American Bison in Context
August 14, 2019 was the 33rd Wednesday of the year….the 54th day of Summer…and the 226th day of the year. It was also Pakistan Independence Day…and World Lizard Day…six police officers were shot in Philadelphia on this day…and the Arizona Diamondbacks lost to the Colorado Rockies by the score of 6-7.
I was up from the desert to visit my Utah kids and to hike on Antelope Island…and to see a summer sunrise from a favored place.
It may seem odd to find American Bison on a large island out in The Great Salt Lake in northern Utah…but they’re there anyway and they create something of an allure to visitors from both home and abroad.
Wikipedia provides that there are between 550 and 700 individual bison on the island during any given year…and that, because of the lack of natural, non-human predators, the herd can increase by about 25% per year.
I saw 5-6 different groupings of the bison during my hours on the island that day…including this medium-sized collection and another one that I will share in a later post.
Toward Frary Peak on Antelope Island – Part Last
It’s been about six months since I posted the previous installment, so it’s probably been long enough now that the images won’t be overwhelmingly familiar…and so that our experience in viewing them won’t be with an almost blindness to the manifest beauty that’s out there because our palate had become over-saturated with it.
It’s approaching a year since I was out there walking the trails that you can see in the above and subsequent two photos…almost a year since I felt that Utah summer sun on my shoulders and face as I turned so many times to look around me, since I shielded my eyes so I could view the distant spread of gray earth to the shimmering water…
…and beyond to the islands and mountains that formed the various views of the horizon.
Yes, almost a year since I viewed them with my literal eyes, but it’s not been so long since I had images of those islands, mountains, and horizons reflecting in my mind’s eye…or looking up at me from the computer where they remain in this present form.
I can recall the stretch in my calves as I climbed up the trail to this point and how my heart beat in the moments when my legs rested so I could catch my wind…how I stared at the hillsides and took-in the skeletal remains of the trees that had succumbed to old fires, and how I watched strings of bison plod from the north to the south side of the island in their ant-like following of their leaders…or obeyed the urge to go and be with their intimates when they saw them walking away….
I recall those things now looking at these images…looking northeast in the above photo…
…and southeast in these, above and below.
Wasatch Mountains trailing north in the below photo…
…and Fremont Island off to the northwest in the below….
I’ve run out of words and superlatives…
…and you already know what’s in my heart for this place…
…so I’ll just thank you for joining me here again…and hope you’ve enjoyed the visit.
Toward Frary Peak on Antelope Island – Part Middle
We pick-up this post where we ended the last one, nearly the same spot, slightly different perspective, and a few/many feet further up the trail.
The hiking figure below me on the trail is continuing on her trek upwards, as well, drawing nearer, becoming more defined, and still providing an excellent gauge for perspective. She is near the center of the below image….
Looking back over these photographs, I am still held by the colors and the expanse of vision, even with the slight haze in the distance. It seems to add to the almost ethereal state of the place in my memory, these several months since the hike.
The images of the broader landscape do not show much color in the grasses that cover the island, but taking a closer look, we can see that there is quite a bit of green remaining in the middle of August.
The hiker has now passed me in her trek up toward the peak. She told me that she didn’t live too far away and that she hiked the trail several times a month. How wonderful for her, and for the island as well, to have such a dedicated and frequent visitor.
A sun drenched trail on a summer morning….
The below photo shows Stansbury Island (peninsula?) to the west. When the lake’s water level is as low as it has been in recent years, one can literally walk to the island on the exposed lake-bed. I went exploring there several years ago and did not find it as compelling as my trips to Antelope Island. There have been more mining and other commercial endeavors on Stansbury and only the far west side accommodates public visitation.
Looking north and east in the below photo, we can see the lighter gray of the lake-bed between the darker earth and the evident blue of the water…
….and south and east in the below image, down toward Salt Lake City with the Wasatch Mountains in the distance…and the layered and fractured rock in the foreground.
I had seen photos of the lone tree when I searched the internet for other images from the island. The ones from winter-time with the stark white of the snow-covered ground were most compelling.
One last segment to follow….
