TLDR: Morgan Beasley joined Mountain Men on the History Channel for Season 4 in 2015 and appeared through Season 8. He is not part of the current Season 14 cast.
He holds a degree in Environmental Science from the University of Idaho, is a licensed bush pilot, and operates Apricity Alaska, a remote homestead and guided horse packing operation approximately 150 miles from the nearest road in the Western Alaska Range.
He runs the operation with his partner Margaret Stern and a herd of Icelandic horses. He is not a millionaire, has said so publicly, and continues to produce independent video content at apricityalaska.com.
Most people who build a life 150 miles from the nearest road do not explain themselves in an online FAQ. Morgan Beasley does, because he has spent years correcting what the internet gets wrong about him.
He is not 56 years old. He does not have a million dollars. He did not earn an advanced degree.
He is a man in his early forties who built a homestead by hand in the Alaska Range, flies a Stinson aircraft to get supplies, raises Icelandic horses for guided pack trips, and grows vegetables in a garden that gets roughly 90 frost-free days per year if the season cooperates.
Before Mountain Men
Morgan Beasley was born in June 1981 in Idaho. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science from the University of Idaho and then spent his twenties doing exactly the kind of work that does not look impressive on a resume but turns out to be essential preparation for living in the Alaskan bush.
He worked construction and cabinetry. He processed fish. He ran backcountry trail crews. He served as caretaker for a remote Idaho homestead.
When he moved to Alaska he worked as a wrangler at remote sheep hunting camps and began making solo backpacking trips into the wilderness, including a trek across the Alaska Range.
He was not building a media presence. He was building a skill set.
He has described his aversion to indoor work and industrial environments as foundational to his choices. The environmental science degree pointed him toward the land. The years of trades and outdoor work gave him the tools to do something about it.
Mountain Men: Seasons 4 Through 8
Beasley joined Mountain Men for Season 4, which premiered in June 2015. He appeared through Season 8 and departed before Season 9 without an on-screen explanation.
His segments were geographically isolated from every other cast member. Where Eustace Conway was in North Carolina and Tom Oar was in Montana, Beasley was in the Western Alaska Range, thousands of miles away from both.
His early seasons documented the process of building a remote homestead from scratch: felling dead timber, hand-building a cabin, establishing agricultural outbuildings, and managing the extreme logistics of a location accessible only by bush plane.
Later seasons introduced Margaret Stern, who joined the homestead and became his partner, adding horse care and collaborative homesteading to the narrative.
Memorable segments included a Season 7 flooding incident in which a week-long winter storm submerged their food cache and they had to salvage winter vegetables and build elevated storage platforms to save their remaining supplies.
Season 8 featured aerial caribou tracking, with Beasley and Stern using their light aircraft to locate the migration and secure meat for the winter. A Season 6 segment showed Beasley taking a deep axe wound while clearing timber, underscoring the real stakes of working hours away from emergency medical care.
After Season 8 he and Margaret announced they were starting their own self-produced homestead video series rather than returning to the show.
His description of the transition was straightforward: he wanted greater autonomy and a more accurate portrayal of what daily remote life actually looks like, without the manufactured suspense of cable television.
What “Apricity” Means and Why He Chose It
Beasley encountered the word “apricity” in Randall Munroe’s book What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions.
Apricity means the feeling of the warmth of the sun in winter, from Latin roots meaning to bask in the sun. He came across it during April break-up season in Alaska, the period of spring thaw when travel becomes nearly impossible due to rotten snow and the homestead becomes temporarily inward-facing.
He was resting, reading, and came across the word. Days later, sitting on the deck in the northern sun after months of cold, the name felt right.
The choice reflects something deliberate about how he approaches the life. Apricity is not about the dramatic or the extreme. It is about savoring something subtle: the warmth of sun on snow, the lengthening days of an Alaskan spring, the simple satisfaction of sitting still after months of hard work.
The name serves as a daily reminder of what he built the homestead for and what he hopes to share with guests.
Apricity Alaska: How It Works in 2026
Apricity Alaska is a remote homestead and guiding operation in the foothills on the western side of the Alaska Range, approximately 150 to 165 miles from the nearest road or town.
It is accessible only by bush plane. Beasley is a licensed private pilot and uses a Stinson aircraft for logistics, supply runs, and exploration. Margaret Stern is also a licensed bush pilot.
The core of the guiding operation is a herd of Icelandic horses, a breed specifically suited to Alaska’s terrain. Icelandic horses are compact and cold-hardy with thick winter coats and multiple gaits including the tolt, a smooth four-beat amble that makes long trail distances considerably more manageable.
The herd numbers around seven, including lead mare Frilla fra Harlanda, who has packed in solar panels and heavy equipment; Feila, who helped carry in the first perennial agricultural beds; young Lobba, born in the alpine summer pastures and beginning formal riding training in 2026; and stallions Svanur and Vinur used for riding and draft work.
Guided offerings include multi-day pack trips and day rides through the Alaska Range terrain.
Homestead skills programs cover axe work, tool maintenance, spoon carving, lumber milling, canning, birch syrup making, gardening, hide tanning, and animal tracking.
Margaret Stern leads birding and natural history tours based on her background in botany and natural history from the College of the Atlantic in Maine.
Bookings are handled through apricityalaska.com.
