Original subtitles

♪♪

♪♪

-Yee-haw. -Hey, hot rod.

-Hot rod, y'all [bleep]. -Hey, fred. How's it going, man?

Fred: All right.

Narrator: At porcupine creek, southeast alaska,

Fred and dustin hurt are racing to start their seasons.

I need some walkway material, only a couple boards.

Oh, we got -- we got you covered.

Narrator: Father and son have been hard

At work for two weeks, but neither crew is ready

To dive for gold.

Dustin: I don't know if you went ahead and bought

One of these or not, but -- -what's that?

I know I have a gigantic white tent right here.

-No, you don't. -Excuse me.

You've already taken it.

-Well... -I was gonna loan it to you.

-Oh, well -- -but you took it already.

Well, thank you. I appreciate that.

You weren't using it or nothing. [ chuckles ]

Oh, fred, you make it rough. You make it rough, man.

Well, what's your tough if you were gonna loan it to me anyway.

-All right. Okay. -[ laughs ]

-Took my tent without asking. -You was ready to be cool

About it. He just spoiled your surprise.

-How'd y'all make out? -We doing all right, man.

Dustin: Is there anything else down here that you're gonna feel that

I'm not using that you should just take or any of that stuff?

I'm looking. [ chuckles ] I just haven't found any yet.

I'd love for you to succeed.

We're gonna need all the help we can get.

-[bleep] that's fast. -Get out of the wind.

-It's flying! -Whoo!

Be advised, this is a dangerous one.

Burn the [bleep] out of your hand.

It's beyond cold. -Most scariest water

I ever dove before in my life.

Dustin: Hey, get out of that rope. Get out of that rope!

Keep going. Keep going. [ cackles ] it's working.

-Oh, my god! -Did you find gold already?

[ cheering ]

God, I love my job! Half-ounce nuggets everywhere.

♪♪

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by discovery communications

♪♪

Dustin: The window we have for our season

Is short already. We're a month behind,

But today, we're gonna get that dredge down to the tunnel.

These are pretty exciting times for us.

Everybody's gettin amped up. We'll be diving soon enough

Narrator: Two weeks on site

In a season delayed by a global pandemic,

Dustin's crew is finally ready to send the dredge

To the dive site on an old haul-line system

They've resurrected. -That canyon is so steep

That the helicopter cannot get to us right now.

The last time we tried something like this,

I got injured, and we came up with a different way.

We now have this line that goes all the way down

To the tunnel's entrance. Hopefully it holds.

And piece by piece, we're gonna lower it down

Instead of dragging it down a cliff

Because I can't take another rock hit to the head.

This is the wrong way to do this [bleep].

Narrator: Last season, dustin dragged the dredge down the canyon wall.

-[bleep] [bleep] -whoa, whoa, whoa.

-Look out! -Rock!

Dustin!

-But the risk paid off. -That's like an ounce nugget!

Narrator: After five seasons in the chilkat mountains,

Dustin is finally on the gold.

It could be so amazing what's down in that dig site.

Rockfall ravine could hold the key to all the gold

I've ever needed in my life.

Narrator: But the heavy winter snow

Is now creating the most dangerous conditions

They've ever faced. -The snow's really deep,

So we're gonna get a lot more water when it melts,

But I know where the gold is. We're going in that water.

I don't normally run this trolley thing.

It's usually wes' job. He's busy for right now,

And I'm gonna try it out for a little while.

See if I can't figure it out. [ chuckles ]

Carlos and james are down at the tunnel.

They're gonna be catching this stuff.

We've been working really hard to get to this point.

We need to get the dredge down. So this is the start

Of everything. That means

There's gonna be gold soon. This is a big deal.

Narrator: 100 years ago,

The old timers found over $7 million in gold

At the bottom of mckinley falls.

Dustin believes that gold washed down the creek

Also settled at the top of the waterfall in rockfall ravine

Right beneath their dive site.

-How's your copy, carlos? -We got you. Go ahead.

Dustin: So I'm operating this thing,

So I'm gonna go with just a sluice box.

So I'm not gonna stack it up big just in case

I mess this up, alright?

-Copy that. We're all ready. -Copy that. Coming down.

Okay, that one does that. Okay, that one does that.

Okay. That's how that goes. [ laughs ]

Narrator: A 400-foot high, 1/2-inch steel cable spans 600 feet from camp

To the tunnel that leads to the dive site.

