Oregon Eclipse Retrospective
A once in a lifetime experience to see the total solar eclipse live!
Credit: Vivek Narayan
The “Grunting Raccoons”, our social group of 30+ people, set out on the journey to spend the week (Aug 16–24th) camping at the Big Summit Prairie, enjoy the music festival, and watch the eclipse at the Symbiosis event. The number of people attending was estimated to be 70,000.
The lake was a nice respite
Planning and Organizing
We started planning and organizing for the trip about a month before the event. The tools we used:
Google group — The mailing list for updates and broadcast.
Google Sheet — Tracking attendance, kitchen supplies, funding for trip (Camp+Truck+Van).
Whatsapp group — Used for group communications especially while we were on the road. Also for sharing pics post event. This was only useful when we were connected to the grid. Once at camp, we were off the grid. The Firechat app was a dud.
Google Maps- Driving directions including offline mode
Sixteen person caravan in the Van and Truck
Bandago Van Rental — Rented a 15 passenger Ford Transit van. It’s more like a 13 passenger van, not much storage.
Coast Truck Rental — Rented a 16ft Truck for taking all our camping gear
What went well
Eclipse — Viewing the eclipse live was the best moment. The changing of the light before and after the eclipse is something that must be experienced along with watching the total eclipse.
Watching the Eclipse as it happens
People — Everyone was so chill and easy going. We all cooperated well and did an amazing job of contributing to the loading, unloading, setting up and tearing down the camp. The people that went a day earlier reserved camp spots for the rest of us. The planning and organization also went beautifully, without drama. Besides our group, with that many people attending, I did not see a single fight, argument, or puking. Everyone was having a great time and completely relaxed. Everyone we ran into or talked with were very friendly.
Camp — We had camo shade structures for the tent area, the lounge, and the kitchen areas. We were lucky to get in the ADA camp since 3 people in our group needed to be there. The location of the site was ideal. The toilets were quite good and they kept it relatively clean every day.
Grunting Raccoons Camp — Photo Credit: Siddarth
Venue — All the music and performances we saw were awesome. The food stalls were great with plenty of choices of great food. I particularly enjoyed the “Big Top”, “Silk Road”, and the “Eclipse” stages. We also took advantage of the “Dance Shala”, “Guerrilla Science”, and the “Nourishment lab” venues.
Camp Kitchen — All the food that people brought for sharing. Once the kitchen was set up with shade structure, we lined up all the coolers around the perimeter and the tables in the center. Saturday was white night and everyone contributed to the one and only group dinner.
Sleeping- So glad we had an air mattress and a small battery operated pump. We also had a couple of pads under the air mattress to make the rocky ground a moot point for sleeping. Glad we also had ear plugs.
Clothing — It was hot and dusty during the day and got cold at night so having multiple layers including gloves, a warm hat, fleece was absolutely necessary.
What did not go so well
Entry — The drive from Prineville, OR to Big Summit Prairie was atrocious. It took us approximately 22 hours to get to camp. The organizers missed the mark on this one.
Sleep — Being at ADA camp was awesome since we were so close to all the stages but the speakers should have been pointed in the opposite direction of the camp so people could still get a decent night’s sleep. There was 22 hours of music per day and the base vibrated so much that sleep was a rare commodity.
Environment — It was very dusty and this made it very hard to breathe, to stay relatively clean even with the showers available, and keep the kitchen area dust free.
Showers — The line was always long and they ran out of water so we got to shower a couple times only during the week. Make sure you have a lot of bath and baby wipes. $8 per shower for 5 minutes is a bit much.
Tent — The Coleman 8-person tent we bought that was supposed to take 60 seconds took a lot longer (30 minutes or more) because one of the top poles was frozen. Their customer support is sending us a replacement.
Footwear — My boots. The sole was collapsing and it wasn’t very comfortable to walk on the rocky ground. I tossed it at the end of the week.
Return Trip- @googlemaps on my iPhone took us approximately 2 hours out of the way after we got off 97 south to go have breakfast.
What could be improved
Overall, the experience was great and we loved it but there are a few things that could be better:
Traffic — The organizers need to improve the way the traffic was managed. It should not have taken us around 10 hours to get into camp from Prineville, OR
Google Maps- It should have directed us back to SR-97 south instead of SR-31 and SR-395. This cost us 2 hours.
Speaker direction- Point it away from the camp towards the forest. The stages — “Moon” and “Sky” should have quiet time between 12–8 am since they were closest to camp.
Coleman tent (@Coleman)- Was great once setup but it should be much easier and did not meet the quality standard that we expected.
This was an awesome event with great people. To our “Grunting Raccoons” and the organizers of Symbiosis 2017 — Thank You!