The homestead operates on a strict seasonal rhythm. April break-up is for interior work, tool maintenance, and seed starting.
Summer brings outdoor labor, lumber milling, trail clearing, garden planting, and guided trips. Autumn is for harvesting, foraging wild mushrooms and berries, and food preservation. Winter means firewood, traplines, livestock care, and managing extreme cold.
The homestead runs on solar power with ongoing infrastructure improvements including a greywater system intended to make running water a year-round reality.
Beasley has publicly addressed the financials directly. Aviation fuel, veterinary care for the horse herd, and building materials all have to be flown in, making overhead costs significant.
He and Margaret are not millionaires and have said so on social media when internet speculation placed his net worth at seven figures.
The operation is funded through a combination of guiding bookings, Patreon subscriptions for full-length episodes of their self-produced video series, Vimeo film rentals, and occasional seasonal work away from the homestead when needed.
His Approach Compared to Other Mountain Men
Beasley’s style of wilderness living is distinctly different from the other major Mountain Men cast members.
Where Eustace Conway’s Turtle Island Preserve is built around preserving and teaching primitive skills to large groups, Beasley’s operation is smaller, more personal, and outward-facing in a different way: it invites guests to experience the land through horse packing rather than hands-on primitive education.
Where Tom Oar’s Montana lifestyle centers on traditional trapping and fur craft, Beasley’s integrates modern tools deliberately and without apology, including solar power, aviation, and ongoing infrastructure improvements.
His environmental science background gives his approach a different philosophical underpinning.
He thinks about land use, ecology, and low-impact practices with a trained lens rather than purely through tradition or self-reliance instinct.
He describes daily physical tasks like hauling water and chopping wood not as hardships but as meditation, a way of connecting with the simplest requirements of human life.
He has written about the satisfaction of creation, the exhilaration of exploration, and the quiet pleasure of watching things grow in a garden that exists only because of the labor required to establish it in remote alpine soil.
Morgan and Margaret in 2026
Morgan Beasley and Margaret Stern remain together and continue to operate Apricity Alaska as of 2026. Online speculation about a split has circulated at various points and Beasley has addressed fan disinformation on social media.
They do not have children. Their household includes working dogs Rufous and Smokey alongside the horse herd. They recently took their first joint vacation since establishing the homestead, a trip to Yosemite National Park.
His independent video content continues under the “Morgan Beasley” YouTube channel, which serves as the public-facing window into homestead life. Full episodes are distributed through Patreon and Vimeo.
Titles in the catalog include Mystery Mission with Morgan Beasley, a True Tale of Weirdness in Bush Alaska; Breaking Trail to Treeline; Thanksgiving Grouse Hunt; and an educational video answering questions from an elementary school class.
The content is unscripted, unvarnished, and directly contrasted on his own channels with the manufactured drama of network survival television.
For 2026, infrastructure projects in progress include expanding the main cabin, extending the horse barn for the growing herd, improving airstrip safety, and finalizing the greywater water system.
The guiding season is open for bookings.
For the full cast story of his fellow Mountain Men cast members, the Mountain Men cast hub covers everyone.
For more on Eustace Conway and Turtle Island, see the Eustace Conway spoke.
What happened to Morgan Beasley from Mountain Men?
Morgan Beasley left Mountain Men after Season 8, departing without an on-screen explanation. He and partner Margaret Stern chose to launch their own independent self-produced video series rather than continue with the History Channel. He now operates Apricity Alaska, a remote homestead and guided horse packing operation approximately 150 miles from the nearest road in the Western Alaska Range. He is not part of the current Season 14 cast.
Where is Morgan Beasley’s homestead?
Morgan Beasley’s homestead is located in the foothills on the western side of the Alaska Range, approximately 150 to 165 miles from the nearest road or town. It is accessible only by bush plane. The mailing address is managed through Talkeetna, Alaska. Exact coordinates are kept private for operational and safety reasons.
What is Apricity Alaska?
Apricity Alaska is Morgan Beasley and Margaret Stern’s remote homestead and guiding operation in the Western Alaska Range. It offers guided multi-day pack trips and day rides using Icelandic horses, homestead skills programs covering axe work, lumber milling, canning, hide tanning, and animal tracking, and birding and natural history tours led by Margaret Stern. Bookings and information are available at apricityalaska.com.
What does apricity mean?
Apricity means the feeling of the warmth of the sun in winter, from Latin roots meaning to bask in the sun. Morgan Beasley encountered the word in Randall Munroe’s book What If? during the April break-up season and adopted it as the name for his operation because it captured the subtle pleasures of wilderness living: savoring small warmths, finding radiance in everyday moments, and the centrality of sunlight to Alaskan life.
Are Morgan Beasley and Margaret Stern still together?
Yes. Morgan Beasley and Margaret Stern remain together and continue to operate Apricity Alaska as of 2026. They have addressed online speculation about a split directly on social media. They do not have children and maintain a private personal life centered on the homestead operation.
What is Morgan Beasley’s net worth?
Morgan Beasley has publicly stated he is not a millionaire and has corrected exaggerated online net worth claims directly on social media. His operation is funded through guiding bookings, Patreon subscriptions, Vimeo film rentals, and occasional seasonal work. The costs of running a remote homestead in the Alaska Range, including aviation fuel, veterinary care for the horse herd, and flying in building materials, are significant overhead expenses.
