Annual Pahrump Balloon Festival comes to a close

On Sunday morning, Feb. 23, Pahrump resident Robert Martinez was relaxing in his residence on the south end of town, when he heard an odd sound above his Comanche Drive home at roughly 8 a.m.

That sound was the venting of a large, colorful hot air balloon as it touched down just yards away in front of his residence.

“I thought it was really cool because I was just sitting in the living room drinking my coffee when I heard the dog going crazy,” he said. “When I stepped outside, I heard the flamethrower from the balloon. I stepped outside and it was actually right above the house. It was pretty exciting and I ran inside and got my wife, Joslyn.”

Piloting that balloon was Jeff Rigollet from France, who has worked for Vegas Balloon Rides for the past six years.

Though the company was not officially part of the annual Pahrump Balloon Festival, Rigollet, a lead pilot for the company, spoke about the mild conditions on Sunday, as well as the rain on Saturday which prevented balloonists that were actually associated with the festival from launching at Petrack Park.

It should be noted that just a handfull of balloonists from the festival decided to launch their balloons on Sunday, due to scattered foggy conditions.

“It is never safe to fly in the rain,” he said. “During the rain there will be two things that will happen. First, you are going to have a lot of weight on top of the balloon, because the water is going to stay on top and it will be very heavy to fly. The second thing is that the water is going to drip down the balloon, where it warms up and it could actually burn your arm.”

Go West, young man

Rigollet also noted that Nye County, roughly 63 miles west of Las Vegas, is a perfect locale for balloon rides, when compared to Clark County.

“We used to fly in the Las Vegas Valley, and we are very happy that we now fly in Pahrump,” he said. “We have been the main company in this area for around 20 years now. There are two main differences flying in Pahrump, as opposed to Las Vegas. The first is McCarran Airport, which has a very big area where we are obviously not allowed to fly in. We were only allowed to fly on the west side of the city because there are four airports in Las Vegas. In the west part of the city, they ended up building a lot of houses in the Blue Diamond area, which was the area we were flying in, so there are not a lot of places to land there. Here in Pahrump, there are a lot of big wide open spaces, where we can go in any direction and we can pretty much land anywhere.”

High-flying celebration

Among those on board, were couple Thad and Michelle White from the small town of Shelby, in North Central Montana.

Thad, a sports reporter for the town’s Shelby Promoter newspaper, said they took the flight to celebrate his wife’s birthday.

“The balloon flight flight was outstanding,” he said. “It was very peaceful and we went a lot higher than I thought we would. It was just beautiful. We had a little fog this morning and some good winds. The pilot said this was one of the best flights and best landing that he’s ever had. The geography of Southern Nevada is similar to where we are in North Central Montana, but with much more desert. It’s very beautiful scenery out here and we didn’t know that we were this close to Death Valley until we started looking at the maps. We are staying in Las Vegas.”

The ups and downs of piloting

Rigollet, meanwhile, said when piloting a hot air balloon the only control he has is that of ascending and descending.

“Mother Nature will guide us to right, left, fast or slow, and usually, when we take off, we have no idea where we are going to land,” he said. “The flights are typically 45 minutes to an hour. We are able to go up eight to 10,000 feet on some days. This area allows us to make the highest balloon flights in the world, so it’s very unique. We take off at sunrise because it’s the calmest moment of the day, the safest, and also the most beautiful time of day.”

Popping the cork

Following the flight, Rigollet spoke of a very old tradition that goes along with hot air ballooning.

“After the flight, the first thing we do is pack up the balloon, which takes us around 20 minutes,” he said. “We then pop open a bottle of champagne in the French tradition where we celebrate the moment with our passengers as well as the people we land near. If we land by your house, you can come and join us for the champagne toast.”

Additionally, Rigollet talked about the history of hot air balloon flights, which date back to the first one in France back in 1783.

“Back in those days, people had no idea we could fly and when they started flying, and landing in the countryside of France, the people saw the big balloon with the fire, and they thought it was the devil coming to kill them,” he said. “So the King of France at the time had the idea of bringing a bottle of champagne, to show that we are friends and we have champagne.”

Contact reporter Selwyn Harris at sharris@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @pvtimes