Mexican War veteran Jeremiah Johnson takes up the life of a Mountain Man, supporting himself in the Rocky Mountain as a Trapper. His first winter in mountain country is difficult, and he has a run-in with Paints-His-Shirt-Red, a chief of the Crow Tribe. He starts out with a .30 caliber Hawken percussion rifle, which he uses as his main rifle until he finds the frozen body of mountain man Hatchet Jack clutching a .50 caliber Hawken rifle. Jack's will gives his rifle to the man who finds his corpse. With his new rifle, Johnson inadvertently disrupts the grizzly bear hunt of the elderly and eccentric Chris Lapp, nicknamed "Bear Claw", who mentors him on living in the high country. After a brush with Crows, including Lapp's acquaintance Paints-His-Shirt-Red, and learning the skills required to survive, Johnson sets off on his own.

   A couple of youngish adventurers go into the wilderness of British Columbia in search of a lost colleague. Their plane crashes and they find themselves at the mercy of a crazed old Scottish miner, who has lived in isolation for many decades searching the mountain caves for a chamber of long lost gold. He is prepared to do anything - including murder - to keep his gold for himself.