Pull it.
Whoa.
It's under water.
Start the dredge.
Pull that upstream.
We can't get it outta there.
Whoa! Watch out.
Pull it back there. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
What was that?
It came up.
The water's coming up.
Holy [bleep]. It's too [bleep] treacherous.
It's not safe.
We need to get outta here.
Let's go.
Let's get the hell out.
Looks like a [bleep] dang hurricane.
Holy [bleep].
We got little Niagara right here.
That's insane.
But I've never seen it do this, this is a record flood.
The creek has risen in a biblical way.
This is scary.
Is this it? Is this how we go out?
Is this the final chapter?
Holy fricking moly!
This is insane.
Last time we had rain like this we had mudslides and we had fatalities.
This is scary for Haines.
This is scary for Southeast Alaska.
Nine miles up the Tsirku River
at their remote gold mining camp,
Dustin Hurt and his crew endure the regions worst storm in 40 years.
Trying to get the boats away from the river.
Water is destroying everything right now.
I don't wanna lose my boats, we have to have a way outta here.
- Try to navigate around the sharp rocks. - Okay.
Good to go? Yeah.
All right, pull it up then.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Oh, [bleep]. It's so loose and soft. damn it.
The airboats are the life blood of the mining operation.
And in these conditions
they're only chance of emergency evacuation.
Good to go?
Come on.
Yeah, yeah. That'll do it.
That's not going nowhere.
All right. Are we secure?
Okay? We're secure.
What a crazy morning.
The crew retreat to camp to wait for the storm to pass.
Ow.
... Ahh.
I couldn't sleep all night.
The storm was raging so hard.
Dustin and his crew have survived the storm,
but they may not have a mining season left.
Oh, man.
That was a hard learning experience right there.
This is a different game, man.
I've never seen the water come up that fast.
That was chaos.
You always underestimate fricking the power of this...
water.
I think being such a narrow canyon makes it worse.
I'm from New Orleans and, uh, we would leave and get evacuated
and you'd... You don't know if your area got smashed.
And then you come back to see what's been done to your house.
This is that same feeling,
like, let's go check out to see what the devastation is.
I know, I'm scared to go look.
Hopefully not too much damage.
We've always been lucky with the floods we've had in the past.
Every member of the crew has invested 11 weeks of backbreaking work
in the hope of finding the legendary Nugget Creek gold.
How's it look? - Holy [bleep].
That is bad.
Oh, my [bleep].
It looks like a tornado hit our tent.
Wow.
Check this out.
Oh, my [bleep].
Look at our dredge.
It's buried.
This whole engine and pump was under water.
! That completely broke our box.
Un-operational. Ugh.
Look at all the boulders built up right here.
That was a deep hole.
Yeah.
We were on the verge of getting gold.
Oh, my [bleep].
Last week, Kayla's crew were 9 feet down
and only inches away from bedrock nuggets.
Oh, oh, oh. Ahhh! I could only be a couple feet from bedrock.
That's the layer we're looking for.
That's the layer that's got the gold in it.
- I saw a couple little flakes. - Really?
There's another one, yep. - Hell, yeah.
But the violent storm surge has wiped out weeks of hard work.
And with over half the season already gone, they're back to square one.
We cleared it all out, but now it's back. Exactly how it was before we started.
Well, it completely submerged the wench.
What? Really?
I thought the winch was definitely high enough.
How's it look?
Oh, my [bleep], completely full of silt.
- No good? - Yep.
It's dead.
Blocked everything up.
This isn't just clearing out small debris out of a hole,
this is completely starting over.
My [bleep].
We were getting so close too.
Total annihilation.
I don't know that we're gonna recover.
It's not impossible. We can still start over,
it really sucks to be starting over this late in the season.
It's either that or give up.
I don't think any of us wanna give up.
Damn it.
How's it look?
600 feet down creek at Dustin's Goldengate mine site.
Holy [bleep]!
Holy crap.
Oh, my [bleep].
Oh, man.
Look at the dredge.
Ahh.
At least it's still here.
