Kenya - The Ultimate Horseback Safari Experience

By Adrienne Rubin

Long before I set foot in Kenya, I had read the stories of the likes of Beryl Markham and Karen Blixen, adventurers who called Kenya home. Finding a kindred spirit in their tales, Kenya called to me for a very long time, and did not disappoint. Kenya is an intoxicating mix of wild animals, fast horses, and beautiful country, and the camaraderie of danger shared and overcome among riders creates lasting memories and friendships.

Masai Mara - Infinite Wilderness

The urban sprawl of Nairobi disappears beneath us as the tiny aircraft enters the clouds. Bounced and buffeted by every gentle breeze, we emerge above the clouds. Just a short while later, the clouds part as we begin to descend towards a landscape devoid of development, endless plains of red dirt and green grass. We can see herds of dark shapes moving in waves across the vast expanse but can’t tell from up here what they are.

The plane touches down surprisingly gently on a packed dirt airstrip, after a man on a motorcycle has ridden the length to make sure it’s devoid of wildlife. We hop out of the plane, greeted energetically by Daisy and Simon, our guides, as they bid farewell to their previous group, ushering them onto the plane and us into two safari vehicles.

A lioness, so comfortable with the presence of safari vehicles, decides to use us for some shade on a sunny afternoon.

Not 5 minutes from the airstrip we spot a lioness, strutting through the tall grass. Not stalking, not slinking, but proudly strolling while a herd of wildebeest gaze warily in her direction. Beneath the shade of an acacia, she joins another female and a young male and plops down for a siesta. Not a bad idea, as the clouds are dilating and the day is warming up. We spy zebra, giraffe, impala, topis, and cape buffalo. A pack of hyenas chew the leathery hide of a hippo carcass, the exposed skull, jaw, and massive teeth picked clean nearby. A couple of jackals patiently wait their turn in the shade. Among the wildlife, Masai shepherds watch over herds of multicolored cattle.

A Day in the Life on a Horseback Safari

Dawn

I’m having a dream about zebras galloping across the plains when I’m gently awoken by the soft murmur of footsteps outside my tent and habari za asubuhi (good morning in Swahili) as the camp staff set a bowl of warm water, tea and coffee outside my tent door. I roll out of bed and right into my riding pants, physically ready to go but mentally still dreaming about zebras, or maybe a little fuzzy from an evening of gin and tonics.

We sip tea and coffee and nibble on pastries as the sun casts its first light across the savannah. As soon as we’re remotely caffeinated, we mount up. The grooms, up well before dawn to feed and tack the horses, have polished our saddles since yesterday and they catch the slanted rays of the early morning sun, now just above the horizon. I love these dawn rides the most - I really hate the part where I have to get out of bed, but once I’m on the horse it’s magical. Droplets of dew sparkle on every branch and blade of grass, and everything from the air to the animals feels shiny, clean, and new. There’s still a bite to the breeze and I soak it up, knowing that the sun will be hot and high overhead before too long. The cool mornings are a great time to spot hippos out of the water, returning from their nightly jaunts, and large herds of wildebeest, antelope, zebras, and giraffe, grazing peacefully knowing the lions are done hunting for the night. These morning rides start out pretty mellow as horses and riders alike take their time waking up, but by the time we ride back into camp a few hours later, we’re all revved up and ready to go. Just in time for breakfast.

Breakfast

Bush traffic jam

Breakfast is the real deal, each and every day. A full English breakfast with bacon, sausage, eggs cooked any which way you like, grilled tomatoes, fried mushrooms, buttered toast, fruit, yogurt, muesli, and of course, more coffee and tea with rusks. It’s a leisurely affair, and by the time we’ve finished, our tents have been made up for the day: beds made, windows rolled up, pajamas folded, solar lights set out in the sunshine to charge, and our boots have been polished to a shine I’ve never seen before.

Morning Ride or Game Drive

Breakfast

If it isn’t a moving day, we’ll go out in the vehicle for a game drive and try to cover some ground in order to spot animals we will try to go back out and see on horseback in the afternoon. Often these include elephants, lions, or even cheetah.

