Similar to how that smashed peanut butter and jelly sandwich can taste like filet mignon when you eat it on the chairlift, somehow a good meal becomes the greatest of your life when preceded by a blast of fresh air and perhaps a bit of sweating.

Truth be told, these dinners stand alone as delicious, but are that much better with a side of adventure.

Tennessee Pass Cookhouse

Backcountry dinners: nightly, all winter

One of Colorado’s unsung gems, this backcountry dining experience happens every evening all winter (along with lunch on Saturdays and Sundays) through mid-April on Tennessee Pass near Leadville. The Cookhouse is situated in a cozy yurt in San Isabel Forest, overlooking the majestic Sawatch Mountain Range. Reaching the multicourse dinner involves snowshoeing, hiking, cross-country skiing or fat biking on the mile-long route through the woods.

“The coolest thing with the experience is you feel so remote and off-grid,” says Shauna Bocksch, who has treated her kids to a Cookhouse dinner every winter for the last several years, also staying overnight in one of the property’s Sleep Yurts. “You’re in a warm yurt with the fire crackling and enjoying this amazing five-course dinner. You have the good feeling of having worked up an appetite getting in, enjoying the stars on the way and warming up with a bonfire outside on the deck when you get there. It’s a true, self-propelled, backcountry experience.

“The best is when you get there before sunset and have a cocktail or hot chocolate before dinner. Looking out at the Collegiate Peaks is just breathtaking.”

Bonus: The property’s Nordic Center is open every day through mid-April and features almost 17 miles of groomed trails for classic and skate skiing, snowshoeing and fat biking, along with lessons and gear rentals. There’s even a free sledding hill with complimentary tubes. Dinner, lunch and Sleep Yurts (each solar-powered with wood-burning stoves, accommodating up to six guests) must be booked in advance. tennesseepass.com/cookhouse

Arapahoe Basin

Moonlight Dinners: March 7, April 4

Unsurprisingly, A-Basin offers numerous ways to arrive at a good meal by way of lung and leg power. These events have become so popular that they fill up quickly once registration is available. The Basin’s Moonlight Dinners offer a chance to skin (or take the chairlift) up to Black Mountain Lodge at mid-mountain for a massive, multicourse buffet dinner (with a theme) and a live musician.

Uphill N’ Chill breakfast: Jan. 30, Feb. 28

Begin your day in a similar fashion with Uphill N’ Chill, an early-morning skin up to Black Mountain Lodge, rewarded with a hearty (chicken and waffles, anyone?) chef-prepared buffet breakfast.

Progressive Skinner’s Dinner: April 24

Launched last season, the crown jewel of the Basin’s adventure dining offerings is the Progressive Skinner’s Dinner, each of its four courses requiring some traveling. The hardest haul is right from the get-go; from then on, gravity is on your side. You start by slapping your skins to your skis or board at the base of the mountain and shuffling about 1,800 vertical feet to il Rifugio, North America’s highest restaurant at 2,456 feet. There, you are offered a spritz toast and scrumptious Italian-themed first course. Then ski or snowboard down to Steilhang, the German/Austrian themed hut, to sit down for your next course while catching the amazing view of the setting sun on the East Wall cliffs outside the window. The main course (last year it featured fresh seafood paella) and gastronomy buffet happens at mid-mountain’s Black Mountain Lodge. Save a little room, though, because the evening finishes with a final ski down to the 6th Alley in the base area A-Frame for dessert and live music. arapahoebasin.com

Buttermilk Full Moon Dinners

Monthly, every full moon through April

Aspen’s uphillers are just as passionate as its downhill enthusiasts, which is why each time there’s a full moon, between 300 and 500 people don headlamps, slap skins on their skis or boards and slog to the top of Buttermilk Mountain to The Cliffhouse Restaurant. Here, a festive bonfire, live music and á la carte access to the restaurant’s full food and bar menu (including the Mongolian BBQ) await.

“I love how dedicated our community is to uphilling,” says Aspen Snowmass’ Hannah Dixon, who regularly participates in the Full Moon Dinners. “The Cliffhouse is packed every time, even on nights when it’s dumping snow. The Full Moon uphills are such a unique way to gather with the community. There is truly nothing like the feeling of skiing fresh corduroy, or sometimes powder, under the moonlight after a warming bowl of noodles.”

