Ain't it beautiful up here.
I've been at this for 14 years now.
- A lot of snow melt. - -And we're getting in it.
Are we crazy or what?
Pile of gold is what I'm looking for.
We found some here and there.
Big nugget. Great.
Look what you just found, buddy.
My god!
Let me see that.
That's the biggest nugget in gold rush history.
But it's not enough.
I have not succeeded yet.
This has to be the year.
I mean, another season not hitting the jackpot.
I'm gonna have to think seriously.
What do I do with these claims?
Then somebody else is gonna come here,
- they'll get all those nuggets. - We proved it down there.
So the thing that pushes me
to go into this stupid ass snow
and risk it all.
We know there's gold.
I'm here to hit a jackpot.
I need to succeed at this.
I'm getting to a weird place to where,
I'm ready to risk everything.
One thing is absolutely clear that there's been a glacier
over the top of all this stuff right here,
and that glacier was stopping everyone
from coming up here and digging.
No one has been here.
There are a bunch of waterfalls
all the way up at the top section up here.
If we found a six ounce nugget
on somewhere that wasn't that hard to dig.
If I go to a waterfall and the water's moving fast
and there's a collection of them,
they could have piles and piles and piles of gold.
There's always a chance of getting hurt or dying here.
Move, move, move!
Boom! Get up here, guys. Get up here!
But you know what fear does.
Fear stops you.
Fear makes you quit.
Fear makes you back down.
Throw the dice, see what happens.
Worth the risk.
I'll let you know at the end of the season.
On the all new season of white water
look at that man.
This is the most dangerous place we've ever been.
This is what just came down.
Bears!
I'm the guy that keeps everybody safe.
- Whoa! Whoa! - Carlos!
I got a new plan for the guys.
Flame on, brother.
Getting hot!
Three two one.
They're not gonna like it.
I need the double dredge done today.
Tell you I have to build every
thing for this piece of
there are big nuggets here.
We're too incompetent to actually get to them.
Are you serious?
Nobody's keeping you here.
You're a world class prick, dude.
I invited my girlfriend to come help us.
Hey, y'all.
If you cross me, I will cut you loose.
I can't believe you guys work here.
This is absolutely crazy.
This year is gonna be the make it or break it.
Fire it up!
If we don't get a bunch of gold
back to classic whitewater. Yeah!
There's just no way we could do this again.
Daddy.
Is it worth it?
When you hit it, it's like hitting the jackpot.
Chung-cha-ching.
Got it!
Do you see this?
We have success!
We had a really long winter,
and I've had a lot of time
to think about what we're doing.
Picking the right dig spot
is going to be key this year.
We're moving upstream.
There might be a ton of gold.
The new dive site Dustin has chosen
is thirty miles from Haines.
And another mile up the legendary nugget creek,
where in an unmanned area threatened by falling rocks
and steep valley sides lies a waterfall.
The deep plunge pool is a miner's dream
as the natural gold catch traps nuggets
carried down by the creek.
Creating what could be a life changing payday.
The reason this place has not been dug
is because it is too dangerous.
Death looms into this creek.
Where we're going is terrifying for even me.
We have to get a jackpot of some sort.
It has to happen.
If we don't get a bunch of gold,
there's just no way we can do this again.
If we fail, I could lose the claim.
Dustin has one final shot
at unearthing the monster nuggets
at the claim he's invested his life savings in.
But its deadly location
means taking on risk like never before.
How's it going, man?
Good seeing y'all again.
Hell, yeah.
Welcome back to Haines, everybody.
Yeah.
Everybody's healthy
and all your fingers and toes working.
- Well so far. - For most part.
I'm ready to get back at it.
We've got everything set up
so we can just, like, hit the ground running.
- Yup. - So.
Here's the deal man. We've been making just enough gold
to even just barely get by,
and we've got to go big.
I think we need to go upstream.
What I'm looking for is more of a big payoff for all of us.
Paul and I went up there and we saw the waterfall.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I truly believe whatever gold is there, it's going to be huge.
Huge, it will be huge. It will be huge, it will be huge.
Hey.
Last season... I love you.
Despite the monumental loss
- of his father and mentor. - Fred hurt.
Fred's gone, and... I'm so sorry, man.
- Yeah. - I'm sorry. Sorry.
Dustin proved that nugget creek
lives up to its name.
Hey, I found nugget!
Found nugget!
It just seems like we're going to be
big nuggets from here on out, man.
No. I heard something rumbling big up here
and set out to explore remote parts of his claims.
Whoa!
Where he discovered the waterfall,
he staked his season on.
Now that's a waterfall, man.
I hear it.
It looks like a vertical drop,
which is what you want in the plunge pool.
It's a natural gold catch.
This untouched plunge pool
collects the heavy gold as it's washed down creek.
And in a region that delivered more than 80,000 ounces.
Could hold the millions in gold
they've been chasing.
There's no escape out of here.
Nope.
But this narrow section
means the constant threat of falling rocks.
Whoa! Whoa! Watch out!
Run! Run!
- Run, run, run! - Get up here guy's. Get up here.
Go!
And massive flash floods.
That's insane.
This is a freaking nightmare.
Make this site the most deadly location they have ever faced.
You're talking about further than your old dive site.
- Right? - Yes, yes.
- Ho! - It's about a half mile up...
- Yeah. - Past where we're at.
See going up stream ain't our risk going to get greater
because those canyons are just they're so...
So tight, there's no way out.
The truth is, this is going to be
the most dangerous place we've ever been ever.
Some of the shell boulders you're gonna see in the creek.
Well, they're bigger than this whole dance floor right here.
They came off the mountain.
That's it.
The risk is going to go up big time.
Sorry, but I think this is how it's gonna be, man.
I can't keep you 100% safe.
You have to make this decision for yourself,
so think about it.
Tomorrow we're going to be over at the boat launch.
Totally understand if you don't want to come out there.
I got a lot invested in this,
so I don't have the right to back out.
But you do.
You know?
You got to stay alive, and I understand so.
- All right. - All right.
- All right. Later. - See ya.
You know, every year it's danger,
more and more danger.
That's my concern.
Makes me nervous.
I wouldn't want to leave behind family.
Sometimes you gotta decide is it worth it or not?