We return in time for lunch and a siesta before the afternoon ride. If it’s a moving day, we will mount back up again after breakfast and take our lunch and siesta somewhere in the bush - the game vehicle will meet us with tables and chairs, a scrumptious picnic, and a full bar. Cushions and blankets are laid out for a bush nap, and we all split up to claim cushions and find a shady corner to read or sleep before carrying on. Moving days are the longest but we ride through the most incredible landscapes. Even in the heat of the day the landscape is never devoid of wildlife. In any given direction, you can spot the far away silhouettes of wildebeest grazing, jackals playing, birds circling overhead, and elephants ambling along in small groups.

The feel of watching animals on horseback versus in the vehicles is completely different. In the vehicles, we’re looking at them, but on horseback, we’re right in it with them, a part of the landscape, a fixture in the circle of life here. Often, the horses will alert us to animals before we spot them, and we’re always wary of the horses’ signals when trekking through tall grass or through deep scrub brush, anywhere that could make for a perfect ambush. We approach animals strategically on horseback, staying downwind of the elephants and speaking quietly, not moving too fast around large herds of wildebeest and antelope (unless we want to incite a stampede, which is great fun!), and never EVER turning our backs on the lions. In the vehicles, we can sometimes get much closer but there isn’t the same connection with the landscape, with the wildlife, with the feel of a place.

Happy Hour

When we arrive into our next camp, our tents are set up and ready to go. Our luggage is exactly where we left it in the tent in the last camp, down to the contents of the night stand. It’s as if the whole camp has been magically transported - instead, a crew of 30 or so, including the horse grooms, kitchen staff, and the tent boys, have transported every last stitch of fabric and tent peg to a whole new location while we were out riding.

The bar is open as soon as we dismount and hand off our horses to the grooms, but showers come first. Hot water, heated by hand over a fire, awaits us in each shower tent (one shower for every two tents), with a lever to release the water. It’s a short shower, but the hot water is glorious after a day of dust and dirt while riding. Only after rinsing the adventure from our faces and our pores are we truly ready for happy hour.

Gin and tonic, the quintessential drink of East Africa, is the go-to, but the young bartender can mix up just about anything and comes well-equipped. We swap stories until dinner time and then the festivities move to the candlelit dinner table.

Dinner and Bedtime

Dinners al fresco

Three-course meals are served nightly, paired with a selection of wine and topped off with desserts that are sheer perfection. By the time we finish eating there is a fire going, and we settle into the folding chairs to continue the festivities. Some evenings we are content to stay in camp and shoot the breeze, too tired to keep moving but having too much fun to go to bed just yet. Other nights we venture back out for another game drive in the vehicle with the spotlight, and on one such night we come upon a whole pride of lions feeding on a zebra carcass, the cubs playfully antagonizing their father, who patiently bats them away, ensuring he gets more than his fill of the pride’s catch.

By the time we turn in for bed, our sheets have been turned down and our beds are pre-warmed with hot water bottles. Our boots have been shined once again and are at the foot of our beds, the tent doors and windows closed against the evening chill. Each night I fall into bed exhausted but exalted, and dream of things like galloping zebras.

Incredible Iceland

The pitter-patter of 1,000 hoofbeats are muffled by the vast, vibrant landscape. From black sand beaches, you catch glimpses of distant glaciers, towering cliffs where birds swoop and dive, and glittering waterfalls running miles down mountain sides. Small, red-roofed farms dot the seam where the plain ends and the cliffs begin, rivulets gushing down the cliff sides like tears on many craggy cheeks. The landscape passes almost too fast to catch it all; the horses and the path in front of us absorb so much of our attention that each time we remember to look up and look around, we see a whole new landscape. It changes before our eyes as we seem to fly across it, a cloud of dust drifting in our wake into the cloudless blue sky.

There is no better way to see this rugged, ethereal terrain than from the saddle, mounted on a marvelous Icelandic horse whose surefootedness carries us across rivers, through lava fields, over mountains, up and down valleys, and along stretches of dark coast.

The Icelandic Horse

Though they are small, don’t let the Icelanders hear you call them ponies – they take great pride in their horses, who to them, are as large and as mighty as the best of them.

The circumstances of the Icelandic horse are as unique as the breed itself, which is the only breed of horse to inhabit the whole of Iceland. Since arriving with Norse settlers over 1,000 years ago, the Icelandic breed has been isolated on the island – no other horses may be imported, and Icelandic horses who leave may never return. The purity of the breed keeps these horses free of diseases and exceptionally healthy – the average lifespan of an Icelandic horse is 40 years! They are incredibly well-adapted to the harsh climate, treacherous footing, and high winds.

