Mountain Passes Operation Gold Rush with Dan Snow

A remote corner of the North American continent...

..a subarctic wilderness, unchanged for millennia...

..until gold was discovered here at the end of the 19th century.

News of the find triggered a global stampede,

the Klondike gold rush.

And, for two brief years, this place was utterly transformed,

as tens of thousands of gold seekers from around the world raced

from the Alaskan coast 600 miles north to the Klondike Gold Fields,

hoping to strike it rich.

Now, 120 years later,

a team of adventurers are here to take on that same journey,

in search of their own gold,

and to experience what it was like to be a Klondiker.

The team are led by historian Dan Snow.

The whole world knew about what was happening here and lots of the world

came here and turned this quiet valley into a motorway.

He's joined by medic and engineer Dr Kevin Fong...

Oh, Dan.

The most common cause of death in the gold rush was trauma

and of those traumatic deaths, the most common cause was drowning.

..and polar explorer and scientist Felicity Aston.

Got the exact set of circumstances that formed our nightmare scenario.

They'll need to survive icy torrents...

That's cold.

..dangerous descents...

Aggh!

..and surging rapids...

That was...an experience.

Nice work.

..before they reach the Klondike, where they'll mine for gold,

the old-fashioned way.

Oh, my God! Look at that!

Just like the 19th-century gold seekers,

our team are on their way to Dyea, a remote beach on the Alaskan coast,

where they'll start their journey towards the gold fields.

This is unchanged, unspoiled,

it looks exactly as it would have looked in those first few weeks

of the gold rush, over 100 years ago.

The gold rush was triggered in July 1897, when the steamship Portland

docked in Seattle.

On board were two tonnes of gold.

It had been discovered in a little-known area

of north-west Canada called the Klondike.

Newspapers shouted, "Gold!"

and the promise of untold riches unleashed a global stampede.

100,000 so-called Stampeders from every corner of the planet

sped to the Alaskan coast, gateway to the goldfields.

Ahead lay epic challenges, wading through mud-filled swamps,

climbing towering mountains,

navigating enormous lakes,

and paddling the mighty Yukon River to the very fringes

of the Arctic Circle before finally arriving at the Klondike.

It was a punishing 600 mile journey.

-See if you can touch the bottom.

-Three and a half metres.

-OK.

Yeah. A metre and a half.

We are now half a metre, we'd better get going.

Get your boots off.

The team are arriving in May,

not long after the end of the Alaskan winter.

Oh, God!

Following in the footsteps of the Stampeders,

they have just one month to complete the same route to the Klondike

and then mine for gold.

This is freezing.

Today, this tranquil spot has only a few tantalising clues

to its history but, in 1898,

this coastline was transformed from an unspoiled wilderness

to a crowded bottleneck.

Thousands of Stampeders arrived here,

including several hundred from Britain.

They were prepared to risk everything

for the hope of a better life.

Many of these pioneers were inspired to write vivid diaries

and, throughout the expedition, our team will be using them

to better understand what the Klondikers went through.

"The very air was electric and the people electric, too.

"100% alive.

"The call of adventure, the call of the wild was in them."

Like them, we landed.

Next, we've got to head inland and make camp.

At least we don't have to fight 10,000 other people

-for a spot on the beach.

-Yeah.

-So, we've got one up at least.

DAN CHUCKLES

Finally, after all these years, I'm able to say,

"There's gold in them hills."

But, blocking their way to the gold, just as for the Stampeders,

the Alaskan coastal mountains...

..rising up 8,000 feet,

covered in deep snow, and notorious for deadly avalanches.

In the first part of their journey, the team are going to experience

just how tough crossing them could be.

They'll be sleeping in tents and, wherever possible,

using similar equipment to the Stampeders.

-Ideal.

-Good stuff.

See what happens if we do this.

I'll have one of those.

The team will be joined by local mountain guides,

white water rescue experts, and avalanche rescue crews.

For the next week, the entire expedition will be self-sufficient.

Everything they need, they'll have to carry.

One, two, three. Good, good, good.

Excellent.

With the tent up, Dan sets off to explore the site.

I'm looking for the remains of what 120 years ago

was a bustling and incredibly exciting, dynamic town.

By 1898, dance halls, outfitters, brothels,

and casinos had sprung up here.

Because it wasn't just gold hunters pouring off the boats,

entrepreneurs rushed here, too, looking to make a fast buck.

