ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Deciding to fly or not for Special Shapes is a big decision during Balloon Fiesta. 

On Thursday morning, Photojournalist Joey Wright was there as the pilot for “Montie the Black Sheep” weighed their options.

Before then green flag was officially raised Thursday morning, crews for Montie the Black Sheep balloon were up well before the sun. 

They were out at Balloon Fiesta Park ready for this year’s first Special Shapes Rodeo.

“Do you know if, based on speaking in the morning, obviously he’ll make a different decision when he gets here, intent to fly or intent to always intend to fly. Spectacular.

After checking in with the zebras, it was time to unpack Montie, and it takes a team to get it done. Hot air balloons may float like air, but they need plenty of muscle when not inflated.

After about an hour, Montie was ready to go, but there were some concerns.

“I don’t like that wind direction going that way and now the dawn patrol balloons are curving around to the east, so I’m just trying to eyeball,” said Pilot Greg Ashton. 

Ashton spent some time checking out the map showing where the wind is taking the balloons.

“Well, hopefully we’ll get to fly, I want to let a lot of the other balloons launch first and get them in the air. Then we can see what they’re doing, and then we’ll know if it’s going to change when the sun comes up, because it always does. The wind constantly changes here,” said Ashton.

Paying attention to the other balloons, and knowing what other balloons were planning to do this morning, played into their decision. Then, it was a waiting game.

“Yeah, when the sun comes up in about 10 minutes, it’s gonna change everything. It always does. The wind will pick up, or it’ll slow down. Always variable,” Ashton said.

Flying a balloon like this one isn’t a decision Ashton takes lightly.

“There’s one balloon that looks like it’s going over the mountain right by the sun. Yeah, that’s gonna really change us here this morning,” Ashton said. “Hopefully good. Hopefully it’ll calm down, but it could pick up the wind too. 

In the end, the wind wasn’t cooperating.

“They said no shapes are gonna fly today anyway, because the race officials announced that. So these guys can, the regular balloons can fly, but the shapes are just supposed to static, only because of the wind,” said Ashton.

This first day of the Special Shapes Rodeo kept Montie grounded, but we’ll see what tomorrow brings.