Original subtitles

Get up here, right here!

Watch the fireworks fly.

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

It takes two people To pull that basket.

So it doesn't go into your hole.

Is there gold there?

We don't know yet.

Well, what's it doing for us? I mean...

Well, we're taking The material out of it.

How about you coming up With a better solution.

For your problem with it Falling over in the hole?

You're my problem, though!

Dustin, you take care Of my divers.

I'm gone.

If they don't need me there, So be it.

Let them get it the way They want it.

They can do it without me.

Come on, fred. Five bucks, I bet he hits it.

Fred and I are gonna Fight to the death.

Right now, changes.

We're digging one hole.

Wow!

We're against the clock, and we Don't know when the deadline is.

Watch out, fred.

They're bringing a real Heavy load out.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!

I'm nervous.

I'm not seeing enough gold Right now.

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

Captions paid for by Discovery communications.

Quite a trek just to get here.

Narrator In the raging white Water of mckinley creek,

Alaska, the dakota boys Are five weeks.

Into their hunt For millions in gold.

I'm nervous.

I'm not seeing enough gold Right now.

I've got a lot of money tied up In this, and I've got, like,

I'd like there to be a lot More gold, a lot more showing.

Dustin's gambled $75,000.

On this mining season...

Narrator But so far, All they've found.

Is an ounce of gold worth Just over $1,000.

We're against the clock, man.

We have to dig every day,

Or else we're not gonna Get this done.

I'm going to give This thing a check.

I want to see how much It filled in overnight.

That's not bad.

That's almost seven feet Right now.

It's not as bad as I thought It was gonna be.

Where's bedrock?

Let's get crazy and say It's 15 feet.

The power of two dredges, Two divers,

I think we can get that sink two Or three days of digging, man.

- That's what I'm thinking. - Yep.

I anticipate getting there This week.

Together, those two dredges Are gonna dig this hole out,

And we're gonna get down To the gold, finally.

It's just finding that Right pocket,

Because that pocket Is down there.

I'm not giving up.

I know where we need to go To get gold.

All right. Let's get to it.

Fred We're really looking For the big gold.

Porcupine mining district, The gold has always been.

Almost always right down On the bedrock.

Narrator Since the ice age, Tens of millions of dollars.

In gold have flowed down Mckinley creek.

Because it's seven times Heavier than the rocks,

The gold sinks to The lowest point on the bedrock,

Which is now hidden under 15 feet of rocks and gravel.

There's this really Hard piece of rock.

Right here That goes across this,

And I believe that formation Stopped all the gold behind it.

It was there last season,

So I need them to get up And dig behind it.

Dustin wants us to be Dredging right here,

Side by side here in the front.

I have a hunch that maybe That gold had come over.

And got pushed down A little bit further.

Narrator Dustin will dredge Towards the bedrock upstream.

By the bridge.

Fred decides to dig His hole further downstream.

Gold wins, we lose If we don't get down to it.

Narrator Experienced miner And new recruit casey morgan.

Will be fred's dive support.

You come down here And get me ready to dive.

When they bring the radio, We get in the water.

Okay.

We're gonna check Everything else out.

- I need some tape. - All right.

Bring the tape.

It's hell when the diver has to Lead the support team out there.

Casey Yeah, he's pretty Demanding today.

I mean, he's the boss, So whatever.

He thinks he is. I don't know.

Is that good?

- Yeah. - He's good to go.

All right.

Narrator 74-year-old fred Takes his chances.

In the glacial torrent.

Texan paul richardson is diving With dustin's dredge today.

I left a whole bunch of rocks.

Right at the top edge On the bridge.

I'm gonna try to get a good, Long dive in.

Because we certainly need it.

All right, amigo. Rock and roll.

Yeah, baby.

Narrator The dredge removes All the gravel and small rocks,

But anything over six inches...

Has to be hauled out By sled.

Closing in, four feet, Three feet, two feet.

- Whoo! That's cold! - Yeah, brother.

Abracadabra, amigo.

Narrator Wes' winch is rated To pull 6,000 pounds.

All right, fred.

Are you ready for this sled To come out?

Just gotten started.

Haven't been in the water That long,

But so far, so good.

Huge rocks.

All right.

- I got it! - Big hole right here.

You son of a...

There's no reason For that hole to be there.

There's no gold right there.