A separate haul line driven by the motor

Sends the trolley up and down

Dustin: First part of the dredge

Is heading toward the tunnel. Hopefully, I don't mess this up.

I'm not very good at this thing. Slow down.

Dustin's a first-time operator.

It just takes a little bit of getting used to.

I'm worried about losing any dredge parts,

Damaging any dredge parts. We can't afford that.

What we have is what we got.

Touchdown! Good job. Good job.

I'm starting to carry heavier things.

We're gonna get some engines on here.

Hey, man, we're coming down with another load.

Carlos: Copy that.

[bleep] that's fast. Slow it down.

Don't get hung up.

♪♪

James: Gosh, that thing was coming in hot.

All right, we got touchdown.

That was -- holy crap. -I don't know what happened.

But that thing was going way too fast.

I am awful at driving this thing, man.

I'm gonna have to call wes over here for this next one.

I don't think I'm the right man for the job here.

-Oh, dustin. -It was almost like a freefall.

It looked like it was out of control.

Anything on it that's not tied down properly,

It's gonna keep on moving that same speed.

Narrator: Crew fabricator, wes richardson takes control of the haul line.

It's the big 6-inch, 35-foot hose.

-Copy that. -Let me see how you do this.

Dustin: Alright, your movements are more subtle.

I'll learn. Here it comes.

Come on!

Whoo-hoo!

-Good job. -That made it.

James: All right, some of the most important parts are showing up.

This year, we have a setup that gets them down there

Perfectly. It was a huge step for us

Because the dredge is on its way.

♪♪

Narrator: Just 1/2-mile up, "dakota" fred

Returns to the trifecta dive site

For what could be his last season.

Might as well just pull all your tools out here.

Narrator: For 2 years, father and son dredged here

On dustin's claim...

Fred: I'm convinced the gold is right there.

...Dustin's way.

Dustin: There will be no gold in there at all.

We have to change the plan because this isn't working.

We're gonna go upstream.

Dustin: Oh, fred's got his ideas,

And I've got mine. When it comes down to it,

I'm in charge.

Narrator: Now, fred's back to settle a score.

We never ever worked in the area that I want to dredge.

Narrator: Dustin mined upstream at the trifecta,

But fred was always convinced that down stream

Is actually the site of an ancient waterfall

That carved a large plunge pool flush

With a life-changing amount of gold.

But before he can prove it,

The team needs to get the dive site ready.

Basically, fellas, we got broken walkway over here.

We've got to get around to that island over there

So we can drop our big boxes with a helicopter.

Narrator: Due to the shortened season, fred's booked a helicopter

For tomorrow to fly in heavy equipment.

But first, the crew need to reconstruct

The walkway to get to the landing zone.

What we gotta to do now is you need to drill holes

To re-establish those little triangle angles

Over there for our walkway. -You want me

To get my waders out then? -I think, yeah.

-Okay. -Get them on.

Narrator: Marine veteran scott allen steps up for his first time

In the 35-degree glacial meltwater of mckinley creek

Colder than you have ever been in before.

That water will burn the [bleep] out of your hand.

It's beyond cold.

Scott has never been out here at this dive site, whatever.

He's brand new to this whole operation out here.

Right now, just giving scott a little bit of a test

To see how he handles basic stuff like walkway building.

We'll see if he passes the test. -We're gonna go out there,

We're gonna see what we can do for our walkway.

See if we can't rebuild it. Make it a little bit

More accessible up around to our helipad.

Fred: Ah, don't go out there come down the walkway.

It may get deep out there. Don't assume it's all shallow.

Tell you what, just hang on to the wood

And walk along right here.

And I'm gonna need you to hold that thing right like that.

-Ooh-whee, this water's cold. -Oh, it is? Oh.

I never said this water wasn't cold.

♪♪

Fred: Okay, we got this one,

But I need you tell me what the situation is

With the bolt on that one down there. Twist it.

Do you want me to go throw some hip waders on

And try to help him out?

-No, this is his test. -Okay.

We want to know what his ability to think out problems are.

Well, I mean twist it. -I'm getting there.

Fred: Just bend it up into shape.

I can't. I pull here, and there's one down here.

There's three bolts on this one.

I'm working on getting this one out.

Okay, it's a problem-solving quiz.

Well, I got a long road ahead of me

To learn how to work with him a little bit better.

We're getting those brackets set back up

So we can connect this walkway once again,

And he's got fred on his butt.

So he's got to learn quick. -Don't drop that in the water.

