As a young man on America's frontier, Kit Carson sets the standard for steely nerves and fearlessness. But his legend is born when a Native woman is insulted by a notorious bully of the mountains, and Kit challenges him to a duel to death.

Joe Meek arrives on the frontier as a greenhorn, but he quickly masters the skills of mountain man life. Just as his trapping career is taking off, he faces a life-or-death challenge when he's taken captive by warriors from the Crow tribe.

Though Andrew Henry has little experience when he joins the fur trade, he gives his word to complete a risky trapping expedition. As Blackfeet warriors close in, he must weigh his pledge against the lives of the men he now leads.

Marie Dorion, a member of the Iowa People and mother of two, joins her husband on a harrowing expedition to the Pacific Northwest. After enduring near starvation and the death of her third child, her worst ordeal still lies ahead.

Joe Walker doesn't head west to seek fame and fortune, but his trailblazing explorations across the uncharted frontier usher in a golden age of expansion and settlement that help create the United States as we know them today.

As the fur trade ends, lifelong frontiersmen like Tom Fitzpatrick are forced to adapt. When he becomes a guide for the flood of Americans wanting to emigrate to California, he faces new dangers as his old way of life is becoming obsolete.

When he is separated from a trapping party, frontiersman Jim Clyman is 600 miles from the nearest fort. To survive the trek, he must put his fate in the hands of Native Americans, without knowing if they will help him or kill him on sight.

As William Sublette rises to the top of the fur trade, he revolutionizes an industry that requires daily risks on the frontier. But will he risk too much when he rushes to save his comrades in the largest battle of the mountain man era?