We’ve been making some improvements around here. Our nearly brand-new flagship balloon, “Solstice”, is the main inspiration for what we did with our mini-fleet of chase vans. Our good pal Greg Silsby took a rather spectacular photo of it recently, and I thought “geez that’d look great on the vans, wouldn’t it” and Vinyl Lab NW in Mukilteo made it happen. So here they are, fresh from the tailor’s, in their fancy new suits! Don’t they look great?
Howdy all. Every year, we look forward to a little shindig we started back in the late 80’s over in the Methow valley. On the first full weekend in March, we caravan on over to the frontier town of Winthrop and fly in the snow over the Methow river between Winthrop and Twisp. It used to just be a vacation for us, a way to go do some flyting deep into our offseason, but then our passengers found out about it and sort of demanded that they get to go for a ride there too. It’s taken off from there, and has turned into an Event. Now we offer a flight and 2 nights’ stay at Sun Mountain Lodge, which makes for a truly fine weekend getaway. This year, we are very nearly sold out already. The only flights left are 2 spots on Friday mornings’ flight on March 5, and we still have room for 2 folks if they want to pay the big bucks for a private flight on Sunday morning. But there’s a catch; The Lodge is full! So if anyone wants to book those last couple of flights, you’ll have to find accommodations on your own. This of course adjusts your rate downward, so if you still want to fly with us, let us know and maybe we can help you find a room somewhere in the valley. And if not, there’s always next year! For more info click here; https://balloondepot.com/winthrop/
Last October, we decided to get ahead of the curve as far as keeping the fleet up to date, and we put the down payment on a new balloon. Had I known what was coming, I sure would have put that purchase off! What a terrible year to be spending lots of money. We lost the first half of our flight season, then we had a pretty stormy August, and the worst, smokiest September I’ve ever seen. But the weather is perfect now. And our new balloon, Solstice, is finally here, all 225,000 cubic feet of it. This balloon carries 10 people comfortably in a nice big roomy basket. It’s *fantastic*. Come on out and see for yourself!
Cool timelapse of a recent, very fun ride. Check it out!
Yesterday morning we hosted a fabulous wedding. This was supposed to have been a 3 balloon flight down the valley. But the weather said Nope, with fog and 300 foot solid overcast til noon. Since this was such a big deal, I offered the option to put the balloons up on tether lines, which was the only thing we could do with them and the couple decided that this was better than nothing. And it turned out great. We’ll have pix from the ground shortly but meanwhile, here’s a good look at the festivities!
This couple booked the private romance aloft flight and she said “Yes”! We’re all happy to have finally found a flyable evening after all the wind we’ve had lately.
We went almost 10 miles on this ride, a few longer than average! 
When the weather is nice around here, it’s very, very nice!
We made a timelapse of a very cool backwards-from-the-usual-wind-direction ride from the other morning. You can really see the altitude adjustments we had to make in order to find the wind directions that would let us land at the airport from 6 miles away in an aircraft that doesn’t steer.
Check it out!