As the balloon lifted up and out of Snohomish, the only thing that broke the silence of the ride was the occasional deep, breath-like exhalation of the big nylon balloon’s burner.
“As we crossed the Snohomish River, we could see beaver swimming and deer,” Dennis Wilbanks John said.
When the pilot hit the burner to lift the hot air balloon, “all the deer would look up like, ‘What’s going on up there?’ ” he said. “You could hear people’s dogs barking in the back yards.”
For years, Wilbanks John and his wife, Victoria, who live near Snohomish, had watched the brightly colored balloons float overhead on their flight path over the valley.
“When they go up, they’re probably 2 miles from us,” Wilbanks John said.
Earlier this year, he got a chance to soar up, up and away himself.
It was the first hot air balloon ride for Wilbanks John, 71, part of a group of family members and friends on a ride in June.
The flight gave him new perspective on landmarks he’d seen almost every day for more than two decades.
“For years, you drive down the road and see the fronts of buildings,” he said. “From up in the air you say, ‘Oh, I go down that road. Look at all the stuff you never see.’ ”
From an altitude that sometimes reached 2,200 feet, the longtime Boeing Co. construction manager saw some familiar sights — a train bringing a 737 fuselage from Wichita. “I’ve seen many, many, many of them,” he said. “It looks like a big green cigar.”
Others, he said, gave him “a total ‘Wow!’ ” — the Space Needle, the 76-story Columbia Tower, the Highway 520 floating bridge across Lake Washington, Mount Rainier, the Olympic Mountains.
Wilbanks John’s nephew, Michael Kahler, 18, of Stanwood, was on the ride, too — a present for him and his girlfriend for his graduation from Grace Academy. His group included two uncles and his girlfriend’s mother.
Kahler said he remembers the balloon hovering about 50 feet above the Snohomish River, close enough to see the craft’s reflection in the water.
At other times during the one-hour flight, he could see Seattle in the skyline. Turning in the other direction, he could see Mount Baker.
“It’s really a different way to fly,” Kahler said. “Most of the time you go up in an airplane or helicopter, and it’s noisy and you’re moving. With this, the only time there’s noise is when he’s hitting the burner. It’s really interesting to be hanging up in the sky with no noise or engines running.”
His mom, Tami Kahler, booked the flight six months in advance. A hot air balloon flight as a graduation gift is a family tradition. In 1987, her own parents provided her and her then-boyfriend, now husband, Mike, with a flight, too.
“And exactly 30 years later, we did it for our son,” she said.
Despite the months of planning, the flight initially didn’t go off as scheduled because of weather conditions — not unusual for hot air balloon flights.
For the first scheduled flight, Tami Kahler had arranged for 23 friends and family to gather in Snohomish to watch the liftoff.
“You tell 23 people we’re not going up on a balloon ride,” she told pilot Jay Woodward, owner of Balloon Depot in Snohomish.
He came to deliver the bad news in person, and talked to the group for about an hour.
“I don’t like canceling flights,” Woodward said. “Part of the job is dealing with the weather.”
A second flight was scrubbed by the weather, too. The third launch date provided just the right conditions.
Flights are scheduled in the morning, before winds pick up, and in the evening, typically when winds are calm. Other conditions pilots look for are clear skies and rain-free days.
Licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration, Woodward has been piloting hot air balloons for 20 years in the Snohomish Valley.
A second company, Snohomish Balloon Rides, began flying from Snohomish in June. Owner Bob Romaneschi bought some of the equipment from the former Airial Hot Air Balloon Flights in Snohomish, where he worked for 17 years.
One of Woodward’s two balloons has a basket that can hold four to six people. The other can accommodate eight to 10 people. The larger balloon, made of ripstop nylon, is 120 feet long — nearly 10 stories high when inflated.
The business operates year-round, but most flights occur between July and October, when the Puget Sound region typically has the most stable weather.
Without the rudders and flaps used to help guide airplanes, Woodward must depend on gentle breezes to help control his craft. Propane fuels the burner that lifts the balloons. The key to flight is the temperature difference between the air inside and outside the balloon.
“If the air inside is hotter, it’s a lot less dense,” Woodward explained. “We go up like a bubble.
“We do what the wind does. We navigate by changing altitude. That’s the only control we’ve got.”
Reading the wind and timing climbs and descents accordingly is an indirect form of control, “but that’s part of the charm,” he said.
Victoria Wilbanks John pulled to the side of road near the Snohomish Golf Course to watch the balloon her husband was in drift by. “We could hear them laughing,” she said. “They had a great time. There’s no fear up there.”
She and her husband had thought about taking a balloon ride for years, but never got around to it.
That, she said, will change for her in the fall. “As soon as the colors are starting to change, I’m going to go floating,” she said. “I want to go on a day with a clear blue sky and the sun is setting.”
She won’t be going alone. Her husband wasn’t satisfied to go just once, with vivid memories of how the first ride ended.
“It was the most brilliant red sunset,” he said. “Nothing but red all the way across as it dropped behind the Olympics.”
If you go
Balloon Depot has been offering hot air balloon flights seven days a week, morning and evening, since 1978. Takeoff is at Harvey Airfield, 9900 Airport Way, Snohomish. Morning flights are $220 and evenings rides are $250. Call 360-805-1538 or go to www.balloondepot.com for more information.
Snohomish Balloon Rides has morning and evening flights seven days a week, morning and evenings at Harvey Airfield. Morning flights are $215 and evening rides are $240. Call 425-903-7161 or go to www.snohomishballoonride.com for more information.
Washington North Coast Magazine
This article is featured in the fall issue of Washington North Coast Magazine, a supplement of The Daily Herald. Explore Snohomish and Island counties with each quarterly magazine. Each issue is $3.99. Subscribe to receive all four editions for $14 per year. Call 425-339-3200 or go to www.washingtonnorthcoast.com for more information.
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