narrator: In the wild, the right skills
can make the difference between life and death.
- [groans]
narrator: Now, some of "Alone's" best competitors
are taking on a new mission.
- This is like some Indiana Jones-type stuff.
narrator: They'll have just three days...
- Whoa.
narrator: And limited tools...
- Here's the fun part.
narrator: For a build challenge
devised by one of their own.
- Time is ticking.
narrator: At stake for the winner--
- Whoo. narrator: bragging rights.
- You guys have your work cut out for you.
narrator: Tonight's challengers--
Joel Van Der Loon,
40-day survivor from season 7...
- Oh, this is really good fried.
narrator: Lucas Miller,
39-day survivor from season 1...
- This place is unbelievable.
narrator: And Clay Hayes...
- My God. [animal growls]
narrator: 74-day survivor and winner of season 8.
- I love it. I love it.
narrator: Let the challenge begin.
- Oh, my God, that's disgusting.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Hi. I'm Callie
from season 3 of "Alone,"
and I spent 72 days
living in the wilderness in Patagonia.
Boo-yah, baby. We got fish.
I am really excited about today's challenge
for Joel, Clay, and Lucas.
I wanted to try something a little different this time.
♪ ♪
Good luck, guys.
- No idea what we're gonna get into here.
- Let's open this thing up.
♪ ♪
- "Starting now with no tools...
[chuckles] "Except whatever is in your pockets,
you must survive 48 hours in the wild."
Huh.
No tools at all?
- Oh, wow.
- Leave it to Callie to send us out in the woods with nothing.
- Well, I got a lav mic in my pocket, and that's it.
So that's pretty much not gonna help me.
- I've got a hat.
Got my car keys with a fire striker on it.
I've got a canteen that I tend to carry.
I've got a blade.
♪ ♪
- The only thing that I have in my pocket today
is my multitool.
That's it.
Should have put some paracord in there.
- "To complete this challenge,
"you must build a shelter
"to keep you warm and dry for two nights,
"start or maintain at least one fire
"to keep you warm,
"purify and drink at least 2 quarts of water,
and forage for at least 500 calories of food."
This is kind of crazy.
- I should have ate breakfast this morning--damn it.
- Okay, Callie, challenge accepted.
♪ ♪
- Oh, my God.
Huckleberries, yes.
All right, it's pretty hot today.
I'm gonna need some water before long.
So I'm gonna have to get that figured out.
But I'm gonna take a few of these with me.
There's lots of water around here,
but there's also lots of cattle.
And I'm not super stoked
about just dipping water out of that creek.
So what I'm gonna do is dig a seepage basin,
or a coyote well.
The idea is to dig a hole in this wet soil
and let the earth filter that water
by seeping through the soil.
You're looking at this saying,
"Oh, my God, that's disgusting."
It is.
I'm gonna have to go find a cedar tree.
And then I'm gonna line this thing.
So I'm gonna strip the bark off of this thing.
All right.
So these hoops should expand
and hold that cedar bark out, just like so.
♪ ♪
I don't know-- I can't tell any difference
between this and what comes out of my well at the house.
♪ ♪
- I'm trying to build
a shelter that's gonna keep me warm enough
with just my body heat and no fire.
♪ ♪
I've got no tools.
So I'm gonna have to break this by hand.
If I can't, I ain't using it.
♪ ♪
There's a lot of dead grass,
and I can pull all of this stuff out for my insulation.
[grunts]
I've built many, many of these and spent many nights in them.
All right, there we have it, folks.
I think I'm gonna switch my attention to drink,
because if I don't drink in the next few hours,
things are not gonna be pretty.
♪ ♪
- So my first priorities here
are trying not to sweat too much,
getting out of the sun.
I'd prefer a rock shelter if I could find one.
I could just focus on building a bed and a fire.
♪ ♪
I think it's worth checking.
♪ ♪
What I hope I don't find is a cougar.
♪ ♪
So I got a little deceived.
Does that look like a cave to you?
Sure doesn't to me.
Striking out. [sighs] Waste energy.
So I'm gonna make a debris shelter--
just make something really simple.
♪ ♪
It's just hot.
So I kind of have a problem.
♪ ♪
My water's getting pretty low.
♪ ♪
I need a way to purify water.
So I'm gonna take a risk, deconstruct my canteen,
and hopefully not break it.
♪ ♪
Look at this...
♪ ♪
My beloved ostrich egg.
Now that I have a way to boil water,
I'm gonna go find water in the desert.
There's little places that water might pool.
Here's one, but it's empty.
Everything's been evaporating.
You can't mess around out here in the desert.
It's for real.
This place can kill you.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Just get it right, I guess.
♪ ♪
Oh.
Check it out.
That's a knife blade right there.
That's perfect.
At this point, I am so ready to drink some water.
But I don't have a pot.
So I'm going to have to make a container
out of the river birch bark.
Two days without water, I'll really be hurting.
♪ ♪
So let's fold up the sides.
♪ ♪
I'll try some split sticks to clamp the ends together.
