♪♪
[ crow caws ]
Dustin: I love your setup, man.
Look at that [bleep].
Narrator: High in the chilkat mountains, dustin and wes are cleaning up
The gold from the last two weeks.
Keep stacking it up, man.
Every little bit counts.
Yeah, it does.
Dustin: We didn't really get that much out of the first cleanup, but...
Carlos: No?
What?
Are you serious, man?
That doesn't make no [bleep] sense, dude.
Oh, [bleep] hell! Holy [bleep]!
Oh, my [bleep]!
[ laughs ]
What the hell is that, dude?
Oh, my [bleep].
Oh, dude.
What is that? [ laughs ]
Oh, my [bleep]. You see this?
Oh, my [bleep]. That's like, [bleep] dang kid's cereal, dude.
Wes: Holy [bleep]. We're in the money.
♪♪
Carlos!
Get ready to rumble!
Carlos: Woo-hoo-hoo!
First dive. I'm excited, but I'm nervous all at the same time.
Get your ass down there and get some gold.
Alrighty.
Some people, they got it. Some people just don't.
Ryan: Even from the top, we can see
Quite a few boulders overhanging.
[ thud ] scott: Ahh! [bleep]! [bleep]!
Ryan: Is everything okay?
Fred: Scott? Have you got a copy?
Dustin: Get the [bleep] out of there.
If that thing pops up,
It'll just smack you right in your [bleep] mouth.
[ snapping ] whoa!
Drop it!
Dustin: That's some big [bleep] gold, boy.
Everyone who told me "shouldn't dig there,"
You can kiss my ass.
-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com
Captions paid for by discovery communications
Narrator: People have been mining the creeks
Around rockfall ravine for nearly 120 years,
And the evidence is everywhere.
Dustin: Let's do it.
But dustin risked his entire life savings
On the belief they didn't get all the gold.
Dustin: When I bought these claims,
Everybody told me it was just a waste of time.
It's already been mined.
Narrator: Now his gamble is starting to pay off,
Pulling out over $8,000 in gold just last week
Proves that rockfall ravine
Could be the richest dive site of their lives.
Dustin: We're winning at life.
This is exactly what we want to be doing it with.
We're making damn good gold doing it.
Carlos! Alright, man.
Get ready to rumble!
Narrator: Carlos claims the first dive,
Looking to smash last week's record gold haul.
Alright. It's a go.
Diving in!
About to take a look-see.
Oh, that is all big.
Where'd that fall out, right here?
Somewhere right there.
That's still done pretty good, dude.
I bet it still got the gold, though.
Probably.
Well, that goes down about 8 feet, shoulder to shoulder.
The kitty litter, you think?
Yeah, I saw kitty litter.
I can get rid of that quick.
Why don't you get rid of that, see where that hole goes.
Alright.
[ rattling ]
Narrator: The dredge sucks up rocks and dirt
Through a six-inch hose and across the sluice box,
Which should catch the gold.
Fellas, if he ever gets wandering around that edge,
I need you to grab a hold of his umbilical,
Whether he wants you to or not.
Carlos: Hold on.
What the hell? Found gold. Woo-hoo!
Look it!
[ singing ] here I come, to save the day.
Carlos: Here I come, to give you gold.
Wes: That's not even a nugget, man.
Dustin: How are you seeing that? That's so crazy.
I don't know.
Tiny gold, man. Thank you for that. I love it.
Dustin: Oh, it's crazy.
We got carlos, just, "oh, there's a nugget here.
Oh, there's a nugget here."
I hope this never runs out. This is amazing digging.
[ clanking ]
Carlos: Alright.
Is the engine full-throttle?
Dustin: I [bleep] hope so.
Looks like I've got a clog up there.
Yeah, you might be stopped up.
That's not good.
Narrator: The dredge nozzle has lost suction.
Carlos suspects there's a blockage in the hose.
James.
Find out where it stops.
Here you go.
[ engine running ]
What the hell is that?
We got a flapper in it.
It's locked in sideways and it will not move.
Boy, that's lodged in there, whatever it is.
This sucks!
♪♪
There's got to be a rock that's shaped like this
That's gone in there and turned sideways,
And so it's locked it up.
We can't push it out. We can go either way.
We call them a flapper rock.
Narrator: Wes suspects a flat rock has been sucked into the nozzle
And then flipped inside the dredge hose,
Causing a 35-foot mega-blockage.
