[eagle screeching]
[Dustin] I believe that these creeks still have
a huge payload somewhere.
I just don't know where it is yet,
and I'm gonna keep digging until I find it.
[narrator] For more than ten years...
[Dustin] Are we crazy or what?
[narrator] ...father and son, Fred and Dustin Hurt...
[Dustin on radio]
hopefully you could tell me where to find this damn gold.
[narrator] ...have scoured the remote Alaskan wilderness
for a gold deposit so vast
it would change their lives forever.
[Dustin] All we need is one little pocket of gold.
[Fred] I think that's gonna make you a wealthy man.
[narrator] Using the secrets of the old timers...
A bunch of little miners got 4,500 ounces.
No telling how much gold is still here.
[Dustin] If these spots haven't been mined out,
they're gonna have gold in them.
[narrator] ...advanced equipment...
Right there. Right there.
That's what we need to be.
We're having to bring in new techniques,
step up our game.
[cheers]
[man] Did you see there?
[narrator] ...and gold mining expertise...
It looks like a... a vertical drop,
which is what you want in the plunge pool.
This is what is gonna have the nuggets in it.
[narrator] ...this is the story of their epic
modern day treasure hunt...
You scared of dying, never gonna live.
[narrator] ...for hundreds of millions of dollars in gold.
[man] Oh, yeah.
[Dustin] There's nuggets everywhere.
[man] I love my job.
I'll remember today for the rest of my life.
[man] Hey, Porcupine Creek, here we come.
Hey, it's gonna be a good year.
It's gonna be an excellent year,
and we're gonna give it hell.
[man] This is a genuine treasure hunt.
[narrator] High in the rugged peaks
of southeast Alaska's Chilkat Mountains,
in a still undiscovered location,
a huge deposit of gold, the mother lode
was formed millions of years ago.
When a mixture of superheated water,
quartz and gold
erupted through fissures in the Earth's crust.
Since then, glacial meltwater has carried nuggets
and fine gold down creek,
depositing them in the plunge pools
and gold catches below.
Over the last decade,
Fred and Dustin have searched relentlessly for these sites.
But their treasure hunt began at the foot of the mountain
at their first mine site, Porcupine Creek.
Let the game begin.
[narrator] After a 35-year career in construction
and commercial diving...
Oh!
[narrator] ...Fred gambled his retirement fund
on a claim on Porcupine Creek.
[Fred] This is the glory hole.
I'd be highly embarrassed that I don't wind up
with at least 100 ounces of gold out of this place.
[narrator] And brought in his son, Dustin...
Hey, Fred. How are you?
-You all right? -Hey, Dustin.
[narrator] ...to join the hunt for a monster payday
on bedrock.
Uh, we're about to start running real dirt,
so hopefully
by the end of the day, I'll feel like a miner.
All right.
[Dustin] Hoo!
Digging gold down there.
All I can see is gold soup going out here.
[Dustin] I have to find out where's that bedrock,
if we can find it.
Who knows if it's 1,000 feet?
I have no idea.
[Fred] We know there's gold sitting under our feet.
Porcupine Creek area been one of the richest areas
in southeast Alaska ever.
[narrator] Fred And Dustin's dig site is just yards
from the Porcupine ghost town,
once a thriving gold mining community
housing over 200 people.
In 1889, two prospectors struck gold
and after panning the equivalent
of $2,500
in just 2 hours, started the Porcupine Gold Rush.
Over the last 120 years, the Porcupine mining area
has delivered over 80,000 ounces, worth $160 million.
[Dustin] Let's go.
[narrator] Fred and Dustin are counting on using modern technology
to get all the gold the old timers couldn't reach.
[Fred] Hey, Dustin.
Check this out.
Uh, something dramatic has changed here.
This has a structure of perhaps
an old ancient waterfall right here.
Ha, ha, ha.
[narrator] After discovering the vertical face
of an ancient buried waterfall so deep that the original
prospectors couldn't reach it.
This is basically a huge sluice box.
There may be a pile of gold in the bottom of this thing.
[narrator] Fred and Dustin dig down to 110 feet.