So I think I'm just gonna go give this
the test in the water, and let's see if it holds.
♪ ♪
It leaks everywhere.
Well, I'm gonna have to pivot
and change my plan on this one.
♪ ♪
- Time is of the essence.
I need to get water in me.
If not, it puts me in a pretty big world of hurt.
And I don't even know if I can move forward
with any of my tasks.
♪ ♪
[bleep].
♪ ♪
Oh, we have a little tiny bit of water.
♪ ♪
That is gold.
♪ ♪
It's so low, I can't quite get at it.
But I need to get water in me.
♪ ♪
I'm getting cleaner water, which is nice.
♪ ♪
It's still a risk.
I'm still putting foreign bacteria in my mouth,
but at least I'm not ingesting it into my entire system.
♪ ♪
Okay.
So I've got one container, which is about a half a quart.
But I don't want to drink it as is.
So boiling water is one of the safest ways
to have purified water.
Welcome, father fire.
I'm just gonna start small with this.
Whoo.
See? Simple.
♪ ♪
Life.
♪ ♪
[chuckles]
I never thought I'd have to work so hard
for a drink of water.
♪ ♪
- Got the squirrels all around me.
So I'll set multiple snares.
♪ ♪
The idea I have is like a Paiute trigger.
♪ ♪
When the squirrel comes out,
he's gonna see this stick in front of his burrow
and try to push it out of the way.
When he does, this toggle is gonna come out from that fork.
Pew.
And hopefully he's gonna be in the snare.
Guess we'll let him go to work.
♪ ♪
- We've got about four hours of daylight left.
I need a drink before the end of the day.
So I'm digging a seep well.
This is about 10 feet away from the water's edge,
and it'll seep through the earth into that hole.
♪ ♪
This is arduous 'cause I don't have a shovel.
[sighs] All right, I'm probably about two feet down.
Check how clear this water is.
♪ ♪
Oh.
♪ ♪
It tastes really good.
Oh, man.
Oh.
I need a lot more of that.
♪ ♪
- I'm gonna build my shelter
underneath this big cedar tree.
Not trying to make something waterproof,
just trying to make a little bit of a wind barrier.
All right.
It's time to make a fire.
This is elderberry.
It's a fantastic bow drill material.
I can do a friction fire with just my multitool,
use my boot lace as a cordage for a bow drill.
Mm-hmm.
Got my handhold.
Got my bow, spindle, and a fire board.
Starting slow.
Come on, come on, come on.
♪ ♪
Ah, I just lost it.
Damn.
- Okay, time to build the door
'cause I got to trap that body heat in tonight.
♪ ♪
There we go, very quick and easy door.
- Night's starting to creep in,
and shelter is on the back burner
because it doesn't look like it's gonna rain.
I am starting to feel a tiny bit hungry.
Tomorrow, priority number one-- to find more water.
- It cools off pretty quickly at night.
I can get pretty chilled.
So I've got to get a fire going and maintain that.
There we go.
♪ ♪
It'd be nice to have a freakin' long-sleeve shirt...
Or a blanket.
♪ ♪
- So last night wasn't the most comfortable sleep.
I got hit by a scorpion.
Pretty red and swollen.
But it's definitely not a mosquito bite.
They look much different.
And it makes sense with the environment that I'm in.
This is, like, scorpion heaven.
I reached with my other hand, half asleep,
to just brush whatever it was off,
and got smoked on my finger, too.
But it feels like...
buzzy electrical heat.
Like, I touch it, and it's like, bzz,
especially on my finger.
It feels like I'm being electrocuted
every time I touch it.
I'm envenomated to some degree.
It's mostly a pain situation.
It's not like I'm gonna lose my limb, I don't think.
So I need to find a medicine that's good for it.
♪ ♪
So prickly pear is absolute magic for burns.
It's been used traditionally for snake bites, even,
with great success.
Great. So we got that.
So what I'm doing is cutting this prickly pear
like two pieces of sandwich bread.
♪ ♪
And I'm gonna start to scrape the pulp out.
♪ ♪
Okay, that looks to be a good amount of medicine.
♪ ♪
And I'm gonna use that pulp,
kind of smear it all over that area.
It pulls out so much heat and toxins and gunk.
♪ ♪
It already, like, feels instantly cooler.
♪ ♪
- This is exactly what I'm looking for.
This is a mullein stalk. This is a great hand drill.
♪ ♪
[grunts, breathing heavily]
I love how friction fire can humble a person.
[grunts]
Getting blisters.
♪ ♪
Oh, well, that's not good.
Crazy, because the one thing
I was so confident about was fire.
♪ ♪
- Last night it got cold.
I'm gonna redo the shelter...
♪ ♪
Put a heat reflector right here.
♪ ♪
That'll be much better, I think.
♪ ♪
I wanted to make one loop around and check the snares.
♪ ♪
And still set.
I don't see any tails sticking out.
♪ ♪
This one right here...
Look at that. There's a damn squirrel.