Oh, [bleep]

Don't bend the bolt. Learning, learning, learning.

So far he's got about a "d". -I think he's doing pretty good.

His feet gotta be frozen.

I'm sure he can't feel them at all.

Maybe a "d+". [ chuckles ]

Ryan: I was the new guy last year,

And I know what this guy's got in store for him.

They're really tough taskmasters.

Oh, I mean, he just expects people to do their job.

That's all, and if they don't know how to do it,

Fred's gonna tell them how to do it.

-That's right. -His grade is improving.

Fred: Oh, wow, that thing's that heavy?

Wow. Good job. Good job.

I gave him a "c" for problem-solving right there.

We want it a little bit higher than level.

That's right there then, there's about 1/8-inch gap.

That'll do it.

-This walkway is sketchy as hell -long as you hold onto the rope,

I believe the walkway is perfectly safe to go across.

Scott: Fred doesn't always explain things the best way,

And he's kind of difficult to work with.

We'll -- we'll get it figured out though.

He did all right.

He finally figured a few things out,

Some thing's not so swift.

Let's just call scott a work in progress.

Main thing is we got a walkway established back over here

Because this will get our helicopter load out here.

♪♪

♪♪

All right. We got a couple floats coming down.

We got a load coming down. -Copy that. We're ready.

Narrator: Back down at mckinley camp, dustin

And wes deliver the final parts of the dredge across their cable

That hangs 400-feet above the canyon floor.

Dustin: Yep, that's it. All the way down.

Good job. We got touchdown.

Good job.

One step closer to getting in the water.

Dustin: This is it, last load, man. This is working perfectly.

Wes: Yeah, this is the last part.

We got our last load coming to you.

It's some floats and some lumber.

Carlos: We are ready. We are ready. Send it.

♪♪

-Cable snapped. -Get out of the way.

-Get out of there. -Whoa.

♪♪

We got our last load coming to you.

Floats and some lumber

Narrator: At mckinley camp,

Dustin and wes send the last dredge parts

Down to their dive site.

-Cable snapped. -Get out of the way.

-Get out of there. -[bleep] whoa.

♪♪

Carlos: [bleep], dude. Look at that, man.

-Holy [bleep]. -That was some dangerous stuff.

That could have killed somebody, man.

Look at this torpedo stuff.

Narrator: The haul line that controls the trolley's brake snapped,

Smashing the out-of-control load into the rock face

And firing the lumber down the tunnel.

Thank god, man, nobody got hurt. Holy crap.

Dustin: That was scary, guys.

We've been trying to get the dredge down today,

And we're sending it down piece by piece in the trolley cart.

The cable popped. Two of the floats just got

Ripped off of the cart.

They hit the trees too hard. They're probably smashed up,

And we're down two floats right now.

Those floats -- you know what those folks do?

They keep the dredge on top of the water.

We don't want the dredge under the water.

We want the dredge on top of the water floating,

Hence the word "float."

Did it -- did it go in the water or where'd they go?

Carlos: They're retrievable. Thank god. Let's just hope

They don't have a hole in them.

It took a hard hit. I mean, a hard, hard hit.

Those pontoons are valuable to us.

They're as much as gold right now to us.

Who knows how damaged they are. -What james is gonna do,

He's gonna go rescue these pontoons real quick.

Take a quick look-see, see if we can get them.

That's a heck of a trip down there.

♪♪

-Take your time. -It's still dangerous, dude.

You're still gonna get danger. -It's slippery right here.

Dustin: I know. No rush.

♪♪

James: Got to make sure they're in good condition still.

♪♪

James to dustin, james to dustin.

-What's going on? -I looked at these pontoons,

And there's no holes in them. They're in excellent condition.

Awesome, man. We got a dredge down, guys.

-All right, good deal. -Whoo! We really needed those.

We're back in action, brother.

Dustin: We're one step closer to getting in the water right now.

We got the dredge over there.

And now it's just put it together, put it in the water,

And it's time to dive.

♪♪

That thing is a mad, badass machine.

Narrator: Down at porcupine creek,

Dustin's father, fred, has a helicopter inbound

But still needs to sort the payloads,

Including his time-saving weapon -- the draggoid.

Fred: What that thing will absolutely do the trick.

-I like it. -It's gonna change

Our diving from 75% rock moving to 25%

I can't wait to see it work at the dive site.

-Yeah. -Oh, I'm telling you.

This is gonna save us a tremendous amount of work.

