Everything Sam Larson Carried to Win Alone Season 5

Spoiler note: this covers who won season 5.

Sam Larson, a wilderness skills instructor from Lincoln, Nebraska, won season 5, subtitled "Redemption," by surviving 60 days in the Khonin Nuga valley of Mongolia's Selenge Province, the longest run among the season's ten returning contestants. He'd been on the show before. On season 1, Larson finished runner-up after voluntarily tapping out at day 55, having hit his self-set goal of 50 days before a major storm helped push him to stop at 55. Four years later he came back to finish the job.

The ten items he brought to season 5

Item	What he brought	Verified
Axe	Hults Bruk felling axe	Yes
Ferro rod	No brand specified in the record	Yes
Multi-tool	Leatherman (sources disagree on exact model, Surge vs. Super Tool)	Yes
Paracord	~80 meters, assorted colors	Yes
Pot	GSI enamel cook pot, 2 quart	Yes
Rations	2 lbs flour	Yes
Rations	2 lbs trail mix / GORP	Yes
Saw	Bob Dustrude 21" Quick Buck folding saw	Yes
Sleeping bag	Wiggy's Antarctic, -60°F rated	Yes
Snare wire	20 gauge	Yes

The full list carries a "gear complete" flag in our records. It's laid out the same way on Larson's season 5 contestant page.

What he changed since season 1

Larson's season 1 loadout leaned toward hunting and fishing: a self-made axe with a vintage head and ash handle, a 45 lb recurve bow with hand-made arrows, a slingshot, a fishing kit with 300 yards of line, and a canvas trapper-style sleeping bag. None of that carried over directly. For season 5 he swapped the DIY axe for a Hults Bruk, dropped the bow, slingshot, and fishing kit entirely, and carried flour and trail mix instead, betting on foraged and gathered calories plus whatever the snare wire brought in rather than active hunting or fishing. The biggest single change was the sleeping bag: a -60°F rated bag replaced the canvas trapper bag, a straightforward upgrade for a contestant who already knew exactly how cold his first island got at night.

That's a meaningfully different strategy, not just better versions of the same tools. Dropping three food-acquisition items (bow, slingshot, fishing kit) to make room for pre-packed rations and a warmer sleep system reads like someone optimizing for calorie efficiency and sleep quality over active foraging, likely informed by exactly what went wrong, or at least what felt hardest, the first time around.

The finish

Season 5's field narrowed as runner-up Britt Ahart tapped out at day 56 and third-place Larry Roberts tapped out at day 41, both citing missing their families. Larson outlasted both to take the season's $500,000 prize. On season 1, he'd finished behind eventual winner Alan Kay, whose own gear and run are covered in our season 1 winner post, and if you want to see what's happened since his second win, our where-is-he-now piece covers that.

Two runs, two different kits, one lesson: the "right" gear list depends heavily on what a contestant already knows about the specific way they tend to struggle. For how the item rules work across every season and format, see alone-rules.