Gold Rush: Alaska (2010–…): Season 10, Episode 2 - A New Rush Begins - full transcript
Narrator:
on this "gold rush"...
Our season starts right now.
There could be a life-changing
amount of gold
in that pile back there,
really could.
Not for you guys, maybe for me.
Narrator:
as the price of gold surges,
rick ness looks to cash in,
hunting monster nuggets.
Rick: oh, baby.
With only 1 year to pull gold
out of his massive claim,
parker and his foreman...
I don't get what the [bleep]
is going on here.
...reach the boiling point.
Get these piles of [bleep]
back there and get this set up.
We've got to be sluicing
by the end of the week.
-are you ready to roll?
-whoo!
[ laughs ]
if you got a better plan,
parker, I'm game.
Every day not sluicing
is a bunch of gold
that's left in the ground
that we aren't going to get.
Narrator: the beets family
hits a major setback.
Tony gambles big
to save his season.
Yeehaw!
We're starting a convoy.
[ tires screeching ]
[ crashes ]
tony beets, do you copy,
tony beets?
captions paid for by
discovery communications
♪
today is a big day.
Here we go.
I'm going to do the eyes.
I'm going to do a smile.
-she's smelling the bacon.
-oh, yeah.
It's coming.
Classic american breakfast
right here, ryan.
-yeah.
-tall stuff if you want,
you can just put the rest
of that pancake
mix in, like,
a shake bottle for me.
I'll just drink it.
[ laughter ]
narrator: rick ness and his crew
are almost ready to mine
for big gold.
-whoo, yeah, day one.
-whoo!
In the mountains above
the legendary keno city,
rick's claim contains
both fine gold and big nuggets.
Yeah, I feel really lucky
to have found this new spot
surrounded by these mountains,
really got to hope
there's gold in them.
Narrator: 150,000 years ago,
at the top of mount hinton,
a glacier formed.
When it reached the quartz vein
containing the mother lode,
it plucked nuggets
and fine gold.
They traveled down the mountain
and were deposited
in sporadic pockets
and in the pay layer
rick is mining.
I've doubled the goal
for this year.
I want to get 2,000 ounces.
We did a little
over 1,100 last year.
That broke us even, and
that's fine for a first year,
but I've got to make
a profit this year.
Narrator: if rick can hit
his goal, he'll mine
$2.8 million worth of gold.
Get a little gold in the box,
and maybe we can prove that it
all isn't all just a dream.
Narrator: if they hit it big,
rick and his buddies
will share in a monster payday.
I think we're all
super stoked to see
what it's going to look like.
It's going to give us
a good idea of what the season
holds in store for us.
Narrator:
after 6 months of downtime,
rick is just about
ready to sluice
in his shaker deck
wash plant.
I'm excited about the start.
Whoo!
[ laughs ]
because once that plant
starts going then...
Then we're going.
Then we're going nonstop so...
Twelve-hour days.
It's ready to go right now.
Hook that hose up,
turn everything on.
♪
You guys ready for this?
-yeah.
-I am ready for this.
We're 2 months earlier than
we were last year, sluicing.
This is a major
accomplishment,
and I'm just
going to keep it short
and say our season
starts right now.
And there's a pre-start.
-it won't work?
-it's got to warm up.
-it starts in 30 seconds.
Starts now.
[ engine starts ]
that sweet, sweet music.
Ready??
Hit the plant,
let's load some dirt in it.
♪
Oh, yeah.
Narrator:
all they need now is water.
Hey, zee, you want to fire up
that pump there, buddy?
Narrator: to get the water,
rick uses a high-powered pump
located 500 feet away,
next to a creek.
All right. Here we go.
Rick: the waterline is full,
but we ain't pushing any...
We ain't pushing any through
the plant, really,
just a little bit.
Okay, let's just hold off
for a minute
and then see if it equalizes.
Narrator:
the plant needs 3,000 gallons
of water every minute.
Take it up another couple rpm,
I guess.
I think we're just going
to build until we get
enough pressure
to pressurize the whole system.