We've got about six or seven loads

We're gonna have to take out to the dive site

With a helicopter. It runs right about $2,500

An hour. It's an hour-and-a-half run

From juneau up to here, and it has to go back.

So that's three hours wasted right there.

Calculate at $2,500 an hour times three,

And you ain't even done any work yet.

Narrator: If the load's not ready before the helicopter arrives,

It will cost fred thousands of dollars in wasted flight time.

I'm gonna designate you two to go across the cable

To go down to trifecta.

Basically, all you're doing is catching the stuff.

Ryan, you're gonna be with me.

You and I are gonna go ahead and load down here.

Anybody got any questions? -Yeah, we're there.

We're there. Let's go do it.

Did we ever test out how much that thing kind of weigh?

No, we sure haven't. -Have jeff put the board test

To it.

Pushing about 2,200 pounds. There is a possibility

We are absolutely overloaded. If we got enough boards

To build one of these? -We got most

Of a crate right there.

Let's throw one together.

If you're too heavy, you're gonna have to

Just unbuckle the thing

And take some of the stuff out of it

Because the helicopter cannot lift it.

So we have to be very careful

How much material we put in those boxes.

Look, y'all got about 30 minutes

Before that helicopter gets here.

I think you need to hurry just a little bit.

Building up a third box real fast, as quick as we can.

Paul and I still got to hike up to the dive site,

But the other box is overloaded,

So we got to make a third box here

So we can get all of our gear up there.

-We're hustling. -There is a lot

Of heavy stuff in here. -Yeah, there is.

Scott: We're cutting it close.

That bird's gonna be here very soon,

And paul and I still got a long hike to make up there.

So we got to haul ass. I don't have time right now, man.

Hurry up and get this thing zipped up

And get going up the mountain.

-Is that the... -Last screw right here.

Alright, once you do that, I need you and paul

To take a buggy up there, and we'll see you guys later.

-Hi, ho, silver! -Away!

We only got about 15 minutes between helicopter runs.

They don't land. They come out here and hook

Is there dangling, waiting for you to hook something up.

And they take it up and take it and go back.

Paul: So right now we're kind of in a race against time.

We got to get to the site before the helicopter gets in position

So we can offload these things.

Every minute of those helicopters is money.

So the sooner we get over there, get done,

And the better off it'll be.

Hope and pray I never have to use this,

But if I do...

Narrator: The chilkat mountains

Are home to black and grizzly bears.

Paul: I'd rather have it and not need it, than need it

And not have it. Usually a couple shots in the air,

They'll turn and run the other way.

They don't want no part of it.

Narrator: And the hike climbs 1/2-mile through their backyard.

Scott: I did not hydrate properly. That hike's an ass kicker.

Hold on. -This hike'll do it to you.

-Yeah, it will. -You all right?

Yeah. Breakfast might make a reappearance,

But I'm actually a little light-headed.

If you pass out, you're no good to me.

We got to get down there, the helicopter's coming.

♪♪

Trying to wrap this up as quick as we can.

We had to hustle like hell to get to this point right here.

-Morning, fred. -Good morning, mary.

Narrator: Pilot mary wilcox is an expert in longline lifts.

Her a-star helicopter has a 150-foot cable.

Fred: Lock it

...With a lifting capacity of only 2,200 pounds.

Ryan: Paul, first load's on its way.

-I got a first box at trifecta. -Copy that.

♪♪

-Hey, paul. -What is it?

Helicopter's coming?

Narrator: Paul and scott get to the dive site

Just in time to receive the first load.

-That was close. -[ laughs ]

Let go of it.

Scott: Scott for ryan, helo is headed back.

Looks like we're doing good.

Time to go take the old draggoid.

We need this one to make it, fred, without this thing.

We're not gonna do any mining.

Narrator: Fred's plan to get down to bedrock in the shortened season

Depends on the rock clearing draggoid,

But it's the heaviest load.

Fred: Hopefully, this one'll fly. I'm worried about the weight.

Should be about 1,500, 1,600 at the most.

♪♪

Fred: Whoo-hoo! It's flying!

Well, sorry, fred, your measuring system's

A little bit off on that one, it's about 2,200.

Be advised, 2,200-pound load.

This is a dangerous one.

Fred: That ole draggoid must weigh a whole lot more than I figured.

Paul: Ryan said this is a dangerous one.

Oh, [bleep] that looks dicey.

This one's spinning wild, too, man.