For marine veteran Carlos minor,
the risk may not be worth the reward.
Daddy.
Show him what do you have from school?
What you got, mommy's?
Okay. Artwork.
She was so excited waiting for you just to show you.
My gosh, lollies!
Directed drawings.
Wow! Mummies.
It's you and me.
Pot of gold.
You got gold fever, too. Do you want to go get gold?
- No. - No.
- Not in my lifetime. - You won't.
Talked to all the guys,
you know, it was "we're ' back at it again." You know.
'How was your winter?
Blah, blah, blah.
'By the way, what we're going to do
is totally different from what we've done last year.
And it's going to be 10 times as dangerous.
That's daddy.
Daddy with wings.
Why?
He's always doing crazy stuff.
Family always comes first for me.
That's why I was letting the guys down.
I feel bad about it.
But in the long run, my family trumps that.
Am I going to show up tomorrow?
I don't know.
I kind of thought they were going to be here already.
But we'll see what happens.
Wouldn't be surprised if people backed out this year.
I would be disappointed.
But I wouldn't be surprised.
All right,
well, that's Paul here.
That's good news.
We got two down, two to go what's going on?
- All right, James too. - We found James.
All right. That's three.
We got one left.
Thank y'all for showing up. That's awesome.
Man.
I'm gonna take you showing up as a full commitment,
and you're gonna come out here and risk your life with me.
- I'm ready. - Yeah, ready.
Well, good.
- Because... - you can't run us off, man.
Not that easy.
You gotta protect us. We gotta protect you.
And we... that's the way it is.
No sign of Carlos?
I have not seen him anywhere.
- I don't know. - He was the one I was worried about.
- Yeah. - -Well, let's gear up.
Let's get everything ready.
- Okay. - Hopefully Carlos will show up.
Let's go.
You ready for some noise?
Now we're talking.
You know, I thought about it.
I was a little bit nervous.
I don't know. I just got to look at the big picture
and pull up my big boy britches.
We finally made the decision just to go all in.
We do have a lot riding on all this.
We know there's good gold there
and just to turn and walk away,
I don't know if I can live with that.
Let's start looking for a place to launch.
- All right. - Because...
There he is.
All right.
- Okay. - That's a relief.
Yeah, it is.
Okay, that helps.
Hey, man!
I thought that was going the wrong way.
Am I late for the party or what?
We were worried you weren't gonna show up, man.
I had a lot to think about.
- Let me tell you, man. - I hear you.
All those freaking gold stories you told me.
Let's ' go do this.
- All right. - -This is the year, right?
- Yup. - This is the year.
This is the year.
I think so too, man.
- Are you good to go? - Yeah, man.
All right.
All right, bro. I'm all ready to rock, man.
I am so happy.
That everybody showed up.
Holy cow. I was worried.
Yeah, I showed up.
Believe it or not, this decision wasn't really up to me.
Me and the wife.
Extensively talked about my decision
of if I'm going to do this season,
we all got to make sure to get good gold.
Life changing gold.
All right. You're good to go.
Clear everybody. Clear.
All right, everybody,
let's get in the water and see if this thing floats.
There you go.
Perfect.
Yeah, no problem.
Good to go.
You guys don't judge me
by my first run because I'm a little rusty.
- We good? - Yep.
Taking off.
Whoo!
Yeah!
This journey upriver is the first step
in what will be the most difficult
and dangerous whitewater mining
they have ever attempted.
This is bad ass!
And with a season that could last just five months,
it's now a race to get a diver in the water.
Whoa! That's what I'm talking about.
To reach their remote camp.
The crew must travel 13 miles
up the treacherous and unpredictable tsirku river.
To nugget creek.
Where they believe untouched waterfalls high in the mountains
have trapped the piles of nuggets
to make all this effort worth it.
That sure looks deep right there.
That pitch is strong, man.
We're going through the ice.
I love this boat.
This boat is badass.
Whoo!
We made it, boys.
Yeah.
All right.
This is the most ground I've seen.
First thing.
Yeah.
- Whoa! - What do you see?
There's a bear right there.
Holy you you see it?
Big old black bear, man.
- Yeah. - Holy. He's right beside camp.
He's walking right now.
He's just behind those trees
- from where we are. - Yeah.
Get us a bear.
He's huge, is what he is.
He's huge.
Yeah, that's a big one.
I'm gonna get my gun.
Just for the bang?
Well, it scares the hell out of them.
Man, I just hope there's not a whole
families and things up here.
Get out of there!
Man. I really hope that freaking bear didn't destroy our camp.
That's a bear.
That's a big one.
That bear needs to get the hell out of here.
As winter's grip eases on nugget creek camp,
bears, hungry from a winter of hibernation,
pose a constant threat.
Hopefully, mama bear is not up there.
I'd hate to have a whole family these damn things over here.
These apex predators can weigh up to 700 pounds.
And frequently target wilderness camps in search of food.
Get out of there!
Hey!
We saw that large black bear.
I mean, just right up the hill right here behind camp.
So I know he's been in the camp.
I'm not here to kill a bear.
But if they come messing with us,
I do want to be able to defend myself.
And this right here does give me a peace of mind
that nobody's gonna get mauled by a bear.
Yeah, he's moving on now,
but keep your eyes open.
You see, that's our shanty.
Freaking bear tried to get in there.
I've got my gun on me.
I figure if I shoot James in the leg
and I can make a run for it.
Let him deal with it.
Let's go
here we go.
Come on! Come on!
Come on. Whoo!
Whoo!
Yeah!
Right now, we're trying to get camps set up
so we can move in.
And then move on to get up the creek.
Yeah, the smell of gasoline.
I'm home.
Yes.
We've got to build shelters.
There's not as much snow as there usually is.
Usually is over my head, and this is awesome.
Home sweet home.
I can't wait to get up and get these huge nugz.
Don't mind me.
I'm just trying to set up a tent.
Everybody's excited to start.
And this is really quick for us.
We've had a lot of bad starts in the past
and this year,
it looks like we've learned
from some of our mistakes,
which isn't, you know, not a common thing for us.
All right, let's see what you got.
Perfect man.
This actually look good.
- Rest. - All rest. Thank you, sir.
