In The NOCO

Camping is one of the most popular ways to enjoy Colorado’s outdoors and breathtaking scenery. And there’s been a surge in demand for camping over the past several years, according to a recent report from the Center for Western Priorities. That demand makes it harder to try to snag a campsite during the peak summer months, when thousands of people are vying for a limited number of spots. But there...

Nearly every woman will go through menopause in middle age. That can bring on symptoms including sleep disturbances, hot flashes and night sweats, mood changes, and brain fog.    Drug companies have worked to ease those symptoms. But for more than two decades, warning labels discouraged women from using some hormone therapy treatments that contained estrogen – even if many doctors thought these pr...

Could money from sales of skis, snowboards and other sporting goods be used to help protect Colorado communities from increasingly devastating wildfires?  It’s an idea proposed by several conservations groups that could go before voters later this year.   Colorado law requires that most state tax revenue in Colorado be refunded when the state runs a surplus.  But a new proposal calls for the state...

It was a major story in Colorado: A hiker was found dead on New Year's Day , after a suspected mountain lion attack in Glen Haven, in the foothills west of Loveland.    The Larimer County Coroner later confirmed that 46-year-old Kristen Marie Kovatch of Fort Collins had died as a result of the mountain lion attack.  State wildlife officials responded by euthanizing two juvenile mountain lions in t...

Experts at History Colorado have been thinking of different ways to help commemorate Colorado’s 150th birthday this year. One idea they pursued was to track down the earliest known photograph of Colorado.   And what they uncovered is striking: It’s a daguerreotype from 1853, taken during an expedition across the West more than 20 years before Colorado became a state in 1876.  The image depicts a C...

In an era of high-speed gondolas and sprawling ski resorts, it's easy to forget how some of Colorado's smaller mountains shaped ski culture as we know it today.   Howelsen Hill in Steamboat Springs is one of those mountains. It's a fraction of the size of the resorts in Aspen or Vail – or the bigger resort across town. But Howelsen Hill made a huge impact when it opened back in 1915. The hill bear...

Colorado's Rocky Mountains have always drawn tourists. But for Black Americans in the 1920s and 30s, segregation and discrimination severely restricted where they could travel and take a vacation.   Which is why, in 1922, Lincoln Hills emerged as a mountain resort created by and for African Americans. It sits near Rollinsville, northwest of Denver, and was the largest resort of its kind west of th...

In 1895, Leadville city leaders faced a dilemma. The silver mining industry had made the town quite wealthy. But then the silver market crashed , and the city's fortunes cratered right along with it. Residents were leaving in droves to seek better opportunities.  So, city leaders came up with an unusual idea to draw tourists to Leadville, entice people to live there, and give the remaining residen...

For centuries, the Arapaho have called Colorado and Wyoming home. The tribe gave names to places like the Kawuneeche Valley, the Never Summer Mountains, and Mount Blue Sky.    But the language the Arapaho have spoken for centuries is at risk of disappearing, as fewer members of the tribe have learned the language.   A team of language experts at the University of Colorado Boulder is working to cha...

Somewhere in the vast reaches of the universe, there may be an Earth-like planet that could be a second home for humanity.   Although that may sound like science fiction, astronomers at the University of Colorado Boulder are part of a new project designed to help find that planet.   And their efforts will soon get a major boost, as researchers from CU Boulder, in collaboration with NASA, prepare f...

Colorado’s wolf reintroduction program has been contentious from the start. It’s seemingly created a divide between rural ranchers worried about their livestock, and urban Front Range voters who supported reintroduction.   But there’s one effort that might help bridge that divide. It’s a specialty Colorado license plate with a drawing of a wolf, and a tagline that says “Born to Be Wild.”  The idea...

With the holiday season here, we’re right in the middle of a very busy time at Denver International Airport. But the airport isn’t just busy – it's also noisy .   And that can be tougher for travelers than you might realize.  Research suggests that exposure to noise can trigger stress in a traveler’s brain and body, which doesn’t help people already tense from trying to get through those crowded s...