And that's the gold rush.

Just a frenzy of excitement that gripped almost the whole world.

And this now feels like virtually untamed wilderness.

Nature has reclaimed most of Dyea, but, amongst the trees,

there is a sobering reminder of how dangerous the journey

to the Klondike was...

..a cemetery - filled with Stampeder graves.

It's a very beautiful place, this.

You have to respect it and you have to understand it.

These people weren't prepared for this environment

and this entire cemetery is the consequence.

Faced with overwhelming hardships, more than half the Stampeders

who set off for the Klondike turned back.

Kind of makes you feel a little bit different about getting up

onto the slopes the next couple of days.

Explorer Felicity has a background in geology

and already has a mild case of gold fever.

Even though I know it's far too early to be looking for gold,

I can't help myself,

coming and having a look, and seeing what's here.

And do you know what? There is a bit of sparkle in this sand.

You can see it in the water.

Look at that one. Sparkling away.

But, of course, all that glitters is not gold.

And what makes me feel slightly better about getting excited

about seeing just a little bit of sparkle is the fact

that the original gold rushers,

when they came here, a lot of people were also fooled

by this glitter in the sand. And they went off in the local area

around here, staking claims, hoping that they'd find something.

But of course, they didn't because this was totally

the wrong place to look.

In fact, the gold lies over 500 miles beyond the mountains.

To cross them, the Stampeders had to choose one of two routes.

They offer our team the chance to experience

two very different gold rush journeys.

Dan and Felicity are going to hike the 33-mile Chilkoot Trail

and pit themselves against its rivers, rainforests...

..and the infamous Golden Staircase,

a thousand-foot, near-vertical icy ascent,

while Kevin is going to investigate an extraordinary story

of gold rush-era engineering in the White Pass.

The plan is that, in two days' time,

Kevin will leave the White Pass Trail

and try to rejoin the others on the Chilkoot Trail.

Together, they'll descend the mountains to Lake Lindeman,

where they'll continue their journey by boat.

So, guys, look at this. Check it out.

-I've got a piece of gold.

-No!

-Really?

-Yeah.

-Is it real?

-That's real.

-Are you sure?

That's quite shiny, so I thought maybe that had been polished up

or melted down. That is as it was found, in the Klondike,

-in the gold fields, where we are going.

-So, how much is that worth?

That's worth £2,000.

In the gold rush days,

they'd find things like this and thought that it had broken off

like that from a big mother lode somewhere in the mountains.

That's what they were looking for.

And what they were looking for was a myth. It just doesn't exist.

You find big veins, you find big amounts of gold,

but there isn't just one big mother lode up in the mountains

-that all this has broken off from.

-What is it with the gold rush?

Why are we so obsessed with gold? Like anything else,

it is precious cos it's rare. And it's rare because the processes

that produce it are tremendously exotic. We need exploding stars,

colliding stars, really huge energy,

and that's why there's so little of it.

The amount of gold that we've found is actually astonishingly small.

If you took all the gold that's ever been found on the whole planet,

it would fill three Olympic-size swimming pools.

Now that I'm holding this, I've never held gold before, really,

anything like this, there's something quite magical about it.

There's something extraordinary about it.

And the fact that it might make you rich beyond your wildest dreams,

maybe you can start to see why people did it.

-Wow!

-Imagine if we found that, eh?

We'd never go hungry again.

So we're going to meet up at the top of the pass.

All right. There's two of you. You should be bringing the beers.

-We'll miss you, dude. We'll miss you.

-You really won't, will you?

You're just saying that now.

Eager to get going, Kevin is up first.

So, it's about four o'clock in the morning,

day two - have a look at this. Let me show you something.

That is intrepid presenter Dan Snow,

choosing not to sleep in a tent.

And I've come to realise that he's like Klondike Dan...

he's always going to do the most ridiculous, outdoor scouting thing

he can do for any given situation.

Tonight, it was sleeping without a tent.

By the end of this trip, he'll be wrestling with bears, I reckon.

He sets off before the others have even got up.

I'm actually really pleased that the day has finally arrived

when we're setting off because the longer you hang around waiting,

then the more you have time to think about, "Have I got the right this,

"have I got the right that?"

Bear safety gear.

Avalanche safety gear.

Blizzard safety gear.

Heat safety gear.

Every eventuality.