- Which one? - My gosh!
That's pretty good, man.
- Smells good. - -That smells really good.
You want one?
The sun's going down.
Yeah.
Yeah, they're going around.
It's going around.
I'll never forget my first year here.
Fred and I were panning
and we had been at it for about 12-15 hour, right?
And we're almost done.
And he's like "god one more pan."
And I looked down at my watch and I said,
"Fred, it's 04:30 in the morning."
And it's just as bright as it is right now.
And he was like,
"get the hell out of here."
"Fred, we have to be up in two and a half hours."
Definitely feels good. Having camp set up now.
Man, we're way ahead right now.
We're so far ahead.
Pretty much got the place set up, man.
Yeah, we do.
Dying to know what's up that creek, though.
I'm here to see it too.
I've been thinking about it for the entire winter, man.
Man, as far along as we are now,
we need to go do a recon tomorrow and see what we can
how far up the creek we can get.
I couldn't see really well,
down when I was on top
but I'll know as soon as I get eyes on it.
I know exactly what we're dealing with.
We've got to go for it big.
It's either big or bro. That's it.
See some more of those six ounce nuggets?
I agree with you.
Or maybe a half a dozen of them.
That would be even better.
Yeah, I agree.
Good thing it's not raining.
That's a good point.
Well, the sun's not glaring, either so.
Yeah. It's great.
Yeah, look bare.
- That's a bear track. - That's a bear track.
My god, we got a big one.
Holy -look at that sucker.
Bigfoot.
To reach the waterfall.
Dustin discovered last season
the crew must hike a mile up nugget creek,
braving river rapids and falling rocks.
Once there, they must establish
their remote mining outpost
in the shadow of the cliffs above
in the belief that this untouched site
could contain a huge deposit of monster nuggets.
This is our drop off point right here.
If I blow through
just don't even come check on me, you know,
just back up and lock over
lock every... everybody even just digs heels,
I'm fine with that, too.
I don't care. Just make it stop.
As long as we've got climbing ropes and harnesses,
I think we'll get anybody out that falls there.
I was... I was wondering.
Should we suit up?
Harnesses rope just in case you go through.
This is where this gets dangerous.
- Yeah, he needs the heat. - All right.
Put your harnesses on if you're coming with me.
What am with here?
All right. I'm just gonna go out front run
and stomp on a bunch of if I go through.
Everybody anchor the rope, and I'll climb up the rope.
- All right. - Copy that.
Hey, give me some space.
- All right? - -Just in case I blow through
back up off me.
The whole section goes
if both of us go down, it's stupid.
Copy that.
Dude, I looked in the hole right there.
We're like ten feet above big ass boulders.
The snow makes access further up creek possible.
This is awesome.
But if any of these
suspended sections give way, it's a free fall.
Into the raging white water below.
So from here, down to the bottom,
where it's running, how far is that?
About 25 feet.
Holy crap.
It got soft y'all.
Rock, rocks.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Watch out!
Be careful right here, guys.
Whoo!
I'm loving this, y'all.
This is nice.
- I'm loving this. - I like this.
This is good news is what this is. Right here.
There's a lot less snow than we had.
And from up there it looked way up there.
But it must have been a trick on the eyes
- because this looks good. - I love it.
So we're going to continue up.
This is it?
Holy!
This is not what I wanted.
There's no waterfall right now.
This is not good.
This is... this is what I was worried about.
That sucks.
Yeah, this is not good.
We're standing on probably 80 or 100 feet of snow, right last year.
Last year
I hear something rumbling big up here.
Dustin and Paul discovered the waterfall
that they pinned their season on.
But now it is covered with over 80 feet of solid snow and ice.
Creating a frozen barrier
between them and the gold.
It's not melting anytime soon.
I mean, if we have to wait four or five months for this to to melt
that gives us no time to come in here and have an operation.
It's going to fil I right back up with snow almost instantly.
Yeah, I just lost a whole bunch of hope.
Man. Son of a bitch, dude.
I just... I don't know what to do.
My brain's telling me to abandon ship.
Your hopes and dreams are dead right here.
I just couldn't sleep last night.
I just didn't have it.
My brain wouldn't turn off.
I'm kind of getting stumped on what to do.
The snow, so much bigger than I thought it was going to be.
Months from now it will be completely snow less
and we can attack it then, but not right now.
It's not a viable dig site right now.
Tons of snow. It essentially seems like, yeah,
it almost looks overwhelming.
If we get the chunks to break off
and go in the water, they'll dissolve.
Yeah.
I didn't see any water up there, though.
Well, it's underneath the snow.
It's still there. Just got to cut through the snow and get to it.
It is still flowing?
Yeah, that's true.
I mean, it's amazing. We couldn't even hear that waterfall.
It's so deep underneath there
with over 80 feet blanketing Dustin's
waterfall dive site
to keep the dream of uncovering nugget creek's riches alive.
He needs a plan b.
And quick.
I've been thinking about this whole situation.
I think I'm starting to come up with a plan.
I have a sight in mind.
So, James, Carlos, let's go do an assessment
on the site and let's go find out.
What we're getting into.
But one thing I do need is the dredge
to work perfect this year
because we had a lot of problems last year,
I need that dredge to be reliable.
- Okay. - Okay.
- We're good? - We got a plan.
- Should we drag it over here? - We could.
Well, let's get in and look at it
and start scrounging everything we can find.
That's not good.
That's where our pontoons go.
Wes has gonna have to do some welding of this thing for sure.
Kind of sucks that there's so much snow,
but that does give us time.
To work on the dredge, get the dredge dolled up.
It definitely needs it.
So whatever we can do now
to beef it up, make it stronger.
Now is the perfect time to do it.
This dredge is our moneymaker.
Without this, there's no mining.
This is the most important piece
of equipment that we have.
Okay. That's good.
Man, this thing's in sad shape, isn't it?
This thing is in horrible shape, man.
Golly.
Yeah, I'll just build a whole new frame.
Slopes get sloppy?
It's really
definitely on the melt.
That's from yesterday. That's pretty quick.
You guys. What do you think?
You think right here.
I really like it.
I like it.
I've been looking at this spot for a long damn time.
Every time we walk by it,
I think it'll be a better spot.