I can't get it to move.

Damn it!

Fred, he needs to be up here. We've already dug that up.

We know exactly What's under there.

There's a little bit Of flood gold. I don't care.

One, two, three, pull!

Guys, just try to Play the game?

As if this ain't hard Enough, we've got to do this.

Narrator For the first time,

The dakota boys are dredging Two separate holes.

In dustin's hole Beneath the bridge,

Paul is getting closer To bedrock gold,

Loading rocks into a sled to Winch them out of the mine site.

But fred's downstream hole Is expanding further and further.

Into the path of the sled.

It's just crazy.

We're trying to get These rocks out.

We need to get them out As fast as possible,

But now we're having to do it.

The hardest way possible, By hand.

Carlos What's that?

Paul Yeah.

Dustin I got it, thank you.

It's very, very heavy.

Fred, you there?

You've got to watch out, fred.

They're bringing a real heavy Load out on your right.

Okay.

You up my runway, But he won't stop.

He's still digging Right there.

Is it helping?

Fred is digging this trench Just alongside.

Of where we have To pull our sleds,

And if it hits Any little rock at all,

It just dumps into his hole.

It's driving me a little crazy.

I mean, this is why I get So damn mad, it's just...

I have to work my ass off Because he's stubborn.

It just kills me.

We're trying really hard to keep Up with what we need to do,

But the truth is, It's killing us.

I've got to get in there, And I've got to figure this

out.

Thanks, man.

Carlos All right, dustin. You're good to go.

Yep, coming your way.

Richard is going to Guide it towards you.

Whoops.

Dustin All right.

- Thank you. - Okay.

Okay.

- Rich! - Okay, what are we doing?

I don't know.

What do we do, paul?

Narrator An hour into his dive, Dustin is still struggling.

To stop his sled Falling into fred's hole.

- Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! - All stop, stop, stop.

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

Come up here! Right here!

Watch the fireworks fly.

High in the chilkat mountains,

The dakota boys' search For millions in gold.

Has ground to a halt.

Okay, we have to change the plan 'cause this isn't working.

Narrator Fred has deviated From dustin's plan.

To dredge by the bridge.

And is digging A hole downstream.

We're working against Each other right now.

No, we're not.

It takes two people To pull that basket.

So it doesn't go into your hole. I mean...

But we're taking The material out.

Well, what's it doing for us?

Besides flipping Our baskets over.

You're 15 feet back In the middle of that creek.

- Is there gold there? - We don't know yet.

- What do you want? - I need this to stop.

This is a waste of Time as far as I'm concerned.

But it's not. Go ahead.

I don't know what else to do.

Everyone up here is struggling.

Fred I'm convinced the gold Is right there.

Help me, please.

Well, how about you coming up With a better solution.

For your problem with it Falling over in the hole?

You're my problem, though.

Are you guys tired Of struggling?

Dustin, you take care Of my divers.

I'm gone.

In all the history Of every moment

I've ever dug with fred, if I think we should dig somewhere,

He's gonna dig somewhere else,

And that's what's Going on right now.

He's just being as stubborn As he can be.

For absolutely no reason.

All it's doing is just Costing me money.

That's all it's doing.

Sick and tired of the.

I don't know what...

He just started Losing his temper.

If they don't need me there, So be it.

They're expert operators.

They know better.

Let them get it the way They want it.

They can do it without me.

I'm kind of shocked that He would actually leave,

But I guess he must Have been pretty pissed.

I mean, I know him and dustin Get into it,

But nothing was that bad Not to work out.

And just come back to work.

And help us Get this thing going.

He's still an important part Of the team.

A lot of work To be done, though.

What's the matter, man?

I just hope that you guys Can work through it, but...

I had enough.

I can't take it. He went too far.

If I walked up and said, "That's Exactly how I would do that,".

He would change it because, For whatever reason in his head,

He has to beat me somehow.

It's the weirdest

'cause he's in a competition I'm not involved in.

It has nothing to do with me.

We do what we do.

Yep, and it works.

All right.

It's hard working With family, man.

I love fred, But you've got history,

So a regular fight isn't A regular fight anymore.

That's what you get.

A regular fight is 20 years Or 30 years of problems.

That you've had throughout Your whole life.

Fred does not like it That I'm in charge.

He just wanted it his way.

This is my stuff. This is my people.