♪♪
Dustin: What a nightmare.
This is something else.
Carlos: That is the hardest rock
We've ever had to deal with so far, man.
Here, here, here, here. I know what to do.
Hold on. Hold on.
Operation "twist off the nozzle."
Alright. Coming down on the hook.
I'm gonna come down slow, come down slow.
Yep, yep, yeah. It's coming.
Narrator: Wes uses the sky line to lift up the rock-filled hose.
Carlos: Alright. That's powerful.
♪♪
Dustin: Alright. We'll stop.
Let me go full spray.
Here we go, it's gonna spray.
Watch yourself.
Dustin: Ready? We're gonna pull on it a little bit.
Carlos: Yep. Go ahead.
You guys need to get on that [bleep],
Chuck it back and forth, so it'll come out of that dredge.
See if you can just get it to turn at all.
Up and down. Up and down.
[ groaning ]
It still won't turn?
Nope. Didn't want to turn, man.
[ sighs ]
Wes, can you grab the big [bleep]?
Off the boat?
This is stuff I made fun of fred for, right here.
Yeah.
[ thudding ]
Hate this [bleep] dredge!
I've hated it since
The day fred bought this piece of [bleep] here.
Narrator: The dredge has been down for nearly two hours,
And with no fix in sight, carlos is forced to can his dive.
Carlos: Gonna have to get out of the water here, man.
You're gonna have to get me out.
[bleep].
Was my worst dredge day ever.
♪♪
Looks like this day's a wash.
What a [bleep] day!
♪♪
[ bird calls ]
♪♪
Fred: I guess we could just start these things.
[ engine starts ] here we go.
Looking good!
Narrator: Half a mile upstream,
Fred's crew have dredged down over nine feet deep,
But have found less than half an ounce of gold.
We hope every day that there's gonna be gold in the box,
And there just isn't.
Fred: I've waited two years for this.
Just takes time and time, and everybody says,
"well, when you gonna get the gold?"
Well, when we get closer to the bedrock.
So it's either the old man's folly, or it's freddy's fortune.
Narrator: Fred's had the worst start to a season ever,
Delayed by a month and a crew member down,
Fred and ryan were forced to take on a double dive duty.
Ryan: We need his help really bad out here.
Before now, it's been just fred and I,
And that's a lot of pressure on our backs,
To have to dive as much as we do.
Narrator: Fred was counting on his newest recruit, scott, to step up,
But two weeks ago, just before his first dive...
[ thud ] [bleep]
[ groaning ] [bleep].
Narrator: ...The greenhorn miner
Was thrown back on the sidelines.
Scott: [bleep].
Sliced my hand. Sorry, boss,
This is rookie [bleep].
Well, fred, it's kind of down to me and you now.
Now healed, fred needs scott
To start pulling his weight underwater.
It's gonna take a lot of the pressure
Off of fred and ryan.
It's gonna take a lot of the weight off their shoulders.
Broadest shoulders carry the heaviest burdens,
And I got some pretty broad damn shoulders, so...
I haven't dredged before.
Everybody's got to start someplace,
And this is where I'm starting,
So I guess you can say I'm a probationary gold miner now.
You guys ready for a diver?
Fred: We got to go over a few things.
Some of the dangers --
Mostly, you got to be careful.
Don't put your fingers up in front of the dredge nozzle
If you're dredging.
At any time, a rock like this, bam!
Fingers smashed.
Make sure that you see every rock
That has the potential of falling down on you.
That's real dangerous stuff.
If you mess up, it could cost you your life, man.
If you see a rock that's questionable,
You grab that sucker and throw it out of the way.
♪♪
I'm excited, but I'm nervous, all at the same time.
I mean, first dive --
This is the job that I was hired to do, so...
I've been busting my butt here on the surface.
Now it's time for me to get down there
And experience it differently.
Fred: We want him in the rotation.
I'm gonna put him in the water
A second time this week, he just doesn't know it.
♪♪
Narrator: Scott is a commercial diver and a marine veteran...
Ryan: Do we got a copy?
Scott: I copy.
...But he's never dredged for gold
In a nine-foot hole, surrounded by loose rocks.
♪♪
Scott: Well, I totally see now what you guys have been talking about.
Crazy-looking [bleep]. I've never seen anything like it.
Well, you're gold mining in alaska now, buddy.
