• Rich Lewis is a legendary Mountain Man and is in his early sixties.
• He grew up on a ranch and inherited his survival skills from his father and grandfather.
• He is renowned for his tracking skills and passion for hunting hats.
• He was a regular on the show "Mountain Men" but left in 2017 after claiming he was too old for mountain lion hunting.
• His net worth is estimated to be around $200,000.
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Rich Lewis appeared in the popular History network series “Mountain Men”, eventually leaving the show after the sixth season. He shared that he’s too old to hunt for mountain lions, but he still lives the wild lifestyle in the mountains. No one knows for sure what exactly made him quit the show.
Early life and family
Rich Lewis was born in Idaho USA, while the precise date of his birth is still a mystery; he looks like he is in his early sixties. Rich grew-up on a ranch, and his lifestyle has always been totally different from the way people live in the cities, but he wouldn’t trade his life even for a million dollars. Rich inherited his survival skills from his father and grandfather, who also had their houses in the mountains and lived there with their families. As of 2019, Rich lives in his house in the Ruby Valley, in southwest Montana.
Living in the wild nature
Rich: ‘If I could describe life in the mountains in one word, it would be “solitude”. Being alone out here is indescribable’, he said in one of the episodes of the show “Mountain Men”. A lot of people say he was born in the wrong time, and Rich could do nothing but agree with them, as there were no mountain men left any more. He also thinks nobody wants to live off the land. Rich works alone not having any partners, as he doesn’t like ‘baby-sitting people’, and if there’s nobody around, he can do what he has to do all by himself.
Winter is the hardest season for Rich Lewis
Living in the mountains, Rich has to battle for such simple things as water. During the winter he has to chop the ice off from the edge of the creek so he can submerge his bucket down into the water.
He said people took a lot of things for granted. While he had to water his pets, such as horses and dogs, at least twice a day, it appeared to be very hard as the water froze in around five minutes. The weather changes all the time, so Rich has to be prepared for everything. Prepping for the winter, he gets a lot of straw and uses it to warm the foundation of his house as it gets quite windy and cold. Rich says that it’s one of the cheapest ways to keep the cabin nice and warm even in the severest weather. To warm up from low temperature Rich likes to use whiskey. Even though most of the time he is preparing for the long winter, getting food, firewood, etc., he enjoys it: ‘I love it, peace and quiet, they don’t understand that. People think I’m crazy but they can think whatever they want. This is the way I’m gonna live’.
Helping the neighbors
Rich sometimes helps his neighbors, so they can also help him whenever he needs some help. Once his neighbor Cory had a lion at his yard, so Rich taught Cory the basics of how to track lion, the way lions move, so Cory could protect himself, his family and his house. Together they tracked the traces in the dirt and in the grass, and Rich said how to recognize the traces of the lion from the traces of the wolf: the wolf’s traces always have claw prints in the snow, while lions don’t use their claws while walking in the snow. In turn, Rich’s neighbors helped him to defend his own house when a mountain lion invaded his backyard.
Appearing in the “Mountain Men” series
Rich featured in four seasons of the show, becoming a cast regular in 2013. Along with Eustace Conway, Tom Oar and Marty Meierotto, Rich shared his wild nature survival skills and the secrets of his hard work of tracing the mountain lions.
During his appearance in the series, he faced various situations hunting for bobcats, lions, wolves, etc. With some assistance of his wife, Diana, Rich moves his cows around from the three-four nearby ranches and patrols them against the wolves, defending the cattle from predators. Rich is very good at seeing tracks and reads them perfectly, easily understanding the time they were left and the animal which left the tracks. In 2013 there happened to be less food for the predators in the southwestern Montana, so Rich and his wife had to keep an eye on the cows walking in the mountains, as the risk of predators’ attack was very high. In 2017 Rich claimed he was too old for mountain lion hunting and left the show, not returning for the seventh season.