Toward Frary Peak on Antelope Island – Part First
My very first trip to Antelope Island State Park was in February of 2012. If you’re curious, you can click on this link to be taken back to the post I published after that visit. And now my very most recent trip, partially documented in the following images, is from seven and one half years later, August of 2019.
Looking northeast-ish….
As I noted in the earlier posts about the sunrise on Antelope Island, it was my intention to get to the trailhead of the path that leads to Frary Peak at sunrise…but I was somehow delayed by the splendor of said sunrise reflecting off of the lake, etc., and didn’t get there until about an hour and a half later.
Turning your head a bit to the right from the above image…with the Wasatch Mountains in the background….
The images that follow are a chronological accounting of my hike up to the higher reaches on the island, close to 6,600 feet in elevation. The trail is 3.5 miles in length and has an elevation gain of about 2,050 feet…which places the trailhead at right around 4,550 feet above sea level.
And now looking further southeast…back down toward Salt Lake City….
And I guess we could say we’re looking pretty much due south now in the below photo.
I’m drawn to the earth colors, the undulating hills, minor canyons or drainages, the small and larger crags, and the space that is open, yet bordered by the near water and the far mountains…I find it all compelling in a visceral sort of way.
All of this curved area in the below photo is referred to as “White Rock Bay,” which you can see here in an image from February 2014, with a much different perspective, as viewed from the north.
If I’m not mistaken, that’s Fremont Island off to the north…just left of center in the below photo…across the water.
Blue-green-gray sage in the foreground has an alluring scent, kind of resinous…and strong enough to linger on my fingertips for hours after rubbing/crushing the leaves between them…a small take-home treasure.
I didn’t see any antelope, but there were multiple strings of American Bison slowly trailing down the far/western side of the island.
A person approaches, below….
More to follow….
Antelope Island at Sunrise – Part Second
…continued.
There was simply too much to see, too many sights that demanded attention, contemplation, worship…and photographs.
My kids who still live in Salt Lake City had told me about the record snowfall for the past winter and spring; I had also read about it on one of the social media sites from the area that I follow.
I guess I expected that some of the earlier season’s snowmelt would have made it to The Great Salt Lake and would have raised the water level a bit…would have raised it “any” amount, actually.
There was water, of course, mostly north of the causeway from my vantage point, enough to provide those morning reflections that are inspiring in and of themselves…
…and enough, too, to afford the many waterfowl a place to forage, play, rest, and provide still other morning reflections that cause occasional human observers to stop along their various ways to attend, contemplate, worship…and photograph.
Also striking were the morning’s colors…the peachy orangish pink of the waking sky, shining of themselves above, and in the myriad reflections below…
…the black, dark purple, blue and gray of the lake’s living water…
…and the sage, green, rust, and straw colors of the waterside vegetation.
Cast all of those, too, among the brightening gold and greens of the covered hillsides and coves…
…the yellow faces and bonnets of the solitary individuals and masses of sunflowers…
…and finally the rich blacks and browns of the wandering bison.
It was a feast for my desert dwelling eyes.
Antelope Island at Sunrise – Part First
It has been a favorite pastime of mine for the past nine or so years to hike and to explore the mountains and canyons or desert plains and hills in my surround…
…or in the case of the last five years, in addition to the deserts, etc., the forests, mountains, and mesas that are within a few hours’ drive of where I live.
When I have had good or better fortune, I have been able to go back to those preferred mountains and islands of my not so distant past…
…those beloved places up north, and hike and explore and simply exist again in the environment or locale that remains in my core as “home.”
At some point in the early part of those few years that I lived up north, it became preferable to start the specific adventure, to be at the designated trailhead, before sunrise.
There were fewer cars in the parking lots, fewer pairs of boots on the trails heading into the mountains…
…and a greater chance of capturing the essence of an undisturbed morning’s peace when starting at such an hour.
In application to my southern journeys, it became prudent to start this early, so as to avoid the greater heat of the day by completing the trek and returning to my truck before noon.
That said, I had determined to arrive at the trailhead to Frary Peak on Antelope Island before the sun rose and started warming the northern Utah August day.
Well…I made it to the Antelope Island State Park entrance before sunrise…
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