How's it feel?
[bleep] great.
Fred: Scott has never dredged before.
He's done some diving work,
Scuba diving work, things of that nature.
This is a little different.
Ryan: I'm always worried about a new guy getting in there.
There's a whole lot of danger down there.
Hopefully he doesn't freak out and have any issues,
But so far, so good.
[ breathing quickly ]
Fred: Slow your breathing down just a little bit
And take good, deep breaths.
[ breathing slowly ]
Ryan: Give me an idea of what's going on.
There's a lot of kitty litter.
A lot of really loose material down here.
Clean up that bottom.
That is right where I'm at, boss.
Narrator: Last week, they discovered
The vertical face of an ancient waterfall.
Fred believes if they dig down another 10 feet,
They'll find a life-changing pile of gold
At the bottom of the plunge pool.
♪♪
[ rocks rattling ]
That's good material, right there.
Yeah, it's looking good coming out of the sluice box.
Scott: Copy that.
I'm just kind of vacuuming up the creek pile.
Very good, man. There might be a little gold down in that.
I am keeping my eyes peeled, brother.
I want to get one of them nuggets.
Fred: We're gonna keep him in the water
For at least 3 1/2, 4 hours, something like that.
See what he made out of.
If he can make that, he makes the cut.
♪♪
Scott: I'm taking a minute to slow down.
Fred: Alright.
Alright, I found a seat right here.
Alright, that's good.
Narrator: Just one hour in, young gun scott calls a time out.
Fred: He's tired. You're using muscles you don't use normally.
It'll absolutely just tear you up.
He'll make it.
His ego won't let him not make it.
Get your ass down there and get some gold.
Scott: Alrighty.
♪♪
I'm dredging this material up and out of the way.
[ thud ] ah, [bleep].
[bleep]!
What's up?
You alright?
[ breathing heavily ]
Scott? You got a copy?
♪♪
[ thud ] scott: Ah, [bleep].
[bleep]!
Narrator: Rookie miner scott is nine feet deep
On his first-ever dive at the trifecta.
♪♪
Come again, scott?
[ breathing heavily ]
I got some [bleep] rock just fell on my head.
Ryan: Come on out.
♪♪
Feel any better?
If there's any question, you gotta get out.
Get out. Out. [ splashing ]
♪♪
There must have been an overhanger that I didn't see.
[bleep] rock came down on my head.
Scott: I was trying damn hard to earn you guys' respect,
And this is not how to do it.
I mean, you tell me, fred. Am I doing something wrong?
Why don't you go ahead and go get dressed?
We've talked about it numerous times,
About clearing the overhead.
I mean, with three feet of visibility,
I thought maybe we would see stuff like that,
But this, again...
I'm trying damn hard to contribute, boss.
♪♪
Fred: I don't trust him.
I'm not sure that he's of a quality that can shake off
A bump or a hit or something like that.
Some people got it. Some people just don't.
Producer: Fred, are you regretting bringing scott into the crew?
♪♪
James: I'm on the cross, baby.
I don't think we should cut it,
But if that's the last-case scenario, we should.
Yeah. Oh, [bleep].
Don't fall!
Narrator: At rockfall ravine,
A blocked dredge hose has stopped dustin from mining
The most gold-rich dive site of his life.
Dustin: Go ahead, james!
Pull the machine!
Yeah!
Tie it off!
Dustin: Alright, I got a little bit of a plan.
I need to get this whole thing up on the walkway, basically.
Carlos, to the left,
And we're gonna get these rocks out of here.
I'm gonna pour out my end,
Instead of going all the way that way.
Carlos: Whoa.
That is heavy, man.
Full of rocks, dude.
Alright, we've got to get those rocks out of that end.
Okay.
There we go.
Come on up! [ winch strains ]
Up, up, up! Up!
Get out of there, carlos. Don't let it yank you.
Look out how heavy that is.
Woo-hoo! Alright.
[ laughing ]
Nobody's got a harness on.
I got catlike reflexes, man.
Okay, I'll remember that as your last words.
[ laughing ]
[ groaning ]
That is packed full.
This is all solid, packed rock.
Yeah, there it goes!
[ laughing ]
[ cackling ]
[ rattling ] there it comes.
Narrator: Every hour of downtime on such valuable ground
Is costing dustin thousands in lost gold.
