Gold Rush: White Water

Deep in the Alaskan wilderness.

This year, we got something to prove.

- Extreme gold miner Dustin hurt... - Let's go.

- Leads his crew of fearless miners... - Whoo!

To the most remote claims on earth

I feel like the guys are hungry right now.

Hunting for nuggets where no one else would dare.

Really hungry. I'm loving it.

Good to go.

Diver in.

Risking everything...

- Get out of there! - Watch the swing.

Do or die, amigo.

He would have been dead.

This is still not how I die.

- For the big score... - There's gonna be giant nugget

just about 10 feet down.

This season, they finally hit the jackpot.

- Nugget! - My god!

Everything we've heard is true.

There is so much gold down there.

Breaking the record books...

That's the biggest nugget in gold rush history.

But face a catastrophe...

Hey, guys, I have some bad news.

No one is ready for...

Never known life without Fred hurt.

- Yeah. - You guys ready for this?

- Yeah. - We don't have to set up camp.

We don't have to move anything.

We go in there, open everything up,

get the dredge out, get up creek and go.

In remote southeast Alaska,

veteran gold miner Dustin hurt and his band of brothers

are heading deep into the Alaskan wilderness.

Let's get some good gold, guys.

On a mission to start mining operations earlier than ever before.

And I can't find the tent or the camp.

Did you see it?

By the way, you can't see anything right here.

I got to figure out how to get on top of this stuff.

We can find the right ledge. We can probably do that.

Y'all ready for that?

Yeah.

We're probably going to run over a whole bunch of rocks,

so everybody don't trip over.

Whoa!

Come on.

Whoa. What the was that?

- We're not going to make it! - We're not going to make it!

My god! That was insane!

That's not my intention.

I thought hopefully I could get up on top of the snow

and maybe it would go.

All the ledges, look how tall all the ledges are.

We're so close to camp.

30 miles north of the nearest town

lies Dustin's mining camp at nugget creek.

He sunk his life savings into buying it,

but getting there is a risky nine-mile journey up the sercu river.

The dangerous access is why it's rumored

to still have legendary chunky nuggets.

We have to freaking take all this snow out, dude.

All right, let's get the shovels, and we got

- to get some of the weight out. - Yeah.

We're trying to find a water track for the air boat to ride on all the way to camp.

And what it looks like is it got too narrow,

and we started busting through snow, and I got us stuck.

The whole point of getting up here early

was so we could get digging before the rain comes and floods us out.

But right now, we can't even make it to camp.

I knew we'd be digging snow, but I didn't think

- we'd be digging snow out of the boat. - No.

Dude, that was crazy even for me.

My god.

Sorry, guys, I tried.

We got most of the way. If we can just get this out.

Well, it was too narrow, obviously.

We got no choice, man.

We have to follow this.

It's not looking good for us making it to camp,

which we could see camp, but I can't get up on these banks.

I'm going to keep trying, though.

So I'm wondering if I should cut y'all loose, go by myself,

and try to jump up on top without killing us?

Yeah.

And then try to come get you if I can ride on the snow.

You ready to push out?

Let's go for a shove.

All this is just gonna slide off.

We're gonna turn it on and...

There we go. Ready?

Yep.

- All right, up. - Watch yourself.

- We made it! - Holy, we made it.

We made it! Yeah!

- No way! - Yeah!

I knew I should have stayed on.

- What are you doing, Carlos? - Trying to get up on the shelf.

Woo-hoo! Yeah!

- Hell yeah! - I didn't think I was going to make it.

Let's go jump some.

Yeah, Carlos.

Woo!

Let's get to the other side now.

I agree.

All right, let's get a camp.

Look, we were so close to the gold last year.

It's driving me crazy, knowing what we left out there.

I just grabbed the dredge and just yank it up there

and start dredging.

That's all I want to do, too.

Woo-hoo! We got this down.

We're crash-test dummies.

- Whoo! - We're here, boys!

Back at nugget creek.

Let's get in the water.

Last year, Dustin shifted his focus to the remote

and inhospitable nugget creek claim,

rumored to hold nuggets worth up to $50,000 apiece.

The word is that nugget creek has more gold up there

than I can handle.

More gold and bigger gold.

That's promising.

With a little bit of luck, this could change our entire lives.

But those dreams quickly turned to nightmares

when his two crews were annihilated by a series of ferocious storms.

That is so loud.

You can hear the boulders rolling down the creek.

Sound like I'm in a Texas thunderstorm right now.

We're about to lose everything,

and there's nothing I can do but watch it happen.

This place is destroyed.

I'MMA call in the season. That's it.

We're done with this.

Mother nature beat us last year.

After all that flooding, it destroyed my bank account,

- I can tell you that. - Yeah.

And it was a choice between completely stopping this

or basically going to debt to do this.

So I went into debt to do this, and this is where we're at.

Couldn't afford to bring everybody back, so this is it.

This is us. We either weren't going to come back,

or we're going to have a single crew, and that's it.

And I decided on us.

We're going to have to hit it as hard as we can

- because we know the rains are coming. - We got to.

We got to make up for what we didn't do last year.

That's true.

Dustin is down to just a five-person crew.

And to make matters worse, he will have to face

the season ahead without his most trusted ally.

I have to find out how Fred's doing.

They just diagnosed him with severe brain cancer.

Quite frankly, I think that this is probably going

to be the last time I see him.

Um...

We'll see.

It's pretty sad to say that out loud.

I think that's the first time I've really, really said that out loud.

Mining legend, Dakota Fred

brought his son, Dustin, to Alaska over 10 years ago.

They can go on by, baby.

The two mined side by side, sharing good times

- 280 ounces of gold. - Yeah!

Hell yeah.

And bad.

What the hell are you doing?

That does not sound like condescending bull to you?

But nothing could stand between father and son

and their dream of a bonanza in gold.

Hey, Fred, can you believe it?

We're both diving in McKinley creek together.

Double the dredges, double the hurts.

But Fred's recent diagnosis changed everything.

- Hey, Fred. - Hey, what's up, man?

How's it going, man?

- Good to see you. - Yeah.

- Have a seat. - Okay.

So how you doing, man?

I guess you know I got...

Good old brain tumors right now.

My balance is down a little bit.

A little bit of blurry vision.

It's progressing every day.

Sorry to hear that, brother.

That's too bad.

So how long did they give you?

They don't know.

I mean, anywhere from a few months to six months.

I know you're concerned, and I know it bothers you.

Hell, I've lived a good life.

Yeah.

We're gonna miss you up there, man.

Everybody likes having you around.

I want you guys to go up there and have one hell of a season.

I know you got a good plan, and I'll be rooting for you.

Hopefully, you make it long enough

to where we can show you some gold.

- I'll be looking forward to it. - Okay.