[Dustin] We're gonna follow this waterfall down
and see what's at the bottom of this thing,
so I can actually get some real gold.
[narrator] But as the crew dig deeper...
[bleep]
Ah!
[narrator] ...and Porcupine Creek threatens to break
through the sidewall of the pit.
[woman] No, no, no.
[narrator] The hole becomes a death trap.
[Fred] Holy [bleep].
Declaring it right now -- abandon.
We'll get all our tallies together,
find out how much gold we've made this year.
Come.
280 ounces.
[cheers & applause]
-[man] Yeah. -[woman] Woo.
[Fred] Hell, yeah.
[narrator] Despite not reaching
the very bottom of the glory hole
over three seasons mining,
Fred and Dustin recover nearly $1,000,000 in gold.
[Fred] What a year?
Just incredible.
I'm happy. This is... this is a lot of gold.
This is the most gold I've ever seen in one place.
[Dustin] Ooh. Good job, guys.
[narrator] The glory hole is proof that somewhere
up in these mountains lies the mother lode.
[Fred] We have options right now.
Take a look.
See, what's happening up at the Cahoon Creek.
Let's see if we can find some gold.
[narrator] And with their pockets lined with gold...
[Dustin] Yee-ha.
[narrator] ...they can continue their treasure hunt.
Hopefully, tell me where to find the damn gold.
[narrator] Fred and Dustin travel 3,000 feet up
to the source of Cahoon Creek, high in the Chilkat Mountains.
If they can locate the mother lode
somewhere in this mountain and find ground to mine
as close to it as possible, it could be worth millions.
That mountain right there,
as you can see, is a reddish color.
Dustin, it looks to me there's a fault line up there.
That's where the gold came up.
Uh, I'm gonna hike up to the top of this mountain
over here and we're gonna do some drilling.
I'm gonna try to get some core samples to find out,
the gold really is where I think it is.
We're up here on top of the world.
2,000 feet down is our campsite right there.
It's phenomenal up here, but it's also dangerous.
Any tumble out here, any trip, any slip-up,
you're gonna fall.
That's it.
We'll be picking you up in a body bag.
[narrator] Dustin's treasure hunt pushes him to the edge,
forcing him to rappel down the cliff face.
[man] Be safe.
[Dustin] He's taking gold mining into another level, man.
Oh, ho, ho.
Long way down.
All right.
I think this is where I'm going to drill, man.
[man] Right there?
[Dustin] Right through this big slab right here,
right in front of me.
[narrator] But an already dangerous mission
suddenly gets even tougher.
[Dustin] The storm just came in.
Visibility went down to nothing.
Ready.
[man] I'm ready.
[Dustin] Let's get some drilling done.
I want to see what's in this rock.
All right, man, I got a sample over here.
We got to get out of this snow.
[Dustin] Come on, gold.
Show me something. Make a believer out of me.
[Fred] Are we seeing anything at all?
[Dustin] Nothing.
[Fred] I mean, nothing.
What the [bleep].
[Dustin] What the [bleep] does that mean?
This is insane.
[narrator] Dustin's attempt to find the needle in the haystack,
the mother lode is a bust.
[Dustin] So much time and effort, money,
and to come back with nothing.
Damn.
[narrator] But with 200 square miles of gold-rich land on offer,
Fred's not ready to give up.
First table off, I got something to show you.
It's important.
Let me tell you about McKinley Creek.
McKinley Creek has got McKinley Falls.
A bunch of little miners diverted the creek,
mined for two weeks and got 4,500 ounces.
We've got these plunge pools all along McKinley Creek here.
We may get millions.
All we got to do is find the right spot.
[narrator] In 1916, intrepid miners blasted
a tunnel through the cliff face,
diverted the creek using a flume,
and pulled almost $8.5 million worth of gold
out of the McKinley Falls' plunge pool.
Lured by the potential riches on McKinley Creek...
[Dustin] There it is, Fred.
That is the creek and it's beautiful.
[narrator] ...Dustin buys a mile of claims
running upstream from McKinley Falls.
[Dustin] [bleep], damn.