Devastation came through
and just annihilated everything we worked for for the last two months.
Our hole filled in.
I don't recognize this creek anymore.
This may have done us in.
Wait a minute.
No way! What?
It dug it out for us.
No fricking way.
Dustin!
What? Dude!
Look at this.
Holy cow.
Wow!
Took out a good 4 feet of our overburden.
It is dry.
It's like a whole new site now.
Look how deep this thing is now.
So we don't have to do all the work underwater.
That's crazy.
When they first arrived at the Goldengates...
Dude. Good job, James.
- Look at that [bleep] bolder. - I see it.
...the crew identified this giant,
dubbed Big Ass Boulder, as the perfect gold catch.
Just seeing that boulder by itself makes me think
- of how much gold's underneath it. - It's go time.
Now, the rocks carried down by the storm surge
have redirected the flow, revealing what should be
gold rich creek bed in the prime real estate beneath Big Ass Boulder.
Look how lucky we are.
Unbelievable.
There's a good possibility that there's gold here.
I expected the worst, but it didn't happen.
So bonus on us.
That would've took us a month of good dives to get that deep.
It changed everything.
It dug a hole for us.
With any luck just there'll be boat loads of gold under it.
Pull it forward a little bit. Okay.
After surveying the severe damage to their claims,
Scott is forced to attempt a death defying mission.
Holy [bleep].
There's not much of a choice, I've gotta go get those guys.
I've gotta get Justin and Wes, we need them up here bad.
With Wes and Justin in town on a supply run
it's up to Scott to retrieve them and get the crew back to full strength.
This is one of those, you know, grab yourself by your boot straps,
suck down a can of man,
give 'er hell, and go for it.
Look at all the trees going down the main channel there. Yeah
You really gonna have to dodge that stuff.
- Just take it slow. - Yep.
Oh, she's sounding feisty today.
I know Scott likes to think he's a good airboat driver,
but he's still way too inexperienced.
The Tsirku River is at its highest level in 40 years.
And novice skipper, Scott, faces a 9 mile journey
strewn with dangerous tree trunks and debris.
Oh!
Holy [bleep].
- Wes. - Yes.
That storm completely destroyed our dive site.
Oh, you serious?
You would not have believed it, dude.
Oh, my [bleep].
The power of that water is astonishing, huh?
[bleep]. Uh-oh.
"Uh-oh" is right.
That's not good. This is a bad place. Yeah, it is.
Come on. Don't tell me this is dead.
What the hell is up with that?
It's dead.
Scott for Nugget Creek. Scott for Nugget Creek.
Come on.
Scott for Nugget Creek. Anybody there?
This is ridiculous, man.
This is Wes, this is a no death.
We're dead in the water, floating backwards.
All the frigging trees [bleep].
We got one right in front of us.
What the [bleep]!
We're spinning.
[bleep].
We're moving backwards now.
Come on.
It's gonna take us right into that wall.
we are done. We're toast. Hold on, boys!
... Hold on!
Whoa!
It's gonna take us right into that wall.
Hold on!
Whoa!
[bleep].
We need to get the [bleep] outta the water or we're dead.
Yeah.
Maybe we can get this thing going.
Connect that battery cable.
Justin, here, take that.
The red light just came on.
Come on, baby.
Come on.
Yes!
Let's get the hell outta here.
Back to the boat launch. Yep.
[bleep]! We almost died. That was scary.
Man.
We gotta get hellied back to Nugget. I'll do that.
The airboat out of commission
the guys must shell out over $2,000 for safe passage back to Nugget Creek.
My [bleep], I didn't think we were gonna make it here, dude.
Dude, we got lucky.
Oh, my [bleep], dude.
You won't believe our boat ride we just had.
Dude, man. What's going on?
The boat decided to die on us.
It went "boom". Down. Just dropped.
In the middle of the [bleep] rapids.
Holy moly. - It's all right.
We hit that big 'ol solid rock wall, we hit it hard.
Oh, [bleep].
Luckily, he got it to start again and idle all the way back to the boat ramp.
I got us back. Scott did good, man.