More accessibility, less dangerous.
This is good news right here.
So here we're looking at about 15-20 ft of snow.
Where I wanted to go.
We're not gonna get through that.
This is hard enough.
We'll get through it.
But this will melt out long, long, long before that stuff's done.
We'll be finished this hole before that snow melts by itself.
That's real good.
The water literally runs into a wall,
a big giant cliff right here
that goes up probably about 60-70 feet
and takes a 90 degree turn.
I think this is the best spot to dig.
The water comes through and it feels like the water
just rams into this wall, does a circle and shoots
out of that little spot right there.
What are you thinking?
- Yeah. - Yeah. That what happens,
- that's exactly what happened, man. - Yeah.
Water passes, against this wall,
and then it just trickles them through, you know what I mean
the wall.
Is that what you gonna call it?
Yeah, we can call it the wall.
- All right. - We're here at the wall.
The new dive site.
Dustin has chosen is just 300 feet up
from where they found their biggest nugget ever.
As the fast flowing creek slams into the huge wall of solid rock at this site,
the water redirects and slows.
Causing the heavy nuggets to drop,
which could create monster piles on bedrock.
All right, so we're digging the wall.
- Digging the wall. - Dig the wall. Hell, yeah.
Where's the gold gonna be, man?
- Come on. - -Gold's gonna be right here.
Down this line?
Right down the center.
It's gonna be kaboom! Right here. Kaboom!
Kaboom, kaboom, kaboom, kaboom!
Okay, we've got a plan.
So, let's work on trying to get this place
- dredge-able. - Okay.
This is a great spot to dig
because of how wide it is,
hopefully it's not 20-plus feet deep.
That's my real hope.
But I think we're gonna find a ton of gold
right here where I'm staying.
Good morning.
Nothing like laying in bed,
thinking about what we gotta do.
So there's one really, really big snow bridge
that's in our way.
Got some ideas on what to do.
Their new dive site.
The wall is still covered in 20 feet of snow,
but with the right tools, they could be mining within a week.
So how far along were you with that thing?
- Ready? - Completely.
So, guys, we've got a new tool.
It's completely experimental on my part.
I thought, Carlos, you'd enjoy this quite a bit actually.
It's like Christmas, dude.
What is that?
What the... no.
What is this, bro?
It's a laser.
It's a flamethrower!
My god! My god!
It's a flamethrower.
That's your button.
My god! I got tingly!
- You got... - my god!
So that's how it feels.
My god!
You want to see how it works?
Let's go give it a test run.
It's gonna be fun.
- You ready for this? - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Treat it like a gun.
Okay? Treat it like a gun.
All right, so there's a snowman there,
and he's mocking you.
He just said something about your mom or something.
- Flame on! - Flame on!
Nothing?
No, I just haven't done it yet because I'm freaking scared.
Flame on!
- Yeah. - My god!
Holy crap!
Way to go, man?
That's so bad.
Ha-ha!
Whoa! Dude. Look at that.
That is awesome.
I can feel the heat all the way back here.
Flame off! Power off!
Dude, this is a little bit too.
Wow., man!
There is so much things we can do.
So you're sold?
Yeah, man, I need to go to church after this.
Seriously, man.
So I don't know if it's actually gonna work.
Worth a shot.
Yeah. I think the three of us
should go try to melt some snow.
You're gonna work on the dredge for a little bit.
- All right. - Everybody know what they're doing?
Yup -all right, let's go.
Desperate to make his huge investment
at nugget creek turn a profit.
Dustin has tasked the Richardson brothers,
with rebuilding their dredge.
So it's ready to launch
as soon as their dive site is open.
First thing we gotta do is start with sluices and then go from there.
This thing is in bad shape, man.
Man, sure is.
I like that, though, 'cause now, that'll fit.
We can get that tight, tight, tight,
you know, we've got three other dredges
that we can scrounge e parts off of.
We always want to get two divers in.
We've got enough parts. We should see if we can make a double dredge.
Wes's big idea.
Harvest parts from their three broken dredges.
To combine and create a double dredge.
Two sluices and two separate heating and suction systems.
It means two divers can operate in the water at the same time.
And dredge doubled the gold.
Let's just go scrounge up stuff
and we can lay out and do some mock up
and just see what we can come up with.
I mean, normally we've tried to do it with two dredges before,
but you've got to have such a large area,
you just can't make it work.
So we came up with the idea.
Let's make a smaller dredge.
With two sluices, four engines,
take up a lot less space
and get twice the amount of work done.
You know, we've got that long sluice box from the small dredge.
Use the small motors, and whoever's on this one
could be the one moving rocks.
That's a good idea. We might as well suit this thing up.
Up at the wall dive site...
So right now we're going pyro on the snow.
Carlos attempts to break through
the 20 feet of snow, keeping them from gold.
That's your proton pack.
Proton pack.
Okay. Let's burn some snow.
You guys ready?
Flaming on!
Whoo!
I did that.
My gosh!
The hottie looks pretty bad, dude.
You know what, man?
It doesn't look like that's helping at all.
Snow doesn't burn, bro. It just doesn't work.
All right, we gotta come up with a better technique.
How about we make a bonfire with wood,
on top of the snow, we can hold hands,
"Kumbaya," each other,
so just find some debris.
Yeah. Let's just find some wood.
I think it's gonna work better if we had something to burn.
Okay, well, let's get some wood in here I guess.
You guys just keep going
I'm gonna take a walk all the way up.
To the creek and find out if there's any place
that the snow is melted and we can start dredging faster.
Okay. Gotcha, man.
Be careful, dude, be careful.
Camp fire time.
All right. Let's go get some wood, man.
All right.
Let's get in there.
Hey, James. I think we're good, bro.
All right, man. Get your marshmallows ready.
We're gonna have a campfire.
Fame on brother! Fame on.
- Wow! Dude. - Yeah!
I make fire.
That's badass.
It should do his job.
Just grab some more wood.
Beat it. And leave it.
Hopefully we'll come back with a big hole.
I want to walk to the top of my claims
all the way up this creek.
I want to see if there's any melted ice
where we can get a dredge in
and get the dredge in fast.
Desperate to make the most of their short season,
Dustin heads another mile up from their waterfall site.
