As a traveling mountain man, people had no idea what they were going to see and encounter.  They could be lucky enough to meet nice Indians like the Sioux, or they might not be lucky and run into the meanest Indians in the land, the Blackfeet.  There are many Native Americans in the mountains and prairies that one might see. All throughout North America, there were once hundreds of Indian tribes; the Apache Indians, the Blackfoot Indians, the Cheyenne Indians, the Crow Indians, the Navajo Indians, and the Sioux Indians, just to name a few.  Almost every mountain man had their fair share of Indian encounters.  Some of the most famous Indian tails were violent and crude.  John Colter’s experience with the Blackfeet is just one example of the pain and suffering the Blackfeet gave to most mountain men that crossed their path.  Not all encounters were bad however.  Some stories tell about how mountain men were injured or ill and they went to see the medicine man in a tribe and the powerful herbs, ceremonies, and even surgical procedures saved and helped the mountain men proceed to their dangerous adventures once again.  Along with many kinds of Indian tribes, mountain men encountered animals, weather, terrain, and diseases.  Mountain men could come across an animal that could be friendly and non-bothering or they could run across a grizzly bear in which case they would have to fight to survive.  The cold, harsh winters of North America could be too much for a mountain man to handle. If he got caught in a snow storm with little supplies, he might not make it through or he would have to go to desperate measures to keep himself alive enough to get to a warm safe area.  Along with the cold harsh winters, America also had blazing hot summer days.  The heat from the sunlight and little water could cause a man to have heat stroke, or pass out from dehydration. The summers in America brought lots of bugs like flies and mosquitoes that could carry sicknesses like malaria. The change of America’s terrain from mountains to valleys, to rivers and lakes can throw a mountain man off guard and get him lost.  Hypothermia, malaria, and jaundice were all common diseases that mountain men got and sometimes even died from.