The Dinosaur Cowboy's Long Ride

Permissive laws have created a booming market for fossils. Paleontologists aren’t thrilled, but for Clayton Phipps and his peers, it’s a living

- By Andrew Zaleski. Photographs by Ian Allen

On a sunny, 99-degree day in northern Montana, Clayton Phipps grabs a backpack and heads for a small trench, maybe a foot deep. He drops to his knees, his auburn hair flared out beneath his black Stetson, then opens his pack, removes a knife that looks best suited to cutting steak, and gets to work.

He picks through gray sand, then red sand, then dark, damp sand that smells like wet socks doused in talcum powder. When he looks up, a tiny, chocolate-colored block is between his fingers. “A little triceratops tooth,” he says. “I’ll get probably 50 of these on an average day. They’re only worth maybe five bucks, but 50 of them adds up.”

We’re standing on a flattened sandstone hill that’s Phipps’s to dig, on pasture land he owns. Surrounding us is a panorama of dirt and dust and stone and shale. In the distance are Angus cattle, black like fresh charcoal, grazing lazily. Phipps has valiantly hobbled along on crutches to bring me here. He’s been a cattle rancher for going on 30 of his 48 years. Branding season finished up just days ago, and the horse he was riding over the weekend got rambunctious, bucking and slamming him down hard on the saddle. He hasn’t seen the doctor, but he’s sure his pelvis is cracked.