My story- Alone Season 5, Mongolia

hey Brooke Whipple here guys welcome to my channel today I want to talk about I want to talk about a lone season five my story stay tuned thanks for joining me today guys well this has been a long time coming I mean it was just about a year ago I returned from Mongolia after my experience on aloe in season five there's just so much to process so much to talk about and I've been really waiting and waiting and waiting to like you talk about it now's the time so settle in get a cup of coffee get a beverage because I want to tell you about my experience probably a lot of stuff you never saw on the show first of all let's talk about right away the stuff I took I got to take ten items first off was a sleeping bag I chose a down sleeping bag 40-below bag I knew it was gonna possibly be really cold so down was good it was gonna be a dry cold environment I took a down bag great choice for me it really kept me warm I was really satisfied it's a marmot quymn bag CWM and this is how I keep it stored in the offseason and I've used it oh so many times beyond Mongolia I figured I would get rid of this after the show but no way this is a great winter bag and I sleep cold so a good down bag is a great choice for me next thing I took was my bow I took a Samick sage takedown bow this was my first experience with a recurve I loved it I loved shooting this bow just getting it back strung again right now to start practicing for bow season here in Michigan for deer this is a great bow it state you can take it down and put it in a small package it was great for traveling to Mongolia we could only have wooden arrows traditional type arrows there this is one with a field point and had a dozen of those with me I had some blunt point tips and some broad broad heads and then this is the case the leather case that I made myself that went with me to Mongolia next thing of course is the bow sauce is exactly the same one I took on season four with Dave cannot go wrong with this old fashioned this is about 23 24 inches it's a Baco blade these are awesome I mean I can't say enough good things about just a sturdy old-fashioned bow saw 24 inch blade course I took the same cookpot as we did on season 4 this was an awesome choice I took trapping wire this time I took an axe this is not the axe that I took I can't find it at the moment it's around here somewhere but I took a full-size vintage 3 pound head axe it was awesome of course I took a Ferro rod they would not let any time amazing amazing they wouldn't let us keep the string on but uh I didn't keep my striker which I was really happy with so st. Ferro rod we had in season 4 I also took two and a half pounds of Gorp that was raisins peanuts and dark Ghiradelli chocolates for us for me that is the perfect emergency ration you can have a little bit of salty if you want you got the sweet it's just perfect in my opinion I would not take anything other than Gorp the other thing I want to talk about is my Leatherman I really fussed about this taking you know whether you're gonna take a knife or gonna take a Leatherman I oh I took a Leatherman I took my knife of course last time on season 4 of an Coover this time I decided to take a Leatherman and the reason being it just has so many functionable options with it as opposed to just a knife you you have a cutting tool you have a gouge tool you've got a saw I mean and I modified this so I want to show you how I modified it this is a super tool 300 and I I definitely was so happy I took this tool so let me show you the mods I made to it you open it up first thing you got is just the locking straight edge blade next thing you have here are three more tools and this this were two of these were modified I don't know if you can see it there hopefully you can this flat-head screwdriver I modified rounded it off to be a gouge tool like four spoons and such this tool here is another flathead screwdriver and also that was sharpened on both sides before I left also this tool here the all i sharpened that on both sides so that these tools could be used as gouge tools and it worked so well so let's put those away show you the other side and this is a locking blade too which is really great on the other side you have a serrated blade gotta be kind of careful pulling this out you got your phillips flathead another another small screwdriver and here again is something i modified i modified this tool right here which is the can opener this was rounded and she and sharpened on all sides to be another gouge tool and that worked really well i tried to make some cups and stuff out there with that the only problem is now i have to be careful putting it away that I don't cut myself and of course you also have a saw which is really nice little a nice little saw blade and I can't show you the other thing I have in here this tool comes with a file and what I did before I left is I took that file and I scored it with a dremel and when I got out in the field I broke it off so that I could have a way to sharpen my knives my knife on here so I broke it in the field put a lanyard on it actually I don't know where it is I'm not sure if I lost it on the way back or since I've been back but that enabled me to keep my knife sharpened I actually had I had a file and I just broke it off and used it the whole time I was there but I absolutely loved this Leatherman this helped keep me busy the crafting that I mean you got pliers I mean he has so many things here to deal with I did miss my knife but I was so happy I took this Leatherman because I made so much stuff with it and it just kept me occupied Mongolia was uh it was absolutely amazing first thing you know we had someone we had such a good time pre-launch and I know I already posted that video of all of us out there and the pre-launch stuff which was just really amazing to meet the rest of the cast and hang out and get to know everybody it was really great then comes launch day in Mongolia itself is really reminded me of Wyoming mixed with Alaska so he's big open plains and then there's mountains they weren't huge I didn't see any really huge mountains or more like ridges and and stunning landscape just it seemed really familiar to me it felt really I felt really at home which was really cool but before we launched we had to get one more shot and that was the tick-borne encephalitis shot which is not available in the US only available in Mongolia so we got that shot about five days after we arrived in Mongolia on-site I tell you what that made a lot of us sick definitely made me sick for like four or five days sick enough in fact that the producer was coming around and you know asking some of us asking