Hot damn.
♪ ♪
Freakin' sweet.
This is the last--
This snare was an afterthought.
This was, like, the last one that I set.
♪ ♪
- So I want to continue finishing my shelter.
But I'm also feeling a little hungry, which is a good sign.
I'm starting to get moisture back in me.
So I'm gonna work on a little bit of food around here.
These are amaranth microgreens,
and they're perfect for cooking up like spinach.
It's a absolute superfood.
♪ ♪
I wish it had a little salt, but...
[thunder rumbles]
- Oh, [bleep].
♪ ♪
There's a big, bad monsoon rolling in.
♪ ♪
That, my friends, makes my heart go pitter-patter
in a survival situation.
My ace in the hole is that overhang that I found.
It isn't perfect, but it's dry.
♪ ♪
Okay, I've got firewood
to last through the cold parts of the night.
The rain is starting to happen.
♪ ♪
I'm hightailing it to the cave ASAP.
To the cave, to the cave, Batman.
♪ ♪
- So I've got a bow right here with my shoelace tied onto it.
♪ ♪
[grunts]
♪ ♪
Oh, my goodness, that is a relief.
I'm gonna get up nice and early
and see if I can go and catch me some food.
♪ ♪
- That shelter's not finished.
But it's raining out there.
It's not raining in here.
♪ ♪
- Oh, yeah. Ah, that's hot.
[bleep], that's hot.
♪ ♪
Tastes like chicken.
- Tomorrow I have until 10:00
to get more calories and water in me.
This is a tough, brutal place.
Do not come here unprepared.
♪ ♪
- [groaning]
Well, I'm gonna lay here a little bit longer,
and then I'll spread this fire out,
go home, and get a hot cup of coffee.
♪ ♪
I hope Callie likes what I've done this round--
living in the woods with the nature sound.
But sleeping on the ground
and rolling round
makes me glad to be homeward bound.
♪ ♪
- I see a crawfish in the water,
and this is an area that has some cattails, too.
So I'm just gonna focus on gathering food here.
[dramatic music]
[groans]
♪ ♪
Ha ha.
One down, one in the pot.
Ah! [chuckles]
It got my damn finger.
♪ ♪
Got you, you little bugger.
And we are crawdad rich.
It's cattail time.
♪ ♪
Hitting the jackpot.
I've got load of cattail roots.
I'm also gonna pick a few more handfuls of berries.
Look at that beautiful wild food.
Mmm.
♪ ♪
So good.
Lobster tail.
♪ ♪
Pincers...
♪ ♪
Take it all.
What a challenge this has been.
I hope that that met the mark.
This is amazing.
♪ ♪
- I spent the night in the cave.
Yeah, it was all right.
It rained last night.
So what I'm hoping to find are puddles of water.
♪ ♪
Ooh, I like the butterflies. It's a good sign.
♪ ♪
Oh, yeah.
I have just hit the desert jackpot.
[vocalizing angelically]
I'm going to double down
and do both food and water at the same time.
In my opinion, mesquite beans
are one of the easiest-to-process wild foods.
So I'm gonna make just a mesquite hot beverage.
Look how sticky that is.
♪ ♪
So all these sugars are just gonna break down in the water.
There we go.
Perfect.
It smells like fresh-baked graham crackers.
♪ ♪
Oh, that is so good.
♪ ♪
All right, Callie.
It's time to choose.
♪ ♪
- I really enjoyed this challenge.
I felt like all three of them tackled it really well
in really different ways
based on what their bioregion was.
So first off was Lucas.
Lucas spent a lot of the challenge
focused on water,
which is really important in the Sonoran Desert.
But as such, it meant that he wasn't able to get
his shelter up before the rain came.
- To the cave, to the cave.
- I loved to see how he gathered wild foods,
and it looked really delicious.
Nice work, Lucas.
Clay never fails to impress.
He used his ingenuity
with the shoelace to snare that squirrel.
Good on you, Clay.
He wasn't quite warm enough the first night.
I think that was really smart
to pivot when he needed to pivot.
But, ultimately, you're expending more calories.
I really loved Clay's well,
how he lined it with the bark.
I had never seen that done before.
Now we have Joel.
- Oh.
- I was impressed by the fact
that he was the only one to go into the challenge
without a tool.
He built a warm debris hut.
He had a really nice seep well.
And I loved that he was able to gather
a well-balanced meal.
- Mmm.
- All three of these guys did incredible.
♪ ♪
But because Lucas didn't build a shelter,
which was a part of the requirements,
he's unfortunately out of the running.
So I'm very torn between Clay and Joel.
But, ultimately, there can only be one winner...
♪ ♪
Joel.
He really showed how you could live
off the land with no tools and feel like you're thriving.
So congratulations, Joel. You are the winner.
- Thanks for choosing me, Callie.
I had such a great time out there.
It was quite a humbling, engaging experience
to have absolutely no tools
other than what I could find from the land
and using my two hands.
So I really enjoyed my time.
♪ ♪