[Fred] A pocket of gold on this creek could be
anywhere from 1 to 4 million bucks.
I think that's gonna make you a wealthy man.
[narrator] Their objective, work their way up the creek
in search of a deposit of gold washed down
from the mother lode.
[Dustin] Let's do it.
Gotta go find a spot.
The gold could be huge.
[narrator] The challenge, finding plunge pools
so remote, they were too difficult
for the early prospectors to ever access.
Everybody be safe. That's the only rule.
Be safe. Don't die.
-Let's do it. -[man] All right.
[Dustin] I've got a lot of claim up here.
Wow, man.
That's some really big waterfalls, right there.
It looks awful steep.
I'm guessing this is about 300 feet down.
Don't you wish I had bought easier claims, though?
No, not really.
The harder they are to get to you, you know,
they haven't been touched.
This is gold mining to the extreme.
[Dustin] This is dangerous stuff here.
We're just kind of in that little zone between crazy and insane.
There it is right there, guys.
[Dustin] This is what we were looking for.
Holy [bleep].
This is beautiful.
There's all the round boulders.
Hey, Fred, you got a copy?
It's on the inside of a bend.
It's got a plunge pool and big round rocks that are on the bar.
Are you kidding me?
Yay-ho.
I think we're gonna do some good there, boy.
[voice on radio] It's the trifecta.
The trifecta of gold mining.
[Dustin] We found our spot.
We found it.
This is what we've been looking for.
And it's better than we ever imagined.
[narrator] To access the gold the old timers couldn't reach,
Fred and Dustin fly in modern equipment.
[Dustin] Perfect.
[narrator] A floating dredge with a suction pump
that sends gravel and water through the sluice box.
[Dustin] It's gonna pull up dirt and gold
so we can get rich.
[narrator] Modern, insulated dive suits,
heated by hot water supplied from the dredge.
[man] All right. That's good.
Very good. Excellent.
[narrator] And an air supply that will allow the divers
to operate underwater.
You get in the damn water and you get tangled up
in your cables and ropes and all this other junk,
we're going to die.
[man] Rattled right now.
Finally get a little bit tighter, man.
A little bit tighter on top.
Just take your time.
You know, essentially, I've got his life in my hands.
Oh, I definitely get nervous.
Anything goes wrong,
we're out in the middle of nowhere.
That would be the end of him.
[narrator] Dustin has no formal dive training,
but insists on being first
to take on the raging water of the trifecta.
Here we go.
[narrator] If they can't pull this off,
their dream of finding unmined treasure
in the deadly creeks is over.
[Dustin] All right. Just hold on to me.
Hold on it, guys.
[Fred] Good luck.
[man] And that current is so [bleep] strong.
So you're right there at the rapids.
[Fred] No, it's [bleep].
Oh, no.
[man] Urgh!
Come on.
-That's crazy. -[Dustin] Pull.
[man] You're right there at the rapids.
[narrator] The Dakota boys
are on a hunt for a deposit of gold
that will make them rich.
[man] Oh, [bleep]. Keep going.
[Fred] Oh, no.
[narrator] But rookie diver, Dustin Hurt,
is trapped in the ferocious white water.
[Dustin] Pull.
Pull.
[man] Pull, pull, pull, pull, pull.
Take it that way. Take it that way.
[Dustin] Urgh!
The water just took me in.
Flipped me around and I had no control.
[man] That water is seriously raising now.
I wondered if it's too dangerous
to actually mine here.
[narrator] If they can't dive, their treasure hunt is over.
[Dustin] I just got to try harder.
[man] Glad to be here, mate.
I might take off, all right?
Watch out.
[Dustin] Urgh!
[man] Come on.
[Dustin] All right, I'm in.
Oh, I'm digging there.
It's coming up, little by little.
[man] Big rocks coming loose.
I love it, man. I mean, here it's working.
[Dustin] Yeah.
I think if we get down
to the very bottom of this thing,
I think we're gonna do very, very well.
[narrator] Just three weeks in...
[Dustin] Fred, look at that right there.
[Fred] I see it.
[Dustin] Holy [bleep].