me are you gonna be able to do this cuz I had lost all my appetite I was actually losing weight before we launched and you know that's that's not the last thing you want is to start losing weight before you know launched on this survival expedition but you know in diarrhea and just feeling nauseous and just not having an appetite at all it was really a bummer the bigger bummer was Nicole as a person with MS she wasn't even supposed to have this shot apparently but nobody knew that and that's what really caused her flare up during the show about a week after we launched you know really affected her in a terrible way and another right after we got the shot one of the crew members completely fainted from the shot it was a little freaky so the tick-borne encephalitis turned out to be an awful shot to get there at the last minute making us sick and ill but anyway I recovered enough bye time launch came that you know I felt like I could do it but I had lost weight and just was feeling kind of weak and not into it you know it's just hard but I remember being in the helicopter you know they got the cameras rolling on you and they're asking how you excited you know what are you feeling what's going on in your head and and it was just a very sobering time it was a very sobering moment of just you know you already know what you're getting into you know what's going to happen you've got to get down on the ground you got to make things happen like right now and you know the excitement is gone it's not like the first time you've been on the show or like ah it's more like you know this is gonna be the longest Monday going if if I could equate it to something it's like you're going to work on Monday and you know it's gonna just gonna be a really long week but you don't know how long that week is gonna last gonna last you know many weeks and oh it's it's definitely a sobering thing to get into guys I'm losing daylight here I gotta go get some lights all right guys had to move inside it is just too dark and I've got stuff I want to show you so I need the daylight so anyway where was I talking about getting dropped off the biggest thing on my mind was shelter you know when you're waiting that day of launch you don't know what you don't know who's getting dropped off first who's getting dropped off last it's just random and they don't tell you anything so you're just waiting your turn it was a chilly it was a chilly day it was spitting rain they don't let you in any kind of a vehicle the Unimog was there that big yellow you know all-terrain big vehicle no you're you you have to stand out in the weather and wait your turn it's ours plus there's a lot of filming and staging that's going on you just stand there and you're just cold and you haven't eaten since morning so I think by the I was number five getting dropped off so I feel like it was probably one it was like two o'clock in the afternoon so we'd been up since about 6:00 getting you know all this filming done watch happen you just kind of hurry up and wait for your turn so it was almost an hour turn around by the time they pick somebody up and then drop them off and come back to get another person so it gives you an idea of how far away we are for launching so you're sitting there wondering like where are you even gonna go but you know you're also waiting your turn because time time is ticking away and you know all I have in my mind is I want a really good shelter tonight right now I need to get working on a shelter so you know when they're pointing that camera at you and they're asking you what are you thinking about you know you're trying to survey the land and wonder where you're going but you know all I could think about was I need to work on my shelter man get me there and drop me off they finally come in for a landing and it's this big it looked like a wet big wet tussah pee area and tussocks are those there were like clumps of grass right and they grow you know and they could be like this high off the ground and they're just spaced perfectly so walking through them is like think of like a dr. Seuss book it was just these big humps of grass everywhere right and they're solid so you either walk between them put your feet in the holes between them or you walk on top anyway it's just like a broken ankle scenario waiting to happen so they dropped me off in this big plane I see the river to one side of me I've got ridges on the other and they kind of give you visuals they say hey don't go farther than this Ridge and look over here you see this where the river comes in over here here's a ridge those are your boundaries there's your visual boundaries and good luck off they go and do they drop your gear they drop all of your supplies as far as your camera gear and then this year because the Mongolian government required it we had to have like firefighting equipment so we had this bag that we had to fill up with water like a ten gallon bag with a with a pump spray and that was for like emergency fire fighting if we had like a camp fire that got out of control or something so you've got your backpack gear you've got your camera gear which is a big pelican case it's about this big with all your gear which is like four cameras your tripod blahdy blahdy blah you know memory cards batteries etc they're all in this big Pelican case and then you've got your firefighting gear which was required to be on site so they dropped me off and I immediately know this is not where I want to set up camp it was just this big kind of open plane area no place to set up a shelter it was really open and I look maybe half a mile away is some trees I immediately start to kind of grab my gear and go check that out for a possible place to make a shelter in the meantime you have no water you're not dropped with water or food or anything so right away I know if I'm gonna need to get to work I need water so I immediately went to the river grabbed up some water in my pot and made a fire now luckily Mongolia was so much more amazing than Vancouver because a it's a dry climate but be they had birch bark there there was birch trees so first thing I did I made a fire so I could boil water so I could have something to drink while I worked really really important I was already feeling really parched and dry so I had to have water right away and it was no problem to get a fire quickly because we had birch bark and then there was this big larch tree there where where I got dropped off and inside of a cavity there was really dry punky you know but very dry wood and it was just no problem to get a fire so immediately I had a fire and got to got onto boiling water so you can have somebody drink no again you got nothing