Try firing it up to 1,700.
Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Public shouldn't leave reviews for lawyers.
Narrator: even at full revs,
the pump is not delivering.
All right.
I'll go shut it down.
[ engine stops ]
I guess it's not enough water.
Narrator: rick's shaker deck
is a massive machine
for washing gold off the rocks.
First, you load the pay.
The vibrating deck bounces rocks
out of the tailing chute.
Water jets blast fine material
and gold through holes
in the screen deck into sluices,
where the heavier gold
is caught in the riffles,
but with no water,
rick is not mining.
Rick: we're just -- we're trying
to pump it too high.
The first plan doesn't
always work,
so, you know,
we're on to plan b here.
Narrator: rick's plan,
move the pump 300 feet upstream.
This will raise the pump
10 feet higher
and should increase
the water pressure in the pipe
4 pounds per square inch.
Alright.
[bleep] it, let's do it.
I'm done [bleep] around here.
Zee: is that one coming loose?
Hold on.
♪
♪
That's pretty good.
Are you clear over there?
man:
Looking pretty level, hey?
Think they're good?
Yeah, I'm going to go ahead
and fire this up.
Is that all right, rick?
Fire that [bleep] up.
What are we waiting on?
Let's do this.
Alright.
Here comes your water.
[ engine starts ]
you want me to take it
all the way up to 2,200 again?
Yeah, buddy.
Narrator: it's time to put
rick's plan to the test.
♪
♪
Here it comes.
♪
♪
That's better.
There we go.
We got water in the prewash,
quite a bit, actually.
I don't know.
I think that's the best
it's got so far.
Whoo-hoo!
♪
Shaker deck coming hot.
[ deck rattling ]
♪
here we go.
Let's see what this gold mining
is all about.
Let her rip.
Ho, ho, ho, I will.
First bucket.
And we are officially
gold mining in 2019.
We can take a lot of pride
in that, buddy.
Holy [bleep]
uh...
[ laughs ]
we are making money.
Narrator:
a hunt for nuggets is on.
Rick: oh, yeah.
Whoo!
Whoo, whoo!
Whoo!
I'm a little bit happy.
I was super grumpy this morning
because I was like,
"oh, we should just --
I wish we were just running,"
and now this makes it
all better.
We're actually -- we're running.
I'm vibrating.
I'm vibrating.
Everything about this
is different, and I love it.
♪
♪
Parker:
been a really rough start.
We should be up
and sluicing by now.
We're a little bit out
of control, really.
Narrator: parker schnabel's
lifetime ambition to mine
his own claim
is off to a bad start.
Mining this much ground
would normally take 3 years,
but parker has just 1 year
left on his water license.
Two weeks in,
he's still not sluicing.
You know, with the money
that we spent on the ground,
which is half a million bucks,
we're about 1.5
into the cluster cut,
in that piece of ground now,
that we've spent on it,
and with the water license
expiring, like,
we really risk
leaving gold in the ground.
Narrator: every week he isn't
sluicing costs parker
around 300 ounces of gold,
worth half a million dollars.
Parker: I was in haines
last week talking to my dad,
and the big questions
he asked were just,
"do you have a handle
on the operation
and the cost
and where the money goes?
Does everybody know
what the game plan is?"
narrator: parker's foreman
dean tosczak has over 30 years
mining experience.
She enjoys doing it.
I love spending time
with my daughter, so...
That one took you,
like 5 minutes solid.
-have a good day.
-you, too.
-love you.
-love you, bye.
Parker charged dean
with getting the wash plant up
and running
by the end of last week.
Dean: no, I spent a lot
of last night up,
thinking about how I'm going
to catch up on things here.
We should have been
sluicing weeks ago.
I have a feeling I'm going to
have a couple of long days here.
Narrator: parker has opened up
the cluster cut
on the western end
of this claim
where the drill tests
showed the most gold.
There is no water source
on parker's ground,
so dean will have to design
a system of ponds
to recirculate the water
for the wash plant.
