Gold Rush: White Water

Dustin!

At rockfall ravine,

A month of lifting the biggest boulders the crew has ever seen.

Has wrecked their rock pulling system...

There's one of our anchor bolts.

Putting a stop to them.

Dredging for chunky gold nuggets.

The other one's about to pop.

Yeah, it popped one bolt at least.

Started pulling the other one out.

So we have broken anchors?

I guess our mammoth fall put your anchors to the test?

There's no way we're diving. Let's work on that skyline.

Fix the broken bolts.

You've gotta make sure that everything's safe enough.

To really pull on some gigantic boulders.

Marine veteran Carlos baynor volunteers to drill.

The new anchor bolts into the cliff face

30 feet above the raging creek below.

Why don't you drill some holes? Make sure they're deep enough.

I need you to set up a come along,

Put two or three shackles on that.

Make sure it's all set up. James, you know what to do?

Yep. Do it.

How's that hole coming, man?

I think I messed it up because it's just spinning there...

Just spinning in the chuck.

You alright?

I'm not comfortable at all.

Okay. Stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop.

Yeah don't... leave that in there, come up.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you doing?

Hey. Carlos!

We need to toughen up and get the job done.

What could possibly go wrong?

I got a spy from fred's team.

Pain in the butt.

It's a big damn rock, man.

I think I'm sliding.

Ooh, that was rough.

If there turns out to be no gold down there, though,

I guess I'm eating noodles for a looong time.

Gold can't swim in liquid dirt.

Our nugget day!

Get out of here, man.

Look at that. Wow. This is gonna be amazing.

Captions paid for by discovery communications.

Don't fall.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you doing?

Whoa.

Hey. Carlos! Dustin!

How you doing, man?

How do I get the up here?

Alright. Hold on. Hold on. Stop.

Here's what you do... you grab that one,

And you pull that up.

Yep. All the way.

Now reach up and grab that rope and take a step.

Whoa.

Man, it's always a weird feeling, right?

Yeah, it...

Take a break. Come back to it.

I gotta figure this out.

For dustin's crew, the clock is ticking.

They now have less than 60 days in their season.

Before the Alaskan winter hits hard.

This is taking forever.

Dustin risked his life savings buying these claims.

Finally, the gamble is starting to pay off,

Pulling out nuggets every dive.

But hiding the nuggets are monster boulders.

That have destroyed their skyline anchors.

I think we're done with this.

Basically, we just reset our anchors and tightened it up,

Tightened up our skyline again.

It's tighter now. Bigger, better bolts.

So now I can get back to work. Find a big pile of gold.

We're still out in the same box.

Today is the day, fellas.

I can feel it, man.

Upstream at the trifecta,

Fred hurt has staked his season on finding an ancient waterfall.

With a plunge pool flush with gold.

But unlike Dustin,

Fred's skeleton crew have found next to nothing at all.

Well, if there turns out to be no gold down there, though,

I guess I'm eating noodles for a looong time.

Fred's newest diver, Scott,

Is unable to dive.

After injuring his hand last week.

Sliced right through, and these are down to the bone.

And it's uncertain what his most experienced diver, Paul,

Will return.

We're already missing Paul,

And it makes it really, really hard.

With the amount of work that's on all of our backs.

Down to a two man dive crew,

Fred and Ryan are on double dive duty.

You can go about every three days.

And go diving... it's okay.

But, boy, you try to do it day after day after day...

It's not a good situation.

Ryan took the last dive, so it's fred's turn today.

Looking good.

How's that?

Feels good.

Go ahead, Fred.

Whooo! My forehead is cold.

It's gonna follow that on down that bedrock wall.

Until the bedrock flattens out.

And that's what we have to do to get to the gold.

Fred's theory is that the trifecta.

Was once the site of an ancient waterfall,

Creating a 20-foot-deep plunge pool.

Now at seven feet, Fred must head straight down.

Through another 13 feet of rock and gravel.

To get to the gold-rich bedrock floor below.

This gotta be a waterfall.

Got a dip in the bedrock.

You got a dip in the bedrock,

You got a good place for catching gold.

Hope and pray that when we get down there,

He's right and there's a bonanza of gold down there.

Fred's hose sucks the gravel up.

And sends it to the sluice box.

Where the gold should settle in the riffles.

You see that this is all jagged right here.

It's all full of little layers right here.

This is not carved out by glaciers.

This is carved by water.

Fred believes these layers in the rock face.

Could be evidence of his ancient waterfall.

The side that we're we're dredging,

You can see all the jagged edges sticking out.

It's like nature's sluice box right through there.

I agree 100%, man.

We're gonna find some gold down in there.

I guarantee it.

I hope so, man. We need it.

Yeah, this is good material.

How's it goin', Fred?

After an hour of dredging good-looking gravel,

Scott and Ryan check the sluice box.

You know, there should be a lot more material in this thing.

Yeah, pretty gloomy looking box today, buddy.

Yeah.

Fred?

What now?

I've got a problem.

What the hell are y'all doing up there?

We're having some problems.

Fred, this box is empty.

This is not good.

Alright, shut your motors down.

Why don't we just pan it?

See if there's anything at all in that.

Scott pans a sample of the tailings.

At the back of the sluice to check if they're losing gold.

I'm seeing gold in it.

In my mind, it just says that.

You're just letting the gold right on down.

I guess I just want to set it up to where we caught.

Every piece of gold that came through here, period.

I didn't come up here to run a whole bunch of rocks.

Just because I wanted them washed.

You know? I came up here to get gold.

We're gonna have to do something about this, man.

Ryan gets to work.

I'm gonna grind out some of these bars.

And I'm gonna bend the riffles up.

That's gonna give us less of an angle.

And more of a dead zone behind the riffle.

So that gold will have a real nice place to settle.

Right in the back of the riffles.

As the water and gravel run through the sluice box,

The heavier gold should sink to the bottom.

And be caught in the riffles.

But their angle is sending the water and gold.

Out the back of the box with the worthless tailings.

Ryan's plan...

Bend the riffles up to increase the water vortex,

Slowing the flow of water, trapping more gold.

All your job.

Here... we'll bend them up a little bit more here.

You can finish them off.

We don't really have a choice in the matter.

We're just doing the best we can with what we have.

Good job, there, man. Good job.

The modification to the riffles.

Will finally start catching all the gold.

On their way down to the big payday.

They believe is on the bedrock.

By bending those up,

We're gonna be catching more material, I believe,

Than what we're doing right now with these riffles.

Can't wait to get in there.

And find out exactly what we're gonna get.

Deeper we go, more gold we're gonna get.

Alright. Good. Perfect.

Up ahead