to drink out of but your pot so then once it boiled then you got to let it cool down because you actually need to put your lips against that and drink out of it so it's gonna be a little while for you of water and in the meantime I'm ferrying gear you know a half a mile or or three-quarters of a mile away to this area of trees where I can actually a shelter you know by then it's like you're pushing darkness and the very number one thing that's important to me is shelter you know it helps you mentally helps you physically stay and feel safe then you can sleep then you can feel at home and you can it shelter means everything to me number one it's my first priority beyond everything else on day one except for water I got to have water and I've got to get a shelter going so I got over to this area of trees and I put I cut one pole and use my trapping wire to tie it to a tree and then I laid my tarp down like this and then I got to work cutting some logs to put up in front so I don't so i had front logs and then I had my tarp like this and I slept right in here so at least the first night I could feel like you know I got some walls around me I didn't want to be open I don't like being open shelter I just feel vulnerable especially when you're dealing with an unknown area unknown situation even even the feeling of having a tarp something completely around you just makes you feel really so much better so much more secure so I did that right away he got very cold that night it was very chilly I would say low 30s right away so I was very glad to have my down bag you know you just sleep it on the ground you don't have a ground pad you do you haven't had time to you know you're really just you know it's a very quick situation you're just making enough something to sleep in for the night so that's what I did first night and I slept okay I slept okay got up in the morning and you know it's go time and from there on you're just acclimating to the land acclimating to your resources finding what works finding what doesn't immediately the next few days I got working on a permanent shelter and it was right there and that that location was a good location it was right near the river I had a nice rocky sandbar so I was very close to the river I would say within 75 feet of the river and there were some Willows and I had large around me willows and birch and it was a very beautiful setting I it was lovely so right away I got to I got working on a permanent shelter which was an a-frame tripod style you know had two sticks going here and then one coming off on each end and then laying my tarp over wrapping it around the back and around the front I had a log wall I built the indoor fire so I dug way down about two feet below grade brought in a bunch of sand I put laid sand and rock up my log wall in the front and I dug a tunnel underneath the ground to tunnel in some fresh air for that fire so really I was only having like little little stick fires and it would get fairly smoky in there I did get it improved once I dug that tunnel to give the the fire air it did draft better it would it did go up better on my on my tent and and it made it tolerable in there so on really bad days when I had to be in my shelter which I absolutely hated to be it was tolerable that that shelter that green tarp really really was horrible to deal with you know season four we brought white tarps now you're dealing with an environment in Vancouver where it's so wet it's so wet so right off the bat we wanted to bring extra tarps now that green tarp is provided by production and it is to be used for your gear its to keep all your cameras dry all your batteries dry your memory cards etc and if you are using if you can incorporate that within your shelter and then you're keeping your gear in there they let you use that for your shelter so instead of bringing another white tarp I decided yeah I'm just gonna use the green tarp was that they give you that they give us and that way I can choose something else for you know gear which seemed quite logical but the whole reason we took a white tarp on season four was because of that light diffusion you know we wanted the most the lightest clearest diffused light coming down on as possible we're already gonna be in a rain forest environment and that white tarp giving you this the clearest whitest light possible was going to be make a huge difference psychologically and mentally and that definitely proved true so on season five when all you have is a green tarp and I've got this massive green glow I mean I didn't even like to film in there because it was just like this green Paul this green glow that just it sucked the life right out of me I literally could not deal with it and then having a smoky fire which is just the nature of the beast oh I absolutely dreaded being in my shelter it was just it was horrible but I dealt with it I had a good shelter on day 11 we had this massive storm come through the interesting thing about this storm in Mongolia every night I would have a fire if it was nice I would have a fire watch the the Sun drop down on the rich you could just watch the Sun come down and hit those trees until it was gone and then it would get dark and I'd wait another half an hour around the fire and then they'd go to bed so I was that particular night I was really happy to just be done filming I just want to go to bed I just want to settle in close my eyes and go to sleep for the night and I just was hearing this and this noise coming at me it just seemed like it was a long ways off just this low Rumble this this this I couldn't really place it you know just sounded like this big train this big something was coming and the wind was starting to kind of pick up and there's just this really uneasy feeling and pretty soon it's just getting closer and closer and closer I mean kind of gives me goosebumps just thinking about it because it was so unusual it's not something I'd ever really experienced before and I thought it's a storm and it's it's you can actually hear it coming across the landscape you can hear that it churning up the land before it hits you it was really he just I got goose bumps just reliving that so when it hit it it was just an extreme wind event and thunder and lightning and rain but it was so intense that it just sounded like a freight train coming at you and it was I my shelter was good but I was still you know you think about the worst-case scenario it was about 9 o'clock at night that at that moment so here comes this storm what if my shelter doesn't withstand this store you've got the whole entire night to deal with this in darkness if your shelters gonna collapse if something's going to go