Trying to figure out
what I need,
what I can use and what I can't,
and we'll see how it goes.
Come on.
♪
Do you have 10 minutes
to walk me through this?
yep.
Probably this way is better,
parker.
Parker: what is the plan?
Like, we're fighting room
up here.
We don't have the space
or the time
that we need to set up
our ponds normally.
Narrator: miners normally sluice
into a previous cut,
but on this new ground,
dean doesn't have that option.
So my plan is put the plant
right in here,
put a pad right here
on the edge of our berm,
sluice runs heading
to the corner.
So you're going to put a berm
across here.
You're going to put
the plant on it,
and you're going to sluice
into that pond?
Dean: yeah.
Dean's plan, dig out
the gold-rich pay dirt
from a
60,000-square-foot section.
Next, surround the hole
with a 30-foot berm
and flood it to form a pond.
Then build a pad on one corner
for the wash plant.
Water will be pulled
from the pond and released back
in after
it's run through the sluice.
Okay, so what do you need
to make this happen?
Every machine you can give me
and every person you got.
Alright.
I'll go talk to brennan,
get everybody else down here.
You've got until the end
of the week.
Dean has just 5 days
to start producing gold.
As far as I'm concerned,
any plan is better than no plan,
and, at this point,
we just got to get sluicing
and get some money
coming in.
Parker is starting
to get on edge,
and I know that probably money
is starting to get tight.
Brennan: I'm coming in.
You're going to start
getting some berms filled.
Then we'll get the wash
plant pad built, as well.
Finally a plan, and things are
going to start coming together
here in the next little while.
Right now,
we're just racing the clock.
I know dean has made a promise
to parker that,
you know, we'll have
a wash plant set up here
and running
by the end of the week.
That's quite a bit to do here
in a short period of time.
You know, dean has told me
he's got a handle on it,
and I have to trust that he can
follow through with that,
and if he can't, then we have
to find someone who will,
I guess.
Narrator: up ahead...
[ laughs ]
whew. There's gold.
Rick: boom.
That's the biggest nugget
I've ever seen.
[ laughs ]
♪
♪
narrator:
tony beets is in crisis.
Without a water license,
he can't draw water
from the indian river
or operate any machinery
on his gold ridge claims.
Both his million-dollar
dredges are out of action,
putting the family business
at risk.
Eldest son kevin has stepped up.
He's opened a 100-acre
cut that tony thinks
could bring in $2 million.
Okay, whoever is dumping
right now, go forward,
go forward a bit, go forward
a bit, level out, then dump.
If you dump like that, you might
tip, and then we're [bleep]
I like to call it babysitting
because you got to keep
an eye on these folks.
Narrator:
kevin has removed 500,000
yards of worthless overburden
and is just feet
from hitting pay dirt.
As the only operation going,
honestly, overall,
it's going good.
Yeah, we're moving some dirt.
We got a nice big cut.
This will be nice.
Narrator: he should be sluicing
by the end of the week,
but he's still waiting for a
contract with parker schnabel,
who holds the water license
for this ground.
Two weeks ago, parker agreed
to share the permit with tony.
I don't want to be liable
for any messes you make.
yep.
Yeah, not an issue.
But he's still not delivered.
Hey, there, youngster.
Hi, chris.
How are you doing?
Good.
How you doing, young one?
A few finishing touches,
and we're ready to start
cleaning some gold.
Right on.
I told you about all this stuff
with tony,
about the license and he wants
to use our license.
Yeah.
But one of the clauses
is our company
will become responsible
for the camp and all activities.
Our company?
We'll be responsible
for his camp and all activities.
If anything goes wrong,
it's our name on the license.
What if somebody gets hurt?
You're not going to sign this,
are you?
I mean, you got to look
after your business, parker.
Yeah, I know.
What's tony always told you
all these years?
"business is business," right?
Yeah.
History shows that tony
looks out for tony,
and tony is a businessman.
You've got to be
a businessman, too.
Yeah.
I ain't signing it.
I think you're making
the right choice.
