01/11/2022
“Mission: In Search of the Lost Dutchman Mine by Balloon!” Well, not completely. More of a dream flight I have wanted to do for nearly 25 years now! To fly a hot air balloon thru the interior of the Superstition Wilderness area. I have hiked many miles of trails in the Superstitions and flown balloons all around its edges, including our passenger flights near Gold Canyon. I have also flown numerous flights around the Miami and Globe area, Superior, Oak Flats, Apache Junction and even an adventure flight out of Tortilla Flats and Canyon Lake. The Superstition Mountains and wilderness hold much history and perhaps much legend and lore of lost gold mines, Mexican miners and apache indians. Many have died in these mountains searching for the lost Dutchman mine, as well as in battles with the apaches and even in modern days, people still vanish searching for lost gold or just hiking, not prepared for the ruggedness and remoteness of this landscape. These mountains are rugged and very unforgiving to inexperienced individuals who venture deep within. The thought of flying a balloon thru the heart of the wilderness has always been a challenge and an adventure I would one day make. While we love taking first time passengers up for flights in our scenic local flying spots and showing folks the best Arizona has to offer, these are the flights I live for. These are also flights we cannot take passengers on, due to the potential for landing out, long hikes in rugged terrain and the need for basic survival skills in each individual. As well, we must wait for the perfect weather scenario to set up to provide the needed wind speed, directions and steering to make a flight successful. Hot air balloons can only be steered by finding different wind currents at various altitudes. It is necessary to have a firm understanding of weather and micro weather to seek out the needed weather scenario and to be confident its up there before we launch into it. We chose a launch site almost five miles south of the mountains to give us just enough room to climb to altitude and confirm our direction and speed and still giving us some fairly good options for landing should we need to bail on the flight attempt. We arrived at the Desert Wells OHV staging lot one hour prior to sunrise (0733). This gave us plenty of time to set up the Ultramagic S-90 balloon system, go over flight details and maps with my ground crew present, as well as communicating with another ground crew who were driving to Roosevelt from Safford, AZ. These three crew members would be stationed at our planned landing vicinity to retrieve us, should the launch team not make it around the mountains in time... an 86 mile chase. we would make the 30 mile crossing in approx 1 hour and 30 minutes. It would take at least that long driving the mountainous Highway 60 and 88 to Roosevelt Lake. Once we hot inflated, I went thru final preparations with maps and flight software. My crewman TJ hopped in and we were airborne! We climbed quickly, maintaining at least 500-600 FPM ascent to 6500’. This altitude should see our first preferred speed and heading. Anything higher woudl turn more right (which would be used only for some slight corrections to the east as needed). the 5000-7000’ range would give us a 220-230 direction and above that would find upwards of 250 degrees heading. If lower was safely achievable, we could get more left turn (to as much as 212-215 degrees at ridgetop and in canyons). With a 25-30 mph wind, I figured we would get little option to utlilize that 215 degrees, so planned the launch site for a trajectory working the 220-230. flying too close to terrain as rugged as this at those speeds, would likely result in turbulent air currents. Once at 6500’, we had good steering and confirmed our heading and I was satisfied with direction and steering currents. I still only had found 18mph. I wanted at least 20. upper sir soundings and wind profiles showed we should see 18-23 knots at these altitudes. So we were still slightly below these numbers. communicating with the ground team, I had the launch team remain on standby on the south side of the wilderness yet and the team out of Safford, enroute to Roosevelt, were staging in Globe. We climbed to 7500’ were our GPS units started clicking off the speed... 20, 23, 25, 27... peaking at 33mph. The peak speed was found at near 9400’. We ran most of the flight across the highest reaches of the wilderness at about 8500’. We lost communication with the launch team, but Dustin and Saras experienced shined and when they saw we were hitting 30mph on their tracking app, they started around the mountains. We had good communication with them once they were in Miami. The Safford team was now enroute to Roosevelt to hang out at the Spring Creek Store to await our arrival. They actually had a visual on the balloon before we even crossed the midway point and the highest ridgeline in the wilderness. The crossing was absolutely breathtaking. Some of the most rugged and beautiful terrain I have ever flown a balloon over! We crossed over the highest point in the Superstition Wilderness... Mound Mountain, at 6256’ elevation. With still a small amount of snow still clinging to the slopes from the last cold winter storm. We were able to cross over the highest points at about 1500’ AGL and 30mph and still smooth air. Awesome views of the Superstition front range and Weavers Needle, Reevis Ranch, Haunted Canyon, pinto Valley Mine, Four Peaks, snow covered Pinal Peak, as well as catching glimpses of all four Salt River Lakes (Saguaro, Canyon, Apache and Roosevelt). Of course, our primary target, Roosevelt Lake finally came into view once over the highest points and thru the deepest interior of the Superstition Wilderness Area. Several miles beyond the highest ridge, we descended to 6200’ and were suprised a bit by still holding 30mph off the backside. We were able to maintain this speed and yet a more favorable left turn as we approached our targeted area. At the highest altitudes flown, we were tracking to the farthest right edge of my targeted area... the junction of Highways 88/288. I wanted nothing anymore right of this spot. I expected later in the flight we wouldnt see as much of the lower left turn (those 210-215s). Soundings correctly showed a good SE low level south of the wilderness and very weak north of the wilderness, so it was important to not get too far right (east) while crossing over. With 30-33mph crossing the highest peaks, we found ourselves flying at 8500-9400’ to stay high enough above any potential rough air. As it turned out, it was a very smooth flight the entire route across. As we were now within about 5-7 miles of our target and almost off the mountains, then launch crew had found a great spot for a visual and pictures on the downslope drive on Highway 88 into Roosevelt. The Safford team of Steven, Dana and Keith were hanging out drinking coffee in front of the Spring Creek Store in Roosevelt. They reported very calm surface winds, which I was very happy to hear. While the terrain around Roosevelt Lake is relatively flat compared to what we just flew over, its still rugged and landing in too much speed would be rough. It is good desert to find spots capable of 10-15mph with the fast deflation system on this Ultramagic Balloon. Fortunately, winds were extremely calm on the surface, exactly to forecast as per the wind profiles, showing very light surface wind in the Tonto Basin. We descended down to a few hundred feet to find 5-6 mph or less and very slow steering currents, as we lined up about one mile east of the Spring Creek Store and the community of Roosevelt Estates, eventually settling into a 2-3 mph landing into the waiting arms of all five of our ground team, in a wash just behind the Roosevelt Lake estates! Several locals arrived to the landing to check out this never seen aircraft “in these parts”! Total distance flown was 35.9 miles in 2 hours and 5 minutes. peak altitude of 9447’. Once packed up, the Roping The Wind Balloon Team invaded Gauyos On The Trail for some of the best mexican food north of the border and to celebrate the success of our mission! Did we find the Lost Dutchman mine? We will never tell! Thanks to Dustin Ebert and Sara for the launch and recovery team and Dustin for use of his truck (made much quicker time then my beast would have!). Thanks to the Safford recovery team of Steven Robinson, Dana Larson Wright and Keith Yoder for joining us for the chase to the landing! Thanks to my crew cheif TJ for the ground work and of course for being crazy enough to fly with me on this flight! (Though I think the entire team wanted to fly!). Here is the photo dump from the flight!
pilot: Capt Scott Nicol
flight crew: TJ
launch crew: Dustin Ebert, Sara
recocery crew: Steven Robinson, Dana Larson Wright, Keith Yoder
