History Shorts · Oct 3, 2026 · 14:45
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In 1806, the Lewis and Clark Expedition was finally heading home when one member asked permission to turn around.
His name was John Colter.
Over the next several years, Colter became one of the earliest legendary mountain men, exploring and trapping across the northern Rockies. He traveled through a landscape of steaming springs, bubbling mud, and other geothermal features so strange that later stories associated his name with "Colter's Hell."
But his most famous adventure was still to come.
According to an account recorded years later, Blackfeet warriors captured Colter, stripped him, and forced him to run for his life. Colter escaped his pursuers, hid in a river, and eventually made his way back to safety after an extraordinary wilderness ordeal.
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