A bright Saturday morning in November 2016. This was our second launch and we had waited for the winds to weaken. While they were handed into the mountains, the winds weren't strong and we headed for an area familiar to the teacher for hiking.
Launch took place in at 8:00am in our school parking lot.
Finding a way out of the berry bushes other than hacking through them; that was the way we headed in. While the payload was in a tree, it was hanging at eye level and could be easily pulled down from the pine tree.
With the short distance of the flight, there was hours of waiting. We were able to track the balloon until 60,000 feet before losing the GPS signal. It was only regained once it was on the ground. We were within about 10 miles of the landing zone, just on the opposite side of the American River canyon. After a 30 minute drive around the canyon, and a short walk, we got to the area where it landed. Students braved thorny and tall bushes battling their way to the payload. We recovered the whole payload. Again we had a failure in the time lapse camera.
At 4:05:07 you can see the balloon burst, shards fly free, and rapid spiral descent begin.