There it goes. [ rocks rattling ]
Alright. I think it's empty, man.
Dustin: Alright, set the dredge down.
Just tie it, please. James: Alright.
Narrator: Hose empty,
Dustin can finally remove it to clear the blockage.
Dustin: Stand on it for me.
The sluice box, that is.
[ thudding ]
[bleep]. It won't come undone.
What?
It has [bleep] something, like...
This has got to be the worst...
It has to be, dude.
[ winch tightens ]
Just lean back when I [bleep], hard.
There, it moves.
There it is!
What's in there? Found it! Stop looking!
Carlos: What's in there?
[bleep]. James: Oh, my god.
Ahhh. It's a tree.
[ groans ]
Don't throw it away! Let's save it.
Hello!
Do you think I want to remember this?
Dude, it actually went in the nozzle
And the curve perfectly, dude.
What you was dredging down there, man?
It was already stuck before I went down there, man.
[ laughing ]
Man, that was a frickin' chore.
That was supposed to be a normal dive day, today.
What a chaotic day, man.
One single stick gets stuck in my dredge,
Annihilates my entire day.
It's already a short season. I don't need too many of these.
♪♪
[ engine starts ]
Narrator: At the trifecta, fred and his crew
Still have a huge pile of boulders and gravel to remove
Before they hit their pay day.
Fred: We still got to get down deeper.
We're only about eight or nine feet deep right now.
Where the bottom is is over 20 feet deep.
Narrator: Scott's back on the sidelines
After he was hit by a rock on his first dive.
Scott: Yesterday, my dive got cut kind of short.
I thought I was gonna get down here and, you know,
Get right in the water, get some good diving done.
Well, fred had other plans, apparently.
You know, I don't know if fred's just trying to
Shaft me a little bit or test me some more.
I don't know.
But, I mean, I thought I was getting in the water today.
Here I am putting bolts in the wall instead.
Pretty upsetting.
Fred: He can get as pissed off as he wants,
But after I see that he passed his test working topside,
Then maybe I'll let him dive again.
Now it's just down and dirty hard work.
[ tool whirrs ]
Let's just say that he is gonna sleep well tonight.
♪♪
Narrator: Back to a two-man dive crew,
Fred's tasked ryan to pick up where scott left off.
Fred: Good luck today, there, ryan.
Thank you, fred!
Just go down and do some dredging first.
I'm sure the hole has got
A little kitty litter in the bottom of it.
Explore around down there and see what you got.
Alright, let's get some. Have a good time, man.
♪♪
All I see on the bottom now is rock piles,
So I'm ready for the rock basket.
Yes, sir. Here it comes.
That looks pretty good, right there.
Scott: Copy that.
[ clattering ]
Fred: Ay-yi-yi.
Good rock, there.
[ laughs ]
Nice rock, ryan. Nice rock.
There's a very big chunk of rock I broke loose down there.
Probably about like that.
Who knows what's lying underneath that thing.
Moved it enough now,
I was able to pick it up end up, on its end.
You think you can put it in the basket?
That's possible. Who knows?
Alright then, we want to come back with the basket, then.
Scott: You know, ryan, if you want to,
You can leave that big rock for me tomorrow.
I can get it, you know, if that's what it takes.
It's in the basket right now.
Alright! Terrific.
I got it. Put the rock basket back on.
Trying to figure out what I'm looking at here.
Poking at it, and it is as hard as a rock.
You right down at the bottom? Yeah.
It's hard pack.
Narrator: Ryan's discovered hard pack.
Over thousands of years,
The weight of boulders can compress gravel
Into a dense layer of material at the bottom of the creek.
This layer above bedrock should be the last thing
Between the crew and a massive deposit of gold.
There's no way I can dredge that up.
If you need help, we got mr. Help up here.
Scott: I'm ready for it.
[ engine starts ]
Bottle it up just a little.
Woo-hoo-hoo!
Narrator: Fred's help comes in the form of a homemade jet washer.
All you got to do is pull on this part, right there.
Gotcha.
Fire in the hole!
Fred's gold blaster
Delivers 4,000 pounds per square inch of pressure,
Making light work of the hard pack.
If you put your dredge anywhere near there,
It'll suck the material up for you.
Whoa, man! It's digging a hell of a hole.
Give it hell.
Scott: Your material's looking damn good
Coming out of the box now, buddy.
Alright. Very nice.
