Alone Season 4 - Now!

[ChillPlayer]

Could not believe my eyes when I saw that episode 00 of the 4th season of the best survival show ever is already out. This time they are back on Vancouver Island, guess Patagonia was a bit too easy with what, 8 people still going on past day 50?

And there's twist, they are not surviving alone but together with a family member. One stays at a place, the other is dropped off 10 miles away with only a compass for navigational aid which he has to use to find the other. I'm very excited to see how this plays out

[ChillPlayer]

I think this will be an intense season predator-wise, on the first day one already had a Fluffy moment, a wolf noticed her and walked towards her up until he was 50m or so away, then he went into the woods, behind her shelter...

The other had a bear encounter while sleeping with nothing but a tarp to "protect" him, the bear horn did not seem to impressthe bear very much.

[Timber Wolf]

Oh yeah!  Thanks for the heads up, @ChillPlayer!  I'm watching the first episode right now.

[Sivivor]

I love that the Alone producers have changed it up this season, i think its working well. The grueling hike to find teammates has weeded out the fearful and weaker contestants.

This is a fantastic show, for those who havent watched any of Alone the previous seasons are well worth a watch.

 

My money is on the husband and wife team

 

[decon]

None of them, 4 seasons now, have had a clue.  If I were on the show, there's no way I'd do that hike with 60 lbs of stuff. I'd cache at least half of it up in  a tree, blaze a trail as I went, and come back for it later. This taking 8+ days to cover 10 lousy miles is the BUNK, man.  It's not like it's on Mt Everest.  Use the legs of your rain pants as water carriers, so you dont have to side track to get water, waste time catching rain, boiling water, putting up shelters, etc. take the 10x10 "camera" tarp, your kukri "belt knife" ferrorod, pack, 3.5 lbs of the 4 lbs of rations, a couple of gallons of water, half of the duct tape (roll it onto a stick). Immediately make and use a pair of trekking poles. Use spare clothing and the tape to provide extra support for your knees and ankles.  After the first day and night, the camper partner should start sending up (agreed upon)  smoke signals. With all this going for you, you'll hook up in 2-3 days, not 8-10 days.  Both of you should carbo-load before you go. The terrain/climate is so difficult that the hiker will have to have eaten the 3.5 lbs of rations by the end of the 3rd day, so he'd damned well better  have found his buddy by the end of day 4! And the buddy damned well better have caught a lot of fish and fowl by then, boiled a lot of water to drink, set up a little tarp shelter,  set out the small log rafts with the 8 treble hooks, for gulls and ducks, converted the  4 tined fishing arrowheads into 32 fishhooks and have set  them  out as floating setups for fish., unraveled the gillnet, removed the outer sheathing from the paracord, and started weaving the 3" mesh netting.

[decon]

why do people "think" that a mere 20m of paracord is good to have, and value a gillnet, (75 sq ft of 1.5" mesh) but do NOT value having  600m of paracord, by unraveling a paracord gillnet and paracord hammock.  ?  you can make  2000 sq ft of 3" mesh netting with the inner strands of that much paracord. If you want the (much too small) 1.5" mesh, all you have to do is fold the 3" mesh back onto itself,and tie it here and there, and it will be  1000 sq ft of 1.5" mesh.  On a sea coast, without a lot of bait, the only way to catch a lo of fish (you need to catch at least  10 lbs per day, per person) is to have a LOT of netting. If you catch enough fish, you can use their guts as bait, and catch a LOT more fish. Then you can use their guts as bait to arrow a bear, from a tree platform/blind. It IS allowed, to take 2 bears per person on Vancouver, if you get the licenses beforehand.

[decon]

Bear meet has the tremendous advantage of having FAT, but it will require you to have lots of salt to properly cure that meat. You can recover a lb of salt per day, by boiling off lots of seawater. In  2 weeks, 2 of you can be QUITE ready to preserve that bear's meat. Black bears average weighing  only 200 lbs, since many will be juveniles, or females.  400 lbs if a HUGE male, guys, even when fattened up for hibernation.

[decon]

Except for 4 who  have been injured, and one dummy who drank untreated water, half a dozen who've been terrified of the bears, and the 5 winners, the rest of the 44 entrants (3 seaons) have tapped out because they could not feed themselves. With the exception of Dave McIntire, winner of season 2, they've all starved. Dave starved his first month, but then got lucky, found some flotsam-rope, wove a net and managed to feed himself ok during his second month. Yet none have bothered to learn how to extract what food is there,  At most a dozen have taken a bow or slingshot. The slingshots have scored ONE small bird and that's all.  Nobody has hit anything with an arrow, and nobody has trapped anything but fish, a couple of small birds and a couple of mice. None have known to take one of Chief Aj's slingbows, which can use arrows, pebbles, or baked clay balls.

[decon]

With a couple of exceptions, they all (stupidly) have taken a 2 qt pot. A couple have known to take a 4 qt skillet. But seasons 1 and 2 had the option of taking a 2 gallon (metal, homemade) bear canister.  Nobody took one, cause the only type that's commercially available were made out of fiberglass, and thus, no help at cooking. Well, History HAS allowed some customized tools to enter, so they should have taken the metal bear canister, but nobody was thinking strategically.

[decon]

You have to catch a lot of ducks, gulls and fish, so that you'll have the guts as bait for more, and as bait so that you can arrow bears from your tree platform/blind. Once you show the producers that you're not losing weight, and you've got  say,  300 lbs of preserved food, and everyone else is starving, they'll just declare you the winner. Only illness or injury could take you out, and with all that food, you can just "hole-up", in your shelter and sleeping bag. Since no fire is needed, you wont have to risk gathering/hauling firewood, or fishing/hunting/trapping. So the odds are easily 10 to 1 that you'll win at that point. the producers want the show ended in  one month. of real time, cause it reduces their expenses. The more productive you are, the sooner you'll win, which means you can clear 8k per day, instead of just 4k per day.

[decon]

if you're really scared of bears, why aint you in a hammock,  15 ft up in a tree, the first night, and the next day, make a ladder and tree platform to sleep on? why aint you made a spear? One of your arrowheads can be a spear point. Why have only 8 or so taken a bow (out of 37 entrants?) Why not have  fire on 4 sides of you, if you're so scared?