for a week — less water in means less water to deal with on the way out.
❌ Extra water beyond your camp’s supply — confirm what camp provides before hauling jugs you’ll drive home full.

Tools & repair — bring the kit, not the shop

❌ Your good tools — playa dust rusts metal and kills tools. If it’s not already sacrificed, it stays home.
❌ Full toolbox — a repair bag (tape, multi-tool, zip ties, paracord, patch kit, spare stakes) covers 95% of playa failures. The other 5% is a neighbor with a truck.
❌ Jumper cables (if your battery is healthy) — everyone within 200 feet has a set, and half of camp has a jump pack.
❌ Duplicate hardware — one hammer, not a hammer and a sledge. One roll of duct tape.

Power — solve one problem, not five

❌ Solar panels with nowhere to mount them — panels you can’t deploy are just heavy glass. If there’s no mounting plan by pack day, they’re out.
❌ Generator and battery and solar — pick the chain that actually works together, then cut the redundant links.
❌ Batteries stored inside devices — separate issue but same bin: pull them, or you’ll find corroded contacts next year.
⚠️ Keep: the oversized extension cord. That’s the one power item people cut and shouldn’t — undersized cord = voltage drop = overheating compressor.

Clothes — the honest count

❌ More than a couple of full costumes — you’ll wear two, photograph one, and wash all of them out of the bin in September.
❌ Anything precious — it will get destroyed. That’s not pessimism, that’s the base rate.
❌ Itchy fabrics — they hold dust and stay itchy all week. Rayon blends and fleece shed dust; scratchy things don’t.
❌ Feather boas — the classic MOOP generator. Marabou if you must.
❌ A clean outfit per day — you’re not staying clean. Bring layers, a laundry bag, and let it go.
⚠️ Keep: one sealed set of clean clothes for the drive home. That one’s worth the space.

Personal — the omnibus list’s worst offenders

❌ Full-length mirror. Genuinely on the 2011 list. Genuinely no.
❌ Shower FM radio.
❌ Massage oil, lotions, foot balm, hair clips, small mirror, comb — collapse the whole toiletry aisle into: sunscreen, lip balm, wipes, toothbrush, prescriptions, ibuprofen.
❌ Two-way radios (unless your camp actually uses them) — ⚔️ Plaid disagrees, and lists them under MISC: “cell reception is nil on the playa.” Both are true. The radios work; the humans don’t. — either they don’t reach across the playa, or your buddy lost theirs, left it in their backpack, or turned it off. Two devices, two chargers, and a frequency nobody agreed on. If you’re meant to meet up, you’ll meet up.
❌ Musical instruments you don’t play daily at home.
❌ Glow sticks and glow bracelets — the rare cut the org makes for you: “weak glow sticks and bracelets don’t cut it and become instant trash and potential MOOP.” They’re not lighting, they’re pre-packaged litter. A $6 blinky you can recharge does the actual job for ten years.
❌ Mailbox with postcards, gift-shop-scale gifting hauls — small, light, meaningful beats bulk.

The four-drawer dresser

Plaid’s list organizes personal gear into a bedside dresser with four drawers. It’s a genuinely good system — and a perfect specimen of how a system grows cargo. Drawer three (“BATH”) alone is: foot lotion, foot scrubber, Dr. Bronner’s, shampoo, conditioner, face soap, body lotion, deodorant, comb, brush, hair spray, Qtips, cotton squares, toothbrush, toothpaste.

❌ Shampoo + conditioner + face soap + body lotion + hair spray — you are not going to have nice hair. Nobody does. Dr. Bronner’s covers everything that genuinely needs washing.
❌ The Foot LOVE kit (small tub, vinegar, dedicated towel, Vaseline, pumice stone, a pair of socks per day) — playa foot is real and this kit does work. It’s also a whole sub-camp of gear. Wipes plus one bottle of lotion gets 80% of it. Cut the tub.
❌ Makeup, hair clips, comb and brush, cotton squares — the toiletry aisle collapses to: sunscreen, lip balm, wipes, toothbrush, prescriptions, ibuprofen.
⚠️ Keep the drawers themselves. The container isn’t the problem — findable-in-the-dark storage is one of the best ideas on the list. Just don’t fill all four.

