“You’d get a postcard in the mail or a phone call from somebody who was putting on the shoot down at Nederland, Boulder, or up at Fort Collins, and you better go because you might not get another invite for six months,” said Colorado Mountain Man Duane Thompson, known widely as Trapper Tom, about the muzzleloader community in the 1960s.

“Somebody said ‘we ought to form a club,’” and in February of 1975, Trapper Tom and his two friends created the Buckhorn Skinners , one of the first mountain men clubs in Colorado.

Fifty years later, members continue to shoot with black powder, hand-crafted muzzleloaders, and are still telling some of the same jokes.

“Preserving history,” said Trapper Tom, who’s now 90 years old and concerned about the club’s future with a lack of young members. “Too m

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