Will Drummer, the founder and owner of Skywalker Balloon Company. Photo: Will Drummer

PARK CITY, Utah — An adventurous spirit is contagious. It captivates, draws people in and inspires them to chase something higher than themselves. Perhaps one of the most magnetic qualities of Utah’s Wasatch Back is that it’s made up of dreamers and doers — people who left something behind to pursue an idea, a dream and climb to new heights.

Will Drummer, founder and owner of Skywalker Balloons, is one of them. When he first visited Utah in 1994, he instantly fell in love with the landscape. “It’s so pleasantly different from Europe,” he said.

After two months vacationing with friends, Will returned home to Austria, knowing he wanted to return to the United States permanently. He didn’t know exactly what he wanted to do except that his work had to include the outdoors, involve the tourism industry, and he knew he wanted to help show people, in the most time-efficient way possible, “how pretty the state of Utah is.”

At first, he considered helicopters. “Fabulous,” he said with a grin. “Two million bucks — even 30 years ago.” Then, one day, he saw a hot air balloon on TV in Austria, and everything clicked.

For the next decade, Will traveled back and forth between Austria and Utah, slowly building his vision. Then in 2005, he took the plunge and moved permanently.

“It’s been one hell of a ride,” he laughed. “If you asked me whether I’d do it all again? One hundred percent — yes.”

“Ballooning is the oldest form of aviation known to mankind,” Will explained.

“It’s probably also the most useless to get from point A to point B,” he added with a smile.

But what ballooning lacks in usability, it makes up for in wonder — offering passengers a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see the world from the clouds, suspended in stillness and peace.

He’s been refining a slogan to capture that very magic: “Step out of your day-to-day existence, and let us take you back into a time when you believed in fairy tales and dragons…” “This is what we do,” Will said.

Park City, he insists, is among the best places in the world to fly. “We’ve got these 10,000- to 11,000-foot peaks as our backdrop,” he said, likening the experience to alpine flying in Europe. “You can’t beat the setting.”

If you get the chance to take a walk in the sky with Will and his team, upon descent he traditionally will pass around glasses of champagne and recite the balloonist’s blessing — a poetic tribute to the magic of flight:

“The sun has blessed you with warm hands. The winds have welcomed you with softness. You have flown so high and so well, God has joined you in your laughter and set you gently back again into the loving arms of Mother Earth.”

Hot air ballooning is more than a ride in a balloon — it’s a return to wonder.

It’s a reminder that the sky isn’t the limit; it’s just the beginning. And for Will Drummer — and for those lucky enough to float alongside him — that dream he chased across continents has taken flight and continues to rise with each new sunrise over the Wasatch.