The Salt Block on Alone: What Contestants Actually Use

Salt has no documented official rule of its own on Alone's approved list, and the item catalog labels it "rarely-picked" based on an outside gear roundup. The season-by-season data backs up the rarity but not the extremity of it: of the 187 contestants across every US, Australian, and spinoff season, 101 have a recorded gear list, and 9 of those 101 carried some form of salt, either as a labeled block or as a plain listed ration. That is a small slice of the field, but it includes two winners, which is a stronger showing than the reputation implies.

The two winners who used a tenth slot on salt

Gina Chick won Alone Australia's first season in the Tasmanian wilderness after 67 days, carrying a labeled 3-pound salt block among her ten items, one of the more specific salt entries in the entire dataset. Nathan Olsen won season 12 in South Africa's Great Karoo after just 34 days, the shortest winning run on record, with salt as one of his own ten picks alongside a pot, ferro rod, bow, fishing kit, and multitool. Both seasons ran hot on protein from fish or foraged food and thin on flavor and preservation options, which is the exact gap a small amount of salt fills for very little pack weight.

Where else it shows up

Season 12 is the cluster to watch. Three more contestants from that same Great Karoo cast, runner-up Kelsey Loper, third-place finisher Katie Rydge, and fifth-place finisher Dug North, all carried salt too, alongside Nathan's brother Luke Joseph Olsen, who tried it two seasons earlier in season 10 and finished 8th at 20 days. Season 9 in Labrador produced two more picks, from fifth-place Jessie Krebs and eighth-place Benji Hill. The currently airing season 13 has one more recorded pick, from Nero Buys, though that season has no final placement yet as of this writing.

Contestant	Season	Result	Salt entry
Gina Chick	AUS 1	Won, 67 days	Salt (3lb block)
Nathan Olsen	US 12	Won, 34 days	Salt
Kelsey Loper	US 12	2nd, 33 days	Salt
Katie Rydge	US 12	3rd, 28 days	Salt
Dug North	US 12	5th, 14 days	Salt
Jessie Krebs	US 9	5th, 46 days	Salt
Benji Hill	US 9	8th, 27 days	Salt
Luke Joseph Olsen	US 10	8th, 20 days	Block of salt
Nero Buys	US 13	Airing, no placement yet	Salt

Why a full slot on seasoning is rare but not crazy

A ten-item limit means every choice is a trade against an axe, a saw, or a second fishing tool, and salt does nothing to build shelter or start fire. Where it earns a slot is food preservation and palatability on a diet that's often just fish or small game for weeks at a time; drying and curing meat lasts longer and stays edible with salt in the mix, and a diet with almost no seasoning variety gets harder to keep eating well past the point of caloric need. The food-cache preservation piece covers that curing process in more depth. Season 12's Great Karoo cluster in particular ran hot and dry with heavy reliance on dried fish, which is likely why five of that season's contestants independently reached for the same item.

The catalog carries no product listing for this category at all, so there's no brand to attribute here, reported or otherwise; every recorded entry is either a plain "Salt" or a specific weight like Gina Chick's 3-pound block. For the category's full rules status and how it compares to items with genuinely zero picks, see the items nobody picks on Alone and the salt block gear page.