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Favorite Places To Fly... So Far!
Canyon de Chelly, Arizona
The
guys in Gallup, New Mexico used to get special permission to fly here once
a year, usually the end of October. Canyon De Chelly consists of 1,000 foot
tall red rock cliffs which zig-zag through northeastern Arizona.
The first time I flew there was 1983. There were three balloons. It was dark when we got there and I had never even seen this place before. All I knew was that there were deep canyons and the trick was to get into them as deep and quickly as possible, and ride the canyon currents until a wall approaches at which time we asscend, hop over the cliff and dive into the next bend of the canyon. I was the last of three balloons to take off with a game plan of "sticking with" another balloon.
View Larger Map and nice photos
It was a little quick on top where we inflated, somewhere around the Spider Rock lookout I believe it was. I launched 20 seconds after my fearless leader... and about 30° to the right of his track. When we hit the rim, the ground went from 20 feet to 1,020 feet in 1/2 second, quite a rush! I dove for the canyon floor while still quickly heading for a cliff on the other side. I kept descending, looking for that turn to the left which the other guys got. I was deep in the canyon and still heading straight for the wall. I bailed, blasting out of the canyon leveling off at somewhere between 5,000 and 160,000 feet! Nice view from up there, but not the flight I was hoping for.
If I knew then what I now now, I would have leveled off, let the balloon "kiss" the cliff (we used to call that a "Turtle"), bounce off and go with the flow down the canyon. Oh well...
Then... a few years (and a few hundred hours) later, I got to go back!
Carl
made an excellent choice in launch
sites... Antelope House, on the southeastern rim of Canyon De Chelly.
There was a clearing big enough for a couple balloons to inflate at once.
Since we all had skeleton crews, we all helped each other inflate one at
a time, then listened to screams (of joy) as we took off and dropped out
of sight into the canyon.
One of the stipulations was that we were NOT allowed to touch ANYTHING with the balloons. Not the rocks, trees or any part of the ground, and the "Federalies" were watching. The day these photos were taken there were five of us flying with 90° steering from the floor to the rim. If you couldn't make it through a gap, you just popped up above the rim, caught your right turn (which was faster), and dove back into the canyon after you cleared the wall. We all did this a few dozen times hopping over each other trying to hit every nook and cranny the canyon offered. Very cool!
There wasn't an inch of the entire canyon that we didn't work, and if I'm not mistaken, I think I saw water dripping from a basket or two... but I could be mistaken! This photo explains it pretty well... Jaybird Mason gets a "field goal", shooting the gap.
The canyon is inhabited by Navajos. They raise sheep and live in hogans during the summer months. This particular hogan happened to belong to the mother-in-law of my passenger.
The further west we went, the shorter the canyon walls got, not to mention our fuel supply, plus we were out of room. It was also where the two canyons meet, forming the Y at the western end which created some turbulence . It was time to get out of the canyon, get on top and find a road to land on and call it a day.
What FUN!
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