Hell of a hike.
We're almost 2000 feet up.
This is the upper limits of my claim.
Wow!
Look at this.
Okay, that goes right through.
That's hollow.
Don't go through there.
I came all the way up here.
I was hoping there'd be some melted snow we can get in.
But everything was completely snowed in all the way to the top.
There's probably 50-80 ft of snow right here.
I bet underneath that is another 80 feet of scree and debris.
So this is absolutely impossible.
This would take months of heavy, heavy equipment
just to get through the top stuff.
It is dangerous.
I don't like it.
If Fred was still here, Fred would love it up here.
But he's not much of a snow hiker.
Big old boot didn't help with that.
Yeah, he would tell me. It's not worth it.
And I know that's exactly what he would be whispering in my ear right now.
I'm a little let down that it's not a dig site.
Up ahead.
You can do whatever the you want. I don't care.
Why are you so upset?
God!
I think it broke up in my hands.
Yeah. Look at that.
We know the gold.
We absolutely know there's gold.
Is this a success?
Well, you would think fire would do a little bit more than that.
So, you think, dude.
After Dustin's failed mission to find a dive site
that might get them in the water faster.
Their only hope is to clear the snow at the wall.
We tried fire trying to melt the ice,
trying to get into water faster.
But none of it's working, and I think we need to go back to what we know.
With just two inch pumps, and just get after it
and stop playing with fire because this is not working.
How'd it go, guys?
We got beat.
What you got, man?
Wes got a pretty good idea, man.
Well, so I mean, look at our big dredge.
That thing is so annihilated, we're pretty much gonna have -it's in bad shape.
To completely rebuild the frame.
Yeah, I mean, we've used the hell out of it over the years.
Wait, that's the one that we used last year?
Yeah.
The the snow, I think, did some more damage to it.
But so here's what we're thinking.
If we've got to build the frame, we've got all of those small dredges.
And we brought the small sluices out.
What if we put two of those sluices
together and make like a double dredge?
Say that again.
- What do... - a longer sluice or a double dredge
- no. - No. Like side by side on one frame.
Instead of having to dredge frames,
one dredge frame, 2two sluices.
So we'll have two engines for the one dredge,
two engines for the other.
Exactly. If we could do this and get two divers in,
we're going to be miles ahead.
You just got me off guard. I thought you were just cleaning the sucker up.
So give me a second.
Give me a second goddamn, man.
So, a double sluice with four engines on it?
Yeah, that's gonna be heavy now.
- That's heavy. - We'd have to double the pontoons
up on the middle or something to...
You put them in the middle?
What we were thinking, -i mean...
Timeline wise, like, for full fabrication.
I mean, we're not talking like weeks.
I don't have weeks.
It doesn't get dark till after midnight,
we can put in some long hours.
That's not gonna be an issue.
I like the idea of having a double sluice dredge/one boat.
Time. That's what I'm looking at
a week.
That's all. We've got to build it.
What do you think?
I don't see why not. Because I'm working on framing stuff.
Paul can be working on the engines.
We'll just push it and get it done.
- Okay. - We can do it. Yeah.
I'm gonna hold you to that.
- All right. - -We can make it happen.
These will definitely be stronger.
If you get that height, figured we can put a bar across.
That's what I'm thinking.
We should be able to... I mean, this is kind of messed up, but we can redo it.
We got this height.
Yeah, that'll be easy if we just make this where it sits here.
- All the way across. - We've got this.
Look at that.
- Look at that. - Yeah.
I think we just chop it here and chop it here.
Get rid of that the middle section.
That gives you all that to weld.
And that gives you breaks going down to these middle pontoons.
So that's the first thing,
- we'll extend these first. - Yeah.
And then we'll make the structure
- to make it strong. - Yeah
to hit Dustin's ambitious one week deadline.
The Richardson brothers work into the night.
And start the first stage in Wes's
double dredge build.
Man. That's gonna be sweet.
Construct a new reinforced frame
to support the extra weight.
That'll be easy.
Six foot 60... 63 to the inside?
Something like that.
A little bit of bit of hurry here.
I'll get all these pieces fitted.
Get them cut! Get them ready.
Wes will weld them up before we know it.
We'll have this dredge together.
Check this out.
If we have to we can make those right there.
That will be strong.
Yep. I like that.
It's gonna be a new dredge
by the time we get through with it.
Quick tip.
If you're ever going to carry a pump on your backpack, don't top it off.
My back's starting to burn.
I think I got gasoline. So...
Back at the wall dive site,
after they failed to melt the 20 ft of snow with fire.
Dustin, Carlos and James
resort to tried and tested methods.
Firing up.
Ready. Go.
Now we're talking.
The creek.
Water is just two degrees warmer than the snow.
But it's still a highly effective cutting tool.
Yeah.
Is this gonna work?
Yeah.
Melt the crap out of it.
It's gonna get so heavy it's gonna collapse.
It's cutting real quick.
It's a lot of water.
We're gonna start melting a ton of snow,
and it's time to get the dredge out here and start dredging.
I'm ready.
I'm actually really excited for this site.
It's getting there.
That's the thickest part.
Try that.
The two inch pump is working.
It's working awesomely, but the thing is,
we've got to speed up the process.
So we're going to give it a hand by chipping away at the snow.
You know, any little thing helps, man.
We got to get the dredge in here.
I can't believe that there are
three works of the shovel.
Over the next two days... Boom!
Using their water pump
and the pressure washer for more precise cuts.
We need to make lines
and then cut it open with this.
Yeah, look at that.
Look at it.
Dude, that's working really good.
The crew starts to win their battle
against the snow,
holy! It's eating it all up, dude.
Whoa!
- You all right? - Holy moly.
Whoa, whoa.
Yeah! Piece by piece,
This place is awesome, dude,
Hey, Carlos.
Hey, do you got a pan?
Yeah, bro.
- Here. - Thanks.
I'm gonna do a quick pan, see if I can't find any gold.
You never know.
Yeah. This is a good looking material.
I mean...
Lots of pirate crap that's stuck in here
that are all good indicators of gold.
No way.
Yeah. Look at that.
Hey, guys, I found some gold over there.
Look at that.
Man!