[man] I'll be damned. We found...
[Dustin] Look at that.
We found nuggets.
Yeah!
[narrator] This nugget proves that their death-defying
gamble to dredge the ferocious creeks could pay off.
That's a bigger than we ever got from Porcupine Creek.
[Fred] Clean that sucker out!
[Dustin] Way to go, buddy.
-[man] We made it out. -[Dustin] Good job, man.
My time has come.
We got some gold.
It's only gonna get bigger.
[man] It's only gonna get bigger, man.
[narrator] Driven by gold fever...
[Dustin] Let's go.
If I can't find some of the nuggets,
we know they're there.
Find me some gold.
[narrator] The crew dig down through 22 feet of rocks and gravel.
[man] It's going to take a lot of frickin' sweat,
lots of testosterone to get these [bleep] boulders out, bro.
[narrator] In search of a gold deposit untouched
by the first miners to explore these creeks.
[Dustin] We're hitting the bedrock.
[man] It's right below the gold.
[narrator] And after two seasons dredging the trifecta...
[Dustin] Officially found the bomb.
Yeah!
Yeah, we did it.
Holy [bleep]...
[Dustin] There's gold in here.
[narrator] They clean out a 5 sq. ft. area
on bedrock.
-[cheers] -[man] Oh, my [bleep].
-[bleep] -[indistinct]
-[man] Yeah. -[Dustin] Woo!
[man] Look at those nuggets, dude.
[bleep].
[Dustin] This is exciting, though.
We knew without a doubt that there was gold down there.
[man] We'll do a cleanup and we'll find out what we got.
All right.
[Dustin] Well, we've got some gold, guys.
Seven.
That's eight.
Only 10.3 ounces, guys.
[bleep].
[bleep] that don't even cover all our bills, does it?
[Dustin] Not even close.
[narrator] Their first treasure hunt on McKinley Creek
ends in disappointment.
I thought we were gonna walk away with hundreds of ounces,
and we came out with $13,000 worth of gold.
[man] We're wasting our time.
[Dustin] I think we got all the gold
we're ever gonna get from there.
And I think we finished that hole.
It's too deep, too dangerous.
And I'm calling it.
If we're gonna have another season mining,
we need to move on.
We need to prove that there's gold up there.
I think I know where I'm going right now.
We're going straight through there.
[narrator] Dustin's already prospected the headwaters of Cahoon,
but lack of gold proved they were above the fault line
containing the mother lode.
[Dustin] Can't see nothing from here, that's for sure.
[man] Yeah.
[Dustin] We definitely got eyes up in the sky.
[narrator] So Paul brings in advanced equipment...
[Paul] We've got a drone out here and we're going to try
to navigate through all these creeks.
[narrator] ...to search lower Cahoon Creek for gold,
no miner has ever reached.
[Dustin] We're just above Cahoon Creek right now.
And we're gonna find my new dig spot.
[bleep] how cool is that.
All right. Well, upstream first.
All right.
[Paul] Oh, that looks good, man.
-That's it, right there. -That's it.
Right there. Right there. Right there.
-[Dustin] That's the one, Paul. -[Paul] That's it.
That's where we need to be.
[Dustin] This is where McKinley meets Cahoon.
Look at me. I'm all jittery.
[narrator] The next target on their treasure hunt,
the confluence of Cahoon and McKinley creeks.
Water slows where they meet
and could create the perfect gold trap.
[man] Hey, fellas.
Found another way here.
[Dustin] You found it?
All right.
Let's see if we can get down to this,
because it's about a 300-foot drop.
[narrator] Dustin and his crew risked their lives
on the grueling descent to a possible new dive site.
[man] What? Crumbly rock.
Oh, ho, ho.
[Dustin] Yeah. Don't die.
Holy [bleep]. This looks great.
This is what we're looking for right here.
-[man] Awesome. -[Dustin] Awesome.
Awesome merge, man.
Lot of potential in this area, bro.
That pile of rocks is suspiciously perfect.
These are all piled up, man.
[man] Somebody's been here, huh?
[Dustin] Look at it.
