Thermopolis, Wyo. – A small town in north-central Wyoming known for the mineral hot springs that give it its fancy Greek name also is a rich dinosaur graveyard. It is located on the long, wide strip east of the Rocky Mountains nicknamed the “dinosaur highway” because so many of the awesome beasts lived and died there.
Dinosaurs lived 65 million to 228 million years ago. During that time, seas rose and retreated, mountain ranges grew and eroded, the climate warmed and cooled, volcanoes erupted, and tectonic plates shifted.
An enormous north-south waterway called the Western Interior Sea once covered what are now the Western plains. The wetlands and lowlands flanking it were prime dinosaur habitat.
Today, this is semi-arid countryside with crenellated layers of rock from various geologic periods lying at or near the surface. In this often surrealistic landscape, dinosaur fossils are not uncommon.
A road trip to the fabled national parks of the West can be interwoven with stops along the dinosaur trail, where families can see dino-rich museums and dig sites – and perhaps even be paleontologists for a day.
Thermopolis, which was founded in 1897 and has the no-frills, homespun look of many small, Western towns stands out from the rest in having a nearly life-sized metal sculpture of a dinosaur at the main intersection (and location of the town’s only traffic light). Along with the Wax, Teddy Bear and Hot Springs County museums, the town features the Wyoming Dinosaur Center, which has first-rate exhibits and a high-tech paleontology lab.
Among the awe-inspiring treasures are an allosaurus, a triceratops and a camarasaurus found on the Warm Springs Ranch, where the first of the center’s hometown collection of bones was unearthed in 1993 and where paleontologists are still digging.
New species are still being found and assembled. Each one is a thrill – akin to the discovery of a new planet. One still-nameless species displayed at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center is a long-extinct armored creature about the size and shape of a giant tortoise. The center also is working on “super-saurus,” a Jurassic giant among giants that is estimated to have been 135 feet long from snout to tail, stood 27 feet at the shoulder and weighed 50 tons. By contrast, a record blue whale (the whales are the largest animals living today) measured 108 feet in length.
Weather permitting, the center offers hourly tours to a hillside on the outskirts of Thermopolis where scientists and volunteers are at work digging for bones. For a more expanded experience, adults and youngsters can work alongside the pros in a Dig-for-a-Day program.
“There are uncountable fossils to find,” says the center’s science director, Scott Hartman, “but a finite number of people digging for them.”
Unspoken is the hope that the beautiful red Triassic layer, green-gray Morrison formation or other rocks in Wyoming and elsewhere will yield another as-yet unknown species.
Even a one-day dig provides a hands-on sense of what it takes to discover dinosaurs. Participants learn to differentiate bone from stone, are introduced to the tools of the paleontologist’s trade and are sent, under close supervision, to a dig site to unearth what they can.
Each little bone fragment, confirmed by a paleontologist, is a small triumph, but alas, the bones must remain there – hopefully to be assembled with other bones. It is always possible to buy a fossil, often from China, in the gift shop.
Digging is a painstaking task. Experienced paleontologists work with chisels, trowels and other large utensils. Amateurs, especially children armed mostly with enthusiasm, are provided with, as Hartman puts it, small implements “that can’t do much damage.”
Finding truly complete fossil remains of a single dinosaur at a single site is the stuff of which paleontological dreams are made. Bones were almost always separated, broken, scattered by a flowing river or raging storm, carried off by scavengers, consumed by bacteria or in other ways scattered.
Also, smaller, softer bones and cartilage tended to deteriorate or disappear before they could be fossilized.
After fossils have been disinterred and location documented, small fragments are gathered and large ones jacketed in protective plaster and moved to a lab, where they are meticulously cleaned.
Technicians use tools as delicate as dental picks. Then, perfect casts are made of ribs, pelvises, skulls, spine and other bones.
