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Money spent on lobbying in Colorado again hit a record high this year — but the tally only begins to hint at the ways the deluge steers policy through the statehouse. In all, the $69.6 million paid to Colorado lobbyists in the most recent fiscal year, which ended June 30 and included this year’s legislative session, slightly exceeded what was spent on the fight for the U.

Kirstie Ennis has made a life out of getting back up. The Glenwood Springs resident is a Marine Corps veteran who lost her left leg and suffered other serious injuries in a helicopter crash on her second tour in Afghanistan in 2012. But in the wake of that life-altering trauma, the 33-year-old found a calling as a world-class mountaineer, competitive snowboarder and leader of a non-profit focused on outdoor therapy. Ennis has conquered six of the Seven Summits, and her newfound fire on the mountain was evident, falls and all, from her first big climb at Mount Kilimanjaro in 2017. “You would hear her fall or stumble and it would sound like it hurt,” recalled ex-NFLer Chris Long, who climbed Kilimanjaro with Ennis as part of a group with the non-profit Waterboys.

After a 13-year run in the Pac-12, the CU Buffs are headed back to the Big 12 Conference. But this isn’t the same Big 12 fans may remember from the Buffs’ glory days of the 1990s and early 2000s. With 16 schools spanning three time zones, the new-look conference is a sprawling collection of holdovers, left-behinds and migrants that just 14 years ago were spread across four different conferences with one (BYU) independent.

The wide smiles, the roaring laughter, the animated high-fives. They greet every gaze of the eyes and turn of the neck at Aurora Sports Park. On a postcard-perfect Wednesday morning, 75 participants and 85 softball players attended a Field of Dreams event staged by the Beautiful Lives Project and Triple Crown Sports. They played catch, took batting practice, and shared stories. “I am enjoying this so much,” Marie Taylor of Denver said as she fired the ball across the outfield.

Almost by definition, a Rule 5 Draft pick is a reclamation project. The players selected on the final morning of Major League Baseball’s winter meetings usually come and go without much notice and without making much of an impact. On occasion, teams hit paydirt. The Rockies are optimistic they’ve done so with Anthony Molina, the 22-year-old right-hander they plucked from Tampa Bay last December.

The two biggest questions for next season remain unresolved, but the Colorado Avalanche did find some intriguing bargains despite limited financial resources at the start of a wild offseason. For the first time since before the COVID-19 pandemic, a lack of cap space was not the main storyline when free agency opened July 1 and NHL GMs turned back the clock for a proper spending spree.