Huge pile of boulders.
As far as gold is concerned, this is done.
We have to find a better spot to dig.
[narrator] Searching for a deposit that's not already been mined,
they head a mile up Cahoon Creek
towards where Dustin's convinced
the source is located.
[Dustin] Look at this.
[man] Hell, yeah.
Perfect little waterfall... goes to the source.
[Dustin] Thinking that the bottom of this waterfall
is a natural gold catch.
This looks good.
[Dustin] I don't think anybody's ever mined here.
Do you feel it?
[man] I feel it, brother.
Is this it, right here?
Is this the spot that's gonna make me rich?
This the end of the rainbow?
Rainbow's End.
My house is finally done.
So to sign up here is twice as far away as
pretty much anywhere we've been.
So it takes a really long time to get up here and back,
which takes away from a mining day.
So we're gonna camp up here, we'll be closer.
And hopefully I can get more done this season.
Damn sure I need the gold.
[narrator] Dustin's treasure hunt
leads him to a remote site
high on Cahoon Creek called Rainbow's End.
Here the plunge pool of the 18-foot waterfall
should create the perfect gold catch.
See how far you can get close to that thing, man.
You got me.
[narrator] And the more violent the water,
the less likely it's ever been mined.
Right there.
Right there dude... is where we want to be.
Right there.
Right underneath that falling zone.
I just hope, man, that at the end of the rainbow,
there's fricking gold down here.
-How's that? -Good.
So, are we going to go directly for this waterfall?
-Yep. Got you. -All right, brother.
It's time to start diving. Let's find some gold.
All right, let's get the gold.
I'm diving guys.
This is my world.
Hey! We're diving.
You gotta dig this until it's done.
I hope this is it.
The best damn gold we've ever had.
[narrator] Over the next three months...
Again in the water.
Whoo-hoo.
[narrator] the crew bring in new equipment...
[man speaking]
[speaking]
[narrator] to deal with massive boulders.
Woah, look at that... look at that.
Yeah, that's exactly what we want.
That's a nice size rock.
[narrator] And are rewarded with a promise of what lies
on bedrock.
Right. I'm seeing gold.
I'm seeing gold.
That sounds amazing, man.
So we're finding gold.
Oh my [bleep].
There's gold there. There's gold there.
[bleep] There's gold there.
[bleep] Whoo.
This is a lot of really good gold.
I'm excited.
[narrator] After months of backbreaking work...
I careened up the water [bleep],
dude there's nothing left.
[narrator] the crew finally reached the bottom
of the plunge pool at 18 feet deep.
Rainbow's End is done.
No question we left any gold down there.
Thank you waterfall.
Moving up.
Okay, boys, we got to play the gold, dry it up.
-Look at that. -Oh, my [bleep].
[narrator] And after completely cleaning out
the plunge pool,
they're hoping this could be the site
that changes their lives.
Let's weigh it.
Let's find out what we found in that hole.
Do you hear that?
Man, there goes two ounces.
That's what we got the first season.
We're going past that already.
-Good deal. -There's 12 now.
We've already passed two years.
A lot less...
[bleep]
That's it right there pretty much.
All right.
27.5 ounces right there.
-Yeah. -Hell, yeah, man.
One hole, guys. Come on.
$38,500.
Hell, yeah.
That's gonna make our season right.
[narrator] Twenty-seven ounces not the life-changing payday
they were hoping for,
but proof that these creeks could hold
a deposit worth millions...
You might actually make some money this year.
[narrator] And enough to continue their hunt.
We got some good gold. Can we not go further up?
I mean...
I'd love to go upstream, but it's not my land,
so we can't do it.
Down to McKinley, there's some areas just above
the big waterfall that we can hit really fast, really strong.
All right, amigo. Let's go for it, man.
[narrator] Dustin's plan so far...
explore the remotest parts of their claims to find gold deposits
the old timers could never reach.
-This is it. -Point of no return.
[Dustin] There'd better be some damn gold down there.
My last chance.
[narrator] Now their diving skills developed,
their new plan, tackle the prime spots
on McKinley that were too dangerous
for the early prospectors to access.
