Brawny buffalo roam range on Great Salt Lake island

ANTELOPE ISLAND STATE PARK — After pushing a herd of 600 bison all day, all you really want is a buffalo burger.

It's a sweet — and low-fat — reward for spending five hours jouncing over the rolling prairie on Antelope Island.

You coax yourself down from a horse, test your tentative knees and walk bowlegged up to the window at the Buffalo Point Bistro. Ten dollars and a few minutes later, you're munching on grilled goodness and remembering how the bison herds actually seemed to respond well to 150 horses and riders whooping and hollering at them.

You reflect that you're in good shape and weren't among the half-dozen or so people who were bucked off their horses.

There was that one guy everyone said was bucked off a mule and broke his arm, wrist and a couple of ribs and was taken off the island by ambulance.

But Mark Chamberlain, a 12-year volunteer from South Jordan,

said an ambulance ride was too expensive, so he drove himself off the island and got some X-rays to find out, sure enough, he broke his right wrist. But that was it. And he hasn't given up on riding mules yet.

Chamberlain's was the only injury reported during the 22nd Annual Bison Range Ride and Roundup, an event drawing people from as far away as Texas this year.

The event allows volunteers to help the Utah Division of State Parks and Recreation round up bison from the southern end of the island and drive them toward the corrals on the northern end.

In years past, helicopters have done the job. But this year, said Antelope Island State Park manager Ron Taylor, the volunteers managed to keep two herds of bison moving as fast as the choppers could have done it.

Lucky for them, though, bison love to run into a north wind.

And Wednesday, a frigid north wind blew nonstop.

Riders bundled themselves with multiple layers of clothing, gloves and hats, and even though the wind still got through, riders whooped it up, riding back and forth behind the herds.

Some dressed in all cowboy garb, like Chamberlain, his friend Chris Hansen of Oakley, Summit County, and Ted Hanson of Riverton.

It's tradition, the men said. It's their fantasy island.