kind of catastrophic you could have to deal with this in the dark it was a very unsettling thought I'm not fond of being alone in the dark and being in the shelter is my shelter it makes me feel safe that's why I'm so adamant about a good shelter so here comes the storm and I'm literally hanging on to the edge of my shelter going come on you can do it hang on there because it was just just just just torrential you know chaos outside and I'm just holding on I remember I ran the camera for about 45 minutes while that storm was going on and it would you're gonna feel everything kind of lift up and but my shelter did so good but I just I didn't want to take my hand off that that one Ridge Pole I just I just wanted to make sure everything would just stays you know solid and I was so relieved it was over it just finally passed through and and I knew that my shelter was gonna be fine and I was fine but oh boy that was a legitimately scary moment because that storm was so intense I was hearing big trees falling and luckily I was in an area and I picked it on purpose that there was I was in just some nice you know young trees that had probably you know only been growing for 25 years or so just nice and nothing was gonna fall on me so I didn't have that concern it was just hanging on tight you know but seeing the damage next morning walking around and finding these big trees that have come down hi Roy look at my beautiful kitty oh this is Roy hey baby what you doin that was legitimately legitimately scary moment Mongolia for many of the days that we were there was extremely hot and they did not portray that on the show how hot it was it was unbearably hot at times I would get as many clothes off as I could I was wrapping my shemagh around me like a skirt and I took my shirt and I'd already cut off the sleeves to be used for wash cloths you know wiping your face off and so I just had my t-shirt my coffe and my my shemagh I was walking barefoot in and I would just lay on my I took like this giant sheepskin coat with me tamago Leah and I would bring that out of my shelter and I would lay it on the ground and I would just lay it in the shade of a large tree or a birch tree and as the Sun would move I'd move it and I would just lay there I couldn't do anything else but lay there and just pass the time because I don't do well in hot weather and it was so incredibly hot there at times that I couldn't hardly bear it so I would sit in the shade and I would I would just do stuff I would make stuff and I would craft stuff and I know I I think I caught you know and I try not to read any comments online because it can be pretty disheartening because people are not seeing the complete picture what you're going through and they don't know what it's like to endure that much time alone and it's easy to get criticized for making let's say a necklace or jewelry which is exactly what I was doing I was taking my Leatherman in that and and I was making jewelry one day I found and this is one of the baskets I made you don't thank God for the I think the Lord for all the birch that was there because I really just love handling birch and in doing stuff with birch and the birch bark there kept me so occupied you know I was able to make baskets you know like this this is this is something I made while I was there and these things are just so handy you're going out there with absolutely nothing you don't have containers you don't have stuff to put stuck in so having birch bark there was a real blessing so I would make I would go look for birch and I would harvest it you know I picked just the most beautiful pieces and I would make stuff okay and then one day one day on the beach I found I found a nest like a grouse nest on my River beach and and then the very next day the grouse was gone and all I found was just you know a bunch of feathers and so I gathered absolutely every feather that I could find and I decided I was gonna make make stuff I would make jewelry these are these are some earrings that I made so I would make jewelry with my tie wire I would do stuff with the with with the pretty feathers I'm just I'm a huge I'm a huge fan of feathers so I was it was I was just constantly doing things while he sat there in the shade this is this is a bracelet that I made this is out of Willow with my tie wire mazie I used I took willow and my tie wire and I made I made a bracelet like that you know it just totally gave me something to do it gives you something to keep you occupied I've got a box here of goodies I'm just gonna kind of unload there was beautiful sage there in Mongolia so I would just gather it up and I would use willow to tie it up and I would just hang it around my my camp the other thing I would do every day and it was a big deal is I made I made a birch chain and this is chain represents every day that that I was there so every day I would make a new chain this is made out of a strip of birch every day I would make a new birch chain just connected just connected like that and it really helped just quantify my stay my days and I would just relish the fact that every day I could make a new chain and then every day this got longer and it just represented so much accomplishment to me to quantify my days like this get out more stuff here these are more baskets that I made while I was there these are some some birch bracelets that I made this is birch made with also some willow so I'll put that on if they fit you lose so much weight out there my wrists would get really small there's my bracelet and these are the balls now this one is just me you just make these folded over and then there's these little like birch cuffs keeping them this one has pins just pins keeping the edges together but I made I made so many baskets and I would carry stuff in these all the time you know one of these was my fire-starting basket I would have you know pieces of birch bark in there this is actually a little this is the smallest basket I made which I just think it's so cute but it's got a piece of the grouse egg shell that was in there here's another basket I made and inside here these are actually all pellets or Eagle pellets one of the two when birds of prey eat they regurgitate all of the bones and the hair matter and if you took these apart you would discover what kind of bones what kind of animals they were eating so I haven't even opened those yet here's another basket that I made so I made so many baskets oh this was cool one day around just my area around my shelter I found this this was pretty cool so this this I put on the very top of my shelter and it was kind of like a sentinel so this is probably from a roe deer and those were the type of deer