Their hunt leads them two-and-a-half miles
downstream to a site close to McKinley falls.
[Dustin] All right, and now the hard part --
we got to dredge.
All we got to do is get it down into that hole down there.
Get ready.
It's coming over the edge right now.
[Fred] Dustin, don't get in front of that thing.
Hey, Fred.
[Fred] All right, go ahead.
I just got to keep a pull on it
so it doesn't just shoot away.
Keep coming down.
[narrator] Chasing a monster deposit of gold,
Dustin is forced to repel with the dredge down a 400-foot drop.
[Fred] This is beyond crazy.
This is extremely -- extremely dangerous stuff.
[narrator] The more inaccessible the site,
the better the chance it's never been mined.
It's the wrong way to do this [bleep].
It's almost vertical, right from here out.
Ten feet out there, straight down.
It's a life or death situation right this minute.
Ye-haw!
[laughs]
[bleep] crazy.
[Fred] It's getting close to, Dustin.
Dustin, rock!
[Dustin grunts]
[Fred] Dustin, you all right?
[eagle screeching]
[Dustin] Come on down.
[Fred] It's almost vertical right from here out.
[narrator] Hot on the trail of millions in gold,
Dustin risks everything,
rappelling 400 feet with his dredge.
[Fred] Dustin, rock!
[Dustin grunts]
[Fred] Dustin.
You all right?
Dustin.
[man] Dude, you all right?
Piece of slate hit me in my face.
Knocked-- just knocked the -- knocked me in the stars.
[narrator] Dustin survives the rockfall...
[Fred] Keep coming.
[narrator] and manages to get the dredge down to the creek,
to start their mission...
[laughing]
[narrator] to reach bedrock at Rockfall Ravine.
[laughing]
My man.
We got a nugget in minutes.
[narrator] And Dustin's hunch that the old timers
couldn't mine here pays off...
Holy [bleep]
[narrator] when they're rewarded with a monster nugget.
That's a one in a lifetime find.
[narrator] But the strong currents at Rockfall Ravine
that have carried big nuggets all the way
from the source high in the mountains...
What the [bleep].
[narrator] have also left roadblocks.
Well, I'll be damned.
There's a granite boulder down here.
Seven feet around.
Really?
Yeah.
[narrator] A rock this size can weigh over 10,000 pounds.
We had to find a different way to deal with that.
I'm not sure our skyline will handle a rock that big.
[narrator] These boulders are so large.
The old timers couldn't move them
and may never have reached the gold that lies beneath.
[Dustin] In all the years that we've worked out here,
never had to move a boulder this big.
[narrator] But Dustin has a tool in his kit
miners in 1906 never dreamt of.
[Dustin] We're having to bring in new techniques.
We're having to step up our game.
Hopefully, we can blow it to little pieces.
So I've got the charge,
the boosters onto the power head.
So I've got connectors here, and this is the blast cord.
They say that they'll blow up underwater,
but we've never done it.
I have no idea.
This is a whole new system for us.
[narrator] First, they insert the blasters into drill holes
in the boulder, then send an electric current
that detonates a charge that should crack the boulder
from the inside out.
Oh, yeah.
-Got it? -Yeah.
Good job, man.
Y'all ready?
We're ready for this.
We're ready.
Three, two, one.
Oh, wow.
It cracked.
Awesome. It worked. It worked.
I love it when a plan comes together.
[narrator] With their new boulder blasting technology,
[bleep] Did you see that?
Did you see it?
-Good job, brother. -Good job.
[narrator] the crew can clear the massive boulders...
Holy, crap.
[narrator] and reach gold traps inaccessible
to the old timers.
Oh, my [bleep].
[laughing]
Holy crap.
Holy [bleep] man.
We knew it was going to be down there
underneath that rock.
And it's paid off.
It's honestly the most gold I've ever seen
in our sluices since we've been dredging.
[narrator] Back at McKinley camp,
the final cleanup is nearly complete.
Holy moly!
So that's over 29.5 ounces we got so far.
That is unreal.
-I like it. I love it. -It's so cool.