HE GROANS

Apart from the bottle of whisky,

I don't even have any luxuries in here.

Is everyone ready? Let's go.

Dan and Felicity face an eight-hour hike through thick rainforest

to their next camp. They're here in spring,

the same time of year that thousands of gold rushers took advantage

of warmer temperatures to cross the mountains.

But Felicity, who spent three years living in Antarctica,

is not best pleased.

I am really looking forward to getting above the tree line

-and it getting a little bit colder.

-Yeah.

-This is a lot warmer

-than I thought it would be.

-You are so hardcore.

-You're not happy unless it's minus 10.

-I prefer the cold.

It's just easier to deal with.

In order to get the cameras and equipment up this hill

to make a film, we are carrying a lot of stuff.

And the heroes are the Sherpas.

How are you doing, buddy?

-You've got the generator on your back there.

-I know.

That's the short straw.

They've started to call me Honda now.

Honda! How much weight do you reckon you've got?

Kind of like...

60-70lbs.

-Guys.

-How you doing?

-How much weight do you reckon you've got?

-Meh, 70.

-70.

-Yeah.

-How about you?

-Oh, I don't know.

-100lbs.

-That's a fierce one, I've tried that one.

-Yeah.

-100lbs.

-Yeah, maybe 120.

That's crazy.

Those guys are packing serious pounds.

I've got nothing to complain about.

Stampeders carried huge loads,

as the authorities forced them

to travel with a year's worth of supplies,

over a tonne of goods, to avoid starvation.

It meant endless shuttling back and forth,

as they painstakingly ferried their goods up the trail.

By the time they got all their supplies to the end

of the 33-mile Chilkoot route,

some Stampeders had walked over 1,000 miles.

Ten miles to the east, Kevin is at the start of the White Pass Trail.

But he's not setting off on foot.

Instead, he's going to travel

on an incredible engineering legacy of the gold rush.

-Hello.

-Hi.

-I'm Kevin.

-I'm Matt.

-How are you?

-Nice to meet you.

Excellent. It looks pretty small.

-Is there room for me in there?

-There'll be tight quarters,

but we'll be friends by the end of it.

Fantastic.

The railway, running alongside the White Pass Trail,

was built by businessmen

looking to profit from the race to the gold fields.

Entrepreneurs from Britain and America invested millions of dollars

in this epic endeavour.

35,000 men, many of them Stampeders who had run out of money,

used 500 tonnes of dynamite

to blast their way through the granite mountains,

laying down 110 miles of narrow gauge track in two years.

Civil engineers of the United States put this as an achievement

on the same scale as the building of the Empire State Building

or the Eiffel Tower, and you can see why.

By the time the railroad was finished in 1899,

the best claims in the gold fields had already been taken.

The gold rush was nearly over.

So only a handful of Stampeders ever used it.

Dan and Felicity are now three hours into their hike

up the Chilkoot Trail.

-The pack felt all right for the first mile.

-Yeah.

This is when you start going through everything that you packed and

realising, "I really didn't need that second penknife."

That's right. That book of poetry could have probably stayed behind.

Well, the good news is that your bottle of whisky will get lighter.

I might have to drink it tonight.

Back on the White Pass,

Kevin has travelled 17 miles with relative ease.

But before the railway was built, Stampeders were on foot.

And now he's going to try to get on the trail they used.

His camp for tonight is six hours' hike away.

He'll join the trail at one of its most notorious sections.

So, this is the very aptly-named Inspiration Point.

Look at that view. That's incredible.

But off to my left is the infamous Dead Horse Gulch,

and it's the scene of some pretty horrific events.

And I want to go and take a closer look at that.

This part of the trail was particularly treacherous

for pack animals.

Thousands of carcasses piled up along it,

driven to their deaths by desperate Stampeders.

The American author Jack London travelled to the Klondike in 1897.

"The horses died like mosquitoes,

"smashed to pieces against the boulders,

"they snapped their legs in the crevices, they rotted in heaps."

Today, their bones and rusting shackles

can still be found on the trail at the bottom of the valley.

-See you later.

-See you later. Thanks.

It's a 300-metre descent down a steep, unmarked path.

It's going to be tricky. Should be worth it if we can get there.

Mountain guide Rene leads the team down a route he's used in the past.

That's a sheer face.

It's about 80 degrees here. To reach the bottom,

the idea would be to tie the rope

on the birch tree here.