♪
♪
Yeah, I got an e-mail,
and he's not signing.
yep.
With no permit,
kevin's gold-rich ground
at the airstrip is shut down.
Two weeks into the season,
and the beets family
has nowhere to mine.
What the [bleep] is going on?
Without that water license,
our entire operation
indian river
is [bleep] dead.
There is literally
nothing left for us here.
♪
♪
-hi, nona.
-hello.
I was just wondering if I could
get a breakdown
of what we're spending
right now.
Narrator:
almost 3 weeks into the season,
parker schnabel hasn't
mined an ounce of gold.
Nona: repairs and maintenance
so far this year,
this number right here.
Two-twenty?
Yeah, plus probably
another 10, 15?
Yeah, at least.
Wages are $470,000
fuel,
we are at $440,000
we've already burnt half a
million dollars in fuel almost?
Yep, this year, and the total
for right now,
we are at $1.15 million.
And that -- you don't have
groceries or anything in that.
Basically, it's just repairs,
wages and fuel is what I've got.
So we're probably
closer to $1.4 million.
[bleep]
that's a lot of money.
We ain't screwing around.
[ chuckles ]
now we've got to do
the opposite
and make some money.
Yeah, no kidding.
We need to get that plant going.
The sooner the better,
right?
♪
Parker: that's a lot of money
to pour into the ground.
It's, like, if we hit it big
gambling last year,
which we had
a very good season,
then this is the equivalent
of putting it right back
on the table
and rolling the dice again.
♪
♪
♪
We do have a lot of ground
to get through this year,
so the only way we're going
to do it is getting the plant up
and going,
which still hasn't happened.
Narrator:
parker has just 1 year to mine
ground that should take 3.
He's given foreman dean
5 days to start sluicing,
but with no water source
on the claim,
dean must build a system
to recirculate water.
He's already way
behind schedule.
Oh, right now we're building
the pond,
get this corner cleaned out,
and then we'll make
a pond for our pad.
Narrator:
dean has excavated the pay dirt
from one corner of the cut
to form a pond.
Next, he must complete the berm
and build a pad
for the wash plant to sit on.
Then there's, you know,
no natural ponds for us
to really work with.
Dean seems to think he has
a plan here for a wash plant pad
and a spot
to sluice into, so...
We've got about 80 to 100 feet
of berm to put up,
but I think that we might
be able to pull this off.
Parker: we've been burning money
like there's no tomorrow.
There's only so much gold
in the ground,
and there's only so much money
in the coffers.
Parker: hey, dean,
where is the wash plant?
We've got to get
the plant going.
Like, how come
that hasn't happened?
Because I haven't
got there yet.
We still need to put
a pad up for the plant.
We're not even close
to being ready.
If you got a better plan,
parker, I'm game,
but this is all
I can think of.
There's no good solution
for none of this.
The bleeding has to stop.
Like, we are burning cash
like there's no tomorrow,
but I'm counting on you here
to get a plant up
and going
and stop the bleeding.
Get these piles the [bleep]
back there and get this set up.
We've got to be sluicing
by the end of the week.
I dropped the ball.
I'm sorry, parker.
I don't get what the [bleep]
is going on here, man.
Like, what the [bleep]
dean has blown through
every timeline
that I've given him
and that he's given me,
and we're still not close,
and this is how
you just get [bleep]
okay, we're going to
change up things here.
We need to get this berm
in so...
Narrator:
dean, with only 2 days left,
brings in more crew
to speed up the pad build.
Copy there, dean-o?
Got a lot to get done
and running out of time.
You guys think anyone
has ever dug a bigger hole?
I've got to make sure
this pad is ready.
I've got every man and every
piece of equipment
that parker can give me,
and I hope it's going
to be enough
to make this
all happen in time.
♪
♪
Narrator: tony beets' season
is at a standstill.
With no water license
for his gold-rich claims
on the indian river,
he needs to find a way forward.
Youngest son mike thinks
he has a solution.
30 miles north
of indian river,
the beets family owns another
1,300-acre patch of ground
on top of paradise hill.
