I had never heard of Antelope Island until my trip to Utah last year. This largest island on the Great Salt Lake (about 40 sq miles) in the summer provides a great place for hiking, biking, horseback riding and everything in between with miles of picturesque trails. But a visit there in winter is also well worth it – breathtaking in fact. First, there is getting there. Driving on a narrow road that connects the island to Salt Lake City mainland is like skating seven miles straight across a giant empty ice-rink. Frozen lake surface is bare and quiet, dotted only by a few moving black spots. Just squint your eyes… coyotes. Once you’re there the key attraction is a free-roaming herd of 500 bisons. Introduced on the island in 1893 (just 12 animals to start with brought there by boat – I guess they liked this romantic seclusion), today they are an intergal part of the landscape. Seeing dozens of them just hanging out in a distance, their dark silhouettes sharply contrasting with milky white show and the backdrop of the island’s mountainous interior is quite unreal. Read the rest of this entry →