An Aspen Snowmass Uphill Pass ($74 for the season) is required, but otherwise the Full Moon Dinners are free to attend (the cost of the meal food is based on a la carte pricing). The Cliffhouse is open from 5 to 8 p.m. for the Full Moon Dinners. Alpine touring or telemark skis, boots and skins are available to rent at Ute Mountaineer in Aspen. aspensnowmass.com

Beaver Creek

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and a coalition of environmental groups on Wednesday asked the U.S. Department of Energy to rescind its recent order requiring a coal-burning power plant in northwest Colorado to remain operational one day before it was scheduled to close. 

The aging Craig Station Unit 1 plant in Moffat County was slated to shut down at the end of 2025, but Energy Secretary Chris Wright issued an emergency order on Dec. 30 extending the plant’s life to March 30, and possibly later. 

The emergency order was issued under section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, which allows the Energy Department to keep power plants running during times of crisis, such as war or energy shortages. The move to keep the Craig plant open had been expected for weeks.

Weiser and the coalition of environmental groups, which includes the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, and Earthjustice — on behalf of GreenLatinos, Vote Solar, and Public Citizen — filed separate challenges with the department over its use of the emergency order, which both filings claim was illegal. 

Wright wrote in his emergency order that Colorado and other Western states face an energy “emergency” due to a “shortage of electric energy, a shortage of facilities for the generation of electric energy, and other causes.” 

The closure of coal-burning plants “could lead to the loss of power to homes,” Wright’s order states, as well as “businesses in the areas that may be affected by curtailments or power outages, presenting a risk to public health and safety.”

The Trump administration has used similar justifications under the Federal Power Act to keep open coal plants in Michigan and Washington, as well as an oil plant in Pennsylvania. 

Weiser, in a press release, said there is “no evidence of an energy emergency that would require keeping Craig Unit 1 open,” adding that the decision will “result in millions of dollars of unnecessary costs that could be passed on to rural households and businesses already struggling with high electricity bills.”

In their own press release, leaders from the environmental groups said that forcing the Craig plant to stay operational will both increase utility costs and negatively impact the environment. They said the emergency order also goes against the wishes of the plant’s owners. 

“Colorado communities, regulators, and utilities spent years planning a lawful, cost-effective transition away from coal,” said Vote Solar Regulatory Director for the West Kate Bowman. “Overriding that process at the eleventh hour erodes public trust and leaves families paying more for decisions made without their input.”

Craig Station Unit 1 is co-owned by Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, a utility cooperative, alongside other energy providers, including Xcel Energy, the Platte River Power Authority and PacifiCorp. 

Tri-State originally decided to close the more than 40-year-old plant by the end of 2025 as part of its move to more environmentally friendly energy sources. It plans to close Craig Station’s two other coal-burning plants by 2028. 

The effort is partly driven by a state law that requires large-scale utility providers to reach 100% renewable electrical energy by 2050. Tri-State is also looking to close its plants and transition to other energy sources for economic reasons.

In a statement released in response to the emergency order in late December, Tri-State said Craig Station Unit 1 had been closed down even before the Dec. 30 order due to “a mechanical failure of a valve.”

Tri-State added that keeping the plant open “will likely require additional investments in operations, repairs, maintenance and, potentially, fuel supply, all factors increasing costs.”

Tri-State CEO Duane Highley said in a statement at the time that Tri-State ratepayers will “bear the costs of compliance with this order unless we can identify a method to share costs with those in the region. There is not a clear path for doing so, but we will continue to evaluate our options.” 

Both Wesier and the coalition of environmental groups, in their filing with the Energy Department, claim the department misused the Federal Power Act when it issued its emergency order and have presented no evidence of an energy emergency. 

The department must respond to the filing within 30 days. Environmental groups said they will challenge the order in court if the department declines to respond or denies their request to lift the order.

The fight over the future of the Craig power station also comes amid the backdrop of the Trump administration’s broader push to support more fossil fuel production. 

The U.S. The Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month rejected Colorado’s latest air-quality plan, saying that it violated federal law by forcing the closure of coal-fired power plants without the consent of plant operators. Gov. Jared Polis and Democratic lawmakers in Congress lambasted that decision.

Colorado’s population rose by 24,059 people last year, the weakest increase measured since 1990, according to an update Tuesday from the U.S. Census Bureau. The gain, however, was enough to push the state’s population above 6 million for the first time.

