Gold Rush: White Water

I love your setup, man.

Look at that.

High in the chilkat mountains, dustin and wes are cleaning up.

The gold from the last two weeks.

Keep stacking it up, man.

Every little bit counts.

Yeah, it does.

We didn't really get that much out of the first cleanup, but...

No?

What?

Are you serious, man?

That doesn't make no sense, dude.

- Hell! - Holy!

My!

What the hell is that, dude?

My.

Dude.

What is that?

My. You see this?

You see this?

My. That's like, dang kid's cereal, dude.

Holy. We're in the money.

Carlos!

Get ready to rumble!

Woo-hoo-hoo!

First dive. I'm excited, but I'm nervous all at the same time.

Get your ass down there and get some gold.

Alrighty.

Some people, they got it. Some people just don't.

Even from the top, we can see.

Quite a few boulders overhanging.

Is everything okay?

Scott? Have you got a copy?

Get the out of there.

If that thing pops up,

It'll just smack you right in your mouth.

Whoa!

Drop it!

That's some big gold, boy.

Everyone who told me "shouldn't dig there,".

You can kiss my ass.

Captions paid for by discovery communications.

People have been mining the creeks.

Around rockfall ravine for nearly 120 years,

And the evidence is everywhere.

Let's do it.

But dustin risked his entire life savings.

On the belief they didn't get all the gold.

When I bought these claims,

Everybody told me it was just a waste of time.

It's already been mined.

Now his gamble is starting to pay off,

Pulling out over $8,000 in gold just last week.

Proves that rockfall ravine.

Could be the richest dive site of their lives.

We're winning at life.

This is exactly what we want to be doing it with.

We're making damn good gold doing it.

Carlos! Alright, man.

Get ready to rumble!

Carlos claims the first dive,

Looking to smash last week's record gold haul.

Alright. It's a go.

Diving in!

About to take a look-see.

That is all big.

Where'd that fall out, right here?

Somewhere right there.

That's still done pretty good, dude.

I bet it still got the gold, though.

Probably.

Well, that goes down about 8 feet, shoulder to shoulder.

The kitty litter, you think?

Yeah, I saw kitty litter.

I can get rid of that quick.

Why don't you get rid of that, see where that hole goes.

Alright.

The dredge sucks up rocks and dirt.

Through a six-inch hose and across the sluice box,

Which should catch the gold.

Fellas, if he ever gets wandering around that edge,

I need you to grab a hold of his umbilical,

Whether he wants you to or not.

Hold on.

What the hell? Found gold. Woo-hoo!

Look it!

Here I come, to save the day.

Here I come, to give you gold.

That's not even a nugget, man.

How are you seeing that? That's so crazy.

I don't know.

Tiny gold, man. Thank you for that. I love it.

It's crazy.

We got carlos, just," there's a nugget here.

There's a nugget here."

I hope this never runs out. This is amazing digging.

Alright.

Is the engine full-throttle?

I hope so.

Looks like I've got a clog up there.

Yeah, you might be stopped up.

That's not good.

The dredge nozzle has lost suction.

Carlos suspects there's a blockage in the hose.

James.

Find out where it stops.

Here you go.

What the hell is that?

We got a flapper in it.

It's locked in sideways and it will not move.

Boy, that's lodged in there, whatever it is.

This sucks!

There's got to be a rock that's shaped like this.

That's gone in there and turned sideways,

And so it's locked it up.

We can't push it out. We can go either way.

We call them a flapper rock.

Wes suspects a flat rock has been sucked into the nozzle.

And then flipped inside the dredge hose,

Causing a 35-foot mega-blockage.

What a nightmare.

This is something else.

That is the hardest rock.

We've ever had to deal with so far, man.

Here, here, here, here. I know what to do.

Hold on. Hold on.

Operation "twist off the nozzle."

Alright. Coming down on the hook.

I'm gonna come down slow, come down slow.

Yep, yep, yeah. It's coming.

Wes uses the sky line to lift up the rock-filled hose.

Alright. That's powerful.

Alright. We'll stop.

Let me go full spray.

Here we go, it's gonna spray.

Watch yourself.

Ready? We're gonna pull on it a little bit.

Yep. Go ahead.

You guys need to get on that,

Chuck it back and forth, so it'll come out of that dredge.

See if you can just get it to turn at all.

Up and down. Up and down.

It still won't turn?

Nope. Didn't want to turn, man.

Wes, can you grab the big?

Off the boat?

This is stuff I made fun of fred for, right here.

Yeah.

Hate this dredge!

I've hated it since.

The day fred bought this piece of here.

The dredge has been down for nearly two hours,

And with no fix in sight, carlos is forced to can his dive.

Gonna have to get out of the water here, man.

You're gonna have to get me out.

Was my worst dredge day ever.

Looks like this day's a wash.

What a day!

I guess we could just start these things.

Here we go.

Looking good!

Half a mile upstream,

Fred's crew have dredged down over nine feet deep,

But have found less than half an ounce of gold.

We hope every day that there's gonna be gold in the box,

And there just isn't.

I've waited two years for this.

Just takes time and time, and everybody says,

"well, when you gonna get the gold?"

Well, when we get closer to the bedrock.

So it's either the old man's folly, or it's freddy's fortune.

Fred's had the worst start to a season ever,

Delayed by a month and a crew member down,

Fred and ryan were forced to take on a double dive duty.

We need his help really bad out here.

Before now, it's been just fred and I,

And that's a lot of pressure on our backs,

To have to dive as much as we do.

Fred was counting on his newest recruit, scott, to step up,

But two weeks ago, just before his first dive.

The greenhorn miner.

Was thrown back on the sidelines.

Sliced my hand. Sorry, boss,

This is rookie.

Well, fred, it's kind of down to me and you now.

Now healed, fred needs scott.

To start pulling his weight underwater.

It's gonna take a lot of the pressure.

Off of fred and ryan.

It's gonna take a lot of the weight off their shoulders.

Broadest shoulders carry the heaviest burdens,

And I got some pretty broad damn shoulders, so

I haven't dredged before.

Everybody's got to start some place,

And this is where I'm starting,

So I guess you can say I'm a probationary gold miner now.

You guys ready for a diver?

We got to go over a few things.

Some of the dangers...

Mostly, you got to be careful.