Colorado
Ban on gender-affirming surgery for minors makes Colorado ballot
A proposal to ban gender-affirming surgery for minors in Colorado will head to the November ballot, the Secretary of State’s Office announced Tuesday.
Protect Kids Colorado, the advocacy group backing the initiative, submitted nearly 165,000 signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot. The measure needed about 125,000 to qualify. It is the third of three measures backed by the advocacy group and the second specifically concerning transgender people.
The measure would ban health care professionals from knowingly performing, prescribing or providing surgery to minors “for the purpose of altering biological sex characteristics.” Those types of surgeries have been extremely low, despite the attention they receive.
In 2019, there were 2.1 reported gender-affirming surgeries per 100,000 children aged 15-17 across the country, according to a 2024 study published by the American Medical Association. There were nearly zero such surgeries performed on children aged 13 and 14, and zero performed on children 12 and younger.
Protect Kids Colorado has also won a spot on the ballot for an initiative to ban transgender youth and adults from competing on interscholastic or intramural sports teams that don’t align with their sex assigned at birth, and an initiative to require life sentences for people convicted of child sex trafficking.
Each measure would need a simple majority of support from voters to become law in 2027.
Erin Lee, executive director of Protect Kids Colorado, has previously praised volunteers for gathering the signatures.
“Protecting children is not a partisan issue; it’s a moral one,” she said when the proposal about trans athletes qualified for the ballot.
The measures have also drawn immediate opposition from LGBTQ+ rights organizations and supporters. Opponents of the measure have formed Families Not Politics to oppose the measures.
“Now that these measures have qualified for the ballot, voters should know what’s at stake,” Nadine Bridges, executive director of One Colorado, said in a statement issued by the opposition committee. “Coloradans have always valued individual freedom and the rights of families to make private decisions without political interference, but these measures would go against those core values. ”
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Colorado
Vacation booking blunders are costing Colorado travelers. Here’s what you should be looking out for.
DENVER — Summer vacation season is here, and Denver7 Investigates is hearing from more Coloradans frustrated by costly surprises and misleading bookings when planning their getaways.
▶️ WATCH: Denver7 Investigates’ Jaclyn Allen has tips to avoid costly travel booking mistakes
Vacation booking blunders are costing Colorado travelers. Here’s what to look out for.
Eagle County resident Mourghan Ridenour was planning a hockey trip to Denver for her family last month.
“I have two boys that play hockey and we travel and book hotels all the time,” she said.
She thought she had booked a room directly through Marriott. But when they arrived, there was no reservation.
Ridenour had unknowingly booked through a third‑party site with hundreds of negative reviews on the Better Business Bureau.
“I kept calling and calling, getting different people. What they kept saying is, ‘Oh, our system is needing to upload. Oh, it hasn’t been updated,’” she said. “It was a lot of excuses, but the money was never brought back.”
She eventually got her $288 back after disputing the debit card charge through her bank.
“All my friends and family, we’re all so busy trying to do five things at once, so you’re not noticing this, which from now on I’m going to,” she said.
The BBB says it has seen nearly 300 complaints and 550 negative reviews involving vacation‑related bookings from Colorado in the past year.
Cameron Nakashima with the BBB said fake booking websites and impostor listings are common.
“They give you a fake booking number, and then it’s not until later that you realize you’ve been out all this money and you don’t actually have a flight booked,” Nakashima said.
He says fraudsters even make fake property listings on platforms like VRBO and Airbnb.
“They’ll go on to places like VRBO and these other trusted sites, and they’ll create fake listings, and those platforms are working hard to weed those out, but it does get through every once in a while,” Nakashima said.
The BBB recommends:
- Verify the website URL matches the official company site. Watch for misspellings.
- Check that phone numbers come directly from the hotel, airline or rental company.
- Do a reverse image search of property photos.
- Use Google Maps street view to see if the exterior matches the listing.
- Book directly through official company apps or sites.
- Use a credit card for more protection in case of a dispute.
Denver7 has also reported on rental car issues, including a Commerce City rental car location where customers said charges increased dramatically from add‑ons and unexpected fees.
While Routes said they were making changes, other rental car companies have similar complaints.
“You realize what seems to be the least expensive option at first, actually, there’s all these little fees, like the administrative fee, the gas refill fee, the inspection fees, all these little things that weren’t clear up front, and now you’re paying in a lot of cases like hundreds of dollars more by the end of your trip than what you had budgeted,” Nakashima said.
Bottom line: Research before you book, check reviews and BBB ratings, and read the fine print.
Sometimes, the cheapest option really is too good to be true.
If you believe you’ve been misled in a booking, you can file a complaint at bbb.org and report fraud to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov. Or reach out to the Colorado Attorney General.
Denver7
Got a tip? Send it to the Denver7 Investigates team
Use the form below to send us a comment or story idea you’d like the Denver7 Investigates team to check out. You can also email investigates@Denver7.com or call our newsroom at 303-832-0200.
Hideaway Creek Cabin, which is in a private, members-only ski community in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, is set to be auctioned next month.
Listed for $25.7 million, the home is the only completed private residence within Cimarron Mountain Club, a 1,900-acre ski-focused community limited to 13 families.
