High Points: The longest day

It’s almost officially official: Summer will back in town on Friday night, right where it belongs.

The summer solstice in Aspen will happen just five minutes after the sun sets here on this evening behind Mt. Sopris. At 8:41 p.m., the earth will have completed its annual northerly tilt of 23.44 degrees toward the sun and will start the process of reversing itself. For the next 93 days, until the autumnal equinox on Sept. 22, we will be officially in the season of the sun. For a little more local perspective, we are just 159 days away from Thanksgiving, the day the ski season opens. Bet you can’t wait!

And this year, the summer solstice (aka: the longest day of the year) just happens to line up with the opening of the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. The Classic is normally a week earlier, coinciding with Father’s Day weekend, but a quirk in the calendar led to this year’s start in conjunction with the solstice. Not like it was planned or anything. It is just a happy coincidence. It does seem appropriate, however, that a full-blown celebration of bacchanalia falls on the first day of summer.

Since the earliest recording of times, cultures around the globe have reveled in joy at the coming of the longest day under the summer sun. From the medieval get togethers at Stonehenge in England to the Midnight Sun Festival in Reykjavík in Iceland to the homage of RA, the sun god, people of the north hemisphere have welcomed the change of season to the good old summertime each year. I suspect that in this very valley when the Utes ran the land they, too, embraced the solstice.

Today, people in the Roaring Fork Valley are no different in their longing for the summer season. There is the longtime local saying, “I came for the winter, but I stay for the summer.” And it is true. Once you have been here for a while, you realize that each of the four seasons have their specific charms — but summer, well, it’s just a bit better.

This summer, the calendar is chock full of things to do, and hopefully, you’ll have ample time to get out and enjoy it. Early morning and late afternoons are tailor-made for outdoor activities in the Rockies, leaving the mid-days for cultural experiences and, of course, leisurely lunches followed by even more leisurely siestas. Sound like a plan?

And even though it is still June, expect the temperatures to be hotter than July. There is a high pressure heat dome sliding in from the southwest, and we could be in for some record heat this weekend. While Denver is looking at 100-degree temps over the weekend, we are anticipating temps in the high 80s. We could  break a daily record, but our all-time high seems safe. According to extremeweatherwatch.com, Aspen’s hottest day was July 27, 1917, when the thermometer topped out at 94 degrees.

On Friday, there will 14 hours 55 minutes and 43 seconds of daylight between the sunrise at 5:41 a.m. and the sunset at 8:36 p.m. Astronomical twilight will last until 10:37 p.m. It is a good day — and night — to celebrate the beginning of the summer season.

Stay cool, and have fun.