Who Won Alone Season 8? Clay Hayes's Win, Explained

Spoiler note: this post covers who won Alone season 8.

Clay Hayes won Alone season 8, subtitled "Grizzly Mountain," surviving 74 days at Chilko Lake, British Columbia, the show's first true alpine, high-elevation location, to take home the $500,000 prize. The professional bowyer and traditional archery instructor, who splits time between Idaho and his native Florida, outlasted runner-up Biko Wright by roughly a day. Wright was medically evacuated after 73 days with a heart condition brought on by malnutrition.

How Hayes won

Hayes's background gave him an edge most contestants don't have. He built his first bow in 1999 and has spent over two decades teaching primitive and traditional archery through videos, classes, and books, and that expertise showed directly in his hunting: he made his own Osage orange selfbow on-site and used it to harvest a deer during the season, eating its heart immediately after the kill. The high-elevation terrain at Chilko Lake also brought closer wildlife encounters than most seasons, including a close call with a grizzly bear and a period of tracking a mountain lion, both of which he navigated without incident.

His gear reflected the same disciplined, minimalist approach as his teaching career: a ten-item selection with no wasted picks, built around a bow he already understood better than almost anyone could. That preparation is likely why he beat Wright by such a narrow margin instead of the race not being close at all; Wright's evacuation came from a slow malnutrition-driven decline rather than any single crisis, and Hayes simply had the sustainable food source that kept him ahead.

Chilko Lake's alpine setting also made season 8 a physically different challenge from the coastal and boreal seasons before it. Higher elevation meant colder nights and thinner food availability than the lake and river seasons the show had run previously, and the wildlife encounters that came with it, the grizzly and the mountain lion both, added a level of danger that a bowyer's calm, practiced hand was arguably better suited to handle than a less experienced hunter's would have been. For the full contestant list and how the rest of the field placed, our season 8 guide has the breakdown, and Clay Hayes's contestant page covers his background before the show.

Key gear behind the win

Detail	Season 8
Winner	Clay Hayes, 74 days
Runner-up	Biko Wright, 73 days (medical evacuation)
Location	Chilko Lake, British Columbia, Canada
Prize	$500,000

Hayes carried a Granfors Bruks Scandinavian Forest axe and a Silky Katanaboy 650 saw for shelter and firewood, a Leatherman Free P4 multitool, and a GSI Outdoors Dutch oven pot for cooking. But the self-made Osage orange selfbow was the standout, since it was built specifically to suit the terrain and game he expected to find at Chilko Lake rather than pulled straight off a shelf. A Feathered Friends down sleeping bag rated to -40°F rounded out the cold-weather essentials. The full list, including how the selfbow performed over 74 days, is in our breakdown of everything he carried.

For what Hayes has done since the show, our where-is-Clay-Hayes-now post covers his life after Chilko Lake, and the winners page has every champion across every season and spinoff for comparison.