People of the Roaring Fork Valley turned out in force for the Denver Museum of Nature & Science's "Mammoth & Mastodon Madness" event in Snowmass Village on Saturday. By 1 p.m. more than 1,200 people had attended the event, with more people arriving every moment.

The highlight of the event was the display of several of the mastodon and mammoth bones recovered from the Ziegler Reservoir Ice Age fossil dig site over the past couple weeks. The Museum's education staff answered questions about the fossils and described the excavation process while excited visitors snapped photos.

Families with children enjoyed activities like toy fossil digs, assembling dinosaur puzzles, making mammoth and mastodon hats, and they learned more about the massive Ice Age beasts by touching actual specimens from the Museum's education collections.

In addition, the Dr. Kirk Johnson, the Museum's chief curator, and Dr. Ian Miller, the chair of the Museum's Earth Science Department, came off the mountain from the dig site and answered questions for interested visitors several times during the day.

The Museum wishes to thank everyone in Snowmass Village and the Roaring Fork Valley for their tremendous hospitality and interest in the Museum's fossil excavation. As the Museum completes analysis of the fossils in the lab, watch for updates on the results on the Museum's website.