This is my everything here.

I've put my entire life Into this.

You can't take control.

He just can't do it.

Get with the program, Or I'm gonna shut you down.

It's up to him.

Narrator Fred heads down to Porcupine to visit wife jen.

- What's up? - Come on in.

We'll talk about it.

Dustin and I got into it.

I don't know what else to do.

He just totally loses His temper,

And I don't know If I'm gonna stay or not.

Fred took off.

He's all pissed off, but we need To get the hole dug.

Because we're running out Of freaking time, bottom line.

We know tomorrow it could flood.

Right below the bridge is Where the gold is sitting.

Let's get some rocks out,

And we'll just keep Digging the hole.

- All right? - Yep.

All right, guys.

Instead of running two dredges,

Dustin will dredge alone.

We're not reliant upon fred.

We're just a man down.

Narrator Rich and casey Will fill in fred's hole.

To reinstate the sled runway.

Rich We're just gonna get These rocks moved.

It's frustrating right now,

But the end result Is gonna be a positive.

- I got it loose! - Seriously, bro.

Rich Lifting rocks all day, Dude, lots of rocks.

Rocks!

That's the best spot to be Right there,

Under the water, in your hole.

No drama down there, brother, Only against the rocks.

All right...

I don't know what went down With fred.

He just thought we weren't Doing what he wanted,

So dustin's filling up Rock baskets.

I'm trying to pull them Back here.

And to keep him accommodated.

We can flood out at any time So the faster we get this done,

The better off we are.

Of course, Right now we're down fred.

So those guys aren't In the water dredging.

That leaves it up to us Right now.

Carlos Say what?

Your mask exploded Off your face?

How's your air?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on up.

Too much air pressure, Maybe?

Aah! Nope.

Getting these big rocks out,

That is one of the biggest.

Time-consuming problems We have here.

So we're still at eight feet Right there.

I mean, that's where it was When I left yesterday afternoon.

I just kept trying and trying.

At some point, I had to just give up.

It's too much.

There's only so much I can do.

I need two dredges running, And I need a full crew.

As bad as I hate to admit it, I need fred here.

He needs to run his team.

I'm too old to be damn Having arguments and fights.

Narrator Two days ago,

Fred hurt walked off The mine site.

After clashing with his son.

Fred I'm gonna have to get.

A little more respect Out of dustin.

We'll see how things work out.

Fred came back this morning.

I hope he's worked it out In his mind,

Whatever it is that's going On with him and dustin.

I guess they're trying to Resolve it in there now.

I don't know.

I hope that he can get Through this,

Because we need him To get back to working.

Hard knock life.

It's pretty difficult Working with family.

You feel that you can kind of Lean on those bonds,

And sometimes you Stretch them to the limit.

Dustin Fred and I are gonna Fight to the death.

That's just the way we are.

If we weren't a little bit Crazy, we wouldn't be up here.

Fred's just gonna have To understand.

That I'm in charge,

And everybody's gonna Have to work together now.

I'm not... I'm not perfect.

I make mistakes just like Everybody else.

Hey, I'm not a quitter.

Dustin's not a quitter.

We've got to keep in mind that We're out here for one thing,

That's to find Some gold, lots of it.

Let's go, carlos!

Yee-haw!

With 74-year-old fred back...

Whoo-hoo-hoo!

Narrator The dakota boys Are at full strength.

All right, everybody.

Whatever anybody thought I said, This is what I'm saying now.

Working against each other And that all ends today.

From this day forward,

We dig one hole, Not two holes.

- Hooray! - That is it.

Right now, changes.

We are on the same page From now on.

That's it. We're digging one hole.

Fred These youngsters have got A lot to learn.

One of these days, They will become the old man,

And they will look back And say,

"God bless, that old man Had some real ideas."

I tried to give fred the leeway.

To run his own crew The way I think he should,

But now it's time for me To step in and take charge.

So we dug a huge hole right here Last season before it flooded,

And our gold started Getting good right up here,

Right up behind me.

We're gonna have Two people in one hole,

And it's gonna be down here,

And they're gonna Work together.

So you're gonna be digging From about plywood...

Okay.

To about here.

Narrator Now both dredges Can run again...

Morning!

Narrator And carlos minor Is finally cleared to dive.

Today, I'm back in the water, Brother.

I've got to take it easy, Though.

