Travel | featured news

Editor’s note: This is part of The Know’s new series, Staff Favorites. Each week, we will offer our opinions on the best that Colorado has to offer for dining, shopping, entertainment, outdoor activities and more. (We’ll also let you in on some hidden gems).

If you grew up in Colorado — and are of a certain age — then it’s almost a given that you listened to a lot of John Denver while riding in the back of your parents’ station wagon on road trips.

Coffee lovers in the 13,000-person town of Fruita are in luck: USA Today this week named Bestslope Coffee Co. the best in Colorado — and one of the top five independent shops in the U.S.

Winter Park this year became the latest Colorado ski resort to offer early lift access for skiers and riders who are willing to pay for upgrades to their lift tickets. It’s a privilege that some love and others criticize as elitist.
“Early ups” allow visitors to board lifts 30 minutes or more before they open to the general public, usually for $50 to $70, in order to get a crack at undisturbed snow. Other areas that offer early ups include Copper Mountain, Steamboat, Aspen Mountain and Snowmass. Beaver Creek and Keystone offer early ups on select days.

Break from tradition and embark on a culinary quest this year for your Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, or New Year’s meal. Imagine carving into a turkey at a historic hotel with a mountain backdrop, or dominating a five-star buffet before hiking in a nearby national park.
Here’s a selection of brunch options for the upcoming holiday breaks. Pack your bags and appetite, and get ready to explore:

Plans for a new outdoor industry gathering in Denver, which organizers hope will have a national impact in the future, have progressed to the point where the concept will debut with a “soft opening” this coming spring at Civic Center Park.

Now that Red Rocks Amphitheater’s 2024 calendar is filling up, it’s time to start thinking about buying tickets and circling dates. Some shows are already on sale, with others will be soon.
Where to begin? Here’s an updated list of concerts announced for 2024 at the famed outdoor Morrison venue. Tickets for most shows are available at axs.com.

The opening scene in this year’s Warren Miller ski film, “All Time,” begins with grainy black-and-white ski footage and narration intended to emulate the movie-house newsreels of the 1900s. After a brief overview of the roots of skiing, the narrator introduces the man who created the ski film genre more than 70 years ago.

Paonia State Park is closed for the season now, but when it reopens on May 1, 2024, kayakers, paddleboarders and canoers may have more reason to show up, at least on Tuesdays.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife is considering closing the boat ramp in the park once a week to motorized vessels in future summers, something it has also done at Highline State Park. Both Paonia and Highline state parks are located on Colorado’s Western Slope.

Engineering students at the University of Colorado Denver soon will have the opportunity to gain hands-on experience testing outdoors gear with precision machinery in a newly created “innovation laboratory” through a partnership with Outside Interactive Inc., the Boulder-based media company that is home to more than 30 online platforms, including Outside magazine.

Julia Carmel | Los Angeles Times (TNS)
LOS ANGELES — There are 63 national parks in the United States, but at the start of 2023, I’d made it to only one.
So when my partner, Reanna, bought us tickets to see Big Thief and Lucinda Williams at Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre, we had an exciting (though surely unoriginal) idea: What if we made it a road trip?