Not like you need another reason to look to the mountain-reaching skies in Snowmass, Colo., but you’ll want to at the 33^rd Annual Snowmass Balloon Festival Sept. 11-14. The weekend includes an appearance by the tallest balloon in the U.S., the Snowmass Wine Festival, and a 12-hour mountain bike race as well.

With temperatures dropping and fall on its way, Snowmass promises plentiful Rocky Mountain fall colors. Throw in over 30 vibrant hot air balloons competing in four days of high altitude competitions and the kaleidoscope is complete.

Balloons compete in:

• The Hare & Hound Chase for media, which finds pilots and media chasing a Hare balloon around Snowmass for the chance to win the Hot Air Media Trophy
• The Colorado Rat Race, a timed distance race spanning the length of the Roaring Fork Valley at rush hour.
• Dawn Quixote, which sends all balloons alight to joust with tethered weather balloons juxtaposed against the magnificent fall mountains.
• Target Tubing, in which hot air balloons “splash and dash” over the Snowmass Club Golf Course ponds while attempting to aim tennis balls into huge floating tubes.

Considered one of the highest balloon festivals in the nation, the 2008 balloon festival also hosts an evening Balloon Glow on Saturday evening with a barbecue, free concert, and balloons lighting up the night sky to twinkle on and off like Christmas ornaments.

This year the event additionally features one of only two chances in Colorado to see the tallest balloon in the United States, the Energizer Bunny “Hot Hare.” At 166 feet and higher than the Statue of Liberty, this enormous rabbit has ears as tall as a typical hot air balloon at 60 feet, wears sunglasses 32 feet wide, and boasts a size 98 EEEEE shoe.

Pilots attending include event founder Betty Pfister, a renowned female aviator and Women’s Air Service pilot (WASP) from World War II who has won multiple international piloting championships and awards; accomplished gas balloonist Tim Cole, part of several around-the-world and record-setting flights, including being on Steve Fossett’s team; and Russ McLain, who runs the entire ReMax ballooning program nationwide. Twenty eight of the thirty-four pilots are Colorado residents, and three pilots, Jim Carter, Dewey Reinhard, Jon Seay have record attendance from attending all 33 festivals.

ALL BALLOON EVENTS ARE FREE TO THE PUBLIC and launch from the Snowmass Village Softball fields at 7am each morning, while the balloon glow starts at 6 p.m. Food vendors and special family activities for the kids are also on-sight.

Info: www.snowmassvillage.com or call 1.800.SNOWMASS.