This is where tony first started
in the klondike 30 years ago.
Mike knows the claim well.
Mike:
I really like paradise hill.
It wasn't until I got
to paradise hill
that I ran my own plant and had
to make sure it kept running,
kept feeding pay, all that.
So I didn't really truly learn
how to be a gold miner
until I got out
to paradise hill.
So this is basically where
I learned how to get going.
I got this nice big wall of pay
that's sitting there,
waiting to be taken.
I'm pretty sure I can get
a decent amount of gold
out to this hillside here.
Better go pitch the plan.
Narrator:
but to go after gold here,
mike needs to convince
tony it's worth
the investment.
Mike: hey, dad.
I got a lot of pay
sitting in the [bleep]
hillside that
I can get to.
Tony: yeah?
Thawed, nice, and all I need
is a couple things here,
and I can get sluicing.
Yeah, I'm offering you a way to
get gold right off the bat here.
Narrator: millions of years ago,
pressure in the earth's crust
caused a section of bedrock
and pay dirt to buckle,
eventually forcing
one section to rise up
and over another,
making the ground unpredictable
with high concentrations
of gold,
as well as dead spots.
Yeah.
Mike's whole paradise hill plan
now rides
on getting an ancient
30-year-old trommel
up and running.
I think let's fire her up.
The trommel drum spins,
sieving out large rocks,
sending the finer material
down through the sluices
to catch gold.
With the airstrip shut down,
brother and mechanic,
kevin, comes to help.
yes.
Right, raising an old ancient
machine from the grave,
get her going for the first time
in a long time.
Going to fire up the trommel
and see what explodes.
So this trommel has not
turned in at least 2 years.
I just got a picture of those
movies where you get,
like, these ancient machines,
like in "star wars"
or something,
and they're just coming back
to life all of a sudden,
and they take off, and you get
that epic feeling of,
"oh, wow,
that's a piece of history
that's just coming to life."
yep.
My only question is, "why are we
still standing here?"
let's go.
First issue is to make sure
everything turns.
Narrator:
first up, the conveyor.
We've got the heat conveyor
going right now,
make sure that spins
and everything runs good.
I'd say standard startup,
sluice sparks, trommel.
Narrator: the big test firing up
the 40-ton trommel drum
which hasn't run
in over 2 years.
Mike: hey, it spins.
Oh, yeah.
I still like that sound.
Hey, keep the trommel going,
please.
♪
[ laughs ] yeah.
♪
Narrator:
it's a step closer to sluicing,
but the rest of the heavy
equipment at paradise
is way past resurrecting.
♪
♪
It's pretty nice right now.
We've got a ton
of pay dirt to run.
It's right next to a wash plant.
Narrator: the hunt
for giant nuggets is on.
Rick: really couldn't ask
for any better right now.
Narrator:
two weeks into the season
and rick has been sluicing
in the mountains
above keno for 3 days.
As he loads the rock trucks
with pay dirt,
zee and kruse drive them
to the wash plant.
Kruse, are you ready to be
all about that truck life?
I am ready to be all
about that truck life.
So I've been around
this equipment
but never been behind
the wheel on it.
Pretty intimidating at first.
Narrator: and every hour,
ryan loads 100 yards
of pay dirt into the plant.
This pay is here.
It's ready to run.
We don't have to strip
to get it,
so it's kind
of a no-brainer to run it.
♪
Ooh, ooh.
It's a new place, and I'm
still learning about things.
With these boulders like this,
a lot of people get really crazy
about getting all wash
in the boulders
because a lot of times that gold
is really smashed up on them.
And so I'm still in that early
stage of the year
where I'm like,
"ooh, maybe
i'll find a nugget
stuck to a boulder."
The glacier has just scoured
everything,
and it's all that,
like, quartz veins.
It's like red.
It's beautiful.
There's chunks of bedrock.
There's garnets,
other metallic stuff.
ah.
There certainly is no [bleep]
shortage of boulders out here,
but if they've all got
gold stuck to them...