OK. You're first - five, ten metres apart.

It's going to turn into a longer day than you thought.

This big rock is loose, actually.

But heavy spring rain has made the slope unstable

since Rene was last here.

ROCK CRUMBLES AND FALLS

Aggh!

A large rock has just missed Kevin's head,

catching his backpack and nearly striking Rene.

I got clocked.

Kevin's producer calls the descent off.

I mean, I did get hit.

OK. Abandon.

Back at the top.

It's lovely to be back up here. I mean, it was more of an adventure

than I thought it was going to be. And gutted not to get down there.

We're a couple of miles uphill along this railway track to get to our

campsite, which is at the summit of the White Pass here.

It'll be good to get there.

Here we go.

Over on the Chilkoot, Dan and Felicity have reached

a wide, fast-flowing river.

During the gold rush, opportunists set up primitive ferries

and tried to charge Stampeders a fortune to cross,

but not everyone could or would pay.

Instead, they'd wade across, but fearsome currents

could sweep them away.

So someone had to cross with a rope first

and Klondike Dan is determined to experience every physical challenge

the Stampeders went through.

Like the prospectors, I'm not going to use a modern dry suit,

so the advice these guys have given me is just brave the water,

strip down to your underwear,

and then take dry stuff across in a dry bag.

I don't need to know what this feels like.

I already know that it's awful.

And...yeah.

This will give me a little bit of a sense of just one of the many

obstacles that they faced, as they headed up into the mountains.

Becca Sharp is an experienced river safety guide.

There's two major concerns with a river like this.

One is foot entrapment

and that's actually a major cause of river death.

And that happens when you step and your foot gets caught but the water

keeps going and if it keeps going and you're stationary,

it pushes you under. Also...strainers.

You guys look on that outside edge...

..and those are also very dangerous

because the water will go through those but you won't.

So the water will pin you up against those kind of things.

-You can get caught. Here we go.

-OK.

Trousers coming off.

Don't laugh.

OK. Let's do this.

OK. OK.

The water temperature is three degrees Celsius,

cold enough to bring on hypothermia in minutes,

while the powerful current can drown even the strongest swimmers.

HE SIGHS AND GROANS

Oh, man!

Thank you.

That's cold. That's cold,

that's cold.

He did good. He's got a good stroke.

He didn't go downstream very far at all.

And he didn't scream, which is very impressive.

That was worse than I thought.

You could feel your muscles starting to shut down as you get halfway.

You don't have long in that water.

Anchor. Now!

Once across, Dan fixes the rope.

Flip that, then get the carabiner through.

OK, the anchor's set!

At least I'm not doing it in my underpants.

I have that advantage.

I'm going to wear my thermal layer instead.

She should be a bit warmer, but not much.

Right, Dan, you'd better have the kettle on! I deserve at least that!

Nice and warm.

That's cold, isn't it? Let's get these off.

The crew take the easy option.

We're across.

But the day is far from over.

The team now have a three-hour hike to their camp.

Having abandoned his attempt to walk the gold rush trail,

Kevin is now following the railway tracks.

He's reached the snow line and is nearing his camp for the night.

Temperatures are just above freezing but for the Stampeders who braved

this route in winter, the mercury could drop to 40 below.

At the summit.

End of the day.

The best thing to see at the end of the day on the trail -

English breakfast tea.

Grab a cup, and we'll get you going.

But many Stampeders arrived here ill-prepared,

with fickle partners blinded by gold fever.

As the English aristocrat Frederick Wombwell described...

"I came across a little tent in which I could hear a man groaning.

"He was alone, his partners having deserted him.

"Gone on in the mad rush.

"I do not think he will last long.

"This is a fearful country for the old and sickly."

Dan and Felicity's eight-hour hike is over.

They arrive at the former Stampeder camp of Canyon City.

I'm not ashamed to admit, I'm pleased to see it.

That is a welcome sight.

Felicity wonders what it was like for the original Stampeders.

Julian Price from London was here in 1898.

"Canyon City is the high sounding appellation

"of a small collection of rough, wooden shanties and tents.

"We drive up to Canyon City hotel, a hut somewhat larger than the others,

"where we propose to lunch before continuing our journey on foot."

That sounds mighty civilised really, doesn't it?

"Go to a hotel for lunch."

Although he does put the words

"hotel" and "lunch" in little commas.

