Antelope Island

This last Saturday Justin and I planned a trip out to Antelope Island.  We considered going out there late last spring, but there was a warning on their website that "the biting gnats have hatched, and bug spray is not effective."  We decided to pass.  Justin had read elsewhere that early spring is the best time to go, so we figured this was our window.  I had been to the island once before, several years ago with the Hexberg's for the fall buffalo roundup, but we didn't really see much of the island on that outing.

Oddly enough, growing up in Utah I knew nothing of the island.  I had somehow managed to completely miss the fact that there was an island in the Great Salt Lake at all, much less one that is a state park with a causeway that allows you to just drive out there for a visit.  I was well into my adult years before this tidbit of information really hit.  I'd say that no one ever told me, but that's more than likely not true.

Additionally, this was my first visit to the Great Salt Lake.  Meredith works with a lot of people who are originally from back east.  She said something circulated around the office listing things that they had discovered about living in Utah when they first moved here.  One of the items on the list was that the Great Salt Lake is not a tourist destination.  The whole idea of it being a tourist destination was very amusing to us.  All the same, it seemed high time to go check the lake out for ourselves.  Our first stop on the island was at Bridger Bay Beach.

So, who knew that there was a white sand beach out there?

The walk out to the lake is not a short one.  The sand on this beach is super fine, the consistency of flour, which prevents it from being just an easy stroll out to the shoreline.

We stopped about halfway there for some pictures in a patch of Foxgloves.

When we did get to the water though, I thought it was very pretty. 

Vivian and I on a sandbar.

Although, I knew that the lake itself is very shallow, I was still a little surprised at how shallow the water was along the shoreline.  We stood around out there for a while, and then I decided that I can't just come visit the lake, I would need to get in the water as well.  It was unbelievably warm, so I actually kind of wish that I'd had a swimsuit with me so I could have just jumped in and swam, but I had to settle for wading.  Justin refused to join me since he deemed the water to be too disgusting to venture in.  He remained on the safely on the shore snapping pictures instead. 

I went pretty far out, and the water was still just barely to my ankles.

Should I ever return, I will come prepared to swim.  Justin will probably still stay on the shore with the camera, and he will miss out.  

After that we trudged the long walk back to the car and continued on to a little place called Buffalo Point.  The scenery up there was fantastic.

There was a guy out there flying a kite.  This has to be the best place ever to fly one.  No telephone poles, tons of wind.

We even spotted a few little bison off in the distance and determined to make our way over to them for a closer look.  On our way back down to the car the sun was starting to lower, and we noticed little swarms of gnats.  At first we didn't make the connection.  Not until we observed them chewing up our baby did we realize that these are the "biting gnats."  Fortunately their bites do not itch.  They just leave a little red mark, kind of like a welt.  We all got bit, even Justin who is always endlessly bragging about his immunity to mosquito bites.  Really the gnat bites weren't such a big deal, the fact that they dive bomb straight into your face, and you feel like your snorting up large numbers of them as you breathe is the bigger issue.  We welcomed the safe confines and filtered air of our vehicle. 

Next we made our way over to see the buffalo that we'd spotted from Buffalo Point.

After that we figured it was time to go check out the other side of the island.  We didn't make it very far on the road that wraps around the other side before we stopped again to snap some pictures of a few more buffalo that were right next to the road. 

Vivian found the buffalo to be only mildly interesting.

I'm not sure why, but Justin and I find buffalo to be very interesting animals.  We spent a long time there watching them graze.  We finally loaded back into the car, drove the length of the paved road, and decided to turn back when it turned to dirt.  The only thing further out were trailheads, and it was far too late to do any of the long hikes.  We have determined that next time we have a weekend in town and nothing to do we might come back out to the island and do some hiking (and I will swim), but the reports we'd heard before about it being a very "buggy" place seem to have a ring of legitimacy to them after our encounter with the clouds of biting gnats.