Hundreds Out of Nowhere: My Morning at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

I'd been wanting to see the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta for a long time. My friend and I had been planning this trip for 10 years, and we finally got to go. Photos never seemed to do it justice, and as someone who spends most days behind a camera, that bugged me a little. So this year I finally packed up my gear and went to see it for myself.

What I didn't plan for was how much of the trip would come down to one thing: getting there.

The traffic I was worried about

The Fiesta is a morning thing. The balloons go up early, and it feels like the entire city, plus everyone who flew in for it, is trying to reach the same field at the same time. Everyone warns you about the traffic, and I listened. It was the thing I was most worried about, so I planned my first morning around it.

My first morning: a lucky shuttle find

Here's how it went. It was almost 4 AM and suddenly I found there were some shuttle tickets for the Cottonwood shuttle. I grabbed two before they sold out. Every other shuttle ticket for 4 AM was already gone, so I'm really glad I looked when I did. Pure luck, honestly.

That meant I could skip the driving and the parking and just let the shuttle deal with the traffic. If you want to do the same, check for shuttle tickets early and keep checking.

More ways to skip the morning traffic

The shuttle was the one thing that was mostly luck. Here are a few other tips, in case you're planning a trip:

1. Arrive around 7:30, after the early rush. By then hundreds of balloons are already up, so if you mostly want photos of balloons in the air, you can skip all the traffic and still get the good stuff. It didn't work out on Sunday because of the weather forecast, though. More on that below in "Sunday: no flying".

2. Book reservations early. For places like Los Poblanos Campo, reservations fill up really fast. I got lucky and snagged one on Sunday, so don't wait on this one.

The biggest lesson: don't treat it like a normal drive. Plan your morning around the traffic, not the other way around, and don't count on the shuttle tickets being there for long.

A slow start

Here's the part I didn't expect.

When I first got onto the field, there were only a few balloons up. A handful, scattered across the sky. They were pretty, sure, but I'll be honest, I was disappointed. I'd seen all those photos of a sky packed with color, and this wasn't that. I remember thinking, is this it? Did I get up this early and plan this whole morning for a few balloons?

I took some shots anyway, mostly out of habit. I walked around a bit. I tried to tell myself it was still nice. But a small part of me was already rewriting my expectations downward.

Then, all at once

And then it happened.

I'm not even sure how to describe it except that they came out of nowhere. One minute the sky was mostly empty. The next, balloons were rising everywhere I looked. Not a few. Hundreds.

All around me, balloons that had been lying flat on the ground were filling up and lifting off, one after another, until the whole sky was crowded with them. Every color. Every shape. Some close enough that I could hear the burners, some so far off they looked like dots.

I just stood there for a second with my camera down. I forgot to shoot. That almost never happens to me.

That's the moment that stuck with me: the sky suddenly flooding with balloons when I wasn't expecting it at all.

The great picnic scatter

One more thing from the field. People were setting up picnic spots right there on the grass, which seemed like a nice idea. But as the balloons were being set up, some of them would lose air and start falling down. When that happened, everybody with a picnic had to grab their stuff really fast and scatter. It was hilarious.

My takeaway: it's better not to set up a picnic unless there are no balloons in the surrounding area.

Watching it through a lens

Once I snapped out of it, I didn't want to stop shooting. The light started out blue and then turned kind of like golden hour, and every direction gave me something different. Wide shots of the whole sky. Tight shots of a single balloon against the blue. People on the field with their heads tilted back, looking up.

What struck me most was the scale. You can't really get that from a photo. You feel it standing there, turning in a full circle, and finding balloons in every part of the sky.

And honestly, I think the slow start made it better. If they'd all been up when I arrived, it would have been amazing. But going from a little disappointed to completely blown away in just a few minutes is something I'll remember for a long time.

Sunday: no flying

On Sunday I wanted to focus on photos. I found out we could skip all the traffic by arriving at 7:30, because by then hundreds of balloons are already in the air, and we only wanted photos of balloons in the air. Sounded like a perfect plan.

But high wind and rain were forecast for later in the day. Because of that, the balloons were only blown up and then deflated. None of them flew out. It was very disappointing.

Worth it

Was planning around the traffic a hassle? Kind of. Would I do it again? Without thinking twice.

If you're thinking about going, my advice is simple. Figure out your plan for getting there before you go. You've got two options: get there earlier than feels reasonable, like I did with the shuttle, or show up around 7:30 to skip the traffic if you mostly want photos of balloons in the air. Just keep an eye on the forecast, because Sunday showed me it can ruin the second plan. And if it looks quiet when you first walk in, don't give up on it. Stick around. The sky might be about to fill up.

Thanks for reading, and I really hope I get to go back someday.