After four hours on bone-rattling dirt roads, we finally reach the private ranch where the UW crew is camping. We meet Pfister, and fellow crew members Chris Pladziewicz, Brig Konecke, Nate Clark and Stephan White -- all UW-Madison students -- at the edge of a swollen creek.
The crew shuttles us off to camp, a collection of Army Surplus olive-drab and fluorescent nylon tents. It looks more like a rag-tag militia base than a scientific headquarters.
A human pack mule backfilling holes at a dinosaur dig. Grunt work if you can get it, but at least they have wheels. © Jeff Miller/ UW-Madison Office of News and Public Affairs.
The visibility of Big Sky Country from the camp spans 60 miles, and the land is lush with color: Thick clumps of blue-green sage brush, bright green juniper bushes, a wide spectrum of prairie grasses, and occasional orange and yellow wild flowers. Looming three miles north is the long spine of sun-baked buttes of the Hell Creek geological formation -- which will be our sweltering playground for the next two days.
In the mess tent, Pfister orients us to the neighborhood with intricately detailed maps of the summer's excavation site. Every last trace of dinosaur fossil is measured and recorded on these sheets. Dig sites are pretty chaotic affairs -- the bones have usually been scrambled and thrown willy-nilly across yards of land by water, wind and carcass-gobbling scavengers.
Oddly, hind leg bones are often missing. Pfister describes the rear legs of the hulking dinos as "drumsticks," haute cuisine of predators with primitive table manners.
Speaking of food, the air around the mess tent is thick with the pungent odor of vinegar and garlic, courtesy of a giant Tupperware bucket full of four dozen pickled eggs. It was one of the few spoilage-proof supplements to the steady diet of rice, beans, pasta and canned goods.
After an evening meal of spicy chili, macaroni and beer, the crew regales us with stories of 80-foot crocodiles and other weird creatures that once stomped these parts. After turning in about 9 p.m., I encounter my first packing mishap. Air mattresses, I discover, are crucial gear for an evening spent getting up close and personal with a bed of rocks and needle-spiked cactus.
Good
ribs are hard to find
After a grad student's breakfast -- instant oatmeal and watery coffee -- we pack up and hit the trail, keeping in mind the warning "watch where you step." (We did see -- and hear -- a small rattlesnake just off the trail.) From camp, the trail looks like a flat trek to the hills, but the flatness gives way on occasion to deep gorges marking old riverbeds. We mastered an angled crabwalk down the hills to stay upright. The steepest descents are an adventure in butt-sledding.
