A Battle for the Loop: Balloons vs. Wind

As my first return to Colorado in many years rises on the horizon of my summer vacation, I have been excited to try out new technology to capture traces of the C&S narrow gauge. The one particular gadget I am eager to experiment with is a drone. The opportunity to catch aerial footage of the treacherous grades of the C&S, accessing an angle and breadth not available to the average eye, is exciting to say the least. This, I have just discovered, is a desire that precedes me by over a century, however!

The drone of the beginning of the 20th century was known as the hot air balloon. While the first manned, untethered hot air balloon flight occurred in France in 1783, when the C&S proposed getting an aerial photo of the Georgetown Loop via balloon it was considered by the Denver Times of October 22nd, 1901 as “one of the most novel methods ever adopted by any railroad in the country.”

Atmospheric concerns in the canyon, however, caused a myriad of problems for photographer H.H. Buckwalter and the balloonist Ivy Baldwin. To begin with the attempt was to be made in the windy fall month of October. Next, in order to secure a still photograph, it was proposed that the balloon would need to be steadied by a cable held by a person on the ground. Wind was still the biggest problem. As the Denver Times commented, “No matter how still the lower air currents in the narrow canon may seem, there are swift eddies up above that may dash the monster balloon on the rocks. The old safeguard to this is a steady man at the reel below. The instant the balloon makes a downward swoop he will grab an ax and cut the rope.”

The day for the ascent finally came in late October 28th, 1901. The Denver Post claimed that “seven

hundred people watched the battle between Buckwalter and the wind.” He attempted to rise from “a recess in the mountains above Georgetown....just around the short curve and cut that opens out beneath the bridge on the loop.” A train from Denver was run for visitors to watch.

In Buckwalter’s first attempt, the balloon went nowhere. Apparently, he hadn’t calculated his own 210 pounds of weight! The balloon was filled up more. He and Baldwin tried again and got up 13 feet, but alas Buckwalter’s weight still brought the contraption back down. After a failed attempt to get a lighter weight volunteer to replace him, the weather in the canyon made a quick, windy change, “whirl[ing the balloon] around like a top.”

In frustration, the pair decided to go up anyway. They made it 50 feet in the air when, “the wind swept down through the mountains with a rush, caught the balloon square in the center and jerked it back with a crack.” They were then hauled down.

In a last ditch effort Buckwalter decided to set the camera and let Baldwin go up without him with the job to simply press the shutter. A train was placed on the center of the loop bridge. As a test, the balloon was let up without occupants, but the weather again turned and at 60 feet up, a sharp gust whipped against the canvas, ripping a four-foot hole in it.

Admitting defeat, Buckwalter and Baldwin confessed that this was simply a bad time of year and would have to attempt it again in the summer. I'm not aware if he ever attempted this feat again.  But in the words of the Denver Post “the wind finally demonstrated that it was more powerful than man.”


The view that Buckwalter could not seem to acquire, is now easily accessible via drone, as the below video demonstrates:

Sources:
Daniel W. Edwards. A Documentary History of the South Park Line: Vol. 8, The Clear Creek District in the Twentieth Century, 2017.

"Hot Air Balloon." Wikipedia.org.