Scott for ryan, be advised lumber and draggoid

Are on the ground. Helo is headed back.

That was one seriously heavy load.

Fred: This is the main boy. My little pride and joy here.

Narrator: Last load --

The crew's moneymaker. -Here come the dredge.

Boom shakalaka. -Beautiful. Thank you.

Dredge is on the ground.

That is the last load. Now get to work.

[ laughter ]

It's gonna get dangerous.

Narrator: Up ahead...

Dustin: Up, up, go, spinning [bleep] dredge. Let it go.

This is the most scariest water I ever dove before in my life.

Dustin: Get out of that rope. Get out of that rope!

♪♪

♪♪

We need a cable, a skyline right up here

To pull our rocks here and there.

One big problem with trying to get over on the other side.

We're gonna have to come up with some sort of a bridge

Or something to get across over there.

Narrator: Before they can dive in the raging creek,

Fred's crew needs to construct a bridge

Across to set up a skyline. -Right now it's pretty severe.

We can't wade across that thing.

That thing will take you off down that stream.

We're gonna build a little bridge.

We're gonna let it down until it lands

Just on the backside of that rock right there.

And then you're gonna lower it like a draw bridge.

From there, we'll be able to reach all the way over

With a couple of more boards.

Narrator: Fred's plan -- build a bridge

And lower it out into slow water behind a boulder

In the middle of the creek. From there, extend

A second, smaller bridge to reach the other side.

Go ahead and work on these boards up here.

Scott: Okay, sounds good.

Narrator: But greenhorn scott believes he has a better way.

I just can't help but think, would it better

To put our legs here, right over here.

And then we're landing on hard ground over there.

It's a shorter distance between here to there

Than it is here across.

I mean, it's just an idea.

Fred: That current is vicious right there.

We got calm water behind that big rock over there.

From there over, we have no problem.

We're gonna continue with my plan.

We'll see how things go.

♪♪

Narrator: The crew's bridge must be able to withstand the 5,000 gallons

A second of mckinley creek. -If this doesn't go right,

We're gonna lose this whole thing down the creek.

Everybody's got to stay focused now.

I still don't think this is the safest place

To be putting a bridge.

I would have definitely picked a different spot.

Now the trick is to try to raise that up,

And then we're gonna let it down.

Hopefully there's not a lot of yelling

And screaming at each other.

I'm gonna let it go down out on the creek.

Keep going, push it out, get it farther.

Alright, go ahead.

Here she goes. -Here we go. Oh!

Fred: Let a little slack out on this thing.

Hold up, right there.

Alright, that's about as much as we're gonna get right there.

Looks like we pretty well got it in position

Right exactly where we need to put it.

Narrator: Now time to install the walkway.

Just look at how the water is hitting that thing.

It's gonna wash it away.

I really don't think that's gonna stay.

Boy, this water's ripping up under here.

Fred: Boy, I mean it is.

I really hope this thing gets a lot sturdier

Because this is just -- this is crazy nervous right now.

This is just absolute madness. -Ryan!

-Pretty dangerous. -Go ahead and get back there.

Fred: And it is hazardous. Yeah, no doubt.

I'm just not gonna ask somebody to go out there

And risk their lives to go do it.

Narrator: 76-year-old fred heads out across the unstable bridge

Balanced over the ice cold torrent.

Scott: He's got a lot of beef holding him back here,

But this is still a very, very dangerous situation right now.

This could go extremely bad really fast.

I'm really worried about this.

Fred: He actually put the board out here.

I'm gonna drill a hole with an anchor bolt right there,

And I'm gonna tie it onto the bridge right here.

♪♪

I really think that we could have done a better job

Of actually planning this

Before getting out in the middle of the freaking creek.

I mean, this is just -- it's -- it's reckless.

Narrator: The second section of the bridge attached.

Fred: Just let it down.

Paul and fred lower it to the other side of the creek.

Fred: We have a landing just like -- just like that.

Narrator: The bridge now stable, they can finally access

The far side of the creek.

[ cheering ]

-Nailed it. -Good job. Excellent.

In my opinion, fred's plan wasn't perfect,

But it worked and you know,

That's the main thing. Now we can get

To the other side of the creek and get done what we need to do.

Once we get this skyline up here,

We'll get the draggoid hooked on, winches in place,

And we're gonna see

If we can start dragging some rocks out of this place.

♪♪

♪♪

We're getting there, fellas.

