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37 days ‘Alone’ in Canadian wilderness for Wellsboro’s Rose Anna Moore

MARTY WEAVER – Rose Anna Moore sits with a cup of coffee and chats with her customers.

It’s Day 35 in the wilderness along Chilko Lake in British Columbia, Canada, and Rose Anna Moore’s nose freezes up quickly as she ventures out in 15-degree weather.

This environment is “brutally beautiful,” the Wellsboro woman says as she turns her attention to her hunger.

Overcoming hunger is part of the challenge for the participants in the History Channel survival series, “Alone.” Starting among a field of 10 people who are trained survival experts, Moore is one of five remaining on this day. Separated and placed in remote locations around the lake, none of the participants knows how many others remain in the challenge at any given time.

Protein has been scarce, though Moore recently snared a hare and has been scimping and rationing the rabbit meat. She acknowledges, though, that she needs a little bit more. She has lost 20% of her body fat since Day One.

Heading up the trail to her snare line, she sees fresh bobcat tracks in the snow. The first of her snares is sprung. She realizes she is competing with larger predators for the same food.

“Every single day out here is hard work. Every day is exhausting. Every day I’m hungry. But as a child I didn’t have it easy. So this is kind of what I’m used to,” she says. “I’ve just got to keep going.”

Back at her shelter, Moore takes off her boots and socks and examines her feet. A couple of her toes are sore and slightly purple.

The first signs of deep-tissue frostbite include sensitivity and a purple discoloration, the show shares. To preserve organs in freezing conditions, the body restricts blood flow to extremities.

Moore notes that she has been wearing boots good for temperatures as cold as negative 50 degrees, plus a pair of heavy wool and a pair of heavy alpaca socks that haven’t gotten wet.

Now she will not be able to stay outside for extended periods and will need to return to her shelter every couple of hours to warm up. Still, she does not believe there is anything seriously wrong.

We next see her two days later, at 8:41 a.m. on Day 37. It’s seven degrees outside and she has just endured her worst night for sleep while out on this adventure. Her left foot felt “dead” all night, she says. She notes that she is due for a medical check this day.

She feels sick and knows she needs to eat. She has a pot of rabbit stew suspended from a tree to protect it from predators and heads into the woods for it when she starts to have trouble.

Then she realizes that she forgot to take along the communications device participants are required to keep on them for emergencies.

She talks of being cold, and the show notes that early signs of hypothermia include low energy and shivering.

Moore tries to stand up and her vision is out of focus.

“Oh, my gosh,” she says as she appears to go down.

Cut to commercial.

Remember, this is a television show — but it’s also a dangerously real situation.

When the show returns, we see a boat heading across the lake. The crew messages participants ahead of their regular medical checks but Moore is not responding. Fortunately, we see her as she returns and meets up with the medical team and tells them of blacking out in the woods.

“We have some concerns,” they tell her after a brief exam, advising that the decision is to medically extract her from the field because she is in the moderate stages of “cold injury.”

She agrees that she does not want to jeopardize her feet or risk losing toes to frostbite.

Still, she feels that 37 days is not enough in the challenge, that she had so much more that she wanted to accomplish.

She has difficulty walking and the medical crew ends up carrying her to the boat.

Five days later, Moore has had time to recuperate back at base camp and speaks on camera for a post-challenge interview.

“I sometimes push my limits,” Moore says. “I always push my limits.”

She admits that it “probably” was a good thing that the choice to leave the challenge was made for her.

Back to Day 37 though. Moore is the sixth person to leave the challenge, a respectable performance on a solo survival adventure.

Four people remain.

“Alone” airs at 9:30 p.m. Thursdays on the History Channel.

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