Caption: The night jump posed an interesting problem, in that George, our intrepid pilot, couldn't actually see the (unlit) runway once we'd left. So it wasn't possible to land back at Black Rock airport!
Since I wasn't one of the skydivers, I had to stay aboard the plane on the trip back to the nearest airfield. This turned out to be quite an adventure, as our initial destination, Reno Stead airport, turned out to be closed. We could land, but the gate was locked, so we couldn't walk out. So we got back in the plane and George ended up flying to Reno International. There's something very weird and surreal about stepping off a plane covered in playa dust, and walking straight into the freakish greedy world of a Reno casino hotel without decompressing. Then the hotel turned out to be full anyway so we ended up going back to the airport and overnighting in a lounge for private pilots.
This is the flight back to the playa the following morning. Note the GPS navigation system, programmed with "BMAN" as the destination.