Owls are symbols of wisdom, and heroes of literature – from Greek mythology to Harry Potter.     But a leading conservation agency says owls are in trouble along Colorado’s Front Range. They’re losing critical habitat as cities and suburban areas expand.  The Bird Conservancy of the Rockies recently launched what it calls the Urban Owl Nest Box program .  It’s an unusual project that asks Front Ra...

It's December in Colorado. Snowflakes are flying. And ski resorts are open in the High Country.     If you're like a lot of skiers and snowboarders, you’ve been eagerly anticipating that first trip to the mountains this winter. But you might not have put much energy into staying in shape during the off-season. My guest today specializes in helping people stay in shape for the ski slopes — and avoi...

Every December, Santa Claus literally does the impossible – delivering presents all over the world with a team of flying reindeer. So when someone becomes a stand-in for Santa at your local mall, or work party, those are big boots to fill.   But as it turns out, being Santa is a teachable skill.  Susen Mesco founded Professional Santa Claus School in Denver in 1983. She says more than 5,000 Santas...

Imagine traveling from Denver to Pueblo in just 20 minutes. And instead of sitting in traffic on Interstate 25, you'd make the journey through a sealed tube moving almost at the speed of sound.       That’s the vision behind Hyperloop – an innovative transportation technology that’s being tested right here in Colorado.     The Hyperloop works like this: You fill a specialized pod with people, or s...

  Scromiting  refers to an intense form of illness – a mix of screaming and vomiting – brought on by overindulging in cannabis.    CNN recently reported that scromiting is on the rise and quoted one female patient who described the pain as “worse than childbirth.” The New York Post noted that misdiagnosis is common because many doctors don’t know about the condition.     The CDC and World Health O...

A unique retelling of the holiday classic The Nutcracker explores the history and cultural importance of Denver's Five Points neighborhood.    The Five Points Nutcracker replaces the story’s traditional characters with significant figures from Denver’s African American community. Five Points was once known as the “ Harlem of the West. ”   Duke Ellington’s jazz version of the music is the backbone...

A diagnosis of chronic depression or bipolar disorder can be scary. These conditions can come with feelings of sadness or despair, or intense mood swings.      But a researcher at the University of Colorado says we might be thinking too simplistically about these disorders.    June Gruber is a professor of psychology and neuroscience who runs the Positive Emotion and Psychopathology Lab at CU Boul...

The CU-Anschutz medical campus in Aurora recently agreed to pay $10.3 million to settle a lawsuit over vaccine mandates during the pandemic.    A group of 18 students and faculty claimed that the school violated their religious liberties by requiring them to receive COVID vaccinations to be on campus in person. CU ultimately settled the case through mediation.  The Thomas More Society , which spec...

Writer Cassondra Windwalker’s new horror novel uses fiction to highlight a real-life crisis that often goes ignored.   Ghost Girls and Rabbits touches on the thousands of unsolved cases of Indigenous American and Alaska Native women who were missing or murdered. More than 4,000 cases fit that description, according to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs .  The novel tells the story of two Indigenous...

When Colorado writer X. Ho Yen was a kid, he loved to read science fiction.    X. Ho Yen is autistic. He liked how some sci-fi stories, like the Star Trek series, depicted a more enlightened future society where neurodivergent people were treated equally.    Eventually he began writing his own science fiction novels. His newest release is titled Space Autistic Author’s Puzzling Innerverse . It’s d...

Kindergarten teacher Ellen Javernick has published over twenty illustrated children’s books. The Loveland resident’s first book, What If Everybody Did That? has sold more than a million copies.   She just published her newest book titled Awesome of the Day . It tells the story of a boy named Andrew who has one bad day after the next – until he learns to change his outlook.  Ellen teaches at Garfie...

In February of 1942, not long after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the U.S. military removed thousands of Americans of Japanese descent from their homes. Most of them were full citizens who had been born and raised in the United States.    Families had only a few days to get their affairs in order before reporting to relocation centers, mostly in Western states. Roosevelt’s order affected about 120,...

For people in much of the world, snakebite is a life-threatening condition.   We don't think about it much in Colorado, where a nasty rattlesnake bite might send the occasional hiker to the emergency room. But the World Health Organization estimates that, around the globe, as many as 138,000 people die from venomous snakebites each year.  And while antivenom can be used to treat snakebite, it’s of...