'Gold Rush: White Water' Season 3 Episode 6 sees Fred find huge chunks, Paul disappointed after Dustin skips his and Kayla’s wedding
Episode 5 of the Discovery Channel docu-series ‘Gold Rush: White Water’ Season 3 saw both father and son, ‘Dakota’ Fred Hurt and Dustin Hurt, find reasons to smile -- they both seemed to have hit the motherlode. In episode 6, at Dustin’s claim “Rainbow’s End”, the mood was one of excitement. Dustin planned to explore the wall behind the waterfall, hoping that it would reveal more hidden treasures like the ones they found in the previous episode.
Halfway through this season, they have already dug 15 feet below the surface underwater. The one thing that stood between Dustin and his dreams were giant boulders -- so heavy that even their winch system was having problems lifting them.
While they managed to remove the boulders after a lot of effort and maneuvering, they were in for some disappointment: a first look at the material collected in the dredge had no hint of gold. The crew feared that running the dredge at full capacity may have caused the gold that would usually settle in the dredge to have flown out back with the current.
This could mean that all their efforts so far had cost them more than they could imagine. They made modifications to their dredges in order to make sure this did not happen.
A quarter of a mile downstream at ‘Dakota’ Fred’s “Two Fish” claim, the crew decided to move up the waters, on towards the small waterfall. But this meant moving their tonnes of equipment ahead, something that proved to be quite a task.
Making changes to the winch system so that they could lift the dredges ahead was tasked to Kayla, Fred’s stepdaughter and the only woman in both crews. She was nervous about it and her fears came true when the weight of the equipment broke the winch.
With a broken winch, their hunt for gold came to a standstill. And getting a new winch to their site would take days. So they decided to take the broken one apart and fashion a makeshift one till they got their new winch. This time, luck was on their side. The makeshift winch worked and they successfully moved their dredge.
Their difficulties were not over yet. Towards the waterfall, in order to maintain at least three feet of depth in the water, they had to build a dam using the boulders. This meant using their makeshift winch -- something they feared wouldn’t stand this test.
Thankfully, it did not fail them just yet. Soon enough, after some dredging, however, ‘Dakota’ Fred and his crew realized that the new spot was a bust. There was no gold there.
But they realized then that the water may have been dumping gold at the bend of the creek. A quick examination of the soil deposits proved what they suspected.
Back at “Rainbow’s End”, the crew was very close to reaching the bedrock. They used a pressure washer to cut through the hardpack mud -- the only thing between them and their hopeful pile of gold. Lo and behold, they found a small cave behind the waterfall -- possibly “the gold hiding place of the century”.
But their luck turned sour sooner than they could have imagined. The cave had a sloping base, meaning that any gold could have easily not accumulated there. A look at the dredges confirmed their worst fears: no gold.
At “Two Fish”, however, Fred and his crew got lucky at the creek bend. They found some huge chunks of gold. Aside from the gold disappointment, Dustin had other things on his mind as well. His best friend Paul (part of Fred’s crew) was engaged to his step-sister Kayla.
Earlier in the season, Dustin, a believer that this was no place for women, had a fight with him and had an eventual falling out. Now, when Paul and Kayla were getting married, Dustin did not want to be part of the wedding. And Paul was visibly disappointed that Dustin did not show up. This is inevitably going to sour their relationship more.
‘Gold Rush: White Water’ Season 3 airs on the Discovery Channel every Sunday at 10 p.m. ET.