that we had there but this skull you know sat on top of my shelter and I just thought that was so cool I made a journal while I was there and on this is a birch bark journal and I used willow to keep it tied shut and what I did is every day I would write down with charcoal what I did that day and how many fish I caught so on day one it says I moved gear temporary shelter day to build shelter collected birch bark found chaga and there was frost in the morning day three caught first fish made fire ring outside made the journal made a container day four fireplace and shelter caught second fish started daisy chain and it was hot so you can see what was going on there's every day it just kind of tells a couple things that I did day 26 cold rain snow no fish and so every day I really loved writing in my journal just a little piece of charcoal oh yeah I'm looking through this book here and I forgot that I tried to make a calendar so I was just I was just guessing at the days doing like a Sunday Monday whatever and then trying to guess what day it was it's just you know I use charcoal because they will not tell you they don't tell you anything that'll tell you what day it is what day of the week it is you got a guess and that's part of the it's hard not knowing stuff and I remember getting out of season four and they wouldn't tell us who won the presidential election we didn't know if Hillary won or if Trump won and and no one would tell us it was like four days after we actually were out until we found out because even after we got out they wouldn't tell us what was going on anyway that's a rabbit trail but yeah you're always just wondering what time is it what day is it what what is going on anyway they don't they don't tell you anything that's part of the gig as far as fishing they didn't show me fishing but of course I fished hard every day and this is one of the fishing rigs that I carved out this was very similar to what we used on season 4 but I carved this out of a green piece of pine from a that came down in the storm I just used my axe and chopped away and everything what I would do is as unwind this and I throw it out this I put on a floating line which was just this this piece of wood and then down from the hook about right there so this would float in the Eddy and I would I would secure this in a tree and this would just this would just float around in the Eddy and I would put a grasshopper on there and it would just float around and I fished 24/7 with this setup I had two of these made so I was fishing two lines at all times and and that is the only method that seemed to work for me I did catch them at first just by you know standing there casting out but then it just it just died right out and so I would just fish 24/7 I would just go out check my line and sometimes I'd have a fish on sometimes I wouldn't but so every time I caught a fish it was always a big deal for me I was making a stringer as I went along and I would carve out one of these I would carve out a little a little birch fish and I would string it up and that way I could keep track of how many fish I caught and although you didn't see me fishing unfortunately on the show I was fishing all the time I was always scouting for new fishing and I ended up catching 16 fish and there is my stringer and I hung that on the outside on my ridge pole come out it was just getting so decorative out there I had my my my daisy chain going I have these I would also just you know sit around in that heat and I would just I would just make these you know Mobile's so these are teeth that I found in the skull of that the antlers that I found on so I I would string up these so I strung up the teeth and then these grouse feathers you know and I was just constantly just constantly doing things and hanging stuff up just to keep busy because if you don't keep busy your mind just gets the best of you you know most of this show it's you against you you have to you have so much going on in your head you have gotten nobody to talk to but the camera you you're internalizing so much and if you don't just keep yourself busy it's it's like you'll eat yourself alive so people that were like oh she's making jewelry yeah yeah I was I was doing anything I could to keep busy and so thankful for my Leatherman which helped me do all of these things and the birch bark because you know I got like 8 baskets sitting around here it's just a portion of the stuff that I made with birch I mean I would have would have died to have this much this much stuff to work with in in Vancouver so I was constantly making things I mean I didn't even know this is some kind of mobile I hung you know I'm a I found these bones and I was putting dried flowers in the hole here and I was hanging these around my camp because you just have to keep busy that's the bottom line oh I remember what this is this was a little I was out on a scouting mission and for fishing because the my River it was so Swift and in front of around my camp and it there was no Bank it just dropped right off so you're there on the bank in the water there is no in-between and the the current was so hard so if you through your lying out it would just go go right to the bank and be snagged of course you have twenty five hooks you're allowed to bring and you know losing hooks just uh it just wears on you so I was always scouting for new Eddie's Eddie's seam do you rarely would catch the fish so between the ridge and the river here's this plane and and you could go in that and walk that but it was full of tussocks and it was really difficult to walk through so I was always looking for new places to fish the fishing was frustrating where I was it seems like some people were having just amazing luck they were catching really a lot of fish and apparently some of us weren't even on the same river so it's really a welcome the draw where you where you go you know and how that's determined is you you know you pull it out of a hat and I got site number three same site we had on site in season fours it was like yes because I loved our site in season four I had a beautiful site in season five too but the fishing was just rough it was tough and I didn't find any worms and he grubs there was nothing to try for bait other than grasshoppers and it just seemed like after a while fish just didn't want to bite on it on anything at all you know I could see them in there and I couldn't get them occasionally you could see them and it was just so frustrating I even caught some minis you know the lead tiny itty bitty fish put them on a hook and they wouldn't bite those so you you know it's stuff you don't see on the show I was just trying and trying and trying but