Hot Air Balloon Flight Record - 20&21Jul2002
Green River Festival

The weekend started out wet with everyone crowded into a tent for the Friday night briefing, but the weekend forecast looked promising.

The major concern for Saturday morning was the tail end of showers that might not depart quickly enough, or fog due to the wet ground. On Saturday morning we had reports of mist from various airports, but the field was clear with about 2500 ft ceiling. We had a nice hare and hound that headed south.

Saturday afternoon was light winds, clear sky, and "warm". The initial pi-ball headed slowly SSW over the ridge toward Conway, and the first couple of balloons headed that way. By the time we got off the drift was slowly east. We climbed higher to move south and line up on the parking lots in Greenfield but when we came slowly over another parking lot we landed before the winds got any lighter.

Sunday morning was clear and shifted directions again. The first balloons drifted east and then turned north. We just went north. Climbed high to turn NNE before we ran out of valley. Looking east, the Connecticut River and beyond was all overcast. Dropped in over a day camp and drifted around until someone showed up on the off chance one of us balloons might be landing. Landed next to the basketball court and deflated on the clean dry surface.