Parque de Vida buzzed with activity Friday morning as the Cortez Rendezvous Balloon Rally kicked off, filling the park with colorful balloons. However, wind direction and cloud cover made it unsafe to launch the balloons, so crews settled for blowing them up and tethering them to trucks.
The 20th annual rally brought crowds from all over the region, and despite the early hour and cooler temperatures, people were excited to watch the balloons float high above Cortez. While the balloons didn’t launch, people were still excited to see the balloons inflating and the crews working hard to get them up safely.
The balloon rally was started in 2004 by Glenn and Cookie See, and since then they’ve recruited their children and grandchildren. Cookie died away a few years ago, but Glenn See and his daughter Jennie Pendleton and her husband, Craig Pendleton, still travel all over the Four Corners for events like the Rendezvous.
See has been flying for about 40 years, and Craig is from a flying family and has been piloting since 1996.
“It’s very much a family event … running this whole thing,” Jennie Pendleton said.
The family travels to the rally in Cortez from Albuquerque every year. While Albuquerque is the balloon capital of the world, the family prefers to travel around and attend rallies in neighboring states, Jennie Pendleton told a Journal reporter.
“It’s been awesome every year. We love, love, love Cortez. Pilots have come from Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and in the past California,” Jennie said.
Brianne Clarkson, See’s granddaughter and the Pendletons’ niece, has become involved with ballooning. She explained how inflation works and what it takes to get a balloon standing.
The envelope of the balloon is first attached and then cold inflated by a high-powered fan while the gondola lies on its side. Once the cold inflation is complete, propane burners are started, lifting the balloon from the ground and tipping the gondola right side up again.
Two people hold a line attached to the front of the balloon, keeping the balloon from lifting too quickly and from tipping over the other way once it's up.
Inside the gondola, propane tanks power the balloon, as well as various flying instruments to aid the pilots. The instruments include a altimeter to measure altitude, a variometer to determine rate of descent or climb and a pyrometer to determine how hot the balloon gets, Craig Pendleton said.
Several different sizes and types of balloons showed up to the launch Friday morning. The Pendletons’ balloon is a bigger balloon, approximately 105,000 cubic feet.
Melissa Bond and her crew brought four of their remote-controlled balloons, which are smaller, stay tethered, and don’t carry passengers, with the exception of Bond’s Baby Yoda in one of her balloons.
“Some of us are older balloon pilots that have built miniatures of bigger balloons,” Bond told a Journal reporter.
The four remote-controlled balloons at Friday’s launch were Euripides, Bella Sky, Pawz and Spadarkles. Euripides is a replica of a larger balloon, Bond said.
Some of her other balloons include Itsy Bitsy, which is her oldest at 30 years old and is a miniature Spider Man. She has special shapes, including Biscuit the dog and Peter Porker, which is a replica of a big spider pig Bond and her husband built.
This is the first year that remote-controlled balloons have been at the rally, and Bond is excited and hopes it will catch on.
“It’s a nice attraction for kids of all ages,” Bond said. “The adults really like them just as much as the kids do.”
Cody and Marissa Myers, owners of Pagosa Adventures in Pagosa Springs, brought a cloud hopper balloon, which is 37,000 cubic feet. Instead of an attached basket, it carries a single chair.
“It’s lots of fun, you can land it just about anywhere,” Cody said.
Marissa Myers was born into a ballooning family, so she grew up doing it. Her mother flew until just a few weeks before she was born.
The Myerses plan to have two big balloons tethered Friday night for the Evening Glow, starting at 7 p.m. Folks can get a chance to go up in a tethered balloon and float up and down. Last year, they had to turn down almost 100 people because they ran out of fuel, Marissa Myers said.
Marissa Myers was trained at a Part 141 flight school, which is approved by the Federal Aviation Administration. Training was three to six months of early morning flight training and afternoon ground training, followed by four different exams.
“It took me a long time to build confidence (piloting). Safety across the board is the most major aspect of it (flying),” she said.
Thelma Kastl is a teacher from a small town in North Carolina. Some of her students have never been able to travel outside their county, so Kastl pieces together videos and photos from her adventures across the U.S. to show her students what’s out there.
She teaches engineering, so a balloon rally like the Rendezvous is a great experience to document for her kids.
The rally will continue all weekend, with an Evening Glow Friday night at 6:30 p.m. and morning launches on Saturday and Sunday at 7 a.m., weather permitting. Donations collected at the Evening Glow are poured into community connections, as many local businesses have sponsored the rally. Balloonists were given banners to attach to their baskets to advertise these businesses.
