What does it take to haul a Jurassic ass off its hilltop perch? Ropes, street signs, carts, people, and a lot more than a half-assed effort.
A team of staff and volunteers from the Tate Geological Museum in Casper spent the first half of August removing the business end of a Brontosaurus-like dinosaur from the top of a hill near the Alcova Reservoir, south of Casper.
Coaxing those big bones off their scenic perch wasn't easy - but if it was easy, it wouldn’t be fun.
It was a pain in ass to get that ass into gear, but several people eagerly volunteered their time to help do it. And I was one of them.
BLM Bones
“Woody’s Dinosaur” isn’t a new find. Two friends and fellow scientists, Woody Motten and Allan Fraser, found the massive dinosaur in 2006 while prospecting on what was then the privately owned Marton Ranch.
Motten, a geologist, and Allan, a biophysicist, had been visiting the spot and exposing the fossils for years. One of the bones they found, a femur, was over 3 feet long.
When Motten and Allan approached the Tate Geological Museum about excavating the specimen, they seized the opportunity to collect what was clearly a well-preserved dinosaur. They got permission from the landowner and were in the process of organizing an excavation until the landowner changed.
In 2022, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) purchased all 35,668 acres of the Marton Ranch for $21 million. The purchase, according to the BLM, provided “public access for recreation and hunting” on what had become a 75,000-acre block of public land near Casper.
An abundance of dinosaur fossils was not high on the list of reasons why the BLM acquired the Marton Ranch, but it’s undoubtedly a benefit for paleontologists. For the Tate, it meant obtaining a permit from the BLM before collecting the dinosaur.
“With Woody’s help and blessing, I applied for and was granted a BLM permit to collect the specimen,” said J.P. Cavigelli, the collections specialist at the Tate.
Cavigelli also obtained a grant to cover the cost of tools, supplies, and other things needed to get the dinosaur down the hill. Then, he issued a call for volunteers to help unearth and extract “Woody’s Dinosaur.”
Hard manual labor during the hottest month of the year, over an hour from any indoor plumbing? Who’d volunteer for that?
J.P. Cavigelli, collections specialist at the Tate Geological Museum, used a tripod to lift one of the massive plaster jackets onto a specially-designed cart on a hilltop near Alcova Reservoir, south of Casper. (Andrew Rossi, Cowboy State Daily) 
Member of the "jacket recovery crew" savor their successful effort to haul four large jackets, weighing 200 to 700 pounds apiece, containing a partial dinosaur skeleton, to the bottom of the hill where they had been found and excavated. (Andrew Rossi, Cowboy State Daily) 
Brain Connelly rests his tail-end on a seat-shaped jacket containing several tail bones of a large long-necked dinosaur at the "Woody's Dinosaur" excavation near Alcova Reservoir. (Andrew Rossi, Cowboy State Daily) 
Melissa Connelly, a mitigating paleontologist and owner of Stratigraphic rex, LLC, takes a seat on the largest of the plaster jackets, containing the hips of a large Camarasaurus, in the pit where "Woody's Dinosaur" was excavated and removed in August 2025. (Andrew Rossi, Cowboy State Daily) 
Juan Laden, a vertical rope expert, follows the downhill progress of one of the massive jackets containing a partial Camarasaurus skeleton found near the Alcova Reservoir, south of Casper. (Andrew Rossi, Cowboy State Daily)
I Volunteered For That
“Woody’s Dinosaur” was only 30 miles from Casper, but it took over an hour and a half to get there along roads peppered with rocks of all sizes, prairie dog burrows, and potholes big enough to puncture tires (which we did, on the final day of my trip).
When I reached the top of the hill where the excavation was underway, I was greeted by an 11-foot-long block of gray mudstone, covered with a layer of white plaster called a jacket. It looked like a massive oblong cake covered with hard icing.
Melissa Connelly, a mitigating paleontologist and owner of Stratigraphic rex, LLC, brought me up to speed. The plaster jacket contained the articulated hips, back, and tail of a long-necked dinosaur.
In what was simultaneously a blessing and a curse, the rest of the dinosaur’s skeleton wasn’t found during the excavation. The arms, neck, head, and most of the tail were entirely absent.
“Basically, it’s the business end of a camarasaur,” she said.
A hunk of Jurassic ass. And a big one, at that.
Camarasaurus was the most common of the long-necked dinosaurs, known as sauropods, from the Late Jurassic Period, approximately 150 million years ago. Because they’re so big and so common, they’re often overlooked.
“If we ever had to hide a body, we’d put it in a jacket and label it ‘Camarasaurus ribs,’” Connelly said. “Nobody would ever find it, because nobody would open that jacket.”
That’s exactly why Connelly and Cavigelli wanted to excavate this specimen. In addition to its excellent preservation, such a specimen could provide valuable insights into the anatomy of a dinosaur that’s been taken for granted for so long.
I’d hauled ass to get there. Now, it was time to work my ass off.
Down And Around
By the time I got to Alcova, all the fossils of “Woody’s Dinosaur” had been exposed and covered. A team of college students from Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania, had spent the last week helping Cavigelli, Connelly, and other volunteers complete the task.
I was assigned to trenching, tunneling, and pedestaling. It’s the process of removing rock from the sides and bottom of the plaster jacket so more plaster can be applied, and the immense block of rock can be removed.
