{"id":2448548,"date":"2019-09-11T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-11T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=312668"},"modified":"2019-09-11T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-11T12:00:00","slug":"flying-smass-skies-for-4-plus-decades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/flying-smass-skies-for-4-plus-decades\/","title":{"rendered":"Flying S\u2019mass skies for 4-plus decades"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A photo from one of the early Snowmass Balloon Festivals that can be found in BettyFlies Foundation photo collection. The foundation was created to honor Betty Pfister, the renowned pilot and local aviation pioneer who started the hot air balloon festival, and her legacy by funding aviation-related programs for young people.<\/strong>
BettyFlies Foundation\/courtesy p<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

For 44 years, hot air balloons of all sizes and colors have decorated the sky above Town Park for a few days every summer during the Snowmass Balloon Festival.<\/p>\n

And every single year, one of those balloons has belonged to the Carter family.<\/p>\n

At this year\u2019s festival, Patrick was the Carter flying the family \u201cColorado Rocky Mountain High\u201d balloon, but it started with Carter\u2019s dad, Jim, who was the most passionate about hot air ballooning and shared his love of the sport with his four children.<\/p>\n

When Jim passed away about eight years ago, Carter said he sat down with his immediate family and called up his siblings to discuss whether they wanted to carry on the ballooning tradition Jim had started.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a unanimous decision,\u201d Carter said of continuing the tradition, namely by investing in a new balloon to replace the worn out one. \u201cWe all wanted to do it and it was a commitment we all made because it\u2019s what our family is about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since this decision, Patrick, who lives in Colorado Springs and works as a doctor of osteopathic medicine for UCHealth, has taken the lead as the family\u2019s main hot air balloonist and has secured its the newest \u201cColorado Rocky Mountain High\u201d balloon, which he refers to as \u201cCH3.\u201d<\/p>\n

The balloon is the third iteration of his dad\u2019s original design rendering, which John Denver allegedly signed after Jim bumped into him on a plane back to Colorado from L.A. Patrick said Denver had recently released his \u201cRocky Mountain High\u201d hit song, and told Jim he thought the family\u2019s balloon design and accompanying title was \u201cfar out.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Sept. 8, Patrick took the CH3 up three times to ensure most all of his family and friends got a chance to fly beneath the inflated state flag. Patrick said he\u2019s working to teach some of the younger family members, including his two adult sons, how to pilot the family hot air balloon.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur kids were born into it. It\u2019s just a family thing,\u201d Carter said, observing his relatives pack up the CH3 balloon after the final flight Sept. 8. \u201cThis is definitely not a sport you can do by yourself. \u2026 Everywhere you look you see family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patrick said he was 10-years-old when his dad got into hot air ballooning, which he was immediately drawn to. He earned his pilot\u2019s license in the early 1980s but served as his dad\u2019s co-pilot until he died.<\/p>\n

According to Patrick, hot air ballooning now is much different than when his dad started flying in the early 1970s.<\/p>\n

While hovering over Snowmass Town Park in the CH3, Patrick talked about how his dad earned his private, commercial and instructor\u2019s license after just 10 hours of flying; broke multiple ribs during his first solo flight near Pueblo because he had no way of accurately forecasting the weather and got caught in a nasty storm; and had to follow little rules or regulations to be a balloonist.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know the movie \u2018Talladega Nights?\u2019 We think Will Ferrell needs to make a movie like that about early hot air ballooning,\u201d Carter said, laughing and citing several of the old time pilots who current comedians like Ferrell could play.<\/p>\n

The Snowmass Balloon Festival was one of the first Jim flew in as a pilot, and a festival he always came back to. During the early ballooning days, Patrick said it was well-known as a \u201cpremier event\u201d and is now one of the oldest and longest running hot air balloon sporting events in Colorado.<\/p>\n

Today, the downvalley race is named the \u201cCarter Memorial Colorado Rat Race,\u201d after Jim, Patrick said.<\/p>\n

But although the Carter family has a long history at the Snowmass Balloon Festival, Betty Pfister, the renowned pilot and local aviation pioneer, started the festival with help from two of her close friends and hot air balloonists, Chauncey and Marie Dunn, in Snowmass Town Park in 1976.<\/p>\n

Well, sort of. They technically first launched hot air balloons with a few other pilots from the heart of downtown Aspen the year before the first Snowmass invitational, according to Pfister\u2019s oldest daughter, Suzanne. Pfister moved the event to Snowmass the next year because she felt it was a safer place to hold the hot air balloon festival, Suzanne said.<\/p>\n

Pfister organized the Snowmass Balloon Festival and oversaw its safety operations for several years. Suzanne said she remembers going as a young woman and riding with her mom in balloons in Snowmass and all over the world, but emphasized how much her mom loved participating in the local festival and downvalley race.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe never met anything that flew in the air she did not like,\u201d Pfister said, laughing. \u201cI think she wanted to do everything she could to give back to the community, and felt the balloon festival was a good addition to the valley.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patrick said he remembers attending the Snowmass Balloon Festival when he was growing up, too, describing it as a \u201ckids fest\u201d since most of the pilots had young children at the time.<\/p>\n

Hundreds and hundreds of area locals and their cars filled Town Park every year, Patrick said, and he remembers money being raised for search and rescue teams, along with other local causes.<\/p>\n

But Patrick said he feels the annual festival isn\u2019t as community-driven as it used to be. He thinks many Aspen-Snowmass locals may be demystified with hot air balloons after so many decades of the festival and with the rise of commercial balloon flights, and feels that the event now caters more to tourists.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d love to see it become more of a community event for a purpose,\u201d Patrick said, noting it\u2019d be great if local charities or active groups could get involved again to engage more residents.<\/p>\n

Regardless, the Carter family has made the trip to Snowmass every year since the annual balloon festival started and considers it an integral part of his life and his family.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about family for us,\u201d Patrick said. \u201cEverything in life is special. \u2026 My wife and I see how short life is as family practitioners, we see the inevitable on a daily basis. So we might as well enjoy life as much as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

mvincent@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A photo from one of the early Snowmass Balloon Festivals that can be found in BettyFlies Foundation photo collection. The foundation was created to honor Betty Pfister, the renowned pilot and local aviation pioneer who started the hot air balloon festival, and her legacy by funding aviation-related programs for young people.BettyFlies Foundation\/courtesy p For 44 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2448548","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-26 12:40:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2448548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2448548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2448548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2448548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}