Talk about a favorite month…look outside. Better yet, get outside

I can’t help myself. While columnist and snow lover John Norton has voiced his preference for Favorite Month in Crested Butte being sometime in the winter, I prefer the month we are in now. And I have to write about it.
June, followed closely by September, is simply wonderful. As I have said before, a good Crested Butte day in June is worth about five really good days almost anywhere else in the world. And we have had some good days this June. The sun is shining, the peaks are still capped in white. The sky is brilliantly blue and the temperatures are close to perfect, hovering around 70 degrees.
It is a perfect time to do just about anything. You can ski in the morning and I hear Owen and Purple are still pretty sweet. You can hit the rivers to fish or raft or SUP. You can ride the ever-expanding mountain bike trail systems. You can still relax on an Elk Avenue bench (something not likely next month) or chill with a 3.2 beer at a softball game. Golf is booming and the bugs haven’t had the horrendous hatch. The wildflowers are starting to bloom and hiking is available in every valley.
It will get hotter, more crowded and a bit more kinetic out there. That’s not a complaint, just a prediction.

And on top of it all—the longest day of the year is this month. The days around the solstice this weekend will be filled with sunshine. The sun officially rises at its earliest at 5:42 in the morning and will hang in the sky until 8:37 p.m. I know from being woken up each morning at 5:15 that the birds see the sun come up before that.
Summer officially begins Saturday.
That is something to celebrate. So do it. Get outside. Revel in the daylight. Get into the mountains. Take a leisurely stroll down Elk Avenue before it is elbow-to-elbow. Breathe in these days. Listen to the flowers. Smell the aspens. Lose yourself in the Milky Way.
I love winter and all that it offers here but these are the days, my friends. Don’t take them for granted.