[narrator] At Rockfall Ravine,
they've pulled in a total of almost 30 ounces of gold, their highest ever.
Their decision to dredge the treacherous area
above McKinley falls has paid off.
[Dustin] We couldn't have done it without new techniques.
There was a boulder down there
we knew we couldn't move at all.
So we're moving up in our game right now.
[narrator] New rock-blasting technology is a game changer
in Dustin's hunt for millions in gold that miners
with less sophisticated equipment couldn't get to.
[Dustin] How much gold did the old timers leave?
That's what it comes down to.
They could have missed a bunch.
I can tell you one thing.
They did find a nine-ounce nugget
in the early 1900s on this creek.
So there can't be just one nugget that size.
There's got to be more.
Oh, holy moly!
I'm looking for nuggets, dude.
[narrator] Dustin owns a mile of claims from McKinley falls
all the way up to Cahoon creek.
His plan --
follow the gold upstream towards the source
and search his unexplored claims
for a gold trap.
Why don't y'all look right down there?
-Oh, wow. -That? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[Dustin] Wow. Look at that.
There are boulders as big as houses.
And I don't see any evidence
that anybody's actually dug here.
I bet there is a ton of gold still left up here.
[man] I bet there is too.
[Dustin] If every time we move a boulder in Rockfall Ravine,
we got a few nuggets,
what do you get underneath the house boulder?
Tons and tons of gold. Big gold.
[narrator] After their success at Rockfall Ravine...
Let's go diving.
[narrator] Dustin is banking that the huge boulders
at House Rock have trapped gold
any other miners were unable to reach.
Below that, that's when the gold will start.
[narrator] He brings in a second crew to double
his chances of finding an untouched deposit.
That's your fricking office for the next fricking five months.
It's probably the deadliest place I've ever been.
Hopefully now we can get down to it twice as fast,
find twice as much of the gold.
[narrator] They spend two months on a mission
to find bedrock gold on either side of the creek.
[man] Let's go to some depth now, guys.
[narrator] But while one crew see good results...
Hey!
We've got ticker.
[narrator] After dredging down to 15 feet...
There's no gold on our side at all.
It's full of trash, it's full of debris but no gold.
[narrator] Dustin's crew find nothing.
[Dustin] Did not find any gold.
Makes you wonder if it's worth it.
We've got to do something different.
I don't want to waste any more time digging here.
[Dustin] So we hit 15 feet and it was zero gold.
So we're done with that.
[narrator] After striking out at House Rock...
We're back at it again.
-Back to the chute. -Back to the chute.
[narrator] Dustin and his crew are on the move.
Their treasure hunt leads them to a new location
just upstream from one of their biggest paydays,
Rockfall Ravine,
where narrow rock walls create a fierce channel of water
that may have been too dangerous
for the old timers to mine.
Holy moly!
That's fricking crazy water.
That White Water, it's the finest.
-All right. -[Dustin] We ready to do this.
Holy moly!
That's a tough current, huh?
[narrator] The crew fight the strongest currents...
they've ever faced...
Ow, ow, ow.
I got it.
[bleep]
Pull him up, pull him up, pull him up.
It ate me up and shot me up, dude.
That's true White Water right there.
[narrator] in a race to bedrock before winter ends their season.
[Dustin] Rains coming in.
It's supposed to flood tomorrow.
It has to get done today or not at all.
[narrator] But it's not just ferocious White Water
the crew have to deal with.
What the hell is this?
What you got down there?
Oh, man. What the hell?
It's appalling.
Looks like a 100-year-old pulley.
Are you kidding me.
[bleep] Dang it.
[narrator] Equipment left behind by early mining operations
could mean that the chute has been completely mined out.
I'm a little bit nervous that there's no gold down there.
Carlos found a big pulley.
So if it's 100 years ago, there's no gold down there.
But I got my fingers crossed that that was just
from upstream somewhere.
[narrator] This close to winter,
the crew must gamble that the pulley has been washed down the creek.
If they're wrong
and the old timers mined this site,
they could find no gold.
Let's see some gold now.
So right now he's in the last two feet of dirt.
