A
mountain man is a male
trapper and
explorer who lives in the wilderness. Mountain men were most common in the
North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 through the 1880s (with a peak population in the early 1840s). They were instrumental in opening up the various
Emigrant Trails (widened into wagon roads) allowing Americans in the east to settle the new territories of the far west by organized
wagon trains traveling over roads explored and in many cases, physically improved by the mountain men and the big fur companies originally to serve the
mule train based
inland fur trade.