The Adirondack Balloon Festival

Story by Amanda Thompson
Photos courtesy of AdirondackBalloonFest.org

“They begin as 500-pound lifeless bags of nylon and when they set off, it is just the most beautiful sight.” This is one of Walter Grishkot’s, executive director of the Adirondack Balloon Festival, favorite parts of the event. “Over the years, it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it—it’s still a magnificent sight.”

The festival originated as what Grishkot describes as “a shoulder-season event to bring tourists back to the area in the fall.” It started in 1972 at the Adirondack Community College but ultimately outgrew that space. Now in its 37th year, with an attendance of approximately 50,000, the festival occurs annually at the Floyd Bennett Memorial Airport in Warren County, New York.

The event is unique in that there is no cost, no promoter, and it is open to the public. The festival does its part to support local organizations and features food vendors from local civic organizations as well as inflatable jumping castles and rock climbing walls from the local Children’s Museum.

The Balloon Festival is all about togetherness, organizers say, and has become a family tradition for many. “Two to three generations of families attend,” Grishkot says. The festival also is able to accommodate a large handicapped and disabled audience. “It is wonderful to see people in wheelchairs and everyone together," Grishkot says. "The airport runways make the event very accessible.”

One obstacle is that weather is such a "dominant factor,” says Balloon Meister Bill Hughes. Hughes is in charge of making the important decision of whether or not to fly, based on participant safety. “One of the unique features of the Adirondack festival is that we have by far the best safety record of any balloon event in the world,” says Hughes. In the festival's 36 years there have been no injuries, a testament to what Hughes believes is being “very weather cautious.”

At each inflation, five of which occur over the course of the three-day festival, about 85-95 balloons lift off into the sky. You might be wondering then, where do all of these hot air balloons land? The simple answer is anywhere they can, which is often a surprise for the lucky local who has a balloon land right in their backyard. “Because we’re at the mercy of the winds, we cannot choose where to land,” says Hughes. Residents might also be very excited anticipating the fabled bottle of champagne a person is given if a balloonist lands in their yard.

Hughes says that although there are many versions of how this ballooning tradition started, he believes that it stems from the first U.S. hot air balloon flight in 1793 by a Frenchman named Blanchard. After flying out a prison yard in Philadelphia he landed on a German mans farmland in New Jersey. “If you can imagine 200 years ago something falling out of the sky,” says Hughes. “You can imagine the unexpecting man’s surprise.” The German man spoke no English or French so a language barrier prevented the French man from explaining his mysterious arrival. What the French man did have, however, was a basket of his lunch containing a famous French wine that the German man recognized. It was then that giving wine to the person on whose property you landed, which at some point became champagne, became a hot air ballooning tradition.

Heidi Durkee, a north-country resident has enjoyed attending the balloon-festival on and off for the past two decades. As someone who has grown up and spent their entire life in the Warren County area, Durkee explained what an integral part of the community the Balloon Festival has become. “I can remember my parents taking me as a kid the first year that the festival started. It has always been something to look forward to in the fall.”

“It’s great to see families getting up early on a Saturday morning all bundled up … passing on the tradition.”

This year, Durkee plans to attend with close and even extended family including her 2-year-old nephew who will be experiencing the balloon festival for the first time this year. “It’s great to see families getting up early on a Saturday morning all bundled up…passing on the tradition.”

For something that began as a small event, the Adirondack Balloon Festival has become larger than ever expected. Most pilots are more than willing to take a passenger along. A ride costs about 200 dollars per passenger and it is meant for adults or older children, generally 10 and above. To hitch a ride in one of these colorful balloons, come early and ask a pilot if they have extra room. “It is a first-come first-serve basis,” says Grishkot.

The event is weather-permitting, which attests to the fact that, as Grishkot notes, ballooning is not a planned sport. “Ballooning is a free spirit—you travel with the wind.”

“Ballooning is a free spirit—you travel with the wind”

Have you ever been to the Adirondack Balloon Festival?