Seeing muddy water.
[ rattling ]
Fred: Ryan has got the gold blaster down there.
He kind of cleared most of the rocks out of the way,
And he's ready to just blast some more material.
I do have a plug-up somewhere.
Scott: I'm on the way.
He's got a jam. I'm going to see it.
Oh.
Narrator: Scott must clear the dredge blockage
Before it jams up the entire hose.
Scott: [bleep].
Come on, baby.
Doesn't want to come out?
Nope, not yet.
Scott's on it right now.
He's giving it hell.
There we go.
That definitely hit rock.
We got it.
Woo-hoo-hoo!
It's going.
Good job!
[ indistinct exclamation ]
♪♪
[ rattling ]
Narrator: Three hours of blasting and dredging
Has got them closer to the goal.
Break it down for us there, scott.
Boy, that hole got a whole lot deeper.
Great.
Nice dive, buddy! Nice dive.
Yeehaw!
Fred: We had a really good day today.
Scott has done an excellent job.
Scott has absolutely gone and done
Exactly what we had hoped he would do,
And I'm glad he actually got a lot more chance
To get more training up on top.
Maybe even enough to change my mind about
Him getting back in the water.
We're badly in need of a third person in the dive team.
Yeah.
[ sighs ]
Scott, you did quite well,
So I think I'm gonna give you a second chance in the water.
Sweet.
And I'm glad of it.
Well, I'm just glad I can contribute.
I'm really glad I can contribute.
Alright.
I've really got to show him that I've been paying attention,
That I can do this, that he didn't make a mistake hiring me.
I mean, the pressure's on.
Narrator: Up ahead...
Fred: We're gonna see what he's made of --
If he's tough enough to handle this or not.
Dustin: That's some big [bleep] gold!
We are gonna do great.
♪♪
Dustin: Alright carlos. You just start pulling.
It'll go over that.
There it is.
Carlos: That went on perfectly, dude.
It went in easy, huh? Yeah!
Narrator: Dustin's trench is back in action
After a mega-blockage costing them days diving.
Got everything back together. The dredge is working.
Everything's perfect right now.
Narrator: To make up for lost time, dustin must step it up a gear
And get his crew back on the gold.
Dustin: It's already a short season.
Every single day we get gold nuggets.
[bleep] awesome, man.
Dustin: Woo!
Sweaty socks.
Ahh.
I love you guys, man.
♪♪
Ahh.
This place is a mess down here.
Man, I need to clean up around the outside of
Where I actually want to dig.
I got so much rock down there.
Why don't you send me the super claw?
Copy that.
I got a few things in my [bleep] way.
Narrator: Dustin's now eight feet down in the hole,
But he's hit another layer of boulders
Blocking his path to more gold.
♪♪
Okay, I got a super claw coming down now.
Oh, stop. It's sinking.
Coming down? Coming down.
[ grunts ] there it is.
You're coming with me. [ grunts ] come here.
Carlos: The more boulders he moves,
The more real estate he's opening up.
Yep. We got it.
Alright. Let me know when I'm clear.
You're clear. Thank you.
Holy [bleep].
Aw man, carlos has got this dump of that thing
Set up so perfect.
[bleep] cleaning house, [bleep]!
Clean house!
Carlos: Okay, got a super claw coming back down.
Dustin: I'm over here.
How's that?
Alright. I got it. Keep coming down.
Coming down all the time.
Oh, stop. I'll stop.
[ grunts ]
Ah, [bleep].
It's a big, heavy [bleep] one.
[ grunts ]
Now let's see if maybe it'll cinch up.
Alright. Coming up.
You know what? I'm gonna get the [bleep] out.
Copy that.
[ exhales deeply ]
Oh, please hitch.
[ creaking ] that [bleep] big...
Yes!
Oh, come on, you [bleep] [bleep].
You know how hard this is?
Hold on a second. Just give me a second.
Copy.
Narrator: The second boulder's right on the limit
Of what the super claw can handle,
But it's their only option, as the mammoth claw is broken.
Alright. It's about tight.
Coming up, guys.
I'm underneath it, so. Wes: Copy. Copy that.
Oh! Ah.
Scared the [bleep] out of me.
Please, please, please, please, please, please.
Come on.
I don't know, dude.
Good [bleep], man.
Wow.
We're getting some nice boulders out today.
Yeah, there's got to be some good gold underneath that rock.