Narrator: At rockfall ravine, dustin and his crew

Are itching to get back to the pile of gold

They found last season.

I know there's big nuggets in there. I'm excited

To get back here and dig again.

Narrator: But first, they need to launch their dredge

Into the wild torrent. -All right, she's ready to go.

-Yeah! -Man, that's a lotta water.

Narrator: Heavy snowfall over the winter means the water is 3-feet higher

And three times faster than last season.

Wes: This will enable us to get the diver

From the cave, around the rough water, into here.

This is actually the pool that we're gonna be dredging.

It would have been so dangerous try to get around.

We had to put the walkway in. Whoo, that's it.

All right, we got it together. Let's get it in the water, guys.

-Let's move that rock first. -We're gonna move that rock

First, and then we're gonna hook this [bleep].

Right now, we wanna pick the dredge up, take it up stream

But a boulder is sticking out too high and

I don't think we'll get it over.

Narrator: To get the dredge in the water,

The crew must suspend it from the skyline and carry it

Upstream, but there is a boulder right in its path.

First, they must remove the boulder using the skyline

And a baby claw, then maneuver the dredge into position.

We're gonna try to move this boulder out of the way.

When we know how much gold is there,

Nothing is gonna stop us. -I'm gonna have to go in there.

Let me go in there and get it. -You doing it?

-Yeah, yeah, yeah. -All right. Here you go.

Whoo-hoo!

Dustin: Don't get caught. Don't get caught.

All right, don't die. Don't die.

We can do this. We're smarter than this thing.

♪♪

Dustin: I got you. I got you.

Whoo-hoo!

We're trying to get the baby claw on there, and the water

Is just taking it like a fishing lure and

Spinning it around like it's nothing.

Dustin: Watch that hook.

You're about to lose it. You're about to lose it.

Yeah, yeah. I got it. I got it.

It clicked. It clicked. It clicked.

You got it?

Get over here. Get over here.

Lift it up and over.

Hey, hey, get out of that rope. Get out of that rope!

Get out of the rope.

James!

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: Above the mighty 80-foot mckinley falls,

Dustin's crew clear a boulder blocking their dredge move.

Dustin: Hey, hey, get out of that rope. Get out of that rope!

Get out of the rope.

James!

Holy [bleep]

You were tangled in that rope.

If I hadn't have caught it, you would have [bleep] gone.

If it had stuck in that [bleep], you would be dead right now.

Holy [bleep] man. It was around your damn legs.

You lucked out on that one.

♪♪

♪♪

Oh, my god. Holy [bleep].

♪♪

Dustin: Well, that was something, fellas.

Had that rock stayed in that hook

And went down that hill... -I was tied in,

So it would have ripped my leg right off.

♪♪

I feared for my life for a second.

I thought I was a goner.

You made it out that time, but tell me, lesson learned?

Lesson learned. [bleep] man.

Carlos: You got to be aware, dude. Always aware.

Narrator: James safe and the boulder removed, the crew

Now has a clear path to move the dredge up to the dive site.

We're gonna try and set this in water.

If we catch that lip of water right there,

It's gonna just destroy this thing.

Put this thing on the skyline.

It's gonna sag. We still need to make it over that lip.

I think I've got a pretty good plan.

I need the front to stay up.

We're gonna try to make it do a wheelie the whole time,

So somebody's gonna be pulling. This is gonna get dangerous.

If the front gets caught in there,

It spins, and this thing is so big,

It'll kill everything around it if it starts spinning.

Get out of the damn way.

Don't try to hold on to it. Don't try to stop it.

If it really whips, hands up. We can replace the dredge.

I can't replace you guys except for you maybe.

Not me, man. I'm in it for the long run.

All right. Let's see what we can do.

Wes: This year, we've had record snowfall over the winter.

The water is absolutely raging.

Everybody's chomping at the bit to get in the water

Because we know what kind of gold

Is sitting there in the bottom of this hole.

Nothing is gonna stop us.

James, if [bleep] goes bad,

Let go, don't let it wrap around you.

Hold it like that. None of this. Get it.

Things go bad, let go.

♪♪

You guys ready to do this?

All right. Let's see what happens, huh?

Lift. Let's go. -Oh, my god.

-Just walk with it -holy crap.

-Holy [bleep]. -Oh, my gosh!

-Switch. Come switch. -Switch?

♪♪

Dustin: Right here is gonna be the hardest part.

If it catches that lip, it's gonna just destroy my dredge.

