My Albuquerque: world’s largest hot air balloon festival (2018)
What colourful and interesting sights of light and balloons you might see, whether it’s your first or the umpteenth time at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Every year beginning the first weekend in October, hundreds of thousands of visitors descend upon central New Mexico to see several hundred hot-air balloons ascend into the skies over the Duke City.
To kick off our time in the American Southwest, we drove into Albuquerque for our first time in the city and to attend our first Balloon Fiesta. We purchased in advance tickets to day 1’s morning session with park-and-ride, day 2’s evening session with park-and-ride, and day 3’s morning session without park-and-ride.
For opening day, clear skies and crisp conditions waited for us as we struggled mightily out of bed, but headed out into the dark of the early morning with great anticipation. Even with massive crowds and some traffic chaos, the long wait was worth the sight of seeing the balloons as oval dots on the horizon and as shapely giants up close.
I have to mention the breakfast chile relleno burritos which everybody recommended we seek and try on the festival grounds. How about a version consisting of a New Mexico green chile stuffed with cheese and batter fried, enveloped in a scrambled egg and cheese mixture, all wrapped in a soft corn tortilla and lightly grilled to provide a little bit of outside crunch and crisp? That’s a big resounding yes to breakfast burritos and big balloons.
Day 1, morning session (6 Oct)
Dawn patrol, in silhouette.
Dawn patrol.
Testing winds and conditions inside the Albuquerque Box.
The 1st morning launch: with pink Princess Nelly at centre-right and blue Bidu at lower-centre
Regular-shape and special-shape balloons in the air, including “Little Dog” at lower-centre.
“Spirit of ’76”.
From below.
“Visit Albuquerque”.
All of us as witness, with Keystone Willy at lower centre-left, penguin “Tall Steve” at lower centre, and yellow “Saxon Ballon” at lower centre-right.
G-WINZ: Lindstrand LTL Series Special Penguin, “Tall Steve”.
N214LB: Lindstrand LBL-105A, Koshare Gallup, representing a native Puebloan clown.
G-DAAY: Longleat Sky Safari, “Koala” at centre.
Lower-left, N990WF: Cameron U.S. Stagecoach-110, Wells Fargo Bank “Cent’r Stage”. To the right in the background is the head of Vincent van Gogh.
“Pat O’Lantern”.
OO-BQZ: Cameron Head One-105, “Darth Vader”.
PH-GOG: Cameron Van Gogh-110 SS, with left ear intact.
Day 3, morning session (8 Oct)
“Zebras” are on-field managers, coordinating and directing balloon launches and monitoring safety conditions in the air and on the ground.
Up and away. Morning started out overcast which meant muted light to start.
G-CIIE: Cameron Z-56, “Yoda”.
N8282E: Cameron SS Cow-106, “Airabelle” as one of the largest balloons on-site. NM dairy company Creamland is one of the festival’s sponsors (2018).
C-GCXP: Aerostar S-60A, “Piko”.
“COSMOS 1” balloon.
Visit Albuquerque (left), Krispy Kreme (right).
Balloon competition: landing accuracy, target drop accuracy. Vignetting by circular polarizer at wide angle (28 mm).
About 9am: a layer of cloud clings to the top of Sandía Mountains under the autumn morning sun (altitude 20°, azimuth 114°).
KRQE coverage
• Day 1 (6 Oct), morning session: first mass ascension.
• Day 2 (7 Oct), evening session: cancelled due to high winds.
• Day 3 (8 Oct), morning session: cool cloudy conditions, delayed start.
• The numbers for 2018: 567 regular-shape and 96 special-shape balloons, 623 registered pilots, 14 nations represented, over 886-thousand guests. See also the fiesta’s press release here.
More
• Official 2018 program, on Issuu.
• Independent Travel Cats for their comprehensive look at the festival with more details.
I made all photos above on 6 and 8 October 2018 with a Canon EOS6D mark1. For the festival’s opening day on 6 October 2018, the local times for astronomical twilight dawn, nautical twilight dawn, civil twilight dawn, and sunrise were: 541am, 610am, 640am, and 705am, respectively. Thanks to AB for making this memorable trip possible. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-eQr.
Fotoeins Fotografie 
5 Responses to “My Albuquerque: world’s largest hot air balloon festival (2018)”
Wow… Beautiful colors and fun/creative designs. Thank you for the post, Henry! 🙂
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Hi and thanks, Amy! If you haven’t been there before, I definitely recommend going to Albuquerque for their annual balloon festival. I would love to go back, too 🎈😎
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[…] Skies are clear, the air cool and crisp on an early autumn morning. Dawn breaks through the cloak of darkness, and slowly, we see from a distance little oval blobs rising into the sky. Intermittent light reveals flames and the signature of rising hot air pushing a handful of balloons higher. This is the Dawn Patrol. And when first light begins striking the river valley below, it’s easy to forget how there’s a quiet murmur in the crowd, despite thousands already on the festival grounds. Their gaze and rapt attention reach skyward: morning mass ascension means hundreds of hot-air balloons of different colours, shapes, and sizes; gargantuan up close, yet shrinking to dots out on the horizon, as far as the eye can see. […]
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[…] already spent a couple of days in Albuquerque for the annual hot-air balloon festival, and we saw where US-66 had intersected itself in the city centre. In its initial alignment, US-66 […]
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[…] Hot air balloons launching in morning light in Albuquerque, NM. […]
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