History’s “Mountain Men” is one of those shows which people can’t stop loving, regardless of how much time passes. That also happens to the stars of the show, who season after season have gained their audiences’ hearts by showing the best and the worst sides of life up in the most isolated mountains of America.
For his part, Marty Meierotto became one of the most well-known stars of the show not only for his impressive survival skills and piloting prowess, but also for his sense of humor and dedication to his family. Marty left the show after eight seasons, but is still well remembered and acclaimed by “Mountain Men”’s audiences today.
So what’s going on with Marty these days and why did he leave in the first place? Does he have any plans to return to the show or has left that chapter of his life behind for good? Keep watching to find out!
It wasn’t good news for anyone to see Marty Meirotto leave “Mountain Men” in the eighth season, but it was a decision that he seemed convinced to be the right one at the time. As Marty confessed in front of cameras during one of his last appearances, he planned to spend more quality time with his daughter Noah Jane, and considered that TV cameras would interfere with that.
Noah, who was 13 years old then, was set on being taught the best trapline skills in the winter following leaving the show. That situation made Marty reconsider whether he wanted his family time getting disrupted by TV cameras, eventually concluding it would be ‘the best’ for everyone if he left the show.
Despite his decision, Marty openly expressed his gratitude for being featured in the show for so long, saying: ‘I’m glad we got to tell a story and I hope it’s helped people understand what it’s really like out here’.
Marty’s exit from “Mountain Men” in 2019 coincided with his retirement from the Alaska Fire Service, having worked for 31 years as a pilot, hotshot, and smokejumper. This makes his decision to spend more quality time with his family all the more understandable.
Since leaving “Mountain Men” in 2019, Marty Meirotto has been particularly absent from social media. His Facebook public page hasn’t been updated since 2021, and his Instagram account’s most recent post is from 2020. This inevitably makes his followers wonder what’s going on with him these days, whether he’s still trapping in Alaska, or if he eventually chose a different path of life.
Much to the joy and surprise of his fans, Marty came out of retirement to star in the first season of “Mountain Men: Alaska”, which premiered in late 2023. This new installment of the show features Marty’s adventures in the wild, though this time he’s not alone anymore but accompanied by his daughter Noah Jane, who was 16 years old by the time the spin-off premiered.
While it’s unclear what led Marty to return to TV, it’s good news for everyone to see him doing as well as ever.
Besides the comeback of Marty Meirotto to TV, fans of “Mountain Men” gladly welcomed the premiere of the spin-off “Alaska” in November 2023.
The show’s first season featured a snow-covered Marty on its promo cover, openly showcasing him as the main star. Besides Marty, Mike Horstman is another well-known face to take the spotlight in “Mountain Men”. He’s an experienced hunter who lives on Kodiak Island, and has gained lots of popularity since debuting in the main show’s seventh season.
Other cast members of the show are the couple Ivy O’Guinn and Bret Bohn, a taxidermist and a pilot. There’s also Daniel Peters, who struggles to provide for his new family through trapping, and the father and son team of husky racers Neil and Lauro Eklund.
“Mountain Men: Alaska” isn’t the first spin-off of the franchise, as back in 2022 “Mountain Men: Ultimate Marksman” had already premiered. Unfortunately, it’s unclear whether the new show will be renewed, but it’s great to see Marty again nonetheless.
From an early age, Marty Meierotto was inclined to establish a life in the outdoors. As History’s website revealed in the earliest seasons of “Mountain Men”, Marty’s first call to a life off-the-grid was at eight years old when his father took him trapping, immediately awakening a wish which he finally made a reality at 25 years old, when he took some of his belongings and flew from Wisconsin to Alaska with not much more than $10 in his pocket.
We usually just use the weather app on our phone, but to each their own. #MountainMenAlaska pic.twitter.com/qPUniUn4u4
— Mountain Men (@MountainMen) December 28, 2023
Though Marty’s choice wasn’t one to take lightly, he accomplished many of his goals after arriving in Alaska. For one, he became a member of the Alaska Fire Service, where he worked as a pilot but also made a career as a hotshot and smokejumper.
The latter job is not only to be taken lightly, as it consists of parachuting to perform wildland firefighting duties. According to a post by the Alaska Fire Service, Marty was one of the only four people who completed the smokejumper training course in 1995. For the next five years, it was only Marty and another person who worked as smokejumpers in Alaska.
Long before Marty Meirotto became a TV star, he was already well-known in Alaska by fellow survivalists, pilots, and firefighters. According to a 2012 article by Trapper Magazine, Marty had written several articles for the magazine Trapper & Predator Caller, on top of being featured on the cover of Field & Stream as ‘Alaska’s toughest trapper’ in February 2010.
In the latter interview, Marty affirmed that he wasn’t as pleased with either the title the magazine had promoted with him or the ‘term’ survivalist’. He also confessed that his lifestyle had slightly changed following the birth of his daughter Noah Jane, leading him to spend some time away from the trapline to visit his family.
In the end, Marty’s reasons for choosing Alaska as his home come down to his philosophy of life. As he revealed in a 2010 article, all the hard work and sometimes gruesome conditions of his job and lifestyle are worth it, because of the experiences and memories he’s had. This leaves us with not only a clear image of who Marty is as a person, but also explains the reasons behind his exit and eventual return to “Mountain Men”.