Carlos: Oh, come on, baby. Come on, come on.

Come on, baby. Come on.

You can do it. We're almost there.

[ cheering ]

Dustin: That's got it. [ laughs ]

-Hell, yeah. Whoo-hoo. -[bleep]

[ cheering ]

Wes: That was the awesomest thing in the world, man.

Dustin: There it is.

I love it when a plan comes together

God, I love my job -I'm stepping on gold.

I feel it. I feel it, man.

I feel gold, dude. -Awesome, guys.

[ cheering ]

Dustin: Just got the dredge in the water.

We tested our skyline.

It's a huge step for us. Dredge is floating.

Next step is dive in the water, get some gold.

♪♪

♪♪

[ gunshots ]

-Dude. -Hey, scott, I'm glad

You came up. Check this out.

We hung 17 exploding targets 155-yards away.

-That is awesome. -Watch your ears.

[ gunshot ]

I missed. [ gunshots ]

[ laughs ] I'm an awful shot, dude.

I didn't realize how far away it was.

I don't have really big guns here, but carlos does.

Narrator: Veteran marine sergeant carlos

Loads his howa-1500 precision rifle.

[ gunshot ]

-Way off. -I'll give it a shot.

Narrator: Time for marine lance corporal scott to take his shot.

[ gunshot ]

Dustin: This is not a fun game, man.

Maybe I should have went with bigger targets.

[ laughter ]

♪♪

Fred: That's pretty close right there.

This one is gonna be the muscle to pull that

Draggoid down through the channel here.

Narrator: At the trifecta,

Fred and his crew rigged the final parts of his

Skyline system. -Looking great.

-Yeah, it does. -Good job.

Good job. Now, throw the draggoid in the water.

Ryan: Sweet. See if that thing's gonna hold up.

Fred: Whoo. That's a badass dude, man.

-Yeah, it is. -Holy crap.

Narrator: To have any chance of reaching bedrock this short season,

Fred's banking on the draggoid to clear

Boulders much quicker than a diver.

-All right. -All right.

Pull a little bit on the pull line.

Narrator: A system of pulleys and winches

Moves the draggoid up and down stream.

Boulders caught in its welded steel teeth

Roll away from the dive site and reveal the gold beneath.

Ryan: We need to get this done.

Narrator: Ryan operates the winches.

Fred: There it goes. Keep going. Keep going with it.

I mean, this thing has got to work.

We are counting on this to save us tons of labor

With a diver in the water.

Start pulling.

Come on. Come on. -That worked.

Reverse the process. Go the other way, drag it back.

-We're stuck on something. -As paul hauls the draggoid

Back upstream, it hooks on a massive boulder.

-Is the cable just moving? -Yeah, it just slid down.

Fred: All right, give it to me, little at a time.

Give it to me. -Hold it.

Fred: This is not good.

Paul: This is not right. This is not right at all.

Fred: We're gonna have to put a cable and anchor it up

And lock it off in the back there.

The winches are pulling just fine, problem is when

We really put a strain, our two cable clamps up here

On top are moving, sliding down the cable.

So our block is moving that direction

Rather than pulling the draggoid back.

What we have to do is we're gonna have to

Pull the block back up hill,

Put a cable on it farther up that way

And anchor it off so that block does not move.

Narrator: When the draggoid got caught on the boulder, the upstream pulley

Came loose and was dragged down the skyline to fix it.

They must anchor the pulley to the rock face

To stop it sliding down the skyline.

Ryan: Paul's up top trying to pull the block and tackle back

And get it re-clamp. Hopefully it works this time.

Just get everything tightened down,

And hopefully this next run will be better.

-Ready to try it again? -Try it again.

Here we go, man your winches.

♪♪

Narrator: The pulley holds and the draggoid now free,

Time to test if it can finally move the boulders.

Fred: Let's grab some rock right there.

Come on, you can pull them rocks.

♪♪

Keep going. [ cackles ] ah! It's working!

Rolling all them damn rocks, two or three of them

All at one time. One of them,

The current caught it. -Oh, yeah. Look at that.

Fred: Big son of a [bleep]. Big [bleep] rock in there.

-All right. Okay. -That's not a rock,

That's a [bleep] boulder. -All right,

We know that it's working.

Oh, I hear the boulders rolling under there right now.

It's got two or three rocks in there.

Roll that [bleep]. -Oh, there we go.

Oh, look at that one. -Look at that [bleep].

Fantastic, man. That was great.