There are no colors the Icelandic horse doesn’t come in – throughout my trip, nearly every time I passed a field full of horses, there was at least one in a color I hadn’t seen yet. Known for their luscious manes and tails, their locks blowing in the wind often hold many colors at once.

Riding Icelandic Horses

Icelandic horses are short in stature, gentle in nature, nimble, hardy, and just a dream to ride. They are the only breed of horse to have five gaits – they can walk, trot, and canter, but the gait we ride the most is the tölt, a four-beat lateral gait, exceptionally smooth and easy to ride, at which the horse can reach speeds of up to 20 miles per hour (32 kilometers per hour). This is how the Icelandic horse covers so much ground – they move along comfortably in this gait, not slowing down to go up or down hills, over rocks, or through uneven terrain. Finally, the skeið, or flying pace, is a two-beat lateral gait that can reach up to 30 miles per hour (48 kilometers per hour) and truly feels like flying.

Each day we changed horses at least once, giving all the riders the opportunity to try out various horses. The guide would hand me a horse and tell me his name - something I completely couldn’t pronounce. The first day, I called my horse Steve, but the next day, I got another horse whose name I couldn’t pronounce either. I called them all Steve - Rasta Steve (one of my favorites) had one huge dreadlock in his tail, Sumo Steve was very rotund but full of fire, Mocha Steve was a dark grullo/bay, with gray streaks in his black mane. We all liked some horses better than others, but none ever really gave us any trouble. None ever spooked, bucked, or bolted – the worst stunt they would pull was to trot instead of tölt, making for a less comfortable but still very tranquil ride.

Special saddles are designed for Icelandic horses. Similar to dressage saddles, they place the rider in a comfortable seat and allow for greater range of motion in the horses’ shoulders’ by sitting quite far back. Every horse rode in a simple snaffle with a noseband over the top – we got a different bridle with each horse but were instructed to keep our highly-prized nosebands with our saddles, something that baffled and amused us throughout the week.

Trekking with a Loose Herd

Over the course of 6 days, we moved around 50-60 horses over 100 miles. Between a dozen riders, a few at the front and the rest at the back, we steered the herd across rivers and lakes, fields and farms, up and down mountains and valleys, and right through the hearts of several small towns.

I spent the duration riding at the front. It was our job not to let any of the horses pass the mounted riders, and every day the same horses would try. Three horses in particular, all black, led by one of our guide Hreinn’s personal horses, a black gelding with a flowing mane, would always find their way to the front and attempt to pass the leaders. We picked up speed, sometimes moving as fast as a flying pace, to stay ahead and keep the horses back until they settled back into the herd. All the horses followed willingly, never wishing to leave the herd, except on one occasion. We were stopping for lunch alongside a river and most riders had already dismounted, when a small band of horses decided to turn around and head for home, despite the fast that we were already two days riding from the farm. Hlynur, the son of our head guide, rode off after them, single-handedly turning the herd around and bringing every single one back.

Some stops were fenced, although I use the word ‘fence’ lightly. A thin string was loosely hung between thin posts, maybe two and a half feet off the ground. We would herd the whole herd into the makeshift paddock, packed like sardines, and never once would any of them give the fence any trouble. This was a testament to the docile nature of these horses.

Land of the Midnight Sun

Leaving the horses in a new place each night, the van would meet us there to return to the guesthouse, where we enjoyed a soak in the hot tub before home-cooked dinners each evening. Mornings consisted of tea and coffee, plain oatmeal and toast for breakfast, and packing our sandwiches into saddle bags for the day’s ride. It was late summer, the sun rising around 7am and setting around 9pm, very similar to home. However, in June and July, the sunlight lasts almost 24 hours in Iceland, which is nearly on the Arctic circle. Known as the Land of the Midnight Sun, in the middle of summer the sun barely dips below the horizon for a few hours at night, but it remains light out all night long.

Although we covered 20-30 miles per day (30-45 kilometers), traveling at tölt speed we only rode 3-5 hours, with several breaks along the way to change horses, gobble snacks, and take in the scenery. The weather was perfect, cloudless blue skies reflected in the alpine lakes surrounding us, with the sun on our faces.