That's good. Good job, guys. - And it worked out fine.
Well, I'm glad that y'all are safe.
I'm glad you're okay.
Welcome back. Thanks.
We missed ya.
I understand we got a lot of water at the site.
You gotta look at it, dude.
It'll blow your damn mind.
I'm gonna have to go change my drawers.
That was a serious ordeal right there.
We got Wes back, so I got a full crew now.
We can all just really throw down.
Hopefully we can get to the gold.
It's salvage day.
Hey, it's better than quitting day.
Now back to full strength,
Dustin's crew return to their dive site,
eager to dig the newly exposed area beneath Big Ass Boulder.
Work site definitely looks 100% different now.
But first, they must get their mining setup operational again.
I still don't know the extent of the damage here.
What're you thinking? I know you got an idea of the plan.
You know, it was a curse, it destroyed everything.
We're gonna treat it like it was a blessing.
All right. First, I need you to go up to the winch,
start picking the rocks out of it.
The damn thing went completely submerged underwater.
Okay.
Oh, my [bleep].
That gravel is so wedged in there the pulley won't even turn.
This is a wakeup call
for us to see how dangerous it actually is in Nugget Creek.
You can see what happens in an instant.
Carlos,
I need this dredge outta the water and off of this incline.
Let's do an inspection on it, if it made it I'd be very, very impressed.
Got ya, man.
The winch system down,
they must find another way to lift the 2,000 pound dredge.
It should slide up.
Nah, it's stuck.
[bleep] damn.
All right. I need a bunch of anchors right here.
Just try to get a come-along on this thing
and try to get this dredge to slide up this way.
Got it.
Dustin's plan...
With the come-along on this side, hook to those eyes.
...push fix a winch system by attaching a come-along to the dredge...
That's good, James.
...a pulley to the cliff face,
and a redirect to an overhanging alder tree.
Make it tight.
Yeah, we're done.
Do I think any of this is gonna work? I have no fricking clue.
We can only try and just hope for the best, pray for the best. Coming up.
It's on the move.
Make sure the front's not getting hooked.
Stop!
It's getting hung up. Hey, can you lift it up?
Oh, it's stuck against the rock.
What the [bleep]. I can't believe this.
I think I'm gonna have to let out on that come-along.
Let it go, James.
Are you crazy? Man, this river.
Be very careful, dude.
That's teetering.
Is it coming up at all? Yeah, dude.
Let's just make sure it doesn't slide.
Oh, what was that?
Whoa!
Your alders are coming loose. My what?
I don't know if those alders are gonna hold. What?
James, please don't go over. - Almost there.
Oh, stop.
Watch out. James. James!
Whoo.
Watch out!
James?
Oh, man.
All right.
That's it.
You all right, dude? Yep.
So fricking close, man.
Thank you, James. Sorry about that.
What a day.
You did the job, man.
We have, what seems like, a full setup.
I have everything I need.
It's beat up, but we were able to save
just about
everything.
Kind of miraculous actually.
This is huge. This just opened up a whole new world.
The carnage.
After a once in a generation storm
Kayla faces the reality that this season could be a total washout.
That is a ton of damage.
So today, what we need to focus on is
get fixed whatever we need to get fixed.
Get the dredge back to working order.
We have some parts of the dredge that need to be hiked in.
- Okay. - We got a lot of work to do.
This is gonna be a lot to recover from.
This is a setback we really did not need this time of the year.
We had an extra box back at camp,
so we're gonna swap out the good box for this one
'cause the flood bent it all to [bleep].
To stand any chance of catching gold
they will need to completely overhaul their damaged dredge.
It's gonna take all of us to get this back in order again.
That's good for now. 'Kay.
But we're gonna go out fighting.
We're not gonna quit.
Justin, you're gonna go get that sluice box?
I'm going to, yeah.
What are you waiting on?
Thank you.
All right.
The only way in for the bulky 70 pound sluice box,
an 1,100 foot hike up the steep incline of Nugget Creek.
Ugh.
We're just carrying this back.
Ah, damn.
Okay. I got this.
