Up, Up and Away in Albuquerque
In October, the New Mexico skies will once again be filled with 1,000 hot air and gas filled balloons.
The Kodak Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta (Oct 7-15) is ballooning's largest and most spectacular event
Participating in this record setting event will be balloon teams representing 27 different countries. The 29th annual event will also include a new balloon glow, a new
hot air balloon competition and the largest competitive gas balloon event in history.
"This event will be the largest balloon event, bar none, in the world," says Harry T. Season, President of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta Board.
The popularity of balloon glows and special shape balloon events has resulted in an additional Special Shape Balloon Glow. The two balloons glows,
will take place on October 12th and October 13th. Officials anticipate 90 special shape balloons will take to the skies during the Special Shape
Rodeo. Included in the group of shapes flying at this year's Balloon Fiesta includes a parrot, an amazon tree, and a stagecoach.
The popular America's Challenge Gas Balloon Race will set some records when it launches 54 pilots in
27 gas balloons on October 7th. The distance event competition will also be the largest competitive event of its kind ever held in the sport of ballooning. Five
countries will be participating in the fifth edition of the race.
A new event at this year's Balloon Fiesta will be the New Mexico Challenge Long Distance Hot Air Balloon Race. The competition will feature 40 hot air balloon
teams, competing in three different categories, attempting to fly the farthest distance from Balloon Fiesta Park in Albuquerque. The New Mexico Challenge is unique
to ballooning. It is the only event in the world where hot air balloon teams compete head to head in a distance race.
RVs Galore
Recreational vehicle (RV) owners from across the nation, as well as a few from as far away as Canada, Mexico, and even Australia, will journey to New Mexico for
the week. Easy access to the field, staying within walking
distance to all of the events, and the camaraderie of hundreds of other balloon enthusiasts keep RVers coming back to Balloon Fiesta in droves year after year.
Although RVers travel to Balloon Fiesta from all 50 states, the majority come from Arizona, Texas, California and Oklahoma.
Many groups, including snowbirds heading south for the winter, return yearly to enjoy the festival atmosphere.
Balloon Fiesta sets aside 78 acres with 2200 sites for campers and RVers.
The growing popularity of camping at Balloon Fiesta is evident by the dramatic increase in the number of RVs in the past nine years. "We started with 200-300 RVs,
and this year we are expecting as many as 3,000 campsites to be filled at Balloon Fiesta Park," predicts Jim Erwin, RV Park Coordinator. With growth comes change, and every year brings new
improvements to the park. According to Erwin, there will be more sites with electricity and water this year, as well as an extended shuttle service from the RV Park
to provide visitors with faster, more convenient transportation to and from Balloon Fiesta events.
The Albuquerque Box
The fall weather in Albuquerque is known for its clear days and cool temperatures. This weather and what is known as the Albuquerque "box," help to make the
Balloon Fiesta a spectacular image captured by photographers and locked forever in
the minds of those who visit. The "box" is a combination of upper and lower level winds created by the Rio Grande Valley and enhanced by the Sandia Mountains.
The box enables a balloonist to back track their flight pattern and land close to their launch site. Cool air from the north near the surface will take pilots one direction
while higher winds blow in the opposite direction. A pilot needs only to change elevation to fly back along their original course. Some winds patterns allow pilots to
dip their gondola in the Rio Grande for a "Splash and Dash"; other patterns will move balloons towards the majestic Sandia Mountains.
This unique relationship of mountain formations and wind characteristics has brought many balloonists back to Albuquerque year after year to enjoy beautiful
ballooning weather. This "box" allows the hundreds of balloons that lift off from the field during Balloon Fiesta's morning Mass Ascensions to remain close to the
field, creating a colorful visual display replicated nowhere else in the world. All events are held weather permitting.
Gas balloonists are also drawn to Albuquerque's weather. The gas balloon has an enclosed cell that contains a lifting gas, usually helium. While hot-air balloons
usually float only a few hundred to a thousand feet above Albuquerque, the gas balloonists often fly several thousand feet above the ground and attempt to reach
faster winds at higher elevations. Because altitude is not controlled by heating the air, pilots use navigation, elevation and strategy to use the weather patterns that
have taken them as far as Minnesota and West Virginia.
The State of Enchantment
If you get tired of balloons, there are plenty of areas left to explore.
New Mexico may not be a whole country but it is as big as the whole outdoors. Few states can boast six of the
seven life zones on earth. Nor are many areas blessed with high altitude mountains while being one of the
most southern states in the continental United States. These combinations provide for recreational
opportunities that are as varied as the terrain. Thirteen National Monuments and Parks, 29 State Parks and
five National Forests await both the sightseer and the most ardent outdoor adventurer.
Hiking and biking can be done in almost any region of the state using trails on mesa tops, desert canyons or
high mountain meadows. Numerous lakes and streams beckon anglers fishing for trout, bass, walleye or
catfish. Hunting ranges from the mule deer to elk or the exotic oryx and ibex.
Water enthusiasts can windsurf,
water ski, Jet Ski, scuba dive or just swim. Land sailors harness the wind to skim dry lake beds on
three-wheeled craft across dry lake beds west of Lordsburg, site of the Great Overland Landsail Races.
Sandsurfing is fantastic on the dunes at White Sands National Monument near Alamogordo, with plastic
saucers available at the visitor center. And don't forget twelve ski areas that harvest the snow of the Southern
Rockies while basking in the New Mexico sunshine.
 At the Petroglyph National Monument,
more than 20,000 prehistoric and historic Native American and Hispanic petroglyphs (images carved in rock) stretch 17-miles along Albuquerque's West Mesa
escarpment. Associated archeological sites provide important chapters in a 12,000 year- long story of human life in the Albuquerque area.
The Salinas Pueblo Missions were
once thriving American Indian trade communities of Tiwa and
Tompiro speaking Puebloans inhabited this remote frontier area of
central New Mexico. Early in the 17th-century Spanish Franciscans
found the area ripe for their missionary efforts. However, by the late
1670s the entire Salinas District, as the Spanish had named it, was
depopulated of both Indian and Spaniard. What remains today are
austere yet beautiful reminders of this earliest contact between Pueblo
Indians and Spanish Colonials: the ruins of four mission churches, at
Quarai, Abó, and Gran Quivira and the partially excavated pueblo of
Las Humanas or, as it is known today, Gran Quivira. Established in
1980 through the combination of two New Mexico State Monuments
and the former Gran Quivira National Monument, the present
Monument comprises a total of 1,100 acres.
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