Mountain men—or as they often called themselves—were typically young men in their 20s and 30s drawn to the wilderness for profit, adventure, or to escape society. Their primary goal was trapping beaver, whose pelts were in high demand for making fashionable felt hats in Europe and the eastern U.S.. Life in the Rockies was a grueling test of survival: Blog Archives - Museum of the Mountain Man

The era of the American "mountain man" was a brief but transformative window in history, lasting primarily from the early 1800s to the 1840s. Often romanticized as rugged loners, these individuals were actually the backbone of the Western fur trade and the primary explorers of the American frontier. Life on the Edge of the Map