Juan Pablo Quiñonez
Pinawa, Manitoba, Canada (raised in Guadalajara, Mexico) · Alone Season 9: Labrador (marketed on some platforms as "Alone: Polar Bear Island")
- Age on show
- 30
- Gear sourced
- 10/10
How far did Juan get? (tap to reveal)
- Days lasted
- 78
- Placement
- 1st
How Juan's season ended (reveals the result)
Survival specialist, outdoor professional, and wilderness first responder; became the first Latino winner of Alone.
Our take on the run
Quinonez won at 78 days, the first Latino champion in the show's history, and the margin tells you what kind of win it was: runner-up Karie Lee Knoke held until day 75, so the title was decided by three days of shared starvation, not by a gap in capability. His fishing-first flexibility, fly line and heavy mono covering different stretches of Big River with the recurve behind them, kept him fed exactly long enough. This is the list we recommend to people who want to understand gear thinking rather than gear shopping: the JP PAXE and the sharpener-striker trick are not products you can buy, they are evidence of the mindset that wins this show.
The loadout, examined
Juan Pablo Quinonez packed a hatchet that did not exist in any store: a prototype of his own design he called the JP PAXE. It sets the tone for the most modified list in our records. His ferro rod was a Bayite, but the striker was a repurposed Corona blade sharpener; his fishing kit combined 20 pound monofilament with fly line to work different water; his snare wire came in two gauges, 20 stainless and 22 bronze, side by side. Almost nothing here is used exactly as sold.
The named backbone is equally deliberate: a Fleetwood Timber Ridge takedown recurve, a Leatherman Charge Plus with G10 scales, 80 meters of Extremus paracord, an MSR Alpine Stowaway pot, a folding Tuff Camp bow saw, and a Spiritwest bag rated to minus 30 Fahrenheit for boreal Labrador. The pattern across all ten slots is a person thinking about failure points before they fail, treating the kit as a system to be adapted rather than a checklist to be filled.
Juan's loadout, item by item
Fully sourced selection. Photos marked “category example” show a typical product for that slot, not the exact unit carried. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Axe - JP PAXE prototype hatchet
Bow and arrows - Fleetwood Timber Ridge takedown recurve
Ferro rod - Bayite 1/2in x 6in, used with a Corona blade sharpener as striker
category exampleFishing kit - 20-lb monofilament plus fly fishing line and hooks
Pictured: unspecified assorted hooks + monofilament line
Multitool - Leatherman Charge Plus with G10 scales
Paracord - Extremus 550 MILSPEC, 80 meters
Pot - MSR Alpine Stowaway stainless steel, 1.7 quart
Saw - folding Tuff Camp bow saw, 30in
Sleeping bag - Spiritwest synthetic/down hybrid, -30°F rated
Snare wire - 20-gauge stainless and 22-gauge bronze wire
Compare with the rest of the Season 9 cast or see what every winner carried.