The Shovel on Alone: What Contestants Actually Use

A dedicated shovel is a rare pick on Alone, one of the smaller categories tracked in this series, but it isn't a pure novelty. Of the 101 contestants with a recorded gear list out of 187 documented across every US, Australian, and spinoff season, 10 carried one, and a single carrier turned it into a winning kit.

The recorded picks

Zachary Fowler won season 3 with a Cold Steel Special Forces Spetsnaz shovel in his ten-item kit, the only shovel-carrying winner on record. The other nine carriers spread across four US seasons and one Skills Challenge episode, none reaching a top finish: Cade Cole and Luke Joseph Olsen both carried one in season 10, placing sixth and eighth; Isaiah Tuck, Jake Messinger, and Peter Albano carried one in season 11, placing fifth, sixth, and ninth; Žiga Ogorelec carried one in season 13. Jordan Jonas, Lucas Miller, and Amós Rodriguez were each assigned a shovel for a single Skills Challenge earth-shelter build, not as a personal pick.

Contestant	Season	Result	Notes
Zachary Fowler	US 3	Won, 87 days	Cold Steel Spetsnaz shovel
Cade Cole	US 10	6th, 23 days
Luke Joseph Olsen	US 10	8th, 20 days
Isaiah Tuck	US 11	5th, 23 days
Jake Messinger	US 11	6th, 21 days
Peter Albano	US 11	9th, 8 days
Žiga Ogorelec	US 13	Season 13
Jordan Jonas, Lucas Miller, Amós Rodriguez	Skills Challenge	Ep. 1 build	Assigned episode tool

Why one shovel-carrying winner changes the read

Season 10 and season 11 each produced multiple shovel carriers, but neither season's shovel-carrying contestants finished above sixth place, which is likely why the item's reputation as a low-value pick has stuck. Fowler's win complicates that read rather than erasing it: he built a broader kit around fishing and foraging, and a shovel served a support role in that plan, most plausibly for digging a root cellar or ground-level cache rather than as a primary survival tool. One winning kit out of ten recorded carriers is a thin base to draw a strategy conclusion from, but it's evidence the item isn't purely dead weight, either.

The item catalog lists the same Cold Steel Spetsnaz model tied to Fowler as its only sourced product entry for the category, which lines up with the season data rather than adding anything new to it. A shovel's case against making the cut is straightforward: it's heavy and single-purpose relative to what a hatchet, knife, or even a sturdy stick can improvise for digging, and against nine other slots, most contestants who've studied the show's history choose to spend that weight elsewhere.

The three Skills Challenge appearances reinforce that reading rather than complicate it. Jordan Jonas, Lucas Miller, and Amós Rodriguez were each handed a shovel for the same episode 1 "Earth Shelter" build, alongside an axe, a saw, and a plastic tarp, a format where the tool was assigned to fit a specific challenge rather than chosen from a real ten-item budget. Strip those three assigned picks out and the shovel's real footprint across every standard season shrinks to seven personal choices out of 91 recorded lists, one of them a winner's.

The shovel gear page has the recorded model, and the items nobody picks on Alone covers the shovel alongside several other rarely-picked categories. For the complete approved-items list, see the official rules page.