Whoa!
Justin.
Oh, my [bleep]. It collapsed.
Justin!
The boardwalk came down.
Oh, [bleep].
It just gave way. - That could have been bad.
My hand went up to the carabiner, I was was like "Oh!"
Wow. It's a causality of the flood.
I thought we were safe with our walkway as high as it was, maybe not.
I can repair it. I hope.
Miraculously, Justin gets the sluice box to the dive site in one piece.
It was a scary moment feeling that...
Feeling the board under your feet go down while you got the...
about a 60 - 70 pound sluice on your shoulder.
And to come down like that, it was, uh, crazy.
But it's all because of this recent weather event.
Nugget Creek's definitely putting up a fight.
Wes. - Yep?
How y'all doing over there?
So I gotta do a little bit of adjustments
and put a swivel in here.
Down creek, the shift in the course in the river
has opened up a new possibility.
I'm trying to use this destruction to my advantage.
They can't dredge until Wes gets their winch working
and they remove the rocks below Big Ass Boulder.
Really hope that there's gold under these rocks, so we can continue on our lives here.
Okay.
I think that's gonna take care of our problems.
Gotta be hopeful.
What?
It's working.
Whoo-hoo!
Oh, yeah. We're back in operation.
Whoo!
Nice job, Wes.
Our beautiful skyline.
Perfect.
This is gonna be the first time
anybody gets to see what we actually do underwater above water.
Let's start just hammering into this wall right here.
All this needs to come out.
Open it up, we're gonna go up, and we're aiming at that big one right there.
I wanna see what's right underneath that sucker.
Dustin's plan, while this section of creek bed is exposed
use the charges to dry blast and remove the last granite rocks,
before allowing enough water back in
to dredge the gold rich gravels beneath Big Ass Boulder.
We have to get close to bedrock in order to hit the big jackpot.
All right. Ready for a pop? Better get outta the way.
Three, two, one!
Yeah!
We don't have to do this underwater.
Thank you.
Get this underneath it? Yeah.
All right, Wes.
Anything you can grab, man.
Almost like you're dredging without a damn dredge.
Nice and deep.
This is gonna throw a lot of spray. All right.
Going hot!
Ow! [bleep].
Holy moly!
Dry blasting is far easier,
but the flying rocks make it much more dangerous.
We're getting fly rocks. Big time fly rocks.
So me and James taking extra precaution.
Three, two, one!
Holy [bleep], that hit the dredge. Holy crap!
That's it brother. Look good, fellas.
Finish him!
What'd you think is underneath that big boulder?
Lots of gold?
I hope you're right, man.
Ahh! Ah. Ow!
- You all right? - Taste blood.
Wow. Okay.
This is our last hope, y'all. If there's no gold under these rocks we are sunk.
You never know, man.
Oh, wait a minute.
Hold on.
Holy moly.
What'd you got, man?
Look at that, man.
Found gold.
Dustin.
Holy moly.
What'd you got, man? - Look at that, man.
Found gold.
It's gorgeous, man.
Convincing [bleep]. That looks like gold, don't it?
Let's see.
Pyrite. Whoo-hoo.
That's a beauty.
Fool's gold isn't going to pay the bills,
but pyrite is a great sign
because it is often found alongside the real thing.
Good day, guys. Yeah.
This is the kinda days we need.
Beautiful.
Is it Friday yet? We still got a long week ahead.
We have a lot of work to do.
I'd love to get a dredge in the water today.
If we're not diving, we're not finding gold.
After the storm erased months of work in just hours,
and left their future in the balance,
they now have less than two months to get down to bedrock gold.
Thank you.
We really need to get that dredge back in the water,
really need to get back to work.
And we need to find some gold soon.
This is the engine that got water running over it, I'm gonna do a quick test run.
What's going on?
There's no water coming out.
That doesn't sound good.
Turn it off, turn it off.
Something ain't right.
What's going on here?
Oil looks good though, there's no water in it.
I don't know.
Hang on. I think maybe it needs a pump seal.
Ah, I got ya. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can try.