To assemble a complete skeleton, they often have to combine castings and real bones from different animals of the same species. Lightweight, real-looking castings of heavy fossilized bones of huge dinosaurs eliminate the need to stabilize specimens with huge, unaesthetic metal supports. Some institutions indicate which portions of displayed skeletons are real and which are reproductions. But whatever the proportion of original to cast, it is impossible not to be awed by creatures that roamed the planet so long ago.
From small museums to large institutions, dinosaurs still rule along the dinosaur highway. Dinosaur National Monument, straddling the Colorado-Utah line and under National Park Service jurisdiction, showcases species and a quarry where many specimens were found, including an extremely rare infant stegosaurus.
In addition to numerous dedicated dinosaur centers and small museums in the region, a couple of major museums also boast world-class fossil exhibits. The Museum of the Rockies on the University of Montana campus in Bozeman houses the largest collection of dinosaur fossils from the United States. Now open is the first phase of a new dinosaur complex designed by world-renowned paleontologist Dr. Jack Horner, an adviser to the “Jurassic Park” films.
The Denver Museum of Nature & Science’s notable “Prehistoric Journey” exhibit displays its spectacular dinosaurs in the context of their habitat and also has arranged them in a timeline that begins with the most primitive life-forms, microbes from 3.5 billion years ago.
Paleontologists have equal admiration for fine examples of older, simpler fossils, from ferns to trilobites, but youngsters seem to have eyes only for dinosaurs.
Colorado-based Claire Walter is the author of two dozen books, including “Rocky Mountain Skiing,” “The Snowshoe Experience” and “Culinary Colorado.”
Stops on teh Dinosaur Highway
The following organizations and institutions – some not-for-profit or university-affiliated museums, some privately operated by commercial fossil hunters – feature displays and often educational programs, views of fossil prep labs, films or summer dig-site visits. Check for holiday closures and further senior, military or veterans’ discounts, as well as multiday digs.
Wyoming
Wyoming Dinosaur Center, 110 Carter Ranch Road, Thermopolis, WY 82443; phone: 307-864-
2997 or 800-455-DINO (455-3466); www.wyodino.org. Open 8 a.m.-6 p.m. daily through Oct. 15; 10 a.m.- 5 p.m. daily Oct. 15-May 15. Admission: adults, $6; ages 12 and under and 60-plus, $3.50; family of four, $15. Dig site tours, $10. Museum and dig site, $12; family of four, $36. Dig-for-a-Day, $125 per person, $300 per family of three (two adults and one child or one adult and two children); each additional child, $75 (no formal age requirement; at discretion of and accompanied by parent).
Glenrock Paleontological Museum & Dr. Robert T. Bakker Educational Center, 506 W. Birch St., Glenrock, WY 82637; phone: 307-436-2667; paleon.org/. Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Admission: free. Dig-for-a-Day program (for ages 12 and older; 18 and under must be accompanied by a parent), $50 per person, $100 per family.
Colorado
Denver Museum of Nature & Science, 2001 Colorado Blvd., Denver, CO 80205; phone: 303-322-7009; dmns.org. Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. Admission: adults, $10; ages 3-12 and 65-plus, $6.
Dinosaur Depot Museum, 330 Royal Gorge Blvd., Cañon City, CO 81212; phone: 719-269-7150; www.dinosaurdepot.com. Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily through Labor Day; 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday through Dec. 24 and Jan. 5-May 27, and daily Dec. 26-Dec. 31. Admission: adults, $3, ages 4-12, $1.50.
Dinosaur Journey, 550 Jurassic Court, Fruita, CO 81521. Mail c/o Museum of Western Colorado, P.O. Box 20000, Grand Junction, CO 81502-5020; phone: 888-488-DINO (3466) or 970-242-0971; dinosaurjourney.org. Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. Admission: adults, $7; ages 3-12, $4. One-day digs (ages 5 and over, 16 and under must be accompanied by an adult), $99 per person;dinodigs.org.
Dinosaur National Monument, 4545 E. U.S. 40, Dinosaur, CO 81610-9724; phone: 970-374-3000, visitor info 970-374-3000; nps.gov/dino/. Quarry Visitor Center hours: 9 a.m.-6 p.m. daily, Memorial Day-Labor day; Labor Day-Memorial Day, 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Admission: $10, family vehicle for seven days, including Fossil Bone Quarry area accessed from Vernal, UT.
