Every pleasant day hunters left the camp, and usually returned well laden with game.  Thus the larder of the trappers was well provided for.  An anonymous writer speaking of these winter encampments, says: 

“The winter seasons in the Rocky mountains are usually fearful and severe.  There snow-storms form mountains for themselves, filling up the passes for weeks and rendering them impracticable either for man or beast.

“The scenery is indescribably grand, provided the beholder is well housed.  If the case be otherwise, and he is doomed to encounter these terrible storms, his situation is dreadful in the extreme.  Even during the summer months the lofty peaks of this mighty chain of mountains are covered with white caps of snow.  It affords a contrast to the elements, of the grandest conception, to stand in the shade of some verdant valley wiping the perspiration from the brow, and at the same time to look upon a darkly threatening storm-cloud powdering the heads of the hoary monster mountains from its freight of flaky snow.

“So far these American giant mountains are unsurpassed by their Alpine brothers of Europe.  Not so in the glaciers.  Throughout the great range there are no glaciers to be found which can compare with those among the Alps.”

In the spring the trappers scattered in small bands throughout that region.  They were in the territory of the Utah Indians, just north of the Great Salt Lake.  Kit Carson was well acquainted with them and they were all his friends.  The trappers, therefore, wandered at pleasure without fear of molestation.  Mr. Carson took but one trapper with him, with two or three pack mules.  They were very successful, and in a few weeks obtained as many furs as their animals could carry.

With these they went to a trading post, not very far distant from them called Fort Robidoux.  Here their furs were disposed of to good advantage.  Mr. Carson, having judiciously invested his gains, organized another party of five trappers, and traversed an unpeopled wilderness for a distance of about two hundred miles until he reached the wild ravines and pathless solitudes of Grand river.  This stream, whose junction with the Green river forms the Colorado, takes its rise on the western declivity of the Rocky mountains, amidst its most wild and savage glens.  Trapping down this river with satisfactory success, late in the autumn he reached Green river.  Falling snows and piercing winds admonished him that the time had come again to retire to winter quarters.

He repaired to Brown’s Hole, the well known and beautiful valley which he had often visited before.  Here he passed an uneventful but pleasant winter.  With the earliest spring he again directed his footsteps to the country of the Utahs in the remote north.  He was successful in trapping, and as the heat of summer came, he again turned his steps, with well laden mules, to Fort Robidoux.  Here he found, to his disappointment, that beaver fur had greatly deteriorated in value.  His skins would scarcely bring him enough to pay for the trouble of taking them.  This was caused mainly by the use of silk instead of fur, throughout Europe and America, in the manufacture of hats.