Except for the flies. That, we were not prepared for. The first day we didn’t experience them at all. The second day, we crossed the first river and then they began, at first just a nuisance, and then became a full-blown challenge. Some riders (better prepared than we were, clearly) had face nets over their helmets to protect their faces. I rode with a cloth buff pulled up over my mouth and nose and sunglasses, which helped immensely but didn’t fully prevent them from flying into my eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. One rider used a mesh laundry bag over her head, a highly effective improvised solution. At the end of each day I would blow my nose to find dozens of flies, and I swear I had one in my ear that didn’t come all the way out until after I had returned home. The flies didn’t seem to bother the horses or our Icelandic guides whatsoever, much to our amazement. But, it beat riding at the back of the line where riders had to deal with the flies and all the dust kicked up by the whole herd as we traversed arid sections of desert and dirt trails.

 Until Next Time

There is something truly special about the kinds of friendships you make on a trip like this. You share wonder and amazement at the desolate, dreamy landscape, commiserate over sore backsides and flies in your eyes, and bond over stories and laughs at the dinner table. You never know who you might meet on a trip like this - our group consisted of myself and a friend, a mother and two grown daughters from Sweden, one Brit, and several other Americans. The staff were all Icelanders, except the cook, who was German. A few of the riders had been to Iceland before, and all left wanting to come back again someday.

 Learn more about our Iceland Riding Trips and join us in the Land of the Midnight Sun!

Equine Travel First Aid Kit Essentials

We all hope never to have to deal with an equine emergency at all, let alone away from home, the barn, and the vet. But if or when it does happen, best be prepared. Having an equine first aid kit and the knowledge to handle emergencies, from minor injuries to serious wounds, can make all the difference for your horse in an emergency situation.

While it’s important to have an extensive kit at home, or in the barn, keeping one in the trailer is just as important - emergencies are just as likely, if not more so, when away from the secure and comfortable environment your horse is used to. Knowing where to find everything is helpful when time is of the essence, and it’s equally important to know how to use the products in your kit, but that’s a post for another day.

Here are some of the most essential items for your equine first aid kit, both in your home/barn/trailer, and in a compact version you can take with you on the trail.

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Equine First Aid Kit Essentials - at home, in the barn, and in the trailer

Since saving space is not crucial here, this kit can be more robust, containing a wider variety of materials, medications, tools, and supplies.

Tools

• Stethoscope

• Thermometer (and Vaseline for insertion)

• Flashlight or headlamp (with working batteries)

• Scissors

• Tweezers

• Wire snips

• Latex surgical gloves

• Syringes - varying sizes (60cc dose with catheter tip for oral medications, 10cc dose with hypodermic needle for injections)

• Cold pack

• Tongue depressors - an easy way to apply ointment

• Twitch

• Clean towel

• Clean bucket

• Rubbing alcohol - for disinfecting tools and injection sites

• Saline solution - for flushing hard-to-reach places, such as eyes

Bandaging Materials

Having different shapes and sizes of bandaging material will be helpful in accommodating different wounds and different horses.

• Cleaning solution - Betadine, Iodine, or Chlorohexadine solution

• Hydrogen Peroxide for cleaning wounds

• Non-adhesive bandages - Telfa pads

• Gauze and/or cotton padding to keep bandages in place

• Vet wrap to apply pressure and hold bandages in place

• Elastikon or tape to keep smaller bandages in place

• Pillow wraps and standing wraps for horses confined to a stall

• Diapers - for padding a wrapped hoof

Medication

It’s important to pay attention to expiration dates on your medication, and keep everything current. Better to have it and not use it, than to need it and have it be expired and less effective. Exposure to extreme temperatures can also shorten the shelf life of some medications.

• Anti-inflammatory medication - Phenylbutazone (Bute) or Banamine - Bute is available as a tablet or paste, in pre-measured doses to be given orally. Banamine is available as a paste or liquid for IV injection, but do not give an injection unless you know how to do so safely and correctly.

• Sedative medication - Acepromazine (Ace) (IM or IV) or Dermosedan (oral)

• Topical antibiotic medication - Neosporin or Triple Antibiotic cream

• Antiseptic wound cream, powder, or spray

• Electrolyte paste for dehydration

Equine First Aid Kit Essentials - on the trail

Emergencies and injuries can occur even on short trail rides, close to home, but you definitely don’t want to be caught in an emergency situation far away from the barn or trailer. Limited weight and conservation of space are an important consideration for your saddle bag kit, so this kit will contain more bare essentials, or smaller versions of the same supplies.

