Held aloft by their signature rainbow-colored balloons, the wicker baskets that take Adirondack Balloon Flights passengers into the sky are the best kind of standing-room-only spaces around.
Soaring high above Lake George, Saratoga Springs, Albany and the Adirondacks in northern New York State, the whimsical tours offer passengers a view that company owner/pilot Phil Jackson describes as looking like a “Grandma Moses, country-type painting.” For more than 30 years and through more than 3,000 flights — not to mention flying a balloon in the Woody Allen film “Stardust Memories” — Jackson has offered guests an opportunity to bask in unobstructed views of natural beauty and to interact with their pilot in a way that’s impossible on an airplane. After all, the rich detail of New York’s landscape is best appreciated when “you’re not screaming past at 30,000 feet,” Jackson notes, and the accompaniment of a kaleidoscopic canopy and a steady basket offer as pleasant a way as any to spend an hour on a summer afternoon.
With the Adirondack and Green mountains out in the distance and the entire Upper Hudson River Valley stretched out below, shutterbugs are sure to fill a pocketful of memory cards in short order. As long as the weather cooperates, Jackson takes twice daily, one-hour flights (one just after sunrise, another a couple hours before sunset) throughout the warmer-weather months.