in the end only caught 16 fish so yeah one day I was scouting a new area and I needed some grasshoppers but I had nothing to put them in so I just really quick fashioned this little like birch bark envelope and I was catching grasshoppers and stuffing them in this elope and just hanging on to him because I you have nothing else you have to you have to make do so that was this was a grasshopper pouch so every time I would catch a fish it was just you know it's always amazing when when you're successful catching a fish but I feel yeah thank you lord and go back if it was a female I got it out and there'd be some eggs some roe and I would just take those out eat him raw I would never let that go to waste and then take the fish back to camp fire there get it nice little bed of coals and I'd lay that fish right on the coals flip it over once and it would just be just amazing that little salt and butter would have been even better but it didn't have that and I put that fish take it out put it on a rock say a prayer to thank the Lord for this gift of fish and Oh dig in it and it was so good but yeah they never showed any of that I don't know why but it was kind of a bummer but yeah I did I did catch fish and I was eating whatever I could I didn't find many berries at all maybe ten berries everything was pretty much they they had had a very very very dry summer so there wasn't a lot of stuff growing you know that you could find as far as vegetation least in my area there wasn't a few few wild onion bulbs just you know a couple berries here and there there just wasn't much to eat one day I was in you know around the shelter and I found this rock and here it is looks like this and I'm looking at this rock and I thought that looks like a piece of pizza doesn't it that looks like a piece of pizza and I know a lady in Alaska at the farmers market who I work with she paints rocks so I brought this rock back to her this summer and I said can you make this into a piece of pizza and look what she did for me she turned this rock into a piece of pizza this is the rock that I found by my shelter that to me just looked like a piece of pizza and she turned it into a piece of pizza for me which i think is so cool her name is Ruth Segler she's at the Fairbanks farmers market every summer and I own so many four rocks so I just thank you so much Ruth because that's the coolest thing ever I would so would have loved to have had a piece of pizza that day any day out there let's talk about that that's all I really had to eat is my emergency rations and the fish that I caught it was pretty slim pickins there wasn't a lot of greenery to be eaten where I was there were some wild onions that I dug up a little bit of plantain a little bit of yarrow you're coming into fall and winter and there's just not anything I didn't find maybe five rose hips there was no other berries that I found I did find a ton of chaga I climbed way up into the ridge the very top and that's where I found the big giant ancient birch trees and I found some really good bunch of chaga so I had chaga nearly every day oh and I've got to tell you about this this became like my Wilson I ended up finding a water bottle and I'm like day two or three on the edge of the river who knows where it came from but I didn't care I was so excited to have a water bottle I carved out a stopper and I took some leather off of my AK sheath and used the all of my Leatherman to put a hole through it and it perfectly fit and then that way I could carry it and I would take this with me everywhere I went on all my explorations and climbing the ridge it was so amazing to have a water bottle so that worked out so so good and if you cinch it up then it doesn't pull out when you carry it so that was my massive trash find which I'll never forget this water bottle that was awesome so every day I would get up and I would fill up my pot put it on the fire and I would I always had Chava in it and I would fill that up for the day and in boil it and then I would put it back in the river to cool down and then I would pour it into my bottle so every day I was just drinking chaga every day and that's that's all I drank now let's talk about ticks for a minute you were supposed to get another shot for that tick encephalitis in the field and I I knew right away I was like man I do not want this shot there is no way I want this shot while I'm out in the field it's gonna be hard enough already and I don't remember what day it was that they came out and said okay it's time for the second round of shots and I said I don't want it I do not want it I don't want to be sick I haven't seen any ticks so far and it was on like one of the med checks when they came out the very next day I had a tick on me and it was biting me it was like son of a gun you know tick-borne encephalitis that's a freaky thing to think about I removed that tick and what we were supposed to do is put him in baggies and keep him just in case they needed to be analyzed later well I ended up taking like many many ticks off of me over the course the next whatever how many days I was there and had one bite me on the back of the neck which then and it made one of my lymph nodes in the back of my neck get really big so I was really freaked out thinking you know I've got tick-borne encephalitis or whatever's gonna happen to me I got by then I was out and before I left Mongolia had to get checked out by a doctor to get cleared to go and then they administered the second dose of that shot to me at that point which didn't make me sick which I was really glad but here I had this very large lymph node that I was pretty freaked out about so we took those ticks that had been that had bit me production had saved them we sent them in to get tested and thank goodness they were free of any kind of disease but yeah that freaked me out to have that that enlarged lymph node didn't leave me for several months after and yeah that was going to foreign country and dealing with something like that is kind of kind of freaky let's talk about weight loss for a minute and why I left season four end up losing 28 pounds which put me down to about 97 pounds I was going to get pulled on season 4 the day I left they were going to pull me and you might not know that but that wasn't really clear in season 4 but I was at my weight limit for weight loss so we had to go season so in 49 days I lost 28 pounds now in season 5 by day 28 when I laughed I had lost 19 pounds so I was losing weight at a much much faster rate than season 4 for I don't know what reason you know if you think maybe the timeline had something to do it I was coming from season 4 to season 5 and 9 months so very quick