Soon we'll know exactly
what's in there because it'll be empty.
Found the bedrock fellas. Found the bedrock.
Is there gold in the bedrock?
He is dredging now.
[narrator] After their failure at House Rock,
the crew is betting their future
on the bottom of the chute paying out.
It's exciting.
Please, gold Gods.
Need a [bleep] payday here.
-Oh, [bleep] -[laughing]
Good job.
I knew there was [bleep] nuggets down there.
Holy [bleep], look at that.
Knew that was going to be there.
I love it. I love it.
[Dustin] Everybody told me this place was tapped out.
Don't buy it.
There's nuggets everywhere.
All right, guys. That is spick and span clean.
[bleep]
[laughing]
Holy [bleep],was that gold?
Oh, yeah.
-[laughs] -[cheering]
Holy [bleep].
Grab those nuggets.
We have never found anything even remotely close to that.
Look at how much gold is down in there.
[bleep]
I've never seen something so beautiful in my life.
Look at that.
That's more gold than we've ever found.
I can see that right now.
Chute's done.
We're done with the chute.
It's a good day.
Damn good day.
Hey, you guys got the scale ready?
[narrator] After five seasons of hunting
for a monster deposit of gold in the creeks of the Chilkat mountains...
You got the gold, boys.
Nice.
Here's our rewards for the chute right here.
One ounce, five ounces.
Ten ounces. 15 ounces.
20 ounces. All right.
25 ounces.
Whoa.
That's 27.
Twenty-seven ounces.
-Is that two weeks? -It's three weeks.
Three weeks.
[narrator] In just three weeks,
Dustin has pulled in $50,000 worth of gold.
-Wow. -Nice job.
Hell, yeah.
You did it, man. Good deal.
[Dustin] Hell, yeah.
[narrator] Over the last decade...
Dustin and Fred have banked over $1,000,000 in gold...
[Fred] Proud of you guys.
[narrator] and proved that the remote creeks
and plunge pools of the Chilkat mountains...
That's like a house nugget.
[narrator] still hold unmined deposits of gold,
unreachable by the old timers.
Is it worth it?
[Dustin] Hell, yeah. It's worth it.
The adventure is priceless.
I want to keep doing this and I want to --
I want to hit it big.
I believe that these creeks still have a huge payload
somewhere and just don't know where it is yet.
And I'm going to keep digging until I find it.
[narrator] Now Dustin abandons McKinley,
Cahoon and Porcupine creeks and buys a remote claim
on the far side of the mountain
where he believes the life-changing deposits
have yet to be discovered
at a site called Nugget Creek.
[narrator] On the season ahead.
[Dustin] I bought a new claim.
Bigger, better gold.
That's what we're looking for, right?
-Dustin! -What?
-Got some gold, man. -Yeah.
[narrator] Of White Water.
[Fred] Rock, rock, rock, rock, rock.
-Look out. -Two rules out here.
Don't get hurt. Don't die.
[bleep] You can't put this on TV.
[narrator] Dustin risks everything.
There's gold, but nobody can get to it.
-[Dustin] Nobody. -That sounds like us.
What have you gotten yourself into?
[bleep] damn.
The crazy ass canyon.
[narrator] On a remote new claim...
and located deep in the Alaskan wilderness.
[man] There's a bear.
-Anybody nervous? -This is scary.
[Fred] We are way out here.
No machine's gonna make it up there.
I mean, it's not impossible.
I have to find an alternative way to get to the claim.
He was brave enough to land on my landing strip.
[narrator] Named for its monster gold...
Nugget Creek is like McKinley on steroids.
It's not safe out here.
We need to get out of here.
[narrator] New challenges.
Just like the old timers, you got to get something there.
You put it on your [bleep] back and go.
Our gold is underneath that stone.
It's a new level of hard.
That's strong.
Fire in the hole.
-I just need a medic. -[narrator] New ground.
[Fred] All the experience in the past
is going to come to bear right now.
[narrator] And new hope.
There's no telling how much gold is in there.
[narrator] For a life-changing pile of gold.
Holy [bleep]!
Awesome.