The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta is easily one of the most majestic festivals in the world, set against the ruggedly beautiful landscape of the Rio Grande Valley. Whether you’ve been to this hot air balloon festival before or this will be your first time, we encourage you to join us in Albuquerque this fall and experience New Mexico like never before.
The event takes place on 365 acres of space near Albuquerque and features more than 500 unique and beautiful hot air balloons; a far cry from the initial event in 1972 that featured just 13 balloons!
October is truly one of the most beautiful times of year to be in New Mexico, which is why so many people attend the festival and then spend time appreciating the majestic beauty of other parts of Northern New Mexico. It’s still perfectly warm and enjoying in Albuquerque in October, the skies are generally clear, and the breezes are mild and well suited to flying hot air balloons.
The success of the Fiesta depends in part on the cool Albuquerque morning temperatures in October and the Albuquerque box. The “box” is a set of predictable wind patterns that can be exploited to navigate the balloons. At low elevations, the winds tend to be northerly (from the north), but at higher elevations, they tend to be southerly.
Balloonists use these winds to navigate in a vertical box: they ascend slightly from the launch park, move south, ascend further, move north, descend, and repeat the box, or land back in the launch park or quite nearby.
According to en. wikipedia and casaescondida.com