OK. So he wasn't that impressed.

Doesn't sound like it.

This isn't expedition food.

This is proper food. Real vegetables.

Look at that.

While Felicity tucks into dinner,

Dan sets to work lightening his pack.

Can't talk now, eating.

I've been told the bears are particularly bad in this area,

so I'm only sleeping with one thing with me in this tent tonight

and that is bear spray.

If a bear comes in through the side of this tent tonight...

I don't think I'm going to have the courage

to pepper spray it with bear spray. I'll be out the other side sharpish.

-Special delivery.

-That's the best delivery...

..ever.

Today, Kevin is going to leave the White Pass Trail and set off

on a cross-country hike over the mountains.

The plan is to meet up with the others

on the Chilkoot Trail tomorrow.

Like many of the Stampeders,

Kevin has no experience travelling across snow.

He's pulling a 30kg sled for the first time

and progress is painfully slow.

So, it's the authentic gold rush experience, this.

Thank you. A bit of a sled, a bit of a load.

This is hard.

Um...

I'd have to be pretty impressed with the amount of gold

I was going to collect at the end to make this worth it, actually.

And Kevin is journeying in unusually fine weather.

Some Stampeders travelled these mountains in midwinter.

"Often, the trails were wiped out by a blizzard in the night.

"Waist deep in snow,

"men endeavoured to get their sleds back on the trail.

"Many slept on the cold snow

"until morning with their dogs curled around them for warmth."

Good to go. And I'm putting this incredibly heavy bag back

on my shoulders all day.

On the other side of the mountains,

Dan and Felicity have a six-hour hike to their next camp.

All right, lead on.

It's not long before they come across relics

of the epic migration that passed through here.

Oh, look at that.

Do you know what that could be?

Enterprising entrepreneurs actually created a steam system

where they could cable car supplies to the top of the pass.

It's just basically a huge locomotive engine brought up here,

powering a cable car.

That's crazy.

Using the cable cars,

Stampeders could transport their tonne of supplies

to the top of the pass ten miles away

and nearly 3,000 feet higher, but at an extortionate cost -

three times a working man's annual salary.

It is extraordinary.

It's like it was thrown here by some enormous tsunami.

I suppose...

in some ways, it kind of was.

A human tsunami that swept up this valley

in the briefest of time periods in 1898.

But how did they get that here?

Only one way, and they must have hauled it in.

-No!

-They must have done.

Heading up.

This looks like a good place to stop and check out the view.

Wow!

Look at that.

It's nice to actually see the view for a change.

It's all been in the trees up until now.

Oh, yeah. We were on a boat there two days ago.

We've done the flat bit.

We've got to go up and over that.

-A bit of a way to go.

-Frightening.

-SHE LAUGHS

-Wow.

Kevin and his team have been

inching up the mountain for more than eight hours.

The grind of hauling heavy gear up long snowy slopes

like these is well-documented.

"I packed 250lbs on my sled and set off.

"The going was very bad,

"quite one of the worst and toughest walks I have ever undertaken.

"Sometimes I wondered if I shouldn't have taken

"the adjacent Chilkoot Pass,

"which, although a good deal steeper climb, is somewhat shorter.

"Well, I am on this one, so we'll make the most of it."

Finally, after ten hours' hard slog, they arrive at camp.

They're now several hundred metres higher than the Chilkoot Pass.

So, tomorrow, they'll need to negotiate a steep descent

to join the others.

I have never been so happy to see a campsite in all my life.

Ever. Ever.

Wow!

You can't describe it.

I mean, look at it. Just look at it.

Wow!

You follow the line of that ridge down to the saddle there,

that is the summit of the Chilkoot Trail,

where we'll catch up with Dan and Felicity tomorrow.

On the other side of the ridge,

Dan and Felicity have arrived at Sheep Camp

where they'll spend their last night before the Golden Staircase.

It's peaceful enough today, but 120 years ago,

this was a rough and lawless place.

"Here I am at Sheep Camp, a dull hole with three saloons,

"full of the most villainous collection of rascals

"it has ever been my misfortune to lie eyes on.

"They seem a tough bunch,

"but I've a very useful Army-patented Webley

"under my pillow, just in case."

Towering above the camp are the mountains,

the biggest single obstacle of the hike.

To get over them, Dan and Felicity will have to climb

the feared Golden Staircase to the top of the Chilkoot Pass.

