Mountain men were: very rough and tough adventurous businessmen transient they needed an economic frameworkto support their occupation The furtrade provided the fiscal support and stability that the mountain men needed to crisscross the continent in search of adventure and profit.

There were two types of Mountain Men Skin trappers & Free-trapper Skin Trappers –were mountain men who worked for fur companies like The American Fur Company and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, trapping furs Free Trappers –men who were “beholden to no company and outfitted himself and trapped with whom and where he pleased.”

There were essentially two spheres of fur trade - The Rocky Mountain Fur Trade and the Upper Missouri Trade The Upper Missouri trade - relied on Indians to bring buffalo skins to trading posts the skins were bought and sent to St. Louis via the river. The Rocky Mountain Fur Trade - Beaver was the fur of choice in the Rockies beavers were trapped primarily by Euro- American mountain men traveling in company groups pelts were sold at a yearly rendezvous

Yearly events where trappers sold the pelts they had trapped Buyers would travel overland to the designated site Buyers would then haul the furs by mule train and wagon to cities to be sold The rendeavous system allowed the mountain men to stay in the wilderness year round

The rendezvous began as a practical gathering to exchange pelts for supplies It evolved into a month long carnival in the middle of the wilderness Mountain man James Beckwourth described the festivities as : “"mirth, songs, dancing, shouting, trading, running, jumping, singing, racing, target-shooting, yarns, frolic, with all sorts of extravagances that white men or Indians could invent."

At the rendezvous there were: horse races running races target shooting Gambling and whiskey drinking that accompanied all of them. An easterner gave this view: "mountain companies are all assembled on this season and make as crazy a set of men I ever saw." After rendezvous, the men headed off to their fall trapping grounds.

Smith was:  the first American after the Astorians to cross west over the Continental Divide  the first Anglo-American to travel overland to California  the first to traverse the Sierra Nevada  the first to cross the Great Basin Desert  the one who rediscovered South Pass  the man who roamed through more of the West than anyone of his era