♪
Ooh, I know that car.
Karla is here.
Narrator: rick will have his
first batch of gold concentrate
ready to clean up
in a few days,
so he's called in an old friend
to run his gold room.
Is this the right place?
Rick:
that is so typical!
Parking your car
and letting it rolling away.
Let it rolling away
from you.
Oh, you're lucky
I have shoes on. [bleep]
[ laughing ]
oh, welcome to keto.
Oh, thanks
for having me again.
Yeah, no kidding.
It's so beautiful.
What do you see?
Running dirt.
We're sluicing almost 2 months
earlier than last year.
That's awesome.
Yeah, [bleep] yeah.
The even crazier thing
is that from the top
all the way to the bottom,
it's all pay dirt.
It's all that gold in it.
Holy cow, man.
Yeah.
Super proud of you for getting
all this organized
and, like, having people
showing up
and getting to work right away.
Yeah, rick.
Thank you.
After a long day of sluicing,
rick calls the team together.
Rick: hey, guys.
You want to shut it down,
and let's all meet
by the wash plant.
It's karla. [ laughs ]
zee, don't pretend you
didn't Miss me.
Rick, you said
karla wasn't coming.
That's the reason I came up.
-how you doing?
-I'm good. You?
-good.
-this is kruse.
-hi, cruise.
-hi, I'm kruse.
-hi.
-karla, gold room.
We're going to have a lot
more gold this year.
I know.
We got to find out
exactly what we got.
I mean, it looks good.
Yeah.
But we don't [bleep]
know until it goes across
the table and goes in a jar.
Yeah, I want to check
this wash plant out.
♪
Karla: oh.
Ooh-hoo-hoo!
♪
It's the biggest nugget
I've ever seen.
Is that the biggest
one you've seen, karla?
That's the biggest one
I've ever seen.
You, too?
Hell, yeah.
Guess I'll stick this
in the safest place around here.
[ laughs ]
[ chuckles ]
nobody is going in there.
Karla: oh, rick!
I found a clonker.
Oh, a clo-- yeah?
Holy [bleep].
I know.
That's gorgeous.
I know.
I kind of get it.
I feel like an old-timer.
Like,
you just get all gaga.
That's amazing.
Yeah, you're drooling.
This here is one of the reasons
i'm here.
It's coming from right there,
mount hinton.
That's the source
of all this big gold.
I'm here to hunt for these,
and that's the first of many.
♪
♪
Narrator: tony beets is taking
a huge gamble
moving his operation
to paradise hill.
This ground is unpredictable,
but it's the only chance
he has of saving his season
and the family business.
Tony shut down paradise
2 years ago
and moved all his best equipment
30 miles south to indian river.
Mike: dad told me
we're getting all this
[bleep] to paradise,
so he must have liked my idea.
Narrator: now he's tasked mike
to bring it all back.
Mike: we're going to go start
sluicing up on the hill.
You good to go?
Yeah, good to go.
Let's get going.
Okay.
Plan is we're going to
take 460 on the kenworth,
360 here on the oshkosh,
and we're going to drive it
all the way up to --
Drive it to paradise hill.
Narrator:
the lowboy trailer is rated
to carry a maximum 40-ton load.
That trailer,
look at that.
The 460 weighs in at almost 50.
Most trailers,
they have a bend...
A reverse bend with that,
so they kind of bend like that
so when you put weight on,
they sit flat.
That [bleep]
is sitting like that.
[ laughs ]
♪
lead the way, ruby.
Pilot car is important
to let other people
on the road know
we're coming.
Narrator: lynn brings up
the rear in the grater.
[ horn blares ]
yeehaw,
we're starting a convoy.
Narrator:
ahead of them, 50 miles
of treacherous dirt roads,
soft from the runoff
after the spring melt.
♪
Mike to scriba,
do you copy, mike, scriba?
Can you go up
the hill first, please?
Scriba: yeah.
Oh, that poor trailer.
The worse thing that can happen
is the trailer decides to go...
Which would suck like [bleep]
because that's
a very nice trailer.
