While most ski areas in Colorado have colorful pasts as mining towns, logging sites, ranches, farms or homesteads, none can boast a prehistory like that of Snowmass.
Tens of thousands of years ago, mastodons, camels and giant sloths roamed what is now the ski resort’s base area. How do we know this? A 2010 excavation of a glacial lake in Snowmass Village unexpectedly uncovered the world’s most bountiful collection of mastodon fossils along with the remains of numerous other long-extinct animals – mammoths, giant sloths, camels and even an enormous bison. The animals roamed the area between 55,000 and 140,000 years ago.
“This was a window into a world we had never seen. In terms of this age and this elevation, there’s nothing else like this site anywhere in North America and, arguably, anywhere else in the world,” Ian Miller of National Geographic said during a presentation in Snowmass last August. Miller served as the lead paleontologist during the 2010 fossil dig.
The mammoth discovery
The largest and highest-elevation paleontological finding of its kind was uncovered when a bulldozer driver ran into a large object on a construction site. That object turned out to be a mammoth tusk. Dozens of scientists, Denver Museum of Nature and Science employees and volunteers descended on Snowmass, working tirelessly to dig out as many bones as they could in the three weeks before snowfall shut down their efforts.
The work resumed the following spring for another seven weeks with even more scientific efforts and more than 380 volunteer diggers. In total, 5,426 large animal fossils, including 35 mastodon skeletons, plus countless plant and microfossils were recovered.
“Schoolteachers, neighbors and family members all came together in barn-raising, bone-digging fashion,” says David Heil, president of the Aspen Science Center, which has been pivotal in reviving the Ice Age Discovery. “It’s a huge credit to the community and the team at Snowmass that this discovery was made. The way it came together is a story unto itself.”
Originally referred to as “Snowmastodon,” the discovery was a big deal. Nova made a documentary about it (“Ice Age Death Trap”) and it was covered by media across the globe. The fossils, buried in various stages of muddy depths over 85,000 years, opened countless revelations in science. Major discoveries were made not only regarding characteristics of the prehistoric species found at Ziegler Reservoir, but also regarding climate change at high elevation.
After the fossils – estimated to be only a small fraction of those buried below the lake – were taken to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Ziegler Reservoir was refilled. While those involved would never forget the spectacular discovery, as seasons went by, the Snowmass community’s awareness of its prehistoric past faded. Certainly, the thousands of skiers visiting Colorado’s second-largest resort over the last 13 years have been mostly oblivious to the fact that the slopes they were shredding once were the stomping ground of giant prehistoric beasts.
That is about to change.
Discovering the discovery
Last year, Snowmass launched Ice Age Discovery, a series of art pieces and installations geared toward educating visitors about the spectacular dig of 2010.
As it has for thousands of years, Ziegler Reservoir sits largely undisturbed amid pine and aspen trees, surrounded by high peaks. It appears to the unknowing observer to be like any other idyllic alpine pond. However, visitors now can view the lake as they might have seen it thousands of years ago, thanks to a series of informative plaques along the Ice Age Discovery Trail. The trail is open to hikers and uphill mountain bikers in summer and can be found between the Scooper and Dawdler ski runs in winter.
Snowshoeing to the Ice Age
The Rim Trail South trailhead is located across Brush Creek Road from Snowmass Mall. From here, snowshoers (or hikers wearing traction devices) can make their way up the mountain to Spiral Point in winter. The trek is about 3 miles out and back. Ziegler Reservoir is visible below, nestled in a natural basin surrounded by Snowmass resort. Capitol Peak towers above, with Mount Daly in the distance.
Viewfinders allow visitors to see the glacial lake as it might have looked 120,000 years ago surrounded by mastodons, giant bison and ground sloths; 70,000 years ago when Columbian mammoths and prehistoric camels roamed its shores; and also in 2010, when the throngs of scientists and community members were excavating bones from the drained basin.
Ice Age Discovery passport
Visitors can dig into the Ice Age Discovery exhibit with a free passport – available at guest service locations – that highlights the art installations and educational opportunities around Snowmass. Beginning at Snowmass Mall near the stop where most skiers and snowboarders arrive on local shuttles, the tunnel mural by Fort Collins artist Jeremy Collins provides an underground glimpse of the layers of lake floor, sprinkled with skeletons representing creatures that have inhabited the land throughout the last 140,000 years.
The next art piece, located on the tower along Snowmass Wall, is a whimsical painting of a life-sized mastodon by California-based artist Bunnie Reiss. The Sky Cab gondola, also known as the Skittles gondola, used for transportation between Snowmass Mall and Snowmass Village, features Ice Age information panels in every car. In Snowmass Village the lamp posts are adorned with Ice Age Discovery flags, showcasing the height of a mastodon.
Another installation is located on the walls inside the Village Transit Center. Here, a caste of the massive prehistoric bison skull – its horns measuring 6.5-feet across – is displayed atop a detailed painting of a bison head by South African artist Kris Hewitt (aka Studio Kronk). Looking carefully at this painting, viewers will find the entire Ice Age Discovery story displayed – the shapes within the bison head symbolizing Ziegler Reservoir, excavation tools, bulldozers and hard hat-clad scientists. On a wall at the lower landing, another Hewitt painting displays the prehistoric bison in its staggering immensity.
After checking off each stop in the passport, visitors can collect a free mastodon stuffed animal from guest services.
There’s more to learn about prehistoric life
The team at the Aspen Science Center refers to the Ice Age Discovery project and its installations as “invitational learning,” or “free-choice learning.” They allow visitors to digest as much information as they desire. Some viewers will scrape the surface with a quick glimpse at the artwork, while others will opt for a deep dive, learning all there is to know at SnowmassIceAge.com.
“This is just the beginning,” said Snowmass Tourism marketing director Virginia McNellis. “We plan to keep adding new art pieces and installations. Our prehistoric past really does set us apart from any resort in the world. For years, this discovery was a small brochure, a page on the website. We needed a way to express and celebrate it.”
