The Mountain Men: The Dramatic History and Lore of the First Frontiersmen, by George Laycox, Lyons & Burford, Publishers, New York, 1996, $16.95 paperback.
Why are we still fascinated by the mountain men of the early 1800s? The best answer might be just one word: Adventure! OldBill Williams, Jim Bridger,
Jedediah Smith, James Beckwourth and all those other wanderers of the wilderness had more adventures than you couldshake a walking stick at. And they didn’t have to go to theme parks or even national parks to find that adventure. Originallypublished in 1988, the book abounds with courageous feats, sometimes bloody confrontations with Indians and grizzly bears, harrowing escapes and examples of toughness and endurance that would makemost modern triathletes tremble in their cross-training shoes. Along with providing profiles of famous trappers and vividaccounts of their exploits in the untamed West, George Laycox offers eight sidebars sure to inform and entertain today’smountain-bike men and women–“How the Trapper Caught Beaver,” “The Mountain Man’s Guns,” “Leatherwork,” etc. Folksnew to the mountain-man era will particularly want to delve into this book, but it should also delight those quite familiar withthat era, since present-day “mountain men” never seem to tire of experiencing–in one form or another–amazing adventures.