Yeah. Those are pieces.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
You've got pieces out of that.
Look at that. That's like a little picker almost.
We all know there's gold here.
- Where is gold? - It's here.
There's gold. We just
got to get to the bottom of it, man.
Well, the dredge will fit now.
This is enough snow to get started.
Using the snow we'll start our walkway
and we'll start moving these rocks.
So you know what time it is, right?
Dredge time.
This looks good, man.
This looks real good.
This is really good work.
Today was a good day.
We made enough freaking area for the dredge.
It was awesome. Awesome fricking day.
James found some tiny little pickers in some dirt over here.
We know there's gold.
We absolutely know there's gold.
Now we just gotta go pull it up.
So I've decided we're going on an adventure.
Need to have lumber for walkways.
Let's use this opportunity
to get a couple of barrels of fuel
because my boat hates it.
A week into their mining season,
the crew have cleared enough snow
at the wall and found gold.
But before they can move the dredge up to the site,
they need supplies like fuel and lumber.
Critical to getting the operation up and running.
There was going to be a helicopter flight.
I was thinking about it, but I looked into it.
And it was $11,000
to get all the stuff up here that I need.
So we're gonna drive the 5-ton
and I'm gonna get you to drive.
It froze again last night, so the water's low.
So we're up early to really take advantage
of the low water.
Dustin's money saving supply run
is an 18-mile mission to devil's elbow and back.
The risk of sinking sands,
river boulders and deep water crossings litter the routes.
And it's a race against time to get down and back
before the glaciers that feed the mighty tsirku river melt.
And wipe out the access
the only thing we have to rescue that truck is the dozer,
and it does not want to make it that long distance.
So much can go wrong.
So many things can break.
Yeah. Let's do it anyway.
We got a lot in this, bro.
Calm, slow.
I know you got it, man.
You're the best technical driver out here for us,
so -all right.
- You got it? - Yep.
Be confident.
Don't take too big a chances.
Do it.
Wish me luck.
God.
You can do it, James
it will take all of James, 25 years
experience and off road driving.
To get this 50-year-old piece of military
history down the river and back.
Let the journey begin.
Yeah, buddy.
Big rigs, big rigs.
I mean, to start off right now,
take that right there.
But we've got that whole busted tent that we had last year.
We've got plenty of material.
We've got tons of this stuff.
At the start of last season...
That's destroyed.
The crew arrived to find their camp
completely crushed by heavy snow.
This was supposed to be snow proof.
Now to avoid falling behind on the build,
Wes plans on using their old tent
for bush built supports for their dredge frame.
Check this out.
Even with these curved pieces,
they'll still work just like this.
- This is so strong. - Yeah.
I like your curved pieces
- for making the bridge across the top. - -Yeah.
What I'm thinking about this
is this thing always wanted to do this,
that other dredge before.
We've got them going there.
Fasten here. And we could do a couple of legs right here.
Fasten here and there.
And ones on the bottom.
And the thing of it is, once we get it set up
and the bridge across is going to be strong enough,
like you said, you'll be able to step
- just right across. - Yeah.
One person can take care of two dredges like it was one.
Yeah, I'll finish scrounging some parts.
See if we can get enough stuff to make this work.
All right, all right, all right, all right.
All right, all right, all right, all right, all right.
Here we go.
Monster truck.
This thing, it's got balls.
Come on, baby.
Okay. That's not too bad.
Whoo!
Wow!
Whoo!
Dustin wasn't lying. It's a bumpy ride.
How close are you with the dredge?
- I'm married to this dredge. - -I understand.
How close are they? How's it...
- Pretty close. - Yeah? Because
I mean, if I didn't have issues, I would already be finished.
All right. Here's my question.
Can we start carrying stuff out after today?
Yeah, should be able to.
We can?
So we can take the floats and just start... like.
I'd start with the engines.
I'd start taking off the top, so, because
well, if you need to work on the engines,
you can keep those till last, is what I'm getting at.
No, what I need
is all that out there, so I can do a few last things to the frame.
I want it done by today.
There's no reason why we can't get that done today
unless we break something.
So let's not break anything.
Yeah. I'll get done everything I can today,
and we'll start hauling it.
I mean I can only get so much done, you know.
Wes is almost a week into his build
of the new double dredge,
and the desperation to get a diver in the water
is getting to Dustin.
You're not working on the whole thing still right now, are you?
The entire thing?
Just little bits and pieces of it. Yes.
- Like the entire thing? - Because... yeah.
Great. Paul, you want to just stay down here
and you guys can have another couple of weeks.
We'll just... We'll just wait.
If that's what you want, we'll make sure it's perfect.
And we can take as long as you like, man.
I'm just telling you what I had in my head.
I mean, you can do whatever the you want.
I don't care. I'll take all the stuff
and I'll get the frame ready and y'all can take the frame.
- Why are you so upset? - I'm not upset.
There's just some
all right. Well, it's fine.
It'll all work out just fine.
He just don't appreciate the engineering in this.
I think I've done a pretty good job
in a pretty decent amount of time
for not having any to work with.
As long as it floats.
Things have gotten really weird.
I have to build every thing for this dredge.
It better be worth it in the end
because it's taking too long to build,
and it looks too heavy.
I don't even think the damn thing will float.
While Wes races to meet Dustin's new deadline,
the rest of the crew load up
to support James on his mission.
All systems go!
All right, let's head down to devil's elbow.
If it starts to rain,
that truck will never make it back up here.
Time to go.
It's a little bumpy.
Hold on to your butts.
Four miles down the mighty tsirku river...
That looks pretty deep.
James has completed eight miles of his journey,
but his toughest obstacle is dead ahead.
I'm not gonna lie. This makes me a little nervous.
This is the deepest, right here.
If I could just stay to that side,
it might be shallow enough.
Boy, here we go.
No guts, no glory, right?
All right.
Come on, baby.
Whoa.
Holy!
Boy, here we go.
Whoa!
- Holy! - That's deep!
Me running!
That was the deepest spot I've ever gone through.
Holy!
This thing's a tank, dude.
I think I got about half a mile or so,
and then I might be able to get a glimpse of devil's elbow.
There's Dustin.
That's about the smoothest I've ever driven.
That was good.
That was a hell of a drive.