Am I actually going
to make this turn?
Narrator:
mike's first challenge:
a hairpin turn.
Mike: the problem is we have
so much weight on the thing,
you lose the ability to turn.
I guess, hey, I turned somewhat.
♪
When my dad first came up,
first mining job he ever
got was on paradise hill,
and that's the first place I got
started full-time with pay.
Now my dad is giving me
the people and the [bleep]
equipment to get paradise hill
up and running.
So hopefully with that,
I can buy my siblings some time
to get their operations going.
My dad has this thing,
an aura of respect.
You can't help
but respect the guy.
You know when my father
is going to retire?
I'll be putting him
in that suit again.
He'll be on the wrong side
of the grass.
That's when he will retire.
Narrator: half a mile ahead,
at the hunker summit,
the first half of the convoy
waits for mike to catch up.
Ruby: are you going to put
michael ahead of you?
We're going to have
to go slower.
Put it in low range.
Oh, yeah because mikey beets
goes slow.
[ laughs ]
mike powers over the summit
and straight
into a 1,000-foot
downhill danger zone.
[indistinct]
because you go down the hill.
♪
Mike: come on. Turn, you.
[ tires screeching ]
i'm getting sucked right
into the [bleep] corner.
[ crashes ]
holy [bleep]
hey, mike, do you copy?
Mike?
Scriba: yeah.
I got sucked into the ditch.
♪
Hey, I'm going to try
to back up.
You in low?
yep.
You're going to
sink yourself down.
Narrator: mike beets is hauling
two excavators
to open up a new cut
at paradise hill
in an attempt to save
the family business.
Halfway into
the 50-mile journey,
he's got the 18-ton oshkosh
with its 48-ton load
stuck in a ditch.
You won't be able to pull
that trailer out the way it is.
Mike:
I didn't realize I was getting
sucked in so quickly.
I ended up going a little
too far off the edge.
At least,
I didn't think I was.
In fact, looking at my tires,
I wasn't.
[bleep] load [bleep]
went right into
the [bleep] damn ditch.
They're going to hook a chain
up to the lowboy
and try to slowly pull it
out while I back up.
The biggest issue is just
getting the trailer
out of the [bleep] ditch.
I'm going to back it up
until the trailer is on
to the [bleep] road.
Narrator: one false move
and the 48-ton excavator
could tip off the trailer.
I'm good.
[ engine revs ]
♪
pull her. Ready?
The sooner, the better.
Okay, we're going
to start pulling.
♪
♪
Mike, pull! Pull!
♪
Hey, hold up!
Stop.
Go ahead, mike.
♪
♪
Narrator:
the convoy is back on the road.
Mike: tony beets, do you copy,
tony beets?
Tony: mike.
We'll be there soon.
ah.
Getting too old
for this [bleep].
But we got all
the equipment here,
and now we can get
my operation up and running.
♪
♪
It's about time we got sluicing,
but I've been saying
that for 2 [bleep] weeks.
Narrator: it's the end
of the week in the cluster cut.
Foreman dean puts the finishing
touches to his wash plant pad.
I have no doubt in my mind
we'll be ready
to set the plant up today.
I've been building berms
and settling ponds
for over 30 years.
I think this might end up being
the best pad I ever built.
Narrator:
after 3 weeks of delays,
dean is back on track.
I think parker has been a little
bit unfair about things,
but I also know that he's under
a lot of pressure.
He has a lot of money
sunk into this,
and sometimes the people
that work around him
take the grunt of it.
Narrator: a quarter of a mile
away in the yard,
mitch and brennan hook wash
plant big red to the excavator.
How's it going, guys?
So you do you feel like you got
a pretty good handle on this?
As long as there's enough room
down there to put everything.
It looks pretty tight.
It's going to be like
a whole bunch of [bleep]
in a real small space.
All right.
Well, that's the real issue.
♪
Yeah, this looks good.
Brennan, you copy, brennan?
Hey, deano.
I think we're ready
for a plant up here.
Yes, sir.
