For the 8th consecutive time,
fifteen pilots were invited to Breckenridge, Colorado for what I feel to
be one of the best balloon events of the year. It took place the second
weekend of December and as usual, the pilots were greeted by cold weather
but the atmosphere and warmth of the people of Breckenridge, always makes
them feel welcome.
Everyone arrived on Tuesday evening, checking in and meeting for food & drink and the pilot briefing hosted by the Breckenridge Resort Chamber. Snow and the weather that comes along with it was the forecast for Wednesday morning, so all activities except skiing were postponed until Thursday.
At dinner Thursday, there was a message from the mayor with a welcome to all and a note to fly a little higher over town the next time. I guess a few people woke up and reported to the police department that they were startled to see balloons at eye level out of their windows. Pilots had taken off and were landing in parking areas next to the condos. But what a fun and picturesque morning flight, circling over the "Kingdom of Breckenridge," with the ski runs in the background and box winds to bring us back to the launch area to land. It was truly a beautiful day in Colorado.
So what does one do in Breckenridge when they aren't flying balloons? Well, there is shopping, snowmobiling, hot tubbing, and entertaining with food. My brother Kevin created a great Mexican food feast and Joel Sturdevant whipped up some of his famous margarita's.
Oh yea, they say that balloon pilots and crews do make pretty good skiers, all ages and all abilities. I told the guys that if the thermometer went to 30 degrees and the sun came out, I'd get on the mountain. Living here in Colorado, I have become a good weather skier... We watched the thermometer inch up from 10 below at daybreak to 30 and so I chased a few of my brothers, Ed V, Christi W, Joel and Dan Sherrill's son around the mountain all afternoon on Saturday. They wore me out, I haven't skied that hard in years.
Several balloons glowed on Friday evening and Saturday morning about 10 balloons had a short flight as the skies clouded up and a front moved in. We participated in the Lighting of Breckenridge parade Saturday night, throwing candy canes to children and "burning" our way down main street.
The highlight of the event took place on Friday morning. The sun rose over the peaks warming the air as everyone examined the printout from David Levin's wind reader and watched the direction of the pibals. It was looking perfect for crossing The Continental Divide, the real reason we all were there. While balloons were preparing to inflate, Ed counted how many would fly, it appeared that there would be enough pilots for a new record.
After re-checking the direction,
the pilots met briefly and decided that it was a go to cross the divide.
Everyone inflated and took off, thirteen balloons in all and I counted at
least 18 passengers. They slowly rose up out of the valley and headed south
over the divide. as I have gotten to fly over twice in previous years, I
jumped in my brother John Petrehn's van and along Lisa Kempner of Lindstrand,
USA, following Joel Sturdevant and Phil Thompson in the Lindstrand factory
balloon. We hurried the chase since it about an hour drive and we estimated
the flight would be about the same.
We reached the summit of Hoosier Pass 11,539 ft, in time to see my brother Paul, just south of us in the GM Goodwrench balloon crossing over the top of the peaks and slowly dropping into South Park. Most of the balloons were together as they crossed over part of the Pike National Forest near Mount Silverheels (13,822), Little Mount Baldy (12,142) and Palmer Peak at (12,517 feet). Thirty minutes later as we entered South Park on Highway 285, David Bradley was landing just west of Fairplay and Ed Vandehoeff, Steve Lombardi, David Vines, Cheri White, Johnny Petrehn and Joel Sturdevant were still flying just to the East. All the other pilots had landed or were out of our sight. I passed by Paul as he was making his final descent to land, he had flown solo. We talked briefly on the radio, he'd had a great flight and his crew would be there soon.
Being in radio contact was a must for a flight like this, all pilots carry oxygen, aircraft radios and most had a GPS on board. Each carried their own version of survival gear, just in case of that off chance that they were forced to land early or some where on a mountain peak. Some took power bars, bottled water, a pan for melting snow, cell phones for communications and a sleeping bag or two.
By the time everyone had landed, we were peeling off layers of snow clothes and sweating from bagging the envelopes. Snapped a few pictures, looked at the GPS tracking and talked on the radio to be sure everyone was down safely. As we headed back to Breckenridge for breakfast and war stories, we made a quick detour in downtown Fairplay to visit old "South Park" City. Stopping to eat some cheese balls and pose with a few cartoon characters...
It was an exhilarating morning for those 31 people who flew over . A record was set for the most balloons and I believe the total number of passengers. There were three of the Petrehn brothers that went over and for John it was his third crossing, just a little family record. "I'll be checking with the Guinness Book to get this world record flight in the books," said Karin Penegor with the Breckenridge Resort Chamber.
Next year the pilots want to add a little fun competition to the crossing, throw in a target or two and maybe a little prize money.
