Carson did not get along with his stepfather. He became a wild and uncontrollable teenager. His stepfather apprenticed him to David Workman, a saddle maker in Franklin, Missouri. Kit was a boy in his middle-teens. He wrote in his "Memoirs" that Workman was "a good man, and I often recall the kind treatment I received."
Carson did not like making saddles, and ran away from home in 1826. He traveled over the Santa Fe Trail with mountain men. In 1829, he joined with trapper Ewing Young on a trek to the Rocky Mountains. He learned much from Young about trapping.
Franklin, Missouri was at the eastern end of the Santa Fe Trail. This was a starting point for many settlers heading west. Kit heard wonderful stories about the west from the mountain men returning to the East. Kit did not like making saddles. In August 1826, he ran away from home, and went west with the mountain men. They traveled over the Santa Fe Trail to Santa Fe, New Mexico. They reached their destination in November 1826. Kit passed the winter in Taos, New Mexico with Mathew Kinkead, a mountain man and neighbor from Missouri. Taos would become Carson's home.
Workman put an advertisement in a local newspaper back in Missouri. He wrote that he would give a one cent reward to anyone who brought the boy back to Franklin. No one claimed the reward. It was a bit of a joke, but Carson was free. The advertisement featured the first printed description of Carson: "Christopher Carson, a boy about 16 years old, small of his age, but thick set; light hair, ran away from the subscriber, living in Franklin, Howard county, Missouri, to whom he had been bound to learn the saddler's trade."
Between 1827 and 1829, Carson worked as cook, translator, and wagon driver in the southwest. He also worked at a copper mining|mine near the Gila River in southwestern New Mexico. In later life, Carson never mentioned any women from his youth. There are only three specific women mentioned in his writing: Josefa Jaramillo, his third and last wife; a comrade's mother in Washington, DC; and Mrs. Ann White, a victim of Native American atrocities.
In August 1829, the nineteen year old Carson joined trapper Ewing Young and his mountain men on a fur-hunting expedition to Arizona and California. This was Carson's first professional job as a mountain man. Carson received much experience as a trapper on this expedition. Young is credited with shaping Carson's early life in the mountains.
Carson returned to Taos in 1829, and joined a wagon train rescue party. Although the perpetrators had fled the scene of atrocities, Young had the opportunity to witness Carson's horsemanship and courage. Kit passed the winter of 1827-1828 as Young's cook in Taos. Carson joined another expedition led by Thomas Fitzpatrick in 1831. Fitzpatrick and his trappers went north to the central Rocky Mountains. Carson would hunt and trap in the West for about ten years. He was known as a reliable man and a good fighter.
Carson traveled through many parts of the American West gathering furs. Men at this time wore hats made of beaver fur. Carson trapped beaver for the fur trade. He sometimes worked with famous mountain men like Jim Bridger and Old Bill Williams.
Carson's career as a mountain man began in 1829 when he joined Ewing Young's trapping expedition to the Rocky Mountains. Mountain men worked mostly in the Rocky Mountains. They worked for themselves, or sometimes with a partner or two, or for a large trading organization like the Hudson Bay Company.
A mountain man's life was not easy. He sometimes had to walk into deep, cold water to get a trapped beaver. He then had to remove the hide with the fur (the pelt). The mountain man kept these beaver pelts for many months. He then sold them in St. Louis, Missouri, or at a mountain man "rendezvous". With the money he collected, he bought fish hooks, flour, tobacco, and the other things he needed for life in the mountains.
The mountain men faced many hazards including biting insects, bad weather, and diseases of all kinds. There were no doctors in the lands where mountain men worked. These men had to set their own broken bones, tend their wounds, and nurse themselves. Native Americans were an ever-present danger. Even a friendly Native American could turn at once into an enemy. Most mountain men had a Native American wife or mistress. The mountain man's main food was buffalo. The mountan man dressed in deer skins that had stiffened after being left outdoors for a time. This suit of stiffened deer skin gave him some protection against the weapons of his enemies.
Grizzly bears were one of the mountain man's greatest enemies. Carson wrote in his "Memoirs" that he was hunting an elk alone in 1834. Two grizzly bears chased him up a tree. One bear tried to make him fall by shaking the tree. The bear was not successful, and finally went away. Carson returned to his camp as fast as he could. He wrote in his "Memoirs" that this incident was the scariest moment of his life: "[The bear] finally concluded to leave, of which I was heartily pleased, never having been so scared in my life."
Mountain men met every year in the second quarter of the 19th century for an event called a "rendezvous". The first "rendezvous" was held in 1825. These events were held in remote areas of the West like the banks of the Green River in Wyoming. The mountain men had a good time at these lively events. Native Americans often joined the gathering. Everyone played card games, danced, sang, told stories, made jokes, and had much to eat and drink. Sometimes mountain men married Native American women at a "rendezvous". The last rendezvous was held in 1840.
About 1840, the fur trade began to drop off. Well-dressed men in London, Paris, and New York City wanted silk hats instead of beaver hats. In addition, the mountain men had very nearly killed almost every beaver in North America. Trappers were no longer wanted or needed. Mountain man Robert Newell told Jim Bridger: "[W]e are done with this life in the mountains done with wading in beaver dams, and freezing or starving alternately done with Indian trading and Indian fighting. The fur trade is dead in the Rocky Mountains, and it is no place for us now, if ever it was."
Carson knew it was time to find other work. He wrote in his "Memoirs" that "Beaver was getting scarce, it became necessary to try our hand at something else." In 1841, he was hired at Bent's Fort in Colorado. This fort was one of the greatest buildings in the West. Hundreds of people worked or lived there. Carson hunted buffalo, antelope, deer, and other animals to feed these hundreds of people. He was paid one dollar a day. He returned to Bent's Fort several times during his life to again provide meat for the fort's residents. In April 1842, Carson went back to his childhood home in Missouri. He made this trip to put his daughter Adaline in the care of relatives.
Carson found much pleasure in killing Native Americans. He did not respect them, and thought those who committed outrages like murder, theft, and rape deserved the worst punishment possible. Carson's thoughts about Native Americans softened over the years, as he found himself more and more in their company. He became an Indian agent and a spokesman for the Utes.
Carson was nineteen when he set off with Ewing Young's expedition to the Rocky Mountains. In addition to furs and the company of free-spirited, rugged mountain men, he sought action and adventure. He found what he was looking for in killing and scalping Native Americans. Carson probably killed and took the scalp of his first Native American when he was nineteen years old, during Ewing Young's expedition. Carson was known to most 19th century Americans as an "Injun killer", chiefly through newspaper accounts and dime novels. Many of these works gave Carson's deeds and life a romantic cast. Excitement and thrills were heightened through exaggeration.