Morrison Natural History Museum, 501 Colorado Hwy. 8, Morrison, CO 80465; phone: 303-697-1873; town.morrison.co.us/mnhm/hours.php. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Sun., Memorial Day-Labor Day; 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Monday-Saturday, noon-4 p.m. Sunday, Labor Day-Memorial Day. Admission: adults, $4; ages 2-15. $2.
Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center, 201 Fairview (at U.S. 24), Woodland Park, CO 80863; phone: 719-686-1820;
rmdrc.com. Open 9 a.m.-6 p.m., Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-8 p.m., Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday through October; 9 a.m.-6 p.m. daily except Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Nov.-March. Admission: adults, $9.50; ages 5-12, $5.75; under 5, $3.50.
Montana
Makoshika Dinosaur Museum, 111 W. Bell St., Glendive, MT 59330; phone: 406-377-1637; makoshika.com/makoshika_dinosaur_museum_002.htm. Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Tuesday-Friday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Saturday; noon-5 p.m., Sunday. Admission: free.
Museum of the Rockies, 600 W. Kagy Blvd., Bozeman, MT 59717-2730; phone: 406-994-2251, recorded info 406-994-DINO (406-994-3466); montana.edu/wwwmor/. Open 8 a.m.-8 p.m. daily. Admission: adults, $9.50; ages 5-18, $6.50; 4 andunder, free.
Phillips County Museum & Judith River Dinosaur Institute, U.S. 2 East, P.O. Box 1489, Malta, MT 59539; phone: 406-654-1037; www.maltachamber.com/museum. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday, mid-May to mid-September. Admission: adults, $3; ages 5-12, $1.
Two Medicine Dinosaur Center, 120 Second Ave. South, Bynum, MT 59419; phone: 800-238-6873 or 406-469-2211; www.tmdinosaur.org. Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily through Labor Day; 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Labor Day to Memorial Day. How-to programs: Three-hour basic (fossil recognition, area history and on-site geology), adult, $35; 12 and under, $25; One-day, includes intro and digging at an active site, $100 per person.
New Mexico
Mesalands College Dinosaur Museum, 222 E. Laughlin St., Tucumcari, NM 88401; phone: 505-461-
3466; mesalands.edu/Museum/Museum.htm. Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. daily except Sunday and Monday through Labor Day; noon-5 p.m. through Feb. 28. Admission: adults, $5.50; ages 5-11, $3.
New Mexico Museum of Natural History, 1801 Mountain Road NW, Albuquerque, NM 87104; phone: 505-841-2800; museums.state.nm.us/nmmnh/nmmnh.html. Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. (closed non-holiday Mondays in September and January). Admission: adults $6, ages 3-12, $3, 60-plus, $4.
North Dakota
Dakota Dinosaur Museum, 200 Museum Drive, Dickinson, ND 58601; phone: 701-225-DINO (701-225-3466); www.dakotadino.com. Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily through Labor Day, then closed through April 30. Admission, adults, $6; ages 3-12, $3.
South Dakota
Black Hills Institute of Geological Research and Natural History Shoppe, 217 Main St., Hill City, SD 57745; phone: 605-574-4289; bhigr.com and everythingprehistoric.com. Open 8:30 a.m.-7 p.m., Monday-Saturday; 9 a.m.-5 p.m. through Sept. 15; 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Sundays, Sept. 15-Dec. 24 and May 1-31; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday- Saturday, Jan. 1-April 30. Admission: free.
Utah
The Dinosaur Museum, 754 S. 200 West, Blanding, UT 84511; phone: 435-678-3454; dinosaur-museum.org. Open 8 a.m.- 8 p.m. daily through Oct. 15; 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Oct. 15-April 15. Admission: adults, $2; ages 3-12 and 55-plus, $1.
Dinosaur National Monument, see Colorado listing.
– Claire Walter
