Cowboy for a day: Join a buffalo roundup in Utah

"How do you move a 2,000-pound bison?" a rider on a horse next to me asked. The punch line to this joke: "You don't."

Buffaloes don't herd easily. If pushed too fast, they lower their heads and charge at anyone dumb enough to get in the way.

But that is exactly what we were trying to do — about 150 riders trotting across a field at Antelope Island State Park in the middle of Utah's Great Salt Lake.

Ahead of us, a herd of about 250 bison — a woolly, snorting blanket of black shoulders and rising dust — shuffled toward the corrals on the north end of the island.

To move the animals, riders whooped like warriors. One rider snapped a bullwhip.

In all the commotion, at least eight riders were thrown to the ground, and one broke a wrist.

Still, that's the kind of excitement that draws riders to the annual Bison Roundup on Antelope Island, one of the country's few buffalo roundups that allow untrained volunteers to herd these surly 1-ton creatures.

At other roundups — the most famous is every September at Custer State Park in South Dakota — visitors stand behind fences as professional cowboys do the hard work.

But on Antelope Island each fall, any adult with a horse and the $25 admission fee can help herd bison into corrals, where they get vaccinated.

Bison fans

I thought I was alone in my fascination with buffalo until I arrived on this 28,000-acre island last October and watched a stream of pickup trucks, horse trailers and RVs roll onto a grass field.

These bison fanatics would spend three days enduring freezing temperatures, choking dust clouds and sore keisters to marvel at this iconic symbol of the American West.

Even Buffalo Bill Cody had a soft spot for these beasts.

Cody, an Army scout and Pony Express rider, killed thousands of bison to provide meat for workers on America's expanding railroads in the mid-1800s.

Back then, millions of buffalo roamed the plains from Mexico to Canada — so many that the pounding of their feet echoed like rolling thunder.

But in a few short decades, American Indians, hunters such as Cody and others slaughtered so many buffaloes that the once-thriving herds dwindled to only 800 animals.

Repentant Cody

Shamed at the massacre, Cody later joined efforts to preserve the namesake animal he became famous for hunting.

Eventually, preservation efforts rescued the bison from the brink of extinction. Today, about half a million roam public and private lands. The biggest herd, about 4,000 bison, grazes in Yellowstone National Park.

(The terms "bison" and "buffalo" are used interchangeably, although biologists note that the American bison is only distantly related to the water buffalo and African buffalo.)

Antelope Island's bison are descendants of a dozen buffaloes brought by barge by ranchers in 1893. With plenty of grazing land and spring water, the bison thrived.

When the state took over the island, park officials invited the public to take part in the annual roundup.

Each year, for the past 22 years, the bison are herded into pens so veterinarians can perform medical tests, administer vaccinations and check the cows and heifers for pregnancies.

To ensure the population does not exceed the island's food supply, some bison are sold at auctions.

Round 'em up

The night before the roundup, I shivered in a tiny tent on a lumpy grass field near Fielding Garr Ranch, the horse-rental concession on the island's south end.

Before I arrived, park officials told me most bison wranglers camp on the island during the three-day event. Clearly, I didn't understand their definition of "camping."

As I pitched my tent, I watched a caravan of expensive RVs and horse trailers roll onto the island to form a makeshift village.

The roundup began early the next morning with a mandatory briefing. An assistant park ranger warned us that bison are not as docile as their bovine cousins. When buffaloes get angry, they charge.

Among the island's bison, the ranger told us, are several lone bulls — mean, stubborn beasts that won't associate with the herd. Those rebels that aren't corralled on the first two days will be herded later by helicopter.

Liability waiver

At the end of the briefing, each rider signed a liability waiver, an indication of what was to come.

Atop my rented steed, I followed other riders to an open field where about 250 bison had been grazing.

The riders formed a semicircle about half a mile long and advanced on the bison, herding them north. The experienced riders took the lead, riding only a few yards from the trotting animals. I stayed back and watched.

For several miles, I rode alongside Massie Tillman, a retired federal judge from Fort Worth, Texas.

"The most overused adjective in the English language is 'awesome,' " Tillman said. "But there is no other way to describe this."

For the first hour, the ride was easy. But then the bison began to rebel. Every few minutes, one charged out of the herd, apparently frustrated by being pushed too far, too fast.

Horses and riders dodged the horned attacks in a cloud of dust.

The lead riders continued to whoop and holler. A bullwhip cracked like a rifle.

After about two hours, we gave the herd a much-needed break at a watering trough. This is where I got my first close look at Antelope Island's bison.

These were plains bison, the shorter relative of the wood bison. Still, the males weigh up to 2,100 pounds and stand as tall as 6 feet at the shoulders, lumpy mounds of muscle covered in black woolly fur.

When the break ended, we mounted up and pushed the herd over the ridgeline that bisects the island like a spine. Once we cleared the crest, our herd trotted downhill, joining up with bison that had been grazing on the other side.

Now our herd numbered nearly 600 — a rolling expanse of dust and black humpbacks.

Our final destination lay at the bottom of the hill: a large corral and several stalls.

The buffaloes sped down the mountainside, with our horses trotting to keep up. But when the herd reached the open gates, the bison stopped cold.

They wouldn't enter the corrals, unwilling to exchange free-range grazing for fences and gates. We shouted. The bullwhip cracked, but the bison wouldn't budge.

The standoff lasted several minutes until a few reluctant buffaloes marched through the gates. The rest followed.

Once the gates slammed shut, the riders shouted with glee. It had taken us about four hours to move the bison more than 15 miles.

We were saddle-sore, hungry and thirsty. I accepted an invitation to join several other wranglers who were riding to a small concession restaurant on the north end of the island.

"What's for lunch?" I asked.

"Buffalo burgers," came the reply.