The pharmacy

Plaid’s first-aid drawer runs ~30 items: Pamprin, witch hazel, grape seed extract, hydrogen peroxide, diaper rash cream, benzoyl peroxide, B12, instant cold pack, elastic bandage, nasal spray, three kinds of antiseptic.

❌ The full drugstore — you are camping inside a city with free, staffed medical. If it’s beyond a bandaid, you want ESD, not your own witch hazel.
⚠️ Keep the oh-shit kit: bandaids, ibuprofen, anti-diarrheal, moleskin, Neosporin, your own prescriptions, electrolytes. That’s the whole list.
Prescriptions are the exception to every cut in this document. Nobody at camp has yours.

Bike

❌ A second bike “just in case” — pick one. The other one is a rack problem, a theft target, and a lock you have to remember.
❌ A nice bike — used, dry-garage, 20 years old, tube + chain lube. It’s going to get destroyed, stolen, or borrowed forever.
❌ Lasers as bike lighting — explicitly called out by the org as not appropriate. They don’t make you visible, they put light in other people’s eyes, and the people whose eyes they land in are driving art cars.
❌ Spoke lights (if you’re short on prep time) — real install effort, and the plain blinkies you zip-tie on do the actual safety job.

Vehicle / trailer

❌ Gear you’re hauling “in case the trailer has room” — the room is the point. Leave it for costumes, gifts, and other people’s stuff on the way home.
❌ Pre-trip car wash / air filter — save it for after. Playa dust is what you’re washing off, and it hasn’t happened yet.

Things that feel like cuts but aren’t

Cut these and you’ll regret it. Listed here so the subtraction pass doesn’t overshoot:

Goggles + dust mask — whiteouts arrive with no warning.
Warm layer + hat — nights hit the 40s. Every year someone is cold and surprised.
Real anchoring hardware — the wind is not a rumor.
Blinky something for your body at night — being invisible on a bike is the actual danger out there.
Water — never the thing to trim.
Electrolytes — someone in camp needs them every single year.
A repair kit — small, light, saves the week.
Extra sunglasses / spare glasses — tiny, and losing your only pair is a real bad day.
A spray bottle with a little vinegar in the water — playa dust is alkaline; the vinegar neutralizes it. Cheap, tiny, and it’s the difference between wiping dust off and wiping it around. (Plaid’s tip.)
A spare car key, magnetized somewhere on the vehicle — AAA does not come to Black Rock City, and on-playa locksmiths charge accordingly.
Cash — for ice. There are no cards out there. (Coffee is free now, from small camps; Center Camp no longer sells it.)

Fred’s personal cut list — 2026

Specific to this year’s trip and gear.

[ ] Small solo tent (road nights only, to/from playa, optional)
[ ] Rebar mushrooms — not needed; give away at BM or leave home
[ ] RTT: staying mounted — road sleep (1-2 nights) + spare shelter at BM
[ ] Pot
[ ] Griddle, grill, full cookware, dish tub — junk-food/commissary diet doesn’t need it
[ ] Jumper cables — battery’s reliable, and if stranded, someone else on the road/in camp will have cables
[ ] Solar panels — cut for 2026 (no mount location)
[x] ~~E-bike~~ — sold 2026-08-23, for what Fred paid. 70+ lbs is staggering for what it does; fun to zip around on, but a pedal bike still works. Lesson: don’t buy another one.

Sources

Crunchy Mama’s Burning Man Packing List (2011, PDF) — the maximalist reference this list argues with
Plaid’s Burning Man Packing List 2022 — 254 items, MUST/NICE tagged, heavily annotated. The second maximalist reference, and the source of the 10% rule above.
Burning Man — Survival Checklist — the org’s Personal Survival Checklist. The floor. Not subject to this document.