TLDR: Mountain Men premiered on History Channel in 2012 and has run for 14 seasons documenting off-grid life across America. Tom Oar is 81 and Season 14 is his final chapter after a heart crisis requiring a defibrillator vest.
Preston Roberts died on July 24, 2017, from a rapidly advancing liver tumor. Jason Hawk left after Season 9 following a cancer diagnosis and now runs his own knife-making business in Arkansas.
Marty Meierotto stepped back for several seasons to raise his daughter and returned in Season 13.
Morgan Beasley separated from his partner Margaret in 2022 and now runs wilderness horse-packing tours in Alaska.
The show is still in production in 2026.
Tom Oar drove a 1969 GMC pickup into the Montana wilderness in the early 1970s with his wife Nancy and built a log cabin by hand. For the next 50 years they lived there, trapping in winter and brain-tanning hides in summer, 80 miles from the nearest advanced medical care.
At 81 he is still in the Yaak Valley, but he now wears a defibrillator vest following a heart crisis, and Season 14 is his farewell to the show.
The cast that built Mountain Men across 14 seasons has reached the two exit points the show always implied were coming: the body giving out, or the state showing up with building code violations. Here is where everyone ended up.
Tom Oar Is 81 and Season 14 Is His Last
Tom Oar was born in 1943 and spent his early adult life as a professional rodeo cowboy on the “Woolly Bugger” circuit. A 1970 accident and the accumulated toll of the rodeo ended that chapter. He and Nancy drove into the Yaak Valley in northwestern Montana and didn’t leave for half a century.
Their survival centered on the fur economy — trapping in winter, tanning in summer. Tom became a world-renowned master of brain-tanning, a technique that uses the fatty acids in an animal’s brain to cure its hide into soft buckskin.
The process is labor-intensive, historically accurate, and essentially a dying art. He is one of the few people alive who practices it at any scale.
History Channel confirmed that Season 14 would be his final chapter. The heart crisis that required a defibrillator vest made the decision concrete. He and Nancy have begun spending more time in Florida during peak winter to be closer to family and healthcare.
He has expressed deep reluctance to leave the land he has spent 50 years cultivating. His final season has been a farewell tour documenting his survival methods and the partnership with Nancy that made the whole thing possible.
Preston Roberts Died in 2017 From a Liver Tumor
Preston Roberts was Tom Oar’s counterpart in the North Carolina segments, serving as the partner and stabilizing force for Eustace Conway at Turtle Island Preserve in Boone.
A master woodsman and career educator, Roberts spent 30 years teaching primitive skills and traditional building at the preserve. His gentle approach to mentorship made him one of the most quietly beloved figures in the show’s history.
He died on July 24, 2017, from complications related to an inoperable liver tumor.
The decline was catastrophically fast, moving from diagnosis to death in approximately three weeks.
He was 60 years old.
In 2026 he is remembered through the Preston Roberts Memorial Scholarship Fund, which supports young people attending the wilderness camps he dedicated his life to.
Jason Hawk Left the Show After a Cancer Diagnosis
Jason Hawk joined the series in Season 5, bringing the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas into the show’s geographic range. A master bladesmith, his most memorable moment was Season 8’s project in which he mined Ozark steel and forged a functional blade from raw materials, demonstrating the mineral wealth of the region and the patience the craft demands.
He left after Season 9 following a cancer diagnosis in 2020 that required withdrawing from the filming schedule to focus on treatment and family.
As of early 2026 he remains in Mountainburg, Arkansas, where he operates Jason Hawk Knives, producing bespoke blades for collectors and reaching a global market through his digital presence.
His current status is recovery and artistic focus.
Marty Meierotto Stepped Back to Raise His Daughter and Returned
Marty Meierotto has operated a remote cabin near the Yukon border in Alaska’s Revelation Mountains since the show began, working as a bush pilot and trapper in one of the most isolated settings in North American television.
He was an original cast member who stepped back from filming between Seasons 9 and 12 to prioritize his daughter Noah’s upbringing and his wife Dominique’s need for a family life away from camera crews.
He returned in Season 13 and remains a central figure in Season 14. His current storyline involves teaching Noah bush aviation, including a high-stakes landing sequence in recent episodes.
His focus has shifted from solo survival to the transmission of skills to the next generation, which is the natural arc for a man who has spent 14 seasons demonstrating that competence is the only real survival tool.
Eustace Conway Fought the State Over Building Codes and Won
Eustace Conway founded Turtle Island Preserve in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina in 1987 and has spent the decades since using it to teach primitive skills: blacksmithing, traditional carpentry, fire-making, and Appalachian folk medicine. His most significant moment on the show was not a survival challenge but a legal one.
In 2012, Watauga County officials issued building and health code violations that forced the preserve to close, taking issue with his hand-built log cabins, composting toilets, and the absence of modern plumbing in an educational facility.
Conway took the case to the North Carolina Building Code Council, arguing his structures were built with superior natural materials that had sustained human life for millennia.
The fight led to a bill in the North Carolina General Assembly exempting primitive educational structures from standard codes. Turtle Island reopened in June 2013.
He stepped back from the main cast after Season 12 to focus on the preserve’s long-term sustainability. In 2026 he continues to operate Turtle Island as a non-profit educational center, running workshops and managing the 1,000-acre property while carrying the loss of Preston Roberts, his partner of 30 years, who died in 2017.
Rich Lewis Retired to a Quiet Life in Montana
Rich Lewis appeared from Season 2 through Season 6 as a mountain lion hunter in Montana’s Ruby Valley, managing the balance between human settlements and large predators using a pack of specialized hunting dogs. He left the show on his own terms, stating he was getting too old for the grueling pursuit of cougars across vertical terrain.
In 2026 he lives quietly with his wife Diane in the Montana mountains. Nearly 30 years married, they have stepped back from public life entirely and have no social media presence.
His legacy on the show is that of a man who kept the valley’s predator population in balance for decades and left when the body said it was time.
Morgan Beasley Separated From Margaret and Runs Alaska Horse Tours
Morgan Beasley brought a background in Environmental Science to the show’s Alaska segments, living 165 miles from the nearest road in the Alaska Range with his partner Margaret Stern and a string of Icelandic horses capable of swimming channels and packing gear across the tundra.
His homestead is called Apricity Alaska, named for the feeling of winter sun warmth, a concept that reflects his approach to finding harmony within a harsh environment.
He and Margaret left the show after Season 8. They separated in 2022. Beasley continues to operate Apricity Alaska, which has grown into a destination for wilderness education and horse-packing tours.
He maintains a YouTube channel documenting bush life and aircraft repair, and his horse Lobba was scheduled to begin riding training in summer 2026.
He is more active in 2026 than he was during the show’s run.
Where the Show Stands in 2026
Mountain Men is currently in its 14th season on History Channel, making it one of the longest-running unscripted shows in the network’s history.
The current cast includes Marty Meierotto in Alaska, new cast members Mike Horstman on Kodiak Island, Lauro Eklund competing in the 2026 Iditarod, and the Painter family establishing an off-grid home with three young sons in Alaska.
Tom Oar’s departure closes the original era of the show. The cast that launched it in 2012 — Oar, Meierotto, Lewis, Conway — represented one generation’s approach to the wilderness.
The cast replacing them represents the next. What the show has always been about is the transmission of that knowledge before it disappears entirely.
Tom Oar leaving at 81, wearing a defibrillator vest, after 50 years in the Yaak Valley, is exactly what that looks like in practice.