Narrator: New ground exposed, dustin hopes he's got
The crew back on the gold.
Can't believe how far down I am.
♪♪
Alright, I've got a little, baby little pocket right here.
Whoa! [ laughs ]
Wes: You got a big one?
Yeah, boys.
[ laughing ]
Down here, it looks like a half-ounce gold nugget.
Awesome.
[ sing-song ] a nugget, nugget.
It's an awesome-looking nug, by the way.
Dustin: There you go, buddy.
Carlos: Oh, that's a good nugget!
Yep. That's a nugget.
That's awesome!
Yeah. Good job, man.
Getting gold already.
That's a good nugget, dude.
Wow. Wes: Yeah, this is nice.
Carlos: Turned out to be a good dive, so far.
Everything's working out well,
And nothing's breaking.
Nothing's breaking, which is a bonus.
Oh, yeah. That's some more nugs.
That's a big nugget.
Carlos: No way! Look at that!
Wow!
That's a weird nugget. That's beautiful.
What the hell?
I got to go back down and see what I got, man.
Copy that.
[ grunts ]
I got a rock that's in my way,
There's got to be gold.
But it's heavier than I want it to be.
Think it's too big for the super claw, huh?
Just a little too big for the super claw, for sure.
Narrator: For a rock as big as this, dustin's forced to improvise.
Umm...
Ah, you know what? I'll strap it. [bleep].
Copy that.
Okay, I'm gonna bring you the strap.
Got a strap waiting for you.
Alright.
We can get it down to me.
[ winch whirs ]
Alright, everybody should clear out for this.
It's gonna be attached to the cable.
See if she don't pop loose real quick.
Give it to them easy.
[ creaking ]
Hey, you guys need to the [bleep] out of there.
That thing pops up,
It's gonna smack you right in your [bleep] mouth.
It's a very dangerous device.
Carlos: Oh, yeah!
That's big! That's a good one!
Narrator: If the strap slips just an inch,
The boulder will come crashing back into the hole.
Can't believe that boulder.
Come on, baby.
Don't fall back in the hole.
Get ready! Get ready!
[ creaking ]
[ pop ] ohh!
Ooh! It almost got me!
It almost got me!
Damn, that was scary.
Just missed me.
It's right there! It's not going nowhere.
Wes: No, it stays right there.
Alright, I got to dredge for a little while.
Man, I'm tired.
It's got me twisted.
Narrator: Dustin can now access the virgin material beneath the boulders.
There's a piece of gold I can see, that I can grab.
Where'd it go?
Damn it. Now and again I see gold or a nugget come in.
Right now, this minute, this second,
This dredge is working.
What can happen in the next five seconds, alaska only knows.
I just sucked up some gold, that's for sure.
Watch it go in the nozzle.
That's all right with that.
Suck up all the gold you want to.
Wes: Yeah, it's gonna shoot in there.
Hell yeah. Good job.
Narrator: Dustin's four-hour dive has got him
Two feet deeper through gold-rich gravel.
I think I'm done, dude.
Copy that.
That gold, dude. You did a good job!
Wes: Had a hell of a dive.
Dustin: I cleaned house.
It's a total different world down there right now.
[ grunts ]
Whew. I worked.
Carlos: I got you.
Okay.
Whew.
Good day, dude!
Good dive, man.
Yo, look at all those boulders you did, right there.
Those are all yours.
♪♪
James: Is that a nugget sitting there?
♪♪
Carlos: Oh, yeah! Holy [bleep]!
Two nuggies just sitting there.
That's a gorgeous nugget, dude.
Can't wait to see how many ounces we got.
Oh, yeah.
♪♪
Here's to a good day and good dive.
Narrator: At mckinley camp...
Yeehaw!
...Fred's crew are heading out for the last dive of the week.
Fred: Alright.
Fred: We gonna see what he's made of --
If he's tough enough to handle this or not.
In my opinion, if you're gonna get banged by rocks,
You shake it off and you go back to work.
Narrator: Fred's given former marine scott
A second chance to prove his worth as a diver.
Scott: Last dive got cut short.
It hurt. It was embarrassing. My pride got hurt pretty well.
If there's one thing I'm not gonna let happen to me again,
It's getting dinged by another boulder.
It was kind of a one-and-done lesson for me.
You know, making mistakes isn't a bad thing --
Not learning from them is.