turnaround for my body to be processing another starvation event which you really can't avoid on the show I don't think you can avoid getting into that point you can debate this all you want about this is just a starvation show well it's just a matter of fact that you're going to lose a lot of weight and you're going to have to find ways to deal with it and there's not really a lot of ways to deal that living off the land is extremely hard it's harder than you may think you need those sugars you need those complex carbohydrates it's really hard to find and duplicate in nature in the fall so you really out a disadvantage with your limited tools and gear by day 28 the loneliness was sinking in the green tarp glow was driving me crazy and I just felt like I was going to be spending more and more time in the shelter I was just dreading it absolutely dreading just sitting for hours in the shelter with the smoke and the green glow was literally getting to me and the weight loss was happening so much quicker on season five figured I had maybe four or five more days I'd be at my weight limit I had no reason to stay I had built a great shelter I had fished and found all the food I could I kept myself busy cutting firewood and and just keeping busy keeping sane I had nothing left to prove and I was just I was just ready to be done it's ready to see family and eat some food and have a conversation you know when the when the crew would come out and do these med checks and swap your media they specifically try not to engage you in conversation and to keep it as authentic as possible and it's just heartbreaking when they leave you want to talk you want to share all these things that you're doing and what you've been through and what you're experiencing and they're just like well see you later bye gotta go and it's just and you know the thing is they they they send you a message on the yellow brick hey heads up stay around camp we're coming in today and like it's such a big deal all day you're like oh cool you know you got something to look forward to these people are gonna come in and it's people you know you've you've become friends with you have a relationship with these crew members and it's really it's really a cool thing to see them and then they leave and and your heart breaks it's back to just like it's silent again and you're alone again it comes and goes so quickly and you don't know when they're coming is it gonna be a week is it gonna be two weeks when are you gonna see a human again oh it's it's a lot to take in and only nine months previous I'd artery I'd already done this I'd already been there so it really weighs on your mind I know and your mind can just eat you alive this this alone thing the psychology of it is the big deal and how much can you adapt alone is about how can you adapt you know you need to have skills but you need to be adaptable can you adapt to your circumstances can you adapt the situation can you adapt with the materials at hand can you adapt to your mindset and your physical body changing that's what it is all about you can be a fairly unskilled person I think and as long as you are creative and can adapt you're going to be fine I think that's why people in real survival situations some of them do quite well because they have to and if they are adaptable they can pull it off so going into this challenge if you're thinking about wanting to be on the show yeah you you absolutely should have skills but you need to be adaptable and the other advice I would give you is you need to get out there and spend some big-time time alone more than a weekend you know but if that's all you got that's that's start with that but go someplace remote and put yourself out there for a couple days and see what that feels like to be completely removed and by yourself and think of it long-term like okay you know it's only gonna be a day or two but what would it feel like to be out here for weeks on end with nobody and no input and no piece of paper to to write things on and no books to read there's no input all you have is what you can adapt to what can you come up with what can you procure for food what it's all about adaptability and how can you keep your mind together if that's that's why this show is fascinating because everyone responds to it differently you some of these early tappers get a lot of flack but honestly you just do not know how you're going to respond to that situation until you're in it so go out and try it go out and see how you would react to that definite definite loneliness that that absolute separation from anyone else in any input it's it's pretty difficult at times and other times it's absolutely exhilarating as far as animals I never got I I saw just a handful of grouse and they had some big grouse there and boy were they skittish they were pure black the really big ones were just huge and they were pure black and Wow they were super super skittish I saw few those never could get close then the regular grouse you know link you're you're familiar was seen here in North America it stalked one one day with the bow and just couldn't get a shot off it just kept getting ahead of me and far enough that I couldn't get a shot and then I saw a couple more climbing the ridge one day and I didn't have my bow with me but then the only other thing I actually took a shot at was a squirrel and it was on my very last the day before I had tapped there was a squirrel in camp first squirrel I'd seen he was sitting right right in a tree above my shelter and I just looked at it I said do you know I can eat you of course I have to shoot at first and and it just wouldn't move so I got my bow and oh I just missed it by that far I hit hit the trunk of the tree and it but it stayed there I ended up getting like three shots off on it but I just missed it was up there and you're shooting up high and I miss it did retrieve two out of my three arrows one of them is out there and I always think oh man centuries later or who's ever gonna find this era was gonna wonder what in the heck where did this come from you know that's the only animal I ever got to shoot out I never saw the boars I never saw a wolf I never saw a deer or the red deer which are like the elk here and I heard him all the time I heard the deer I heard the the red deer which are like the elk I heard the Wolves all the time I had stuff come to my shelter and getting really close all the time at night of course at night I didn't go bad hey get out of here you know I'd like hit the side of my tarp you laying there you don't know what's out there while it just doesn't bug you anymore it's just like Bam Bam Bam you know hit this and you hear it run off whatever