Moving west

My SO and I want to move from the east coast to someplace with mountains and hiking terrain. He’s like to snowboard regularly (instead of 1x/mo for the 3-4 months of winter we get here) and I’d like to hike on a daily (or almost daily) basis. We have been seriously considering Colorado as we’ve vacationed there for the snowboarding 3 years ago. We didn’t explore the state at large so my question is, for those of you who live or have lived in Colorado already, is there any specific area that would provide both activities with relative ease without being too far from wherever we need to be for a good selection of employment options?

Also, what’s the best and worst things about living in the state?