A rotating impeller inside the pump creates a vacuum
which sucks the water through.
If that vacuum is broken by a faulty seal,
it will suck in air and the water flow will stop.
I don't have new seals for this pump,
but we found some old pumps with seals in 'em.
It's not ideal, but we gotta make do with what we have.
It might not work, but it's worth checking.
It's all we got, I mean.
I'm gonna try these out.
All right.
See if it works.
Come on.
Yeah!
Got it.
Oh, that was great!
Yeah. - That was so awesome.
Pump's working.
Ah, that's what I needed.
Whoo, nicely done.
There we go.
Engine's good.
Now we have two working pumps.
The last piece of the puzzle,
install the new sluice.
I'll get this on there and get it back the way it should be.
The sluice box is in its home.
We're getting closer to getting back to work.
This late in the season, not having any gold I think is really wearing on me.
So the faster that we can start seeing gold the better it's gonna be.
We needed that victory.
We'll fight through it, we'll conquer, and we'll get the gold.
Ah, man. My legs are [bleep]. Me too.
Another day in paradise.
Look, dude.
I had to get me a frigging hardhat.
I busted my noggin yesterday with that [bleep] dang breaking bar.
Oh, man. - Heck, yeah, man. It hurt, dude.
Hit my head so hard, man, I tasted my fillings, dude. I was like "Ugh!"
No, man, this is treacherous work.
Back in Nugget Creek...
It's above water now.
Tear it up.
...Dustin and his crew return to clear the last of the rocks
before they can get to the bedrock nuggets beneath Big Ass Boulder.
Who would've thought the flood would actually help us.
Watch yourself.
Three, two, one!
Whoo-hoo. Whoo!
Sexy.
There's gonna be gold under those rocks.
Now we're on a frigging mission, dude.
Break everything. Everything.
Three, two, one!
Whoo-hoo.
We're gonna get this hole dug.
Yeah.
I love this.
Look out.
Moving the rocks like the old timers.
[bleep] yeah.
We're getting things out so fast today,
it is just one basket right after another.
We got this.
Nothing's going to stop us.
Hell, yeah. Whoo.
Ow!
Ahh!
Oh. Holy [bleep].
Carlos.
[bleep].
What happened?
That rock just came off the power head.
And hit you in the head? - Yeah.
Ohh. Holy [bleep].
You all right?
This saved me. Man.
That nearly killed me, man.
[bleep]. Dude, you got lucky.
Holy [bleep].
Damn, this place can really, really take you by surprise, man.
Watch out.
You can never be ready in Alaska, man. You can only be prepared.
And just hope for the best.
Keep on going, man.
The weather's already starting to get colder.
Yeah. Rainy season's here.
It's just a matter of time before this rain turns into snow.
We really need to make a ton of progress. Yep.
Their dredge fixed, Kayla and her crew can get back to mining.
All right, let's get this one ready to go.
This is gonna take forever.
It is.
But with their dive hole filled in by the storm
there's no guarantee they'll reach the gold rich pay layer
before the season's end.
We have so much to do here,
but we can't afford to not find gold.
- Yep. - That's exactly right.
So I want to get that second dredge in.
I want both dredge in the water,
two divers in the water.
If we don't make huge progress, we're not gonna make it this year.
- Yeah. - I agree.
We gotta do everything we can to get down to bedrock as fast as we can.
We gotta get some progress.
Kayla's bold solution risks running her crew thin,
increasing the danger for the divers below.
All right, everyone needs to be on the same page
and not giving 100%, they need to give 1,000%. Yeah.
We need all hands on deck and everybody to bust ass.
Watch yourself.
Whoo. Thank you.
With two dredges they have a chance of hitting gold before the season's end.
Hammer time.
Coming around ya. Frigging heavy.
I do enjoy a workout.
I enjoy my workouts a lot more though when they end in gold.
Get this all nice and tight.
I don't wanna lose air while I'm trying to dive.
We're getting there.
Couple more fittings then we're gonna have it.
Nice. Heck yeah.
Let's get this thing in the water.
I really hope it works.