Fred: Rolling some big rocks right now.

Just keeps rolling them downhill, downhill.

All in all, I'd have to say today -- one hell of a success.

We're gonna really put that draggoid to the test

And get to the gold a whole lot quicker.

♪♪

We're ready to dive right now. Water's a little bit crazy,

But we're gonna go dive in it anyway

Narrator: At rockfall ravine,

Carlos minor suits up in the old-timers tunnel.

I'm getting dressed in my Sunday best.

I'm going diving, and I'll make our crew rich.

Carlos is gonna have to bring some courage today

If he wants to get in this water.

This is the most scariest water

I ever drove before in my life. Ever, ever, ever, ever.

Dustin: Usually I'm the first one in the water because the water

Is usually so dangerous that it's got to be me.

I've learned to trust carlos now,

So I'm gonna put carlos in the water.

That way, if anything goes wrong at all anywhere out here,

I need to be able to take care of it.

I feel like I'm a good enough diver to handle this water.

Dustin: All right, let's go. Fire it up. Please, please, please work.

-Whoo! -Got it.

[ cheering ]

James: Oh, I love the sound of the engine running.

Dustin: I'd say this dredge is ready to go.

See what I'm putting on, this is our claiming harness.

Why? Because that water's so outrageous,

I'm gonna depend on this

To make sure I'm clipped into something.

I'm not gonna have control of that water.

Got the dredge in, dredge is running.

I think we're as close as we can get.

It's time to dredge.

This is the first dive, you know what I mean?

This is a, you know, first dive, man.

♪♪

Carlos: Even from here, dude, it looks scary, man.

Gah, there's nothing easy about this place.

Narrator: To get back down to the pile of gold

They proved was there last season,

They must face the fiercest whitewater

Rockfall ravine has ever thrown at them.

Whoo-hoo. All right, buddy. First dive of the season.

It's gonna be a crazy one -dear heavenly father,

Please protect me. I've got to get home to my family.

♪♪

Take it easy. It's our first dive where accidents happen.

Is that too tight on your neck? -No. Perfect.

All right, how you feeling? I got you.

What I want to do is clip it in right here.

Narrator: The plunge pool is so dangerous this season, dustin's installed

A tether to haul the diver out in an emergency,

Away from the deadly drop of mckinley falls.

-The safeword would be "help." -actually it's [garbled]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dustin: All right.

-How's your air? -Good. Smells good.

-Does it? -Smells good.

We are ready to dive.

Carlos: I'm in the water!

♪♪

All right, guys, I'm dredging.

Let's get rich. I love it. I love it.

Narrator: In a season that was almost canceled

By the global pandemic, dustin and his crew

Are finally diving for millions of dollars in gold.

Dustin: Yeah! Nice to see rock coming across the sluice finally.

Wes: I'd love to get back down to where we found

The one ounce nugget. -You got it.

That's perfect, man. That is perfect.

I'm getting a hole, man. It's digging, dude.

Dustin: Yeah, buddy!

So carlos is on the first dive,

And he's got a pretty substantial hole

Already dug today.

Jay, you wanna switch places?

Only a few hours, and look it, digging a big hole.

Carlos: Oh, [bleep]

-Oh, my god. -Did you find gold already?

-Oh, [bleep]. -Are you serious?

Carlos: Oh, oh, my god. Whoo! [ cheering ]

[bleep] [bleep] [ cheering ]

We got gold, man! -Probably 1/2-ounce nugget.

-[bleep] [bleep] -yeah, buddy.

You got 1/2-ounce nug. Good job, man.

There's obviously a lot of gold here.

The water has been kicking our butt,

But finally, we got a dive in,

We're pulling up 1/2-ounce nuggets.

This is a dream come true right now.

It was worth all the time to get here

Because there's gonna be a lot more nuggets down there.

This is gonna be fun. This is gonna be our season

To just explode. 1/2-ounce nuggets everywhere.

[ cheering ]

Narrator: Next time on "gold rush: White water"...

-Ah! You're going too fast. -That's the definition

Of courage right there, man.

Being afraid and doing it anyway.

That's the first dive of the season.

-We are dredging, folks. -We need some gold.

Let's get ready to rumble.

Get on your feet. Pull 'em up. Pull 'em up.

Shut this one off. We got a big pressure bomb going.

If that engine [bleep] up, I'm done.

-Is that gold? -Holy [bleep]

There's gold! Whoo-hoo! -It's amazing.