Thirty-five years ago, Colorado was among a handful of oil and gas states experiencing a severe recession because of low energy prices, and from 1986 to 1990, more people left the state to pursue better opportunities elsewhere than moved in.

The state economy is chugging along this time around — not great, but not horrible. Yet, it appears high housing costs and slower job growth may be exerting a strong outward push. Last year, the state saw a weakening in its strongest contributor to population growth since the pandemic — immigration.

Nationally, President Donald Trump’s push to curb immigration a year ago lowered the country’s population growth rate from 1% in 2024 to 0.5% in 2025. Colorado’s decrease was even larger, going from a 1.29% growth rate to a 0.4%, a two-thirds decline.

Trump’s immigration crackdown led to drop in US growth rate last year as population hit 342 million

The U.S. Census Bureau measures changes in population from July 1 to June 30 every year in what is called a “vintage.” The strictest immigration policies were in place for only half that period, but they were enough to help push net immigration from 2.8 million people in the prior period to 1.3 million.

If that trend continues, the annual gain from net immigration in the next count, mid-2026, could drop to only 321,000 people, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

Colorado’s gain included 20,608 from natural increases, or births minus deaths. Net migration contributed 3,256 residents, with net immigration of 15,356 offsetting a net decline of 12,100 from domestic migration.

The country had an estimated population of nearly 342 million compared to 340 million in the 2024 count. The state’s population rose from 5,988,502 to 6,012,561. Colorado remains the 20th most populous state, behind Maryland and ahead of Wisconsin.

The downward shift was more pronounced in other states. California went from a gain of 232,000 residents in 2024 to a loss of 9,500 people in 2025, due primarily to reduced immigration. Hawaii, New Mexico, Vermont and West Virginia also lost population.

New York added only 1,008 people after a drop in immigration from 207,000 to 95,600. Florida saw its domestic migration drop by nearly two-thirds and immigration dropped by more than half, but it still had one of the largest overall gains, along with Texas and North Carolina.

South Carolina, Idaho and North Carolina had the highest year-over-year population growth rates, ranging from 1.3% to 1.5%.

“Many of these states are going to show even smaller growth when we get to next year,” Brookings demographer William Frey predicted Tuesday.

In 1990, the state added 18,840 residents. But the population is now 80% larger, so the comparison isn’t an even one. Although the pandemic slowed growth, the last time the rate of population growth was so low was in 1989. Only half done, this decade is shaping up to be the slowest the state has seen for growth since the 1980s.

Since 2020, Colorado has seen a net 17,729 people arrive from other U.S. states. By contrast, net immigration, people arriving from other countries, surged by 130,218. Net migration, which historically is 80% domestic and 20% international, has flipped the other way and then some.

Little on the horizon suggests that slower population growth will reverse itself, especially with fewer immigrants and now more outflows than inflows domestically. Demographic winter, long predicted, could be arriving earlier than expected.

On the plus side demographically, births rose 4.6% to 65,380 from the 2023-2024 period, and are now at the highest pace since 2017. Deaths remained fairly flat, rising by 59 or 0.1% from the prior period. That said, the holiday that death can take is limited, given the state’s aging population.

The State Demography Office had forecast a population gain of 33,154 and net migration of 13,568 for 2025. It was off by nearly 10,000, due almost entirely to weaker net migration. Last year, it had cut population forecasts through 2029 by 120,000 residents, and it may need to make more revisions, especially if immigration dries up even more.

What caused domestic migration to turn negative, given the absence of a recession? When someone arrives in a state from another country, they are counted as an international migrant. But if they move to another state, they are counted as a domestic migrant, according to the State Demography Office.

A lot of the international arrivals to Colorado between 2022 and 2025 came on humanitarian grounds and were likely headed elsewhere. And the Census Bureau, which makes no distinction between legal and illegal immigration, has gotten better at counting those arriving as refugees or under a protected status than in the past.

“At least some portion of the domestic out-migration from Colorado is made up of recently arrived international migrants,” the State Demography Office said in a release discussing the Census numbers.

That means a drop in immigration could translate into better numbers on domestic migration in the next estimate.

But an annual survey from United Van Lines, whose customers tend to be older and higher-income households, reported that Colorado last year had become a “strong outbound” state, one of only five, for the first time since 1990. For much of the 2010s, Colorado was a “strong inbound” state, before becoming more balanced after the pandemic.

That would suggest that it isn’t only the newest residents who departed, but also more established and wealthier households who were picking up and leaving.