Hell yeah, man.
You made it!
It was rough, dude.
Damn good job!
Hell yeah!
I'm sore from that.
Thing's a beast, ain't it? Yeah.
Good job, man.
Long journey back.
We all talked about the weather possibly coming in,
and it looks like it's sneaking over here.
So time to shift gears...
And get loaded and get out of here.
It's a race against the weather
to get their supplies back to camp
as the approaching rain
threatens their only way back.
I feel like a bobblehead in here.
I think I'm gonna take a new route.
Gotta give her hell.
That wasn't too bad.
Here we go.
Monster!
I love this truck, dude.
America! Yeah!
Man. I guarantee he's gonna be ready
for an adult beverage when he gets here though.
I got him one ready.
- I mean, he definitely deserves it. - He deserves it, man.
- That's for sure. - It's nerve-wracking.
He's right there!
There he is!
Good job, James!
Yeah!
This is a real celebration.
- Man. - For real.
That's amazing.
- Loosen it. - Man. That loosened up already?
Hell yeah, brother. Give me a hug.
Get in there.
Good job, James.
- You deserve it, dude. - Thank you.
I can't tell you how happy I am to have made it here.
But that was stressful.
I can't believe he made it.
We can start building the walkway.
Now we've got the supplies to do it.
We've got to get that dredge in the water.
Now we've got some boards.
Let's go finish that walkway?
- Let's do it. - All right.
Let's do it.
This right here is hard.
Let's see what we can do.
We need the walkway as our emergency escape.
And the only way it's going to be an emergency escape
is to have it higher than we've ever had it before.
I believe it's ready for a pipe.
You can see what happened to our last one.
Two years ago...
It came up! It just came up right now!
Heavy storms caused a massive flood
that annihilated everything in its path.
We're almost trapped.
Man, it's going over the boardwalk right now.
- We lost everything. - And everything's over.
We're like another ten, 12 feet higher.
So, I don't think the flood's going to touch that.
This walkway will be their lifeline
when the inevitable floods rip through nugget creek.
- What happened? - That one looks a little bent.
Yeah, well...
- Like it? - I like that.
So I'm gonna get this engine back on.
Found it had issues with the engine
after I already had it on,
so had to pull it off and change parts.
What I had to do today
set me back a little bit with this engine debacle.
But other than that, this thing is getting pretty close.
I'll, get back to where I was at
and, get this heater on,
and then I'll start plumbing all this.
I mean, it's gonna be pretty soon
and it's gonna be ready to go out there.
I am really ready to see what this thing does
because we're fixing to get into some big nuggets where we're going.
A little bit far in the middle one. Come on back.
Over the next three days...
All right, let's slide that board.
While Wes brings his Frankenstein dredge to life...
A little bit more.
That's plenty. I like it.
The crew bring in over 80 feet of boards...
Like doing a tightrope.
Walking a tightrope without a net.
And managed to anchor them 20 feet above the creek,
all the way to the wall.
This is one hell of a boardwalk.
It is now.
We just about finished this walkway.
So we're gonna walk all of the dredge...
Gigantic, probably 2,500-pound dredge,
piece by piece.
We're gonna walk it up over this walkway.
No problem.
Aw, look at that.
That's much better.
So for the most part, the deuce sluice is finished,
except for just a little... few knickknack things.
The engines are on, the pumps are on.
The plumbing is all done.
What I did with this deuce sluice
is the way I put it, the components together,
there's no way we can take it up there in one piece.
I'm gonna have to take it apart here
to get it up to the site.
And once we get up there,
it should be really easy to put it back together.
What I'm waiting for is to see gold in both sluice boxes.
That is the ultimate right there.
This year, we're doubling up on everything.
It is a lot of walking, guys.
Holy cow. All right.
This is the first thing that has to be down there
because the pontoon's the foundation of the deuce sluice.
We're taking the boardwalk.
You've got to stay focused.
One misstep,
especially carrying this weight on our backs,
that's a long drop down.
I made a bad choice.
The crew will rely on manpower alone
to get their 2,500-pound dredge components
along the narrow boardwalk,
twenty feet above the creek.
I've done more. I don't know why
it's so hard for me right now.
A fall from this height could be fatal.
That's a wobbly walkway.
Whoo!
That kicked my ass.
Whoa.
Holy cow!
That just about killed me.
Dude, I got hung on every tree down that trail.
I'm never doing that again.
Holy!
It got dangerous with two of them bitches, I promise.
All right, Wes, we're gonna go get the engines.
I don't know how heavy they are, so we'll see.
Okay.
I'll start putting this together, and then, we'll go from there.
A lot of heavy stuff.
Walk up here with these engines on my back.
You got to earn your keep sometimes.
Let's do this.
I designed this thing and I forgot how it goes together.
Should have taken pictures of it.
I think I got the big pontoons turned around backwards.
I don't know. I've got two
no, they're at the front.
Yeah, I got this backwards.
All right, let's see what we got.
Struggling like crazy.
It feels like we're about to pass the hell out.
That valve's sticking out that far out the back,
that hurts.
Just 'bout passed out.
That last section right there,
I started getting a little hazy.
There's a whole damn day, man.
Son of a bitch, James.
It's so heavy.
I just don't wanna pass the out.
Dustin!
It's so heavy.
I just don't wanna pass the out.
You all right?
Yeah, you got to do more than that.
Ready?
- You wanna just take it off? - Yeah, let's do that.
My right heel let go.
Look at it.
- Full ice slip. - Yep.
It's all good.
At the wall dive site,
the crew have finally completed
the last of 50 trips
to bring in the 2,500-pound deuce sluice.
I am whooped.
Holy crap.
Dude, it's cooking out here.
I did not see this coming.
Good job, guys, today.
Everybody did wonderful.
This is what I needed.
I needed this.
Can you believe we hiked the entire dredge here?
- I'm just happy to see you here. - -Me too.
Yeah! Holy crap, dude.
Yeah. It's starting to look like a dredge already.
I love this.
Let's reconvene on this in the morning.
I don't have much left in me, y'all.
- Damn good day. - Hell yeah!
We finally got the dredge out here.
As soon as this dredge gets built,
then we have everything together.
We can go diving and find some gold.