Kind of got to get over that psychological factor
Of being worried about it.
I got to get in there and I got to attack it.
I can't let it own me.
Ryan: Have you got a copy? I copy.
Fred: Alright, scott.
First thing I want you to do, I want you to remember --
Go down and check your perimeter all the way around,
Right off.
We're looking for big rocks might possibly come down on you.
Okay. Alright.
♪♪
You're gonna be up against a rock, right about chest-high.
I got it right here in front of me.
Alright.
And to the left of that, gonna be two big rocks right there.
Oh, yeah. There are.
Yep. Just don't even mess with those rocks at all.
Yeah, no [bleep].
Come back here to your left rock wall
Till you get you an idea of where you are.
♪♪
I made it down to the hard pack on the bottom, here.
Get the gold blaster.
Just go ahead and knock out that hard pack.
[ engine starts ]
Alright, I'm gonna go blast the [bleep] out of this [bleep].
Start at the bottom around the perimeter,
Up to about two or three feet, and you'll get hard pack.
After that, you have soft stuff.
Go ahead and blast that also,
Till you don't have any more there.
♪♪
Getting a good, decent pile of rocks pumped up.
I am just about ready for a rock basket, here.
Copy that, scott.
The basket is about to move.
[ winch whirs ]
It's coming.
I'll stop right there.
Can you set it down right there? Set it down right there.
Set it down right there?
He wants to set it down right there.
If he passes this little test with the rock basket,
He's gonna be good to go.
Go down there and position it where you like it.
[ bubbling ]
Oh, that tasted like [bleep].
What is it?
Poops.
Poop?
Does it smell good? [ laughs ]
No, I'm not gonna lie.
♪♪
I'm trying to get the basket situated right under them.
Got that [bleep] in the basket.
That was a big [bleep].
Ryan: Scott is quick to tell you
That he's a big guy and he's got big muscles.
I haven't seen anything big from him this season.
I expect to see that rock basket coming out of there
With monster boulders in it,
Otherwise I'm gonna start giving him [bleep].
Scott: Yeah, let's get the rock basket out of here.
[ basket rumbles ] copy that.
That one was a heavy one.
Fred: You know a little kid, when he first doo-doos in the potty,
Turns around around and, "look, oh, look what I did."
There it is. Nice rocks. Oh, yeah.
Scott: [ laughs ] that was a damn good tumble there, boss.
Get back to work.
Yes, sir.
♪♪
Ryan: There was a lot riding on scott diving today.
We need his help really bad out here.
There was a lot of weight on fred & I's back
Just trying to be a two-man diving team,
But now that scott's back in the water,
We're running on all cylinders.
Scott: You thought the last basket was pretty decent.
I believe this one's a lot more heavy.
Nice basket. Thank you!
Alright, top it. Do your thing!
Dump.
Ayy-yi! Alright!
This [bleep] is fun, man.
This feeling right now makes
All the [bleep] that we've gone through justified now, you know?
Ryan: I agree.
Yeah, I'm gonna dredge for a little while, here.
♪♪
Looks like you got some dirty water
Coming over the box right now.
Alright, I want you to go back to the dive platform.
Narrator: Scott's achieved a four-hour dive,
Taking the load off fred and ryan
And getting the crew a couple of feet closer to bedrock gold.
Good dive, man. Good dive.
Thank you, boss. Yeah!
♪♪
Tell you what, I'm pretty damn tired, though.
I definitely feel it.
A lot of really good rock and a lot of good dredging.
Welcome to the dive team!
Alright!
[ birds chirp ]
A two-foot long in there?
You would never think that something like that
Would get in your dredge.
What the hell?
I can't imagine how that thing got in there.
Carlos.
[ laughing ]
That explains it.
He went logging.
Dude, it took us all day --
When, like 3:00, we finally took that thing off.
How the hell did it get in there?
We don't know!
It was just curved enough
Just to make that angle inside the nozzle that
The whole hose got clogged up with frickin' dirt to the end,
So that hose --
Weighed a ton. Weighed a ton.
Dustin: The worst stop-up we have ever had, ever.
Not just this year, not just last year, ever.
That was a nightmare. It was a weird day.
♪♪
Fred: We got to go take a look
And see if there's any gold in there.
Narrator: At fred's trifecta dive site,
Scott's just finished a four-hour dive,
Finally earning himself a place on the dive crew.
