The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
There are few finer places to spend a summer’s day than in this valley. Each good day here is worth about eight great days most other places. When the sun is shining, the sky is blueing, the stars are blazing, life at 8,800 feet above sea level is pretty sweet.
Looking at the forecast, we are in one of the kind cycles and that’s a good thing given the glut of activities happening this week. It is the start of summer. It will be 75 and happy in Crested Butte, 101 and miserable in Dallas.
We have wild bike races scheduled all weekend on the mountain trails. A Bayou in the Butte Music festival downtown will bring a Cajun flavor to the park, and a Fat Tire 40 backcountry bike race, through the generosity of the Veltris, will allow bikers to race on the Strand Hill Road. We have a townie bike rally that will have riders making circles around the bridges of Crested Butte after the bars close but before the coffee shops open.
There is the chainless race on Friday, which last year produced one of my favorite photos ever. Picture a bare-chested local attorney in a Mexican wrestling mask, the sparkly Chamber of Commerce representative with a PBR in hand, and a uniformed Forest Service dude takin’ names and trying to explain the rules of Kebler Pass Road. Rules? “We don’t need more stinkin’ rules,” the Lucha Libre lawyer and Sparkly explained (politely) and the race went on. Of course, this year there are rules but the race should be a spectacle nonetheless. Speaking of spectacles… what about the Gadfly singing in the Mountain Theatre production of Guys and Dolls that opens this Friday.
Kayaks will be racing the raging Oh-Be-Joyful falls on Sunday, Karl Denson will entertain on the Red Lady stage at the base of the ski lifts Saturday evening, a soccer tournament saluting the World Cup at every field in Crested Butte will be taking place and the Gunnison River Festival celebrating water in Gunnison is being held as well. The Farmer’s Market is Sunday morning on Elk Avenue, a pie-eating contest to benefit the youth council is Sunday afternoon in the same place. There are weddings, bar mitzvahs, family reunions and no shortage of opportunities to find a bit more solitude if you’d like, with a hike or bike, a fishing outing or canoe trip in one of the valleys this place offers. It’s a complete summer in a weekend.
Oh, and the first Alpenglow concert (bring those coozies) will draw a crowd to the outdoor Center for the Arts stage on Monday evening. Buckle your seat belts—we are about to hit 75 mph in the tourist lane. And that is a good thing, my friends. We at the News are acknowledging the fast lane by including the visitor-focused Weekly in our second section. It will run there for the next few months. Enjoy the profiles and features.
Relish this time, for it is not the longest of seasons—but it is one of the best. Any one of these days is worth eight good ones anywhere else.
The forecast calls for sunny and 70s with no shortage of things to do. Enjoy. It is summer in the mountains.