We had a hard day, but it was great.
We got the dredge out.
We got a ton of work done.
All right. Let's lay some boards down.
Maybe a cross and some boards. I don't know.
It's taken nearly two weeks,
but Wes has assembled the deuce sluice.
Now they must wrestle this 12-foot long,
one and a quarter ton double dredge into the water.
You might be able to just drag it right on through there...
All right. See. Here's my issue, guys.
What I need is control of this thing
so it doesn't rub against the wall
and break off of Wes' hard work.
All right, all right.
So, we're going to try to protect
the sides of this thing.
In a big way.
Okay.
Now, this is a great moment right here.
I'm, pretty happy to see the deuce sluice going.
And this is a big day for us.
I mean, if everything works out like it's supposed to,
twice the dredging, twice the gold,
like giving birth to a child.
It's gonna be an awesome freaking goddamn dredge, man.
All right, first things first.
Let's see if we can budge this thing.
I need it to slide straight,
and then turn, not turn, and go down.
Just head straight first.
Then we're going to turn it if we can.
Absolutely.
Let's see if we can move this thing, guys.
- You guys ready? - Yep. Ready.
Go!
Goddamn, that's heavy.
That's heavy.
My god, I can't believe how heavy that is.
For Wes' sake, I really sure hope it floats.
Ready, and...
All right. Little bit at a time, little bit at a time.
She's not going to go easy, but it moved.
All right, ready? And...
Goddamn!
- Are we there yet? - -Let's go all the way,
almost to where he's standing straight
- and then try to pivot it. - All right.
Once it's pivoted, we'll use the skyline to drag it out.
All right.
And go!
- Yeah! - Want me to push your way?
We got one more like that. Just like that. Just like that.
Ready.
- Yeah. - One, two, three.
They manhandle the deuce sluice...
- That's just about it, right? - -Yep.
Close enough to hand over to the skyline winches
for the final ten feet.
When you start pulling the back of it over,
we might be able to push on the front too,
maybe it will come over a little bit.
All right, everybody, beware. When I pull on this,
this bolt could shoot out of the wall at any moment.
Watch your eyes.
- Another two feet. - Hang on a second.
Let me see if we can get that board underneath it.
This is good. We're on the...
We're on this,
but it's against that log right there.
Here we go.
- Yeah. There it goes. - Got it.
Better tie that thing up.
Yep, she floats.
Dredge is in the water.
Scoot it right over. It went really well for us.
But the deuce sluice looks like a damn houseboat to me.
It better live up to its name because...
We got a lot of riding on this right now.
We got the deuce sluice floating.
We just have to put the, foot valves on now, primer up,
and see if it sucks up some material.
So this is our new sluice for this year,
the deuce sluice.
Wes' deuce sluice is finally in the water.
And this feat of bush engineering,
is the most advanced dredge they've ever had.
I've got a bilge pump out of a boat.
That pumps water into the foot valve.
Once I get one foot valve filled up,
it'll prime the other three
in the time it would normally take us to get one running.
And we have a reserve tank up at the top.
So, for some reason, the compressor quit,
they still have air.
Having this dredge built like this
gives us two divers in the water.
So, if we're only able to spend five hours dredging in one day,
that's ten hours of dredge time.
All combined together, we've got two of everything,
so it means at least twice as much gold this year.
Hell yeah!
Love it!
At the wall dive site,
the deuce sluice is finally ready
to start dredging for gold.
It went pretty all right, you know.
The dredge is in the water.
From here on out, it's dredge, dredge, dredge.
Finally time to start dredging and get gold.
We know there's going to be large nuggets here.
We got a six ounce nugget downstream last year.
This year, we're in an area that I'm
99% that nobody has messed with.
As soon as we can get two divers in the water,
I think we're going to find larger nuggets
and way more gold than we've ever found before.
But to move the deuce sluice
into the best position for dredging,
they must be able to maneuver it using the skyline.
Tie that rope onto me.
When I hang that big, stupid thing off of here or something...
Going up.
Their new dredge is almost twice the weight
of their old one,
and the skyline winches don't have the power
to lift it straight up.
The simple solution, double the pulleys
to cut the force required to lift it by half.
I'm trying to set up this, pulley system,
but it's real, real heavy.
Wes came up with this,
and all it is, is more pulleys.
This right here is a two-to-one.
We're trying to make a four-to-one.
We'll see if it works.
Come on.
God!
I think I broke something in my hands.
Ouch.
Yep. Something happened.
Holy!
That was something.
I'm trying to tie knots with my hand not working.
It all hurts.
It hurts so bad.
Goddamn!
I got hurt.
What?
See? Watch the knuckle.
And it goes to the left instead of straight down.
How did you do that?
I don't even know how that's possible.
That hurts like hell.
It's like I broke it or something. I don't know.
It kind of feels like a disaster.
I couldn't even tell you what I did.
One of my tendons has slipped over
on one of my knuckles and it hurts like hell.
I can't bend my finger without a lot of pain right now.
Every year I do this stupid, man.
Look, it won't even open.
What is happening?
Look at that. You see it?
- Yeah, it's going sideways. - -It's just.
I hate this.
So right now, we have no idea
what happened with Dustin's hand.
If it's that injured, that could ruin his season
for the entire freaking year, man.
We have no idea how this is gonna turn out, amigo.
Let's get ready to dive!
Yeah!
- On the all new season... - -We're divin'!
- Of - white water... - Whoo-hoo!
Back to classic white water.
We're gonna be the first people to dig here.
- This could be it. -, dude.
That's going to be a permanent grave site.
I'm not gonna dive here. Absolutely not.
Are you gonna get over this or not?
Are you serious?
Nobody's keeping you here.
You're a world-class prick, dude.
You cross me, I will cut you loose.
That is it.
I could lose everything.
Whoo!
- I'm bringing my loved one out. - -Hey, y'all.
And I'm putting her in the most dangerous situation
you can put a human.
I don't like it. I can't breathe. I'm freaking out.
Can't find no goddamn gold.
Nothing in the box yet.
I need this to pay off,
and I need it to pay off soon.
We're on borrowed time.
- Diver up! Diver up! - Diver up!
We're failing in a big way.
At some point, the money starts to run out.