The 35.23-acre property is being offered through global real estate auction house Concierge Auctions in cooperation with Compass Real Estate Broker Steven Shane.
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Listed for $25.7 million, the fully furnished Hideaway Creek Cabin offers a rare opportunity to own within a private 1,900-acre ski community limited to just 13 ownership families. (Photo courtesy of Tin House Creative)
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Listed for $25.7 million, the fully furnished Hideaway Creek Cabin offers a rare opportunity to own within a private 1,900-acre ski community limited to just 13 ownership families. (Photo courtesy of Tin House Creative)
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“Extraordinary properties deserve extraordinary exposure, and opportunities as rare as this simply do not come to market often,” said Chad Roffers, CEO and co-founder of Concierge Auctions.
Offered fully furnished, the over 4,000-square-foot home features four bedrooms and five full bathrooms. The interior includes a full appliance package with a refrigerator, freezer, oven, range, microwave, dishwasher, washer and dryer. Window coverings and ceiling fans are installed throughout the home, according to the listing.
Completed in 2025, the home also features radiant heat throughout, two wood-burning fireplaces and a solar energy system.
“You’re not simply purchasing a home –– you’re gaining access to an entire private mountain lifestyle that very few people will ever experience,” Shane said.
Unlike most traditional ski properties, ownership includes membership to Cimarron Mountain Club, a private alpine enclave more than twice the size of Aspen Mountain.
Accessible only by snowcat, the mountain offers untouched powder, no lift lines and highly personalized experiences led by 14 expert guides. Members have access to three snowcats, a newly completed 15,000-square-foot private lodge, Michelin-caliber dining and professional concierge services.
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Nestled on more than 35 acres in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, Hideaway Creek Cabin combines luxury mountain living with immediate membership access to one of North America’s most exclusive alpine clubs: Cimarron Mountain Club. (Photo courtesy of Tin House Creative)
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Nestled on more than 35 acres in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, Hideaway Creek Cabin combines luxury mountain living with immediate membership access to one of North America’s most exclusive alpine clubs: Cimarron Mountain Club. (Photo courtesy of Tin House Creative)
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Approximately 30 minutes from Montrose Regional Airport, at 4901 Cimarron Mountain Rd. in Cimarron, the area also provides trout fishing, hiking, boating, climbing, wildlife viewing and backcountry exploration beyond winter recreation.
Curecanti National Recreation Area, Blue Mesa Reservoir and the historic mountain towns of Ouray and Telluride are nearby.
Bidding for Hideaway Creek Cabin is scheduled to open on July 14 via the firm’s online marketplace, conciergeauctions.com. The auction will close live on July 28 at Sotheby’s New York as part of the New York Global Sales lineup.
As part of Concierge Auctions’ Key For Key giving program in partnership with Giveback Homes, the closing will result in funding toward new homes built for families in need.
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Colorado
Colorado firefighters in grade mountain homes on wildfire survivability during training exercise
As wildfire concerns grow across Colorado’s mountains, firefighters in Summit County spent part of the week walking through a neighborhood and evaluating which homes they would be able to defend if a wildfire raced toward them.
Crews from Summit Fire & EMS and Red, White & Blue Fire Protection District worked together on a training exercise in Silverthorne, practicing everything from calling in additional resources to assessing homes for wildfire risk. The exercise centered around a reality firefighters face during major wildfires: they cannot save every structure.
“All of these homes potentially could be threatened,” said Steve Lipsher, community resource officer with Summit Fire & EMS. “So we want to spend our resources and our time and our energy in a place where we can actually make a difference.”
As firefighters moved from property to property, they completed what is known as structure triage, evaluating how defensible each home would be during a wildfire. The assessments look at factors such as defensible space, vegetation near structures, access to water, and other hazards that could make a home more difficult to protect.
“This is what we found at this home, this is how defensible it is from a fire, this is how we may be able to improve it,” Lipsher said. “Or in the worst-case scenario, this is a home that would take far too much effort and we cannot improve it in time.”
Some issues are simple to fix. During one assessment, Lipsher pointed out vegetation concerns near a home and noted that “this would be a real easy fix to dramatically improve the likelihood” of the home surviving a wildfire.
The training comes as Summit County enters the summer fire season under unusually dry conditions.
“Our soil moisture is nothing right now,” Lipsher said. “You can feel it.”
For homeowners Harold and Sherry Pearce, the wildfire threat was one of the realities they understood when purchasing a mountain home.
“The insurance rates reflect what we’ve realized is a threat commonly,” Harold Pearce said.
One challenge firefighters frequently encounter is convincing homeowners to make mitigation improvements that may change the look of their property.
“Sometimes it’s a case, ‘I bought a mountain home that I want to be a mountain home. I want it to be in the woods,’” Lipsher said. “Nobody moved to Colorado to live on a scalped lot — but there are definitely some things that we can do to make a home more likely to survive a wildfire.”
That challenge can be even greater with second homes, where owners may not be present year-round to monitor conditions or complete mitigation work.
Officials said the goal of exercises like this is not only to train firefighters, but also to help homeowners understand how small changes can dramatically improve a home’s chances during a wildfire. Summit County recently moved into a high fire danger classification, a reminder that despite recent rain, much of the moisture gained this spring has already dried out.
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