I'm pretty wary about it, You know what I mean?

Definitely keeping my head On a double swivel this time,

Meaning I'm always Gonna be cautious.

Cautious for every thing.

Is it too hot?

Yes, too hot, too hot!

Narrator Three weeks ago, A surge of scalding water...

Dustin Just relax. Just slow down.

Narrator Gave carlos severe Second-degree burns.

I'm still healing, man, So it's gonna take a while.

Narrator He's been sidelined Since the accident.

Dustin checked me out, man. He gave me the okay.

Back in the water, brother.

It's time to suit up.

This controls my hot water dump.

If I've got too much hot water, I've got to dump it out.

Water is almost perfect.

We're getting there. We're just fine-tuning it.

We're a little worried About making it too hot.

Just understand, man, you know, If I get old lady,

Man, just, You know what I mean?

Definition of courage, being Afraid and doing it anyway.

I like that. I like that.

Good deal, man.

It's good to see Carlos back in action again.

It took him a little while To get all healed up.

And patched up and everything So, he's eager to go.

He is eager to go.

Just lay down there And get the feel, man.

Yep. Thank you, man.

Good to have you back, man.

Yeah!

Throttle down! Throttle down!

Throttle down!

Ha, ha, ha. Whoo!

Ha, ha, ha.

Whoo!

Rich will dive alongside carlos.

With fred on comms.

With two divers in the water, The crew can get back.

To chasing millions of dollars In gold on the bedrock,

Just seven feet from the bottom Of dustin's hole.

Fred All right.

Carlos thinks rich has strayed.

Onto his side of the creek.

Everybody's working together.

We're digging in the same hole.

This is our ticket To get to the gold.

Okay, basket is headed your way.

Carlos All right. Coming up.

These two guys right now Are finally working together.

Rich and carlos, They're working hand in hand.

At mckinley creek, alaska...

The dakota boys are digging Down to gold on bedrock.

Just seven feet beneath them.

Okay! Okay.

Rich, come here.

Come here. Come here.

You want a break?

They're getting together And they're working.

Together and it's awesome.

This is what I need.

Some of these rocks are so big, It is so hard for one guy,

But two people can just flip A giant rock.

Over pretty easy underwater, And that's what they're doing.

All right, are you ready for That basket over there?

All right, it's all yours.

Carlos Yeah, stand by.

One, two, three!

More, more, more.

One, two, three!

Watch yourself.

Watch yourself.

All right.

A monster boulder is blocking.

The crew's road to gold.

Whoo, good dive. Good dive.

Good job, man.

Whoo!!

Glad to be back home.

First dive back Since I got hurt.

I was really, really scared In the beginning.

Very scared in the beginning.

That water washed it away.

Rock and freaking roll, brother.

It's great we got Carlos back in the water.

We got two dredges going, But if we can't move.

Those rocks, We're screwed, man.

I've got an idea. I think it's gonna work.

All right. Let's try it out.

All right.

Those rocks are very difficult To grab ahold of,

But if you can drill A hole into one,

You can put a concrete Anchor into it.

And you could pull with A mighty force with that winch.

We've got these huge boulders.

That are underneath the surface Down at the bottom,

And we've tried everything we Can to rig up to pull them out.

Fred's got this idea That if I extend this drill bit.

And make it 10-foot long,

He can drill them rocks From the bridge.

We could drill a hole, Put an anchor bolt in it.

And pull it right out With no problem.

If it works, That would be great for me.

Anything that gets us To the gold faster.

We need to happen.

Well, yeah.

I need to get these rocks Out of the damn way.

I did bring my experimental Drill bit.

We don't know if it's gonna Work or not.

A monster boulder is blocking.

The way to bedrock gold.

Fred's plan... Use a hammer drill.

With a 10-foot extension Welded to the drill bit to bore.

A hole into the boulder,

Fit an anchor bolt,

Then drag the massive rock.

Out of the creek.

Rich All right, good to go.

You're right in the middle, Underneath the bridge.

These rocks probably Weigh maybe 1,000 pounds.

The divers can't move them.

Well, fred came up With this idea.

To make this long drill bit,

And right now we're Drilling away at this rock.

It seems to be working Real well.

I hope this works.

So far, so good. So far, so good.

Good medicine so far.

All stop. All stop, there, wes.

You can pull out.

