Before you book
What everyone asks first
What does it cost?
A shared-basket sunrise flight with Canyon Drift Balloon Co. is $285 per person, including hotel pickup near St. George and the landing toast. A private basket for two is $890.
How early is early?
Meet time is about 5:15 a.m. in spring and summer, an hour later in winter. Balloons fly at dawn because that is when the air is calm and stable. You are back by mid-morning.
What if the weather turns?
The pilot makes the call by 8 p.m. the night before. Cancelled for weather means rebook or full refund, your choice, with no fee either way. Roughly one flight in six moves for wind.
The flight plan
A Canyon Drift morning, start to finish
Pickup at your hotel
The van collects up to eight passengers from hotels in St. George and Ivins. Coffee is in the van. Dress in layers; it is cooler on the ground than in the basket.
Inflation at the launch field
You watch 90,000 cubic feet of nylon come off the trailer and stand up. Most people say this is the part they did not expect to love. Help hold a line if you want to.
Launch, right as the rim lights up
First light hits the Navajo sandstone about ten minutes after we leave the ground. The pilot works altitude to find the wind direction he wants, which is the whole art of it.
Landing and the chase crew
We land wherever the wind agreed to, usually a field off Old Highway 91. The chase crew is already there. Everyone helps pack the envelope, which takes about fifteen minutes.
Toast, certificate, back by nine
Champagne, sparkling juice for anyone under 21, and a first-flight certificate. You are back at your hotel before the rest of the family is up.
From the basket
What the country under the balloon looks like
Photographs by Ken Bingham, taken in southern Utah. Served as WebP with a JPEG fallback at three widths, with dimensions declared so nothing on the page moves while they load.
Straight talk
The things worth knowing before dawn
Ballooning is weather-dependent and physically simple, but not effortless. Here is the honest version, which saves everyone a phone call.
Who can fly
Passengers must be at least 6 years old and able to stand for the full flight and climb into a basket about 4 feet tall. There are no seats in a balloon. Maximum passenger weight is 250 pounds; tell us at booking so the pilot can plan ballast.
Weather calls and refunds
The pilot decides by 8 p.m. the night before and texts you directly. Weather cancellation means a full refund or a rebook, no fee. If you cancel with more than 48 hours notice, full refund; inside 48 hours, we rebook you once.
Questions
Asked every week at the launch field
Is it scary if I am afraid of heights?
Usually not. A balloon moves with the wind, so there is no swaying and no engine noise, and the basket wall reaches chest height. People who cannot stand a ladder are often fine at 2,000 feet. There is nothing to hold onto that is moving.
How high do you actually go?
Most of the flight sits between 500 and 2,000 feet above the ground, with a climb to about 3,500 feet when the pilot wants a different wind direction. Low and slow over the canyon is the good part.
Where do you land?
Wherever the wind allows, within the flight area west of St. George. The chase crew follows by road and drives you back to the launch field. Landing sites are on private land we have permission to use.
Can we book the whole balloon?
Yes. A private basket for two is $890 and includes the same pickup, flight and toast. Proposals are the most common reason people book it, and the pilot is happy to help with the timing.
What should I wear?
Long pants, closed-toe shoes you do not mind getting dusty, and layers. It is the same temperature aloft as on the ground, but the launch field at 5:30 a.m. is cold in any season. A hat is useful under the burner.
Find us
Launch field, office, and the number that reaches the pilot
Season and hours
Flights run year round, weather permitting. The office answers 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily; after that, texts reach the pilot on call.
- March to October: meet 5:15 a.m.
- November to February: meet 6:30 a.m.
- Groups over eight: two baskets, same morning
Under the hood
Why an assistant can answer “balloon rides near St. George” with this page
A tour business lives or dies on questions asked in natural language: what does it cost, how early, what if it is windy. Each of those has a self-contained answer on this page, marked up so a machine can find it and quote it without guessing.
TouristTrip and Offer schema
The product is a trip with a price, a duration and a departure time, described in the vocabulary search engines and assistants already parse.
{
"@type": "TouristTrip",
"name": "Sunrise balloon flight",
"offers": {
"price": "285",
"priceCurrency": "USD"
}
}Answers that survive being lifted
Every answer repeats the operator name, the place and the number, so a quoted sentence still identifies the business.
- FAQPage schema on five real questions
- Prices and times as figures, never "contact us"
- The cancellation policy stated plainly, because that is what people search
llms.txt, with honest expectations
A plain-text brief at /canyon-drift/llms.txt: identity, prices, season, policies, and a note that this is a demonstration. Google says Search ignores the file and no assistant has committed to reading it, so it is a cheap bet and a tidy fact sheet rather than a ranking tactic. The work that actually earns a citation is on the page above it.
Fast and steady on a phone
- Photographs as WebP with a JPEG fallback, at three widths
- Width and height on every image, so nothing shifts as they load
- Six originals totalling 24 MB ship as 5 MB across every size, GPS metadata stripped
- Dark mode designed, not inverted
- Motion respects prefers-reduced-motion