''Mountain Monsters'' is an American

cryptozoology Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience and subculture that searches for and studies unknown, legendary, or extinct animals whose present existence is disputed or unsubstantiated, particularly those popular in folklore, such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness ...

-themed

reality television Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring ordinary people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 1990s ...

series airing on

Travel Channel Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television television channel, channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, who previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in Manhattan, with ...

. It originally premiered on June 22, 2013, on

Destination America Destination America is an American cable television channel owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks unit of Warner Bros. Discovery. The network carries programming focused on the culture of the United States—including food, lifestyles, a ...

. The series follows the Appalachian Investigators of Mysterious Sightings (A.I.M.S) team, a band of six native

West Virginia West Virginia is a mountainous U.S. state, state in the Southern United States, Southern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.The United States Census Bureau, Census Bureau and the Association of American ...

n hunters and trappers, as they research and track unidentified creatures in the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a mountain range in eastern to northeastern North America. The term "Appalachian" refers to several different regions associated with the mountain range, and its surrounding terrain ...

. A spinoff series titled ''Mountain Monsters: By The Fire'' features extra facts and never-before-seen footage from different episodes of the series. The series aired for five seasons on Destination America. After an 18-month hiatus, it was announced that the series was renewed for a sixth season and would be moving to Travel Channel. In 2021 it was announced that a TV special titled ''Mountain Monsters: A Tribute to Trapper'' would premiere on January 3, 2021. It was also announced that the seventh season will premiere on January 10, 2021. It was announced shortly after the premiere of Season 7 that new episodes would be streaming exclusively on

Discovery+ Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discov ...

. The official Mountain Monsters Instagram account revealed on December 10, 2021, that an eighth season would premiere in January 2022. The season premiered on 2 January 2022 and ran for 10 episodes, ending its run on 13 March 2022. In September 2024, Buck said that the series would not be returning for a ninth season. The series will end after eight seasons and 79 episodes. In the eighth season finale, the series ends with a cliffhanger.

Premise

The A.I.M.S team is a self-styled,

research team founded by West Virginians John "Trapper" Tice, Jeff Headlee, and Willy McQuillian. Their goal is to prove the existence of mysterious creatures such as

Bigfoot Bigfoot (), also commonly referred to as Sasquatch (), is a large, hairy Mythic humanoids, mythical creature said to inhabit forests in North America, particularly in the Pacific Northwest.Example definitions include: *"A large, hairy, manlike ...

Wampus cat The wampus cat is a cat-like creature in American folklore that varies widely in appearance, ranging from frightful to comical, depending on region. Description Early references from the American Dialect Society described the wampus cat as "a ...

Werewolf In folklore, a werewolf (), or occasionally lycanthrope (from Ancient Greek ), is an individual who can shapeshifting, shapeshift into a wolf, or especially in modern film, a Shapeshifting, therianthropic Hybrid beasts in folklore, hybrid wol ...

Hellhound A hellhound is a mythological hound that embodies a guardian or a servant of hell, the devil, or the underworld. Hellhounds occur in mythologies around the world, with the best-known examples being Cerberus from Greek mythology, Garmr from Nor ...

, Lizard Man, and

Mothman In American folklore, Mothman is a humanoid creature that was reportedly seen around Point Pleasant, West Virginia, from November 15, 1966, to December 15, 1967. Despite its name, the original sightings of the creature described avian features ...

. The episodes normally begin with Trapper, Jeff, Huckleberry, and Buck discussing the specific creature they are hunting on the way to the location where the creature was spotted. They then meet with eyewitnesses who have encountered the creature, giving the team an idea of where to conduct an initial night investigation to find evidence of the creature being in the area. After concluding their initial night hunt, Willy and Wild Bill begin work on a trap to contain the creature while the rest of the team searches for more evidence, meeting with additional eyewitnesses who normally possess photographic, video, or audio evidence of the creature. After testing the completed trap the team begins the final night hunt. Cryptids such as the Cave Creature, Chupacabra, Wildman (Bigfoot), Waya Woman and the Smoke Wolf are sometimes supposedly caught on camera. They are also shown as a

digital rendering Rendering is the process of generating a photorealistic or non-photorealistic image from input data such as 3D models. The word "rendering" (in one of its senses) originally meant the task performed by an artist when depicting a real or imag ...

appearing before and after commercial breaks. The team attempts to capture these creatures (with Hogzilla, three Devil Dogs and two wolves from the

Tygart Valley The Tygart Valley River — also known as the Tygart River — is a principal tributary of the Monongahela River, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed ...

being their most recent trapped creatures). In some instances, the team places trail cameras and/or infrared camcorders near the trap to capture photographic evidence of the creature in question. They have caught fleeting, blurry images of what they claim to be the Grassman, Shadow Creature, Cherokee Death Cat, Black Wolf and the Bigfoot from the Tygart Valley on camera, to name but a few. More recently a recurring rogue team has spied on and sabotaged the A.I.M.S team and their investigations. But the Rogue Team did not have much involvement in the show's 6th season, which focused more on the team hunting monsters like in the earlier seasons. As of the 7th season, Trapper has died. The remaining team continued to hunt cryptids in his memory.

Cast members

Production

Prior to the season six premiere, John "Trapper" Tice announced that he would have limited involvement due to a myriad of serious health issues. He made a minor appearance in the first episode of the season where he was visited by Huckleberry and Buck to whom he expressed the severity of his situation. He made one more brief appearance in the season's eighth episode. Tice died on December 16, 2019.

Series overview

After the merger with Discovery,

Max Max or MAX may refer to: Animals * Max (American dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog * Max (British dog), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of the OBE) * Max (gorilla) ...

made the series available for streaming, but concatenated the first two seasons into Season 1, the second two into Season 2, and then proceeds with the rest of the series numbered from there. It was announced that after 8 seasons the show would not return for a 9th season.

Episodes

Season 1: (2013)

Season 2: (2014)

Season 3: Bigfoot Edition Part 1 (2015)

Season 4: Bigfoot Edition Part 2 (2016)

Season 5: Secrets of the Dark Forest (2017)

Season 6: The Quest for Spearfinger (2019)

Season 7: The Mission from Trapper (Tygart Valley Part 1) (2021)

Season 8: Tygart Valley Mysteries (Tygart Valley Part 2) (2022)

''Finding Bigfoot'' feud

On April 5, 2015, Matt Moneymaker of ''

Finding Bigfoot ''Finding Bigfoot'' is an American reality television series on Animal Planet that follows a team of four researchers investigating potential evidence for Bigfoot, a human or ape-like mythical creature alleged by some to inhabit the North American ...

'' tweeted that ''Mountain Monsters'' was scripted and the A.I.M.S. team were merely actors. "Trapper" John Tice responded to the tweet, denying that he was an actor and referring to Moneymaker's show as "Losing Bigfoot". The online feud has continued with ''Finding Bigfoot'' castmember Cliff Barackman chiming in that the show is "fiction" and the official ''Finding Bigfoot'' Twitter account calling ''Mountain Monsters'' a "fake-hoax" show in regards to the series' April 2017 return.

References

External links

* {{Destination America programming 2013 American television series debuts 2022 American television series endings 2010s American reality television series 2020s American reality television series Cryptozoological television series Destination America original programming American English-language television shows Travel Channel original programming