So far, the terrain has been relatively flat but from Sheep Camp,

the gradient rapidly becomes steeper.

To get to the top of the pass,

Dan and Felicity will have to cross a deadly avalanche zone.

Then it's the Golden Staircase itself,

where the slope, ramping up to a lung-busting 45 degrees angle,

leads to the summit.

So these are some historical images...

..from the original stampede.

And this is the iconic image that was as famous at the time

of the stampede as it is now.

It's become the enduring image of the Klondike gold rush.

The amazing thing is that this picture didn't put people off.

I really hope that this is some trick of perspective

in this photo and that it's not as brutal a gradient as it looks like

because if it truly is as steep as it looks in these photographs,

then we are going to be absolutely ruined tomorrow.

The team will have to get up well before dawn

because, as the day warms up, the danger of avalanches increases.

It's 2.30 in the morning.

I haven't been able to sleep much since about 1.30,

so not the best night's sleep I've ever had.

The morning is finally here and I'm just not thinking about it.

I just refuse to think about it.

I'm going to pack my stuff, go through the motions, and get going.

And then, before I know, it will be done and we'll be at the top.

DAN GROANS

Let's go.

The safety team have decided they must get to the top of the pass

before 11am to avoid climbing when avalanches are most likely...

..so there will be little time to rest.

The group's already pretty strung out.

Some people are really feeling it,

particularly the porters, who are carrying extraordinary weights.

The Stampeders faced many hazards on this part of the trail,

not all of them obvious.

The snow is actually covering a cavern full of

fast-running, freezing-cold water.

If you go through that, you end up in that cavern

and there's nothing anyone can do for you.

You will just be swept under there,

beaten to death and drowned, whichever gets you first.

Just like the Stampeders,

they put on snowshoes to minimise the chance of falling through.

We're right on top of the creek, so spread out.

Don't put too much pressure on the snow pack.

And let's get through this.

The danger beneath their feet passed,

they now face a new hazard from above

as they enter the avalanche zone.

Hello, Operation Gold Rush.

Avalanche crew.

Clem and Eric, are you by?

Are you guys up there?

James Minifie, the team's head of safety,

is concerned that the snow conditions higher up the mountain

are less than ideal.

Because the snow didn't freeze up last night,

the probability of avalanches goes up.

Right from the get-go, we've got to get up to the slopes above,

just as you see through the clouds there,

those are the slopes of concern.

This is an avalanche transceiver.

If you were to be buried under the snow,

other people in the group can then turn the device

to receive and it picks up the signal and gives you a direction

and you can follow it in to where that person's buried.

You then pinpoint their location with what we call probe,

and you dig them out of the snow.

The team are now in the exact spot

of the single most-deadly accident of the gold rush.

We're coming into the area of the Palm Sunday slide.

1898, there was a camp here, early April,

a series of avalanches came down the mountain.

When avalanches break loose, within seconds,

they're travelling at 150-200km an hour.

There was such a fever to get up and over this pass,

these bottlenecks of thousands of people,

they wouldn't have had a chance, you know.

They wouldn't have even seen it coming.

70 known dead, but who knows how many were actually killed?

They never did recover all the bodies.

It's so odd to be in the place that's so peaceful and serene...

..and to think about this tide of human chaos.

It's really quite eerie walking through here.

You really feel as if you're walking in the footsteps of ghosts.

Time is of the essence.

Every minute they spend on the mountain,

the temperature is rising

and the snow above them becoming less stable.

But, as the slope gets steeper, the team starts to fall behind schedule.

It really is quite astonishingly steep.

And visibility is deteriorating by the minute.

We've just climbed up into the cloud layer.

So we can't see more than a few metres above or below us.

And the rest of the world's just disappeared.

-GUIDE:

-If anybody feels uncomfortable...

without the assistance of a rope, just give a holler, OK?

It's a complete white out.

Much higher up the mountain, Kevin is still in bright sunshine,

but can clearly see the bad weather below.

Weather's changed, the valley is now full of fog.

Dan and Felicity are somewhere at the bottom of that

waiting to try and get up the Golden Staircase.

So we're just waiting to hear from them.

With no sign of the cloud lifting, they could be in for a long wait.

Down below, with visibility now only a few feet,

Dan and Felicity have finally reached the Golden Staircase...

..the climax of their ascent.