Okay.

- Yeah! - Hey!

It worked great, fred. This worked really well.

That's gonna save us A ton of time right there.

Hey, right now the drill Is working.

Nothing is broke yet.

Some ideas work, Sometimes they don't.

You're making fun Of my little peashooter.

But that's what concealed Weapons are all about.

You can't tell that I'm carrying it.

Dustin Fred, You've got to take out.

One of those pigeons, man.

Fred How many shots Do I get to hit them?

You don't want to bet Against him.

Five bucks. Five bucks, I bet he hits it.

- Five bucks he won't. - That's what, 40 feet?

Come on, fred. Don't let me down, bub.

- That's one! - That was close.

Way low.

Ooh, just to the left.

Come on, you're gonna Lose me five bucks, fred!

Pigeon 40 feet away with that.

- I'll give you that. - That was good.

I don't want you Shooting at me, fred.

Looks pretty nice.

The floods are going to come.

We're against the clock, and we Don't know when the deadline is.

Narrator The dakota boys are in A race against time.

To get down to gold.

Wes That depth looks Pretty good there.

We're at, like, 10 feet.

Narrator With two dredges And monster boulders removed,

They're close To hitting bedrock.

We managed to get A fairly good dive yesterday.

We got a lot of boulders out, And nothing filled in overnight.

So we're gonna Make headway today.

Narrator Dustin's invested Every last cent in this season.

He needs to make a return.

Or they all go home With nothing.

All right. I'm really tired today.

I know I'm the youngest guy Here, but I feel old right now.

Happen in your mid-40s, At least, it did for me.

- He's becoming his father. - No!

If you mean tired and beat up After strenuous activities...

Whoo!

All right. Let's get to it.

So right here we've dug This trench down,

And I think we're really Close to hardpack right now.

Before they hit bedrock gold,

They'll encounter a layer.

Of compacted material Known as hardpack.

Well, we know last year We hit it about 12 feet.

Right there, around that area Right there.

That's where we were Last season.

Over thousands of years,

Pressure compresses Sedimentary sand and gravel.

Into a rock layer Called hardpack.

Sandwiched between the hardpack And the bedrock.

Is the gold deposit that could Make the dakota boys rich.

We're almost there. I think another couple of feet.

We've got to figure out How to get through it.

Maybe use a chipper Or something,

And then right Underneath it on the bedrock

I think there's gonna Be a lot of gold.

We're going to find some gold. A lot of it.

I hope you're right, man.

Ready?

Diving today... Rich webster...

Well, so far this morning The conditions are really nice.

If I can stay warm, It'll be good.

And paul richardson.

- Am I good to go? - Yep, you're good to go.

Carlos All right, gentlemen.

You know the drill, As always.

Yeah.

Yeah!

Everything is going perfect Right now.

Nobody's yelling at each other.

We're digging a hole together.

This is digging in perfect Harmony, right here.

- Ready? - Ready.

They're doing a good job!

You think you got down to it?

Look at that.

- Yeah! - Right?

- Yeah. - Yeah!

Yeah.

Carlos Dang right, Paul. You're the freaking man.

Did you see it? Good job.

Hey, fred, we hit That hardpack, man.

Sounds like that good stuff, Man!

That's good! Finally!

It's been creeping in my dreams For an entire year now.

I need to find out.

Where the gold's at Below that hardpack.

We're right back on track.

We're down to that hardpack, So now we've just got to be.

Within a couple of feet Of being on bedrock.

We all know what's gonna be Running down.

Right at the bottom of a glacier In a nice little v-formation.

The heaviest stuff... gold.

From this day forward, We should get really good gold.

There's just no excuse for it.

We're at least 12 feet deep Right now.

That's a long way down.

I've had so many damn problems That it has taken me.

A lot longer than I thought it was gonna take.

But we're only halfway Through the season,

And we're exactly Where we ended last season.

So I need to find A gold streak in here.

And follow it wherever the hell It goes and line my pockets.

With that beautiful, Beautiful, sweet gold.

I'm tired of letting Mother nature win!

It's time to fight back!

Still ahead this season...

- Yeah! - , that's beautiful.

That's where the gold is at. That's where we're going next.

- Look out below! - Landslide! Landslide!

Diver two, up! Get him up.

There's some perfect Nuggets here.

Yeah!

My.

What is that!