it is go back to sleep those are just you know it's just some of the stuff you got to deal with when you're alone but once you're out there you get acclimated to it and it really doesn't bother you anymore but didn't seem it much wildlife definitely not much to hunt I just saw signs of it I'd see the signs of the wild boar it was all you know areas all tore up but I just I never saw any so the hunting just didn't pan out for me would I have chose something else hindsight other than a boat yes a white tarp I would I would have taken a white tarp to save my sanity because the boat was it didn't work out but yeah 28 days was enough for me and I was very satisfied with my journey I was so I feel so blessed have been able to go hang out with all of the other casts and wonderful crew it was an amazing experience Mongolia was the the Mongolian people are just very very fun and I made some good friends amazing experience so I'm sure there's something I forgot ooh let me show you some of my souvenirs I still haven't got this framed yet but I got this really beautiful painting look at that isn't that neat you know the countryside it looked just like that I mean there was no trees in Ulan Betar and for many miles we we traveled like you know eight hours into the bush on these jeep trails to get to our drop-off location and both and that there was just planes and you know Gers all over and and grazing animals and mongolia is just I think they said there's like 16 animals for every one Mongolian so before and after launch we got a lot of meat we ate a lot of meat which was really good and they like their meat over there so there the grazing animals are just like everywhere they're in the towns they're on the streets and I think you may have seen that in my video with the pre-launch but very interesting and they just don't even slow down from they just got repeat the animals take off off the road but they're like even in the towns there's cows and horses and sheep and goats and stuff just wandering everywhere is pretty cool Mongolia this is like some Mongolian script here this is their traditional script and this means love which I just thought was pretty cool end up buying a couple of these these are like these little fortune teller games it's just a little leather pouch and there's the you you roll you roll bones so there's bones in here these are the bones and you roll them and however they they land either they're up or down or whatnot then you look on the sheet and figure out the code and it'll tell you your fortune for instance like one will come or come back soon or everlasting luck or without any success try well or try hard or the best fortune as I knew or you will hear good news it's just it's just kind of a fun fun game so these are like knuckles of sheep or something so guys I want to give one of these away to you and then I'm going to send somebody this this came straight from Mongolia and what I want you to do is tell me give this video a thumbs up and tell me what your favorite part of season five was and I'll be drawing a winner for this little this little bag this little fortune teller bag which i think is it's pretty cool the other thing Mongolia is known for is cashmere so I got this really cool sweater and I bought a cashmere sweater dress that is so pretty and I have any mourning yes I have no boots to go with it I I don't have shoes guys I don't have stuff that's all good but anyway I'm gonna wear that cashmere dress soon it looks it's pretty cool blanket the fun thing I had is when we got to UM Betar there was so much Asian candy but not only Asian candy because it's so close to Russia there was just so much of this like Russian candy to try so I just I brought home just tons of candy that I had no idea what it was and we all just chout on it for a long time I brought home a lot of Asian candy was just it was pretty cool to be there ah one of the questions I've had often season four and season 5 is Oh what was the first meal you got when when you got back well the fact is you have to really slowly reintroduce your your body to food so getting food immediately is is it's very slow and it's got to be that way because you just can't process food you're definitely in starvation mode so you get broth and maybe a cracker and it's just slowly slowly slowly works its way up from there I definitely felt the effects of starvation more on season four I was way far gone by then and this year the season five I just didn't want to put my body that far that far back it had been two recent that I had already done that so 19 pounds this time got me down to 104 pounds and it was enough and it takes a couple weeks to just even get back to eating normal you get heartburn you just don't feel good you just it's it's a rough road at first so you got to take it really slow I climbed the ridge three times in my stay there I just could not stay still when it was too hot I was still but otherwise I was out exploring looking for better places to fish and climbing that Ridge and it was just stunning up there I did that was my happy place I just wanted to be up high on the ridge and see those views and that's where I found the chaga and I would watch the Golden Eagles fly in the thermals it was absolutely amazing I was so happy there it didn't really come across on the show how happy I was how satisfied and content I was but I was really joyous there and you know if you watch season four you saw the commercial I did I did another commercial on season five that they never aired this is just kind of a cute quirky little thing about tansy Fresh being like a deodorant anyways yeah doesn't matter to you you never saw the commercial hey guys thanks so much for joining me and if you're still here Wow good job you have the endurance to survive alone season six or seven or eight put your name in and give it a shot but in the meantime thanks for joining me leave your comments below win the Mongolia goodie bag thanks for watching this girl in the woods she gone oh and don't forget to get outside and get happy

Channel: Girl in the Woods

Views: 305,638

Keywords: alone season 5, alone on history, brooke whipple, alone cast, survival tv, survival show, survival show history, history channel survival, alone show, survival, bushcraft, wilderness skills, alone, survival tv series, survival shows, brooke whipple weight loss, brooke whipple youtube, brooke whipple alone season 5, brooke whipple alone, brooke whipple alaska, brooke whipple season 5, brooke and dave whipple, history channel survival shows, history channel survival reality show

Id: GQ6J6W-ph1o

Length: 67min 31sec (4051 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 06 2018