Where are you riding? Some supplies will be dependent on the region. For example, rattlesnake bites and supplies to treat them are a factor to consider when riding in the southwest, but less so in, say, Alaska.

Designate a kit or saddle bag for first aid. This way, all your first aid equipment is in one place and easy to find, rather than packed in throughout multiple saddle bags.

Some items are useful for people, too. Antibiotic ointment, bandages, etc. that are also crucial elements to a human first aid kit do not need to be in both. Save spaces by eliminating double items.

• Multipurpose tool - knife, scissors, wire cutters, file, tweezers, etc. can come in handy for all sorts of things

• Hoof pick

• Emergency blanket - small compact blanket can be used to keep you warm if stranded, or as a sterile work surface to lay tools out on

• Flashlight

• Wet wipes

• Latex gloves

• Benadryl

• Betadine

• Sunscreen

• Duct tape and bailing twine - you never know. Keep a horse or human's bandage in place, tape on a loose shoe, or pack a hoof to get a horse back to the trailer, repair tack, reattach a rein, make a lead rope, etc.

• Vet Wrap

• Hoof boots - even if you don’t use them regularly, they can be helpful in case of a thrown shoe

• Freezer bags - can serve as buckets to water horses or soak hooves, pack out trash and waste

• Tongue Depressors

Antelope Island Bison Roundup

By Adrienne Rubin

“Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam,
Where the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,
And the skies are not cloudy all day.”

The Western United States are famous for wild, wide-open landscapes, but there are few places where the buffalo still roam and the deer and the antelope play.  The vast herds of bison which were once at home on the range are now long-disappeared, with only a handful of herds remaining.

One of these herds can be found on Antelope Island, a Utah state park occupying the largest island in the Great Salt Lake. Introduced in 1893, the Island bison have since become one of the largest and oldest publicly-owned bison herds in the country. Visitors to the Island enjoy the trails, on foot and by bike, but most of the land is left to the wildlife, which enjoys abundant grazing, free from human interaction or interference. Home to bison, bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, mule deer, porcupines, badgers, and coyotes, the Island is a sanctuary from the ever-expanding metropolis just across the water.

Separated from the mainland by just a short drive across a long causeway, Antelope Island is just a few miles away but a world apart.  Tawny prairie grass covers the barren landscape, which rises up steep hillsides to jagged rocks crowning the spine of the island.  A handful of bent and twisted trees line the bottoms of steep ravines, but the landscape is otherwise as empty as the surrounding lake. The water is mirror-still, changing colors with the hours of the day, reflecting the vast, cloudless sky and the distant, snow-capped peaks beyond the water. Dead trees dot the salt flats, bleached white in the sun, standing out like frozen strikes of lightning against the endless sky. When the water is low, it is possible to cross on foot, but the wildlife stays on the Island where the grazing is plentiful and the visitors are few.

Once a year though, every October, visitors flock to the island by the thousands for the annual Bison Roundup, when the herds are gathered by rangers and volunteers on horseback and moved into winter holding pens. Some come to ride and some come to watch, but all come to experience a piece of the West, in a place as wild as the bison.

Wild they are – don’t let the wooly, awkward appearance of the bison fool you – although they are seemingly docile, ungainly-looking grass-grazers, they are far more formidable than their herbivorous nature suggests. Weighing up to 2,500lbs and standing up to 6ft tall, they seem cumbersome and clumsy, but are actually very nimble and tremendously fast, faster than horses, and having no natural predators makes them fearless. Their agility, acceleration, and aggression make them a force to be reckoned with – especially when on horseback.

Bison are notoriously ornery, but only become aggressive when provoked.  Although rounding them up could easily be considered provocation, doing so with horses and riders is less stressful on the bison than doing so with vehicles, and less likely to incite them.  The goal while herding bison is not to provoke them, but to coax them gently, which is why so many riders are essential.

50 mounted park rangers are joined by some 250 volunteers on horseback, many of whom travel from around the country for the event, bringing a festive atmosphere to the weekend as riders gather before the Roundup. Friendships are formed as stories are swapped around campfires, riders who attend year after year telling tales of unruly bison and previous Roundups gone awry. Cowboys clad like characters from an old western contrast with their shiny, brand-new RVs and smart phones, bringing the comforts of home to the remote and historic Fielding Garr Ranch where the Roundup will begin.