No one said the climb would be easy. Are you ready for the season finale of #MountainMen? pic.twitter.com/brqeALxbqZ
— Mountain Men (@MountainMen) August 30, 2019
Perfect tracking skills
When he tracks predators, Rich puts small red pieces of fabric as flags for people to see that predators are around. He believes that animals also notice his flags, and while cows can understand there is danger out there, the wolves can also see visual warnings and smell human scent, and stay away from the area Rich has marked, so the cattle are safe. He once found a big hole in the fence some predator made, and when he studied it carefully, he could deduce that it was a black wolf by smelling and studying a small patch of fur left on the barbed wire fence.
The “Mountain Men” series’ other personalities
Launched on 31 May 2012, the “Mountain Men” series tells the story of people who have chosen to live a different lifestyle, surviving in the wild. Among the stars of the show there is Eustace Conway, the popular American naturalist, who became the subject of the book “The Last American Man” written by Elizabeth Gilbert in 2002; she is also the author of the super popular book “Eat, Pray, Love” published in 2006.
With his three siblings, Martha, Judson and Walton, Eustace lives on his Turtle Island Preserve, located in Boone, North Carolina. Marty Meierotto is another star of the series, who resides in Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska. Living with his wife Dominique and his daughter Noah in the small town of Two Rivers, Marty collects furs for living, using various kinds of traps. Another personality of the series is Tom Oar, who used to be a rodeo cowboy, but now lives on the Yaak River, Montana. He resides in a wooden cabin deep in the forests with his wife Nancy and three kids: Jack, Chad and Keelie.
Personal life, wife Diana Lewis
Rich has been married to Diana for around 25 years, as of 2019. The couple lives their wild lifestyle with joy and mutual understanding. Diana appeared in several episodes of the “Mountain Men” series, seen helping Rich with his daily routine.
She does a lot of things in the house, keeping it warm and safe, also preparing food and other supplies for the winter months. Nothing is known about Diana and Rich’s kids, they never mentioned any details about their descendants (if there are any).
Hobbies, favorite things and interesting facts
Rich likes horses and loves riding – his horse is named Rusty, and is a registered Quarter Horse, which is a special breed that excels at sprinting short and is very agile. Rich sometimes compares his horse with a Cadillac, as he considers Rusty to be an old-fashioned horse. He has to shoe his horse around three times a season, which he does himself. He also enjoys his life because when he doesn’t want to work and prefers to play, he can easily skip some work and go and have some fun with his dogs, etc. Among the few modern things Rich uses in his life is his truck.
The truck helps him to get to his dogs as fast as he can when they follow a predator, and move up to 10 miles away from home, so they can get into danger – Rich needs to be around, and not have his dogs killed by mountain lions. Of course, when his Wilbur truck broke down, he had to fix it himself ASAP! He couldn’t just call out for help.
Rich is a true fan of cougars, timber wolves and bobcats hunt. He lost one of his dogs in a fight with a mountain lion, and another dog faced a serious life or death situation while tracking a lion. ‘It’s a big relief to see your dogs come back’, shares Rich in one of the episodes of the show. He also says that whenever a lion killsa dog, the master would never know it, as there is no sign – the dog is just lost in the timber.
Appearance, clothing style
Rich had very curly light brown hair and bright blue eyes. He wears a beard and moustache. Rich is 5ft 8ins (1.80m) tall and weighs around 176lbs (80kgs). His clothing style is very unique, as he is famous for his passion for hunting hats, decorating them hats with the fangs and claws of various predators he’s killed. One of the unique accessories he uses to decorate his hats is multi-colored dice – according to Rich, they bring luck.
Net worth and salary
As of 2019, Rich doesn’t appear in the “Mountain Man” show. He does mountain lion hunting for a living, but the amount of his monthly income is not known, although his net worth is estimated at close to $200,000, similar to Tom Oar. His TV show colleague Eustace Conway has accumulated wealth of $2 million, earning around $130,000 per year from his wildlife activities such as logging, hunting, etc. and from his appearances in the “Mountain Man” series.
2 Comments
the new cast members are horrid little celeb wanna be – especially the new tracker guy that has taken rich’s spot. all he does is use profanity – wish the original 4 were the only ones on show.
I’m curious what happened to Rich Lewis on Mountain Men. He was a great character and I’m sad to see him go.