- [Andy] Most people find a balloon ride to be a very scenic adventure.

It's a little different than being in an airplane.

You can turn around 360 in the basket.

There's no separation between you and the atmosphere.

- [Pilot] My natural passion is to talk about balloons and how they work and how they function.

That's what makes my day happy.

(gentle music) - [Andy] We're looking at some pretty good weather today.

Who's happy about that?

- Yeah, woo!

- Yeah.

It's looking like eight knots.

The pilot community is really a tight-knit group of friends.

So, we look forward to going to the next rally where we can go and talk balloons and talk piloting and learn from one another at these different rallies.

(machine whirring) - In 2011, I moved to Reno, Nevada, and I had four kids and we were looking for things to do.

If there was something to do, we got up and did it.

And there's this thing called the Great Reno Balloon Race.

It's an event much like this event.

There's between 75 and a hundred balloons.

And we went out and just walked amongst the field and saw the balloons and I was just in awe.

I was like, "Wow, these things are so cool."

I think everybody should have the opportunity to fly in balloons.

(machine whirring) - One of our pilots who came from Utah this year said, "This is one of the top 10 balloon rallies in the nation."

And so he made the trip just to Riverton for this purpose.

We've got 30 positions in our rally.

It was a fully sponsored event.

We've gotta really throw a thank-you out there to all of our local businesses who've pitched in this year.

(gentle music) - It is literally almost 100% volunteers.

There might be one or two paid people, but, you know, the sponsorships go to the equipment on the field and the volunteers are the ones who put that on.

I met a local student pilot who offered to teach me how to crew and the balloon event came and I volunteered and crewed for the balloons.

When you're a volunteer, you also get to do the fun things like parking cars and taking out the garbage.

(machine whirring) - The Riverton community loves the balloon rally.

We have a great local support here.

People have just really enjoyed coming out, being around the balloons, being able to talk one-on-one with the pilots.

Our landowners are very friendly.

Most all of them welcome balloons with open arms as they come in and land on their property.

They pack up.

We usually offer the landowner a bottle of champagne as a thank-you.

And we've got these balloon traditions that have really, they're really entrenched here in the Riverton area.

(gentle music) (gentle music) - [Pilot] (indistinct) Have their tie-off line hanging.

- We have a red zone map.

Anything that's red on here, we're not supposed to land in.

Some of these are farmers with cows and stuff.

They don't want you on there.

But other than that, anything else that's green is definitely, you can land at.

Real calm days, you can find a cul-de-sac or a wide road like this and no power lines on it, you can actually land in the street, but it has to be a pretty calm day to do that, so.

- [Pilot] You could send one of the gazelles over here so I can get my crown line.

- 10-4.

- People say, "I'm afraid of heights.

I'm scared of heights."

I'll tell you a secret, probably about a third of these pilots are afraid of heights, but we know our equipment, we understand.

I put it all together this morning.

I'll take it all apart this afternoon.

- They are pretty great.

- I was going to (indistinct).

- So cool.

- [Andy] For the first time, we're offering paid rides at our rally.

We've had a lot of people in the past years who have said, "How do I get a ride?"

You know, they ask how you can get a ride on one of the balloons, and the past years, we've had to turn them down and say, "Well, they've all been sponsored months in advance, and so you can't actually purchase a ride."

Well, this year, we have decided to offer paid rides during the actual event.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) We usually get 500 to a thousand people each morning.

The evening of the glow, Saturday night, there's anywhere from 2 to 3,000 people.

As long as the weather cooperates, we'll stand all the balloons up if it's light winds.

If not, we'll do what we call a candlestick, and that's just where we get the baskets out and we'll put the burners together and we'll just burn propane and make big flames.

They'll glow like lanterns.

We'll have a band and we'll have food trucks, snow cones.

We'll do twinkle burns and we'll do an all glow where all the balloons glow at once, sometimes like a wave.

It's just a longstanding tradition.

A lot of people plan their family reunions around this weekend, along with the car show and other city celebrations.

Class reunions are all on this weekend.

And so the community, they kind of count on us as a fun weekend and a good event.

We really like the Riverton community, all the businesses that help out.

We couldn't do it without them.

(upbeat music) The sport of ballooning is an incredible one.

It's different than other forms of aviation because we can't steer.

We have altitude control.

We can go up and down, but we can't maneuver or go back to the airport and land also we have to have a crew in order to launch.

So with having a crew and landing just out in the community, we end up becoming exposed to a ton of new people.

So we meet people from all walks of life.

and it's the the people you meet in ballooning is really the magical part of it.

(upbeat music)