“Bison are easy to move,” says Jeremy Shaw, the park manager, “in the direction they want to go. So if you’ve ever worked cattle, forget everything you’ve ever known about moving cattle. Bison don’t work like that.”



First-thing in the morning, before 300 riders mount up, we meet to discuss safety and strategy for the Roundup. The objective is not to force the bison to move – bison can’t be forced to do much of anything – but rather to tempt the bison to move in a given direction by spreading riders out and closing off any other options. Riders are reminded not to get ahead of or too close to the bison – all it takes is one rider in the wrong place at the wrong time to change the direction of the whole herd, with disastrous results. Likewise, pushing them too hard or too fast can make or break the Roundup. Most importantly, bison don’t tend to be deterred by much – they don’t go around or over things, they go through things, so if they are coming in your direction, you get out of their way as fast as you can.

Tingling with excitement, I mounted up with 300 other riders, more than I have ever seen or ridden with at once. Glancing around me, riders seemed excited and eager, some apprehensive, but most of the horses were calm – these are ranch horses, and this was just another day at work for them. We flowed out of the ranch and into the tall prairie grass, where we fanned out into small groups all moving simultaneously north.

We rode for two or three miles before coming across the first small herds of bison. Riding well-behind the front lines of the left flank, I was halfway up the hillside with a sweeping view out towards the water. Riders in the red team on the right flank were guiding a herd from the shoreline inland, and riders to the left, on the green team, were cajoling a smaller group down from the steep upper hillside. The blue team maintained a steady line of riders spread out across the center. Now and then, individual riders would dart out towards the bison and crack a bullwhip, encouraging the herd to keep moving or preventing an individual bison from breaking loose.

The bulls among the herd dwarfed even the largest cows. Obstinate and easily provoked, they are the most dangerous, and riders gave them a wide berth to avoid confrontation. Stubborn bulls who didn’t want to move with the herd were left behind. In the holding pens they only cause trouble, battling for dominance, so they are instead left to their own devices, robust enough to survive on their own through the winter.

The hardest part of the Roundup, for both the bison and the horses, is Heartbreak Hill, the point where the bison are driven over the spine of the Island. At this point, different herds which have been herded by different groups all come together, like streams into a river, and rest while the riders sit by and eat the sandwiches we have stashed in our saddlebags. After lunch, the bison – nearly 800 strong now – are eased down the far side of the hill and into the final stretch of the Roundup. Here, there is the widest margin for error, as the terrain narrows between the lake on the left and the bluffs on the right. The herd are moved into a bottleneck towards the gate at the far end, kicking up a cloud of dust beneath their hooves as they trample across the rocky ground. I almost lose sight of them in the dust, just hooves and tails here and there. The bison are tired at this point – as are the riders – so they seem to moving forward complacently, but that can change in an instant.

Riders suddenly emerged from the dust ahead, shouting, “Go! Go! Go!” as they came galloping towards me. Horns appeared behind them as bison came charging out of the rolling, billowing dust, and like the other riders, my horse and I turned tail and ran as fast as we could.

Like a river parting around rocks, bison darted on either side of me, effortlessly passing horses, darting and dodging left and right between the riders. For a few minutes it was complete chaos of thundering hooves, and then the dust settled. A few dozen bison had broken through the rider ranks, and by the time I had my bearings again they were halfway up the hillside behind us, and some had run out into the salt flats, already tiny specks in the distance. The rest of the bison were still clustered in the corner by the gate, visibly agitated but holding steady. We let them calm down for a few minutes before gently nudging them towards the gate again. Once the first few crossed the threshold, the rest followed easily.

After the horses had been untacked, fed, watered, and settled in for the evening we headed over to the Fielding Garr Ranch for a chili dinner hosted by the park management in the historic barn. We recounted and relived the highlights of the day as the last pink rays of sunshine hit the snowy peaks across the way, above their shimmering reflection in the lake.

“This place is so peaceful and yet so wild. When you visit it, it changes your heart,” says Jeremy Shaw, the park manager.

Captivated by the barren beauty of Antelope Island’s desolate landscape, and fascinated by the unique and epic event I was fortunate enough to participate in, I’m already hoping to attend again next year. Now I know what to expect when herding bison on horseback, but more than that, I can look forward to seeing familiar faces and the camaraderie of the campground, taking in sweeping views from atop the Island’s spine, and watching an event like none other unfold before me while doing what I do best – adventuring on horseback.

Check out our video of this incredible event: