07/21/05

Playa

In the western US and Mexico, a playa is a dry lake-bed, consisting of fine-grained sediments infused with alkali salts. Their surface is generally very dry, hard and smooth in the summer months, but wet and very soft in the winter months. While the playa itself will be devoid of vegetation, they are commonly ringed by shadscale, saltbrush and other salt-tolerant plants that provide critical winter fodder for livestock and other herbivores. The Black Rock Desert in Nevada and the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah are both playas have both been used for setting land speed records. The Black Rock Desert is also home to the Burning Man festival.