But the Stampeders didn't just have to face punishing slopes.

Men who cut steps in the ice charged exorbitant fees for their use.

While packers demanded several hundred dollars

to carry a single load.

Lured on by the gold,

they squeezed onto the trail with hardly a gap between them.

I think this really is the demonstration of just how much

people wanted to get over that hill and to the gold.

I've got the luxury of going at my own pace.

The gold rushers, I can't imagine the pressure

you must have felt coming up here,

knowing that there's hundreds and hundreds of people behind you,

waiting for you to move on.

And I can imagine the sort of abuse you would get from behind if you

stopped for a breather, or to adjust your pack.

So, for them, once they were on this Staircase,

they just had to keep going.

My feet, my hands and my nose are

freezing. My core, I feel like I'm 100 degrees centigrade.

Because the effort of climbing this...

is just relentless.

We're all alone on the hill.

Where are the guys behind you?

Should be behind.

In a disorientating cloud,

there is no sign of the main group of packers.

Hello, Mark. Mark from James.

And James is struggling to get hold of them.

Yeah, Mark, I had you before.

But you're zero by five right now.

The packers, carrying vital supplies for the whole team,

-have fallen behind.

-Do we know where they are?

I'm going to try and find that out right now.

The avalanche risk is increasing.

The visibility is getting even worse.

And the team has been split up.

We've got the exact set of circumstances

that formed our nightmare scenario.

RADIO STATIC HISSES

I'm going to go down and try to find them. I wouldn't mind company,

-if somebody's got the energy.

-I'll come, yeah.

-It means going all the way to the bottom.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Good.

-So you have your avalanche transceiver under there?

-Yeah.

-OK.

So, we'll go.

While Dan volunteers to head back down to help the others,

Felicity will continue towards the top.

I'd rather do that Staircase again than have an empty belly tonight

and sleep in a snow hole.

But to make it down and back before the 11am cut-off,

Dan and the team of five volunteers will have to move fast.

Oh!

Yo!

I see them.

Like ghosts coming out of the mist.

They're a lot further down than they should be.

They're really, really struggling to get up with this weight.

How are you doing, everyone?

-Never better.

-I'm going to take your pack.

Who wants...? Shall I take the sticks? I'm taking that pack.

It's 10am already and they are at least an hour from the top.

If they lose any more time, they will have to abandon the ascent,

head all the way back down to Sheep Camp and try again tomorrow.

Carlos is from the Caribbean.

First time on snow.

Oh, boy! Don't I got a story to tell back at home?!

Exhaustion is setting in but they need to keep moving.

We're running out of time.

And it's a lot of heavy weight coming up the hill.

But I'm too tired to worry about it.

Be good to get everyone just to the top and get her done,

if they're able to.

The team make one last push to reach the summit before it's too late.

Further up the mountain, Felicity is making good progress.

OK, I don't want to get too excited too early,

but I can see a grey blob up ahead

that looks suspiciously like it might a hut.

Yeah, it's the hut!

I'm mighty pleased to see it.

A tiny emergency shelter marks the top of the Chilkoot Trail.

So, we're officially in Canada.

Woohoo!

But celebrations are short-lived.

Dan and the others are still on the Golden Staircase.

So, we've made it to the summit already,

but we've made it without any of our gear.

I have my tent, my sleeping bag, but not enough to share with everybody.

But if the packers don't get here,

then we've got quite an awkward situation,

with not enough food or tents to go around.

So let's hope that they all get up here

and that we don't spend a really uncomfortable night.

Felicity radios Kevin to let him know she's at the top.

From Kevin's position above the clouds,

it's nearly all downhill for him to meet up with Felicity.

It's not dignified, but it's a lot faster.

Back on the Chilkoot Trail,

Dan finally reaches the top of the Golden Staircase

just before the cut-off time.

We're here.

Felicity has climbed the Staircase once today.

Dan has done it twice.

But during the gold rush,

many Stampeders would trudge up the agonising climb

up to five times a day, day after day.

That was a hell of a journey.

Ah!

How was it second time around?

Second time around was...

..definitely worse than the first.

In 1898, this place would have been crammed with hundreds

of Stampeders, stockpiling their gear in enormous piles,

before heading back down the mountain for more.

Our team are here in the spring

but the Stampeders passed through in all seasons.

Do you know what's absolutely extraordinary?

This is the end of May and I'm up here.

