Five days from now we will experience the summer solstice, on June 20 at 3:44 p.m. MDT. On that day the northern hemisphere will experience the longest continuous period of daylight of the entire year, and the shortest period of darkness.
It is also the official beginning of summer which will last for the following 3 months. Summer in the Rockies is much like spring at sea level - warm but rarely hot, occasional rain that rarely lasts long, almost no humidity, really pleasant shirtsleeves weather constant through July and August, intermittent but mostly nice in June and September, occasionally nice in May and October.
We leave the rest of the year to the year-rounders. Winter here isn't so much hard as it is long, or so the envious locals tell us when in the fall we say we're headed out. I can't tell you how many have told us the moment they retire they'll do what we're doing, get a winter place where you don't have to shovel snow or slip on the ice.