Ryan: Alright, let's see what we got.
Fred: See how you did!
They check to see if the gravel beneath hard pack
Contains any gold.
I don't see anything right off the bat.
Scott: There's at least some good-looking material
In there, though, isn't there?
Yeah.
Right now, I don't see anything to get too excited about.
Like I say, till we get down on that flat bedrock,
I don't expect much of anything.
No gold today, but tomorrow's another day.
Feels a little disappointing today,
But, you know, we're not through it all yet.
We're not down to bedrock.
If we were down to bedrock,
And we were having no gold visible in the box,
I'd be really worried.
Fred: We always hope that there's
A little bit of gold in the hard pack,
But today's been a great day.
We got an addition to our dive team.
Scott did just fine.
♪♪
Dustin: Oh, what a day.
This fire's putting me to sleep, dude.
Yeah, this is nice, man. This is why we work hard.
So we can come back and relax,
Talk about how badass we are all the time.
Narrator: Back at dustin's camp, it's a different story,
As wes preps their first full cleanup of the season,
Wes: Somebody should buy us a larger scale.
We're starting to get enough gold
Now that we need a grown-up scale.
That's a good problem to have!
Check this out.
That's a pretty nice amount of gold, there.
That is a lot of gold. Big gold!
How much do you think that is?
I'd say about, like, four ounces?
I think it's more than that.
I think there's more than five ounces in there.
Really? I think there is.
I think we should weigh and see what we've got.
Narrator: First to be weighed,
The fine gold caught in the sluice box.
James: Love that sound, man. Look how big that stuff is.
That's amazing.
Two ounces.
Oh, look, four ounces.
Okay.
There's five.
Okay, it's more than I thought. Five and a half.
Six. We're at six ounces.
6.94? Damn!
Right at seven ounces, huh?
Not bad. That's more than we all thought.
Narrator: The price of gold is at an all-time high
At around $2,000 per ounce.
The gold from dustin's sluice box alone
Is worth $14,000.
Wes: That's a lot of fine gold, guys.
What is that, seven, eight dives?
That's freaking awesome.
Starting to happen.
Man, I'm telling you.
Yeah, alright.
That's not the nuggets we picked off of the sluice box.
Carlos: Alright. [ rattling ]
Jeez, what the heck?
I can't tell, man.
I'm gonna say six.
Oh, that's full.
That's more than five ounces.
Oh, dude, what the hell? Oh, my [bleep].
There has be like 8, 10 ounces, man.
That's more than five.
Carlos: That's about 10 ounces, man. Holy crap.
Eight, I'm guessing. Let's see what you got, man.
It's good for us to get a few.
[ laughing ] oh, man.
One ounce.
Two ounce. [bleep].
Three. Four ounces. Wow!
Five.
Dustin: I knew it was more than five.
Carlos: Oh, my [bleep].
Seven! 7.3.
7.3.
That's big [bleep] gold, man.
That [bleep] weigh was insane.
That's some big [bleep] gold, boy.
Narrator: Combined, this takes dustin's total to
Just over 14 ounces, worth almost $30,000 dollars.
That's a lot of work you're looking at right there, guys.
We all know how much work it took to get that.
Can't believe so many people passed up on this dig over here.
Everybody thought this was done and everybody came at me going,
"don't waste your time. Somebody's already dug there."
Guys, we finally found it.
We finally found a really good dig spot
With a lot of gold in it.
Let's just keep going.
This is gonna be our year.
This is definitely gonna be our year.
Dare to dream, huh?
Hell, man, I moved my whole family up here
To do this, you know?
Good things come to those who don't give up.
How do I know? I'm part of it.
Wes: We've been doing this for so many years
And a little bit of gold here, a little bit of gold there.
Nothing ever like this.
This is what we expected gold mining to be like.
If we could keep this going for the rest of the season,
We are gonna do great.
For everyone who told me "you shouldn't dig there" --
You can kiss my ass.
Narrator: On the next "gold rush: White water"
Dustin: We're doing something different.
Never done this before, so no mistakes.
Three, two, one!
[ cheering ]
Fred: The hell's wrong with your leg?
Ryan: I might have to go to the clinic.
If I leave these guys, they're in some deep [bleep].
Holy [bleep]! That's the pocket! Woo!
Carlos: They're just everywhere.
I'll remember today for the rest of my life.