John Colter is one of the icons of the American West, at the leading edge of the mountain man era of exploration of the United States west of the Mississippi River. Some might even view him as the leader of the era, tackling the unknown West much as Daniel Boone had in the East decades earlier. Indeed, the two frontiersmen likely swapped stories of their adventures, as they lived close to one another in their retiring years.

But at one point in Colter’s western wanderings some considered him a fool, as he returned to St. Louis with tales of a place where the hot water fountains erupted from ground and colorful pots of mud gurgled, bubbled, and plopped and sizzled. But Yellowstone was real, and explorers who followed Colter’s path west confirmed it.

Dr. David W. Marshall, a historian at Texas Tech University who personally has retraced as much of Colter’s travels as possible, brings not just the mountain man to life in this new book but profiles the daily life of these hardy adventurers.

Taking from personal diaries of mountain men, historical profiles on the era and its participants, and sketches and paintings, the author vividly paints his own portrait of the early 19th century in the untamed West. He explains how tents were pitched, bison skinned, and even how mountain men and Indians made their clothes and what they carried on their person.

And he points out, through their words, the romance that some mountain men found in the wilderness.

“I must confess, that after the first sensation of repulsive loneliness had been overcome, I felt much attached to it. …There was something so forbidding in the idea … removed as I was far away from friendly aid, and in a dangerous country … Still, in a little time I learned to forget all this, and roamed as freely by day, and slept as soundly by night, as though surrounded by friends. …There is a charm in the loneliness – an enchantment in the solitude.” – Rufus Sage, from his recollections.

Colter’s travels with Lewis and Clark, his travels alone and with other trappers, and his run for life from Blackfeet warriors, all are laid out within the covers of this heavily footnoted book. So, too, is the tantalizing prospect that a stone found on the west side of the Tetons near present-day Tetonia, Idaho, in 1931 that had the name “John Colter” and the date “1808” etched into it really was carved by the mountain man as he wintered over 1807-08 in the region.

Mountain Man, due out next month, cracks open a wonderful window into the past, casting not only a vivid profile of John Colter but laying down the history of the vanguard of Western exploration and the individuals who lived not to tame the region, but to relish it.