Unless the Wyoming Army National Guard wanted to lend a helicopter, there was no way to get a jacket that size off the top of the hill in one piece. That’s what the rock saw, ominously sitting at base camp, was intended to do: bust ass.
“We’re cutting the big jacket into three pieces,” Cavigelli said. “We’ll cut through bone, but that’s what glue’s for.”
So, we tunneled. Two people situated themselves on either side of the jacket and dug underneath until they saw light at the end of their tunnel, following Sharpie lines drawn on the plaster by Connelly.
“We can amputate your arm, but can’t save your head,” Connelly instructed, “so keep your heads away from the underside of the jacket.”
Astute wisdom, especially considering how easy it is to catch your head in a precarious spot under hundreds of pounds of soft rock while peering through your tunnel.
Fortunately, all arms or heads (excluding the dinosaur) were accounted for by the time the immense jacket was pedestaled, undercut, and fully plastered.
A drawing of "Woody's Dinosaur" by Melissa Connelly, a mitigating paleontologist and owner of Stratigraphic rex, LLC, and one of the lead paleontologists during the August excavation near Alcova Reservoir. The partial skeleton includes the hips, backbones, partial tail, and at least one femur of a large long-necked dinosaur from the Late Jurassic Period. (Andrew Rossi, Cowboy State Daily) 
The 11-foot-long jacket containing the articulated business end of a 150-million-year-old Camarasaurus skeleton found near Alcova Reservoir. (Andrew Rossi, Cowboy State Daily) 
J.P. Cavigelli, collections specialist at the Tate Geological Museum, completes a tunnel underneath the 11-foot-long jacket on a hilltop near Alcova Reservoir. This massive jacket would've been too heavy to lift, so it was cut into three "manageable" parts weighing between 200 and 700 pounds apiece. (Andrew Rossi, Cowboy State Daily) 
Allan Fraser and Woody Motten arrive at the site of "Woody's Dinosaur" on jacket extraction day. Fraser and Motten, friends and scientists, discovered the partial sauropod skeleton over a decade ago and continue to explore the hills near Alcova Reservoir for other spectacular fossil finds. (Andrew Rossi, Cowboy State Daily) 
The "jacket recovery crew" — Marianna DePratter, Bryan Aivazian, Melissa Connely, Aidan Murphy, JP Cavigelli, Andrew Rossi, and Dan Kurfis - posing in front of "Essence of Rex," a bronze sculpture by Chris Navarro, at the Tate Geological Museum in Casper. (Courtesy Tate Geological Museum)
Rope-A-Dope Dinosaur
A week later, the Jurassic ass had been trimmed down to what Cavigelli deemed to be three manageable jackets. By “manageable,” he meant that the largest jacket was only 600 to 700 pounds.
“We have enough people to lift that ourselves,” he said.
Fortunately, the plan was to work smarter, not harder. It was time for another on-site expert to take the ropes.
Juan Laden is a roping expert in such high demand that he routinely travels the world to tie knots and anchor ropes, ensuring people and objects are carried to safety in any direction they’re heading.
Cavigelli hired Laden to help rope the jackets off the hilltop after hearing about his roping work at Natural Trap Cave in the Bighorn Mountains. He arrived at Alcova in mid-August, fresh from another roping adventure in Denmark.
“I shouldn’t be huffing and puffing this much,” he said as he worked. Then, a volunteer reminded him that he had just traveled from near sea level to over a mile in elevation.
A custom-made cart, built by the Pepper Tank and Contracting Company in Casper, was used to move the smaller jackets. They were lifted onto the cart and secured by several ratchet straps while Laden secured a rope to the front.
Then, with Laden taking up slack in the ropes from the top of the hill, the cart was slowly escorted down the surprisingly slippery hillside.
The heavy lifting was done by a custom-made tripod with a 2,000-pound engine chain lift secured to the top. The tripod’s legs were the same type of steel used to support street and highway signs.
“I gave a presentation on how to make one of these at a fossil preparation conference in Colorado Springs,” Cavigelli said. “I told them they could find the materials anywhere there was a stop sign.”
One, Two, Three
The bigger jackets proved to be too stubborn for the cart, so Cavigelli resorted to another tried-and-true tool of the trade: “Rock Work Ahead” signs. It was time to drag the ass around.
The tripod lifted the jacket onto one of the road signs, while another road sign was placed ahead of and slightly underneath the first. Then, with several people and coordinated strength, the jackets were pulled from one sign to another.
This process was repeated until each jacket had been laboriously coaxed down from the top of the hill. Much of that process was eagerly led by Connelly’s husband, Brian, who was more excited about Laden’s knots and roping techniques than, according to Connelly, he had ever been about dinosaurs and paleontology.
After nine hours, all three jackets, along with a fourth containing unidentified sauropod fossils, were at the bottom of the hill. Everyone had worked their asses off, and the Jurassic ass was flat on its ass.
Because the Tate Geological Museum is an official repository for fossils collected on federal land, “Woody’s Dinosaur” will have a permanent home in Casper. There, it will be available for research and may eventually be put on display for anyone to see, free of charge.
But, after a day of busting ass to move an ass, everyone was content to take a moment to relax and savor the reward of the day’s exhaustive efforts up and down the remote spot in Alcova. A 150-million-year-old dinosaur specimen, fully excavated, jacketed, and ready to share its secrets with scientists.
That’s pretty kick-ass.
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