And it's like a bad day in Stalingrad.

And these guys were going all winter long.

Well, many did pay the ultimate price for their ambition

and their gold fever.

They died of exposure up here.

Job done.

And then...

Kevin appears.

And the team are finally back together.

-Kevin!

-Yeah!

You've reached the top. Well done.

-How are you?

-I'm really great, yeah.

Oh, Dan. How are you, mate?

-Good to see.

-Yes, yes.

I'm sort of surprised that we're all here, actually.

Me mostly, to be honest with you.

But we're here. And I'm very, very pleased to have left

my really nice sunny camp up there above the clouds

to come to see you two.

-Thanks for that!

-It's good to have you back.

Welcome to the most windy,

miserable, cloudy place on the planet!

Yeah. This hotel is not what I was told it would be.

I don't know. They serve a pretty good cup of tea.

Come and try it out.

It's great to have Kevin back and it sounds like he's had a brilliant

adventure over on White Pass.

But I'm a little bit worried about Dan after today.

He made an epic effort going up and down the Golden Stairway,

not once but twice.

But I think now he might be paying for it.

I've been too gung ho,

I haven't looked after my feet and they're now pretty ragged.

I've been carrying a lot of weight,

I've been carrying my own pack, I've been carrying the camera kit,

I've been filming, trying to be helpful.

And I'm really feeling it in my hips and knees.

The Klondike really wasn't about...

..the big, catastrophic injuries. Those happened,

but there was nothing much you could do about them.

It was the little stuff that was sort of gnawing at you

from the cold, and foot rot,

and the risk of hypothermia,

dysentery - all of that stuff kind of is preventable.

As the trip goes on, it gets harder and harder.

With the Golden Staircase conquered,

tomorrow's journey to Lake Lindeman

is a relatively straightforward, downhill hike.

The next morning and the weather hasn't changed.

So it's four o'clock in the morning, I didn't sleep very well last night.

I'm currently wearing two pairs of socks, a pair of trousers,

some thermal long johns,

a long-sleeved thermal top, a fleece,

a soft-shell, my woolly hat, I'm in my sleeping bag and I am still cold.

So, I've had the best night's sleep of the trip.

And I'm feeling very much at home because this is my kind of day.

Have a look.

Can't wait.

Dan's got a new hat on today and I haven't said anything

but this is possibly the worst day to decide to wear fur.

Because the fur is going to soak up this moisture and it will be like

having wet dog slapped in your face all day.

Is that actually a hat? I thought that was his hair.

I'm very proud of my new headwear. This is from...Native American.

In the Yukon. Made it in their traditional way.

And I've got to say, it's the warmest hat I've ever worn.

It's keeping me alive at the moment.

I'm sure it's very warm.

I don't think he'll be wearing it back home.

It's clearing!

We've seen nothing all morning

and, then, just suddenly,

the clouds part and there's this wonderful reveal of the mountains

that are on all sides.

That's more like it.

An incredible mountain, just finally coming out from the fog.

Utterly idyllic place.

So beautiful that you can forget how dangerous it is.

Lust for gold and the hope of a new life drew

hordes of men and women here.

It made them suffer as never before.

But it also introduced them to a wild landscape

of exhilarating beauty,

as the poet Robert Service recognised.

"There's gold and it's haunting and haunting

"It's luring me on as of old

"Yet it isn't the gold I'm wanting

"So much as just finding the gold

"It's the great, broad land way up yonder

"It's the forests where silence has lease

"It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder

"It's the stillness that fills me with peace."

Ah, yes.

This is breathtaking.

Quite literally, actually.

You come round a corner and you see that.

That's a sight for sore eyes.

And shoulders.

It means the end of the mountains and the end of the walking.

I'm very happy to have completed the hiking section of this trip.

We completed the Chilkoot Pass,

we've marched from the salt water of the Pacific

up into the interior of Canada.

I've massively grown in respect for the people who came here,

for those who didn't turn around when they saw the Golden Staircase,

didn't turn around when they saw the mountain.

It's not about sort of greed and lust for gold.

It's more about the offer of a chance of a better life.

You launch yourself on an adventure and the only way out of it

was to reach the gold fields and find gold.

Next time, Dan and the team hit the water,

taking on rapids...

..crossing mountain lakes...

..in the next stage of their journey to reach the Klondike and find gold.

That was...

an experience.