We're actually floating.
All right.
That's good.
Think we're ready to fire this dredge up.
Fingers crossed.
Oh, I hope that works.
Come on.
It's working.
Music to my ears.
We got two dredges in the water, y'all.
[bleep] yeah. We're getting bedrock quick.
Heck yeah.
Well, that makes me feel good.
- Seeing everything working. - Yes.
Feels like we have hope.
And we gonna be able to actually go home with a pocket full of gold.
Man, that sure is a pretty sight, two dredges in the water side-by-side.
Get two divers in the water,
see if we can't tear this place up and get to the bottom.
- So I'll be on this dredge and you'll be on that one. - Okay.
I'll start on this side and you start on that side, then we'll meet in the middle.
We know there's gold here.
- We just gotta fight through all this and get to it. - Here we go.
We're actually dredging again.
We're moving a lot of material.
Can't go any faster with two dredges.
Everything seems to be jiving so far. Yes!
I'm earning my dinner tonight.
Back in business.
Oh, that water.
Wow.
That got real dark, real fast.
Muddy water is a sign of a landslide upstream.
I don't think I've ever seen it that dark.
Lots of debris coming down.
Something came through.
Chunks of ice. What?
Oh, [bleep].
That snow bridge.
If that gives way it's gonna create a flash flood.
It's August, but there is still a 20 foot ice bridge
200 feet up the creek.
If it collapses it could create an inland tsunami
and wipe out both crews in an instant.
Oh, my [bleep].
If we're in this water when that flash flood comes through, we're dead.
Oh, my [bleep].
We've been getting chunks of ice floating down here,
so something gave way up the stream.
It had to be one of those snow bridges.
High up Nugget Creek,
Kayla's crew face the risk of a collapsing ice bridge.
Ice is breaking off.
I think that's a chunk of the snow bridge.
Oh, my gosh.
That's time for concern.
I say we call it.
Let's get outta here.
Rather than risk a flash flood
Kayla calls time on a successful day of double dredging.
It's operational again.
Not bad.
We're right there.
I think we got down to almost three feet,
so we've got enough depth now that we can actually dive.
That flood set us back so much, but today...
should be our turning point.
We put all the effort in to get everything fixed, modified, or changed.
And it's gonna make it a lot faster
for us to hit bedrock soon and, hopefully, find some gold.
Oh, man. I could really use a beer right now.
No [bleep], right.
I don't think we've ever worked this much above water.
Uh-uh
Crowbars, slings, sledge hammers, it's not what we normally do,
but it's working.
Down creek at Dustin's sight...
I know there's gold here.
...prospecting just like the old timers, with a pickaxe and a gold pan,
James is eager to see if Nugget Creek will finally give up her treasure.
Let's see if he can put his, uh, name to the test, The GoldHound.
Well, we'll see.
If there's nothing we're in big trouble
What'd you got, man?
I swear that looks like gold.
Yep, that's gold. Look at that.
Ooh.
There's another piece.
Hell yeah, dude. That's great, man.
That's a picker, dude.
That is fricking awesome.
Good job!
I needed to see that.
Awesome.
This pan of pickers is proof that the ground beneath Big Ass Boulder
could contain the jackpot.
So that tells me we should have a stream
of gold going right down through here all the way to the bedrock.
James found some gold.
Everyone always said it's up here, it's so hard to get to, we know that now.
Just gotta keep working at this.
If the weather will hold out for, like, two weeks we are gonna crush this!
We're so perfectly setup with everything,
just need the weather to cooperate.
And I can devastate this area and we can pile up the gold.
This is a good day, guys.
It's been a heck of a week, I tell ya.
Fricking Alaska, bro.
On the next Gold Rush: White Water...
Water's definitely picking up.
She's angry today.
Uh-oh. It's real death out there.
I forbid my people to go out.
Worst I've ever seen it. Flooding. Landslides.
Watch out.
Whoa, whoa.
It's the hardest year I've ever had.
You could not have picked a worse year.
The weather's beating me.
If you stay with it...
this is what you're gonna find.