Buffalo Roundup An ‘Adrenaline High’

Tall and lanky with a weather-beaten bronze face, Bob Lantis looks like the quintessential western cowboy. He is. The 62-year-old Lantis has been riding since he was three and got his first pony at five. He worked the rodeo circuit for 11 years. Today he’s a commercial horseback outfitter and guide living in South Dakota.

This year he’ll ride in his 28th Custer State Park Buffalo Roundup. The annual event, usually held the first Monday in October, is so popular with cowboys that Lantis says he had to “practically fight” to get on his first roundup in 1970. Now he wears a leather head band on his hat that says “Rider Boss.”

And the thrill hasn’t worn off after all these years. He describes riding in the roundup as an “adrenaline high,” then grins and adds, “My wife says I’d skin skunks if I got to run buffalo.”

But Lantis also has a nostalgic side. He compares the roundup to the romance of the Old West, a return to yesteryear. It is a beautiful sight, he says, when 1,000 buffalo face you across a field with the cottonwood trees behind them. “The way it looks, it could be 100 years ago.”

All the cowboys are volunteers, carefully selected from hundreds of applications, mostly from South Dakota, Montana and Minnesota. There were 47 riders last year; 13 were women.

Bison (buffalo is their common name) are big animals. A bull can weigh as much as a ton.

And they’re fast. They can outrun a horse, and the cowboys swear they can turn on a dime.

By the late 1800s, buffalo had almost disappeared from the plains (it is estimated there were less than 250 in the United States in 1900).

In 1914, to reintroduce wildlife back into the Black Hills, when the park was still a game preserve, the state purchased 36 head of buffalo from James “Scotty” Philip, the man credited with saving the animal from extinction. Today, the buffalo is no longer endangered (with about 150,000 in North America) and the 73,000-acre Custer State Park is home to one of the largest public-owned herds in the nation.

The roundup began in 1966, when it became necessary to reduce the herd’s size to about 950, the number estimated that the park’s grasslands can support during the winter. Today the herd averages about 1,500 after spring calving. After the roundup, the surplus is auctioned off, mostly to buffalo ranches for stock.

A weekend of special events in the game lodge area of the park kicks off the roundup - a pancake feed on Saturday, an arts-and-crafts festival (you can buy everything from buffalo nickel earrings to scrimshaw on cattle horns), a lunch wagon that offers buffalo burgers, and live entertainment from quartets and cloggers to Native American dancers.

On Sunday, entrants vie for awards in the buffalo chili cookoff. Tasting (10 cents for each small plastic cup) starts in the mid-afternoon, and it’s a sellout every year.

On Monday, cars start arriving at the park by 6 a.m. for the roundup. Often part of the herd is already within view of the spectators, milling about on the golden prairie.

(Officially the roundup starts about mid-September when, to keep stress to the animals at a minimum, park herdsmen start moving buffalo south at a leisurely pace until they’re all together in an eight-by-one-mile fenced holding pasture.)

Usually, it’s over by 10 a.m., assuming the weather and the animals cooperate. A helicopter communicates between the cowboys on horseback and wranglers in four-wheel-drive pickups, advising herd location and movement. Teams working together position themselves and start to move the animals east at a lope to keep the bison from stampeding.

Soon, a line of buffalo are silhouetted along a ridge. From a distance, they look like a long train of box cars. They’re driven down the side, where they’re joined by other groups coming down other slopes. As they come closer, the rumbling starts. Soon it sounds like thunder.

As the herd approaches the corrals, the buffalo parade through a quarter-mile corridor in front of spectators (about 3,000 came from around the world last year) perched on hill tops.

Quite often, a few buffalo will make a break and try to get around the cowboys to head back toward the hills, and, inevitably, the crowd gives a roaring cheer for the bison.

Finally, they’re all herded into a small holding pasture, then pushed in to the corrals where, milling around, they sound more like a couple thousand grunting and snorting pigs.

After the last buffalo has passed, spectators are transported from the viewing area back to the corrals via the park’s shuttle service.

Later that day, and over the following two days, the buffalo are sorted through a series of corrals, chutes and holding pens, where they are ear-tagged, examined and tested by a veterinarian, and the calves weighed, vaccinated and branded. Enthralled spectators watch the noisy procedure from elevated viewing platforms.

Before noon people are lined up at the chuck wagon set up under a tent, where park employees serve barbecued buffalo for brunch (commercially bought, not locally obtained). It’s lean, tender and delicious.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: IF YOU GO Events for the 1997 Buffalo Roundup commence Sept. 27 and run through Oct. 1; the actual round-up is scheduled for Sept. 29. Plan to arrive by 7:30 a.m. It takes about an hour to drive to the park from Rapid City, S.D. Take State Route 79 about 20 miles to the intersection of Route 36. Go west about nine miles to the park entrance and follow the signs to Wildlife Loop Road (which closes at about 8 a.m. on the day of the roundup) and then to the buffalo corrals. Custer State Park, located in the Black Hills of South Dakota, is within an easy drive of many popular state attractions, among them Mount Rushmore National Memorial (with a new $14 million concession facility), Wind Cave National Park (10.5 miles of underground chambers), the unfinished Crazy Horse Memorial (when completed the granite image will stand 563 feet high), Hot Springs Mammoth Site (where more than 50 of the giant prehistoric creatures have been unearthed), and Badlands National Park. For further information write Custer State Park, HC83, Box 70, Custer, SD 57730, telephone (605) 255-4515. For reservations at the park’s four lodges and resorts, telephone (800) 658-3530. There are also cabins, most with kitchens. For information about accommodations and other attractions in the area, write the Black Hills, Badlands & Lakes Association (900 Jackson Blvd., Rapid City, SD 57702, telephone (605) 341-1462) and request their free publication, “Exploring the Black Hills & Badlands,” or contact the South Dakota Department of Tourism, 711 E. Wells Ave., Pierre, SD 57501, (605) 773-3301.