Let's just pull of 10,000 ounces
and we'll all be laughing.
Narrator:
in just 5 days, dean has moved
20,000 yards of dirt
to build a series of berms,
a pond to recirculate water
and a pad for the wash plant.
Ready to rock?
I'm ready.
Mitch, you ready?
Let's do it.
♪
She's alive!
-whoo!
-[Bleep] yeah.
Good luck, man.
We'll see you on the other side.
♪
You got her.
Take her nice and easy.
You got a ways to go,
buddy!
Yeah, this is a good feeling
to finally get
this plant drug down
in the cluster cut,
but at least
it's on the goal,
and we're going
to get there today.
Finally start bringing
some money in.
Yah, yah!
[ laughs ]
looking good, my man.
♪
Well, I'm glad we're going to be
finally making some gold here.
It's about time.
Narrator: brennan sets the plant
down in the cut,
ready for its final move
up onto the pad.
[bleep] yeah.
-nice job, buddy.
-thanks, brother.
That was one of
the smoothest ones ever.
Hell, yeah.
That went nice.
Mitch: I mean, I think
the scariest part
was when your nipples
came out, myself.
wow.
I know, right?
ooh!
Glad we got over that.
Good thing I shaved them.
Narrator: before dragging
the plant onto the pad,
parker calls on dean
to mark out a spot.
Parker: can we lay
this out real quick?
yep.
We need a upstream
and skid.
You want a bit of room there,
probably right about here
i'm thinking.
Narrator:
big red is 52 feet wide.
Allowing for the 16-foot
sluice box,
dean's pad needs to measure
at least 70 feet across.
And then we need 52?
Yeah.
Here's 20.
20 to there.
You got 40.
You're at 40 feet here
and at 52 feet, we need to be
16 feet wide, and doumitt needs
to be able to do cleanups.
What do you need?
How many more feet?
12 feet at 16 wide,
and then we still have
to be able to do cleanups.
I mean, there's no way.
How are you even going
to set stuff in?
I don't know even know
how you're going to get in here
with the machines
to set this stuff in here.
Just no [bleep] room.
♪
♪
Narrator:
dean's pad can just about fit
big red, but parker is convinced
he hasn't allowed enough space
to operate around it.
Enlarging the pad
could take days.
Can you guys all [bleep]
back off?
♪
♪
♪
How do you figure?
I know
it's a little small.
I'll meet you back
at my office.
♪
♪
♪
I have no idea what the [bleep]
is going on.
Why are we undoing
everything we just did?
I don't know.
You don't have a clue either?
no.
Did dean just quit on us?
I have no idea, but we just
need to figure out...
[bleep]
...what we got to do here.
It's time like this where
the last thing
I ever want to be doing
is running a business really,
but sometimes
it's part of the job,
I guess. [bleep] hate it.
♪
♪
♪
♪
Are you in there?
I just want
to talk to you.
I asked you to come down
to the office, but...
Okay. Alright.
Alright.
Well, that was productive.
No, I asked dean to come
to my office,
but obviously, he doesn't
want to talk, so whatever.
♪
♪
♪
♪
I've already wasted
enough time here.
I'm not willing to waste
anymore time.
Glad to be rid of him.
Narrator:
parker schnabel is in a race
to mine out his entire claim
in just 1 year,
but only 3 weeks
into the season,
his foreman, dean,
has quit.
Parker, the last 3 weeks,
has run around saying this
and saying that
and telling me to do this
and telling me to do that
and then the following day
coming over and giving me
[bleep] for doing
what he told me to do,
and yeah, I'm not going
to have anymore of that.
I'm done with it.
It's cost me a lot of sleep
in the last month,
and it's all [bleep].
I've seen everybody but parker.
It's problem better that
we don't get on fighting terms
before I leave, and...
You got everything?
Yeah.
♪
Hey, dean.
That's your last paycheck.
Okay.
Good luck.
You, too.
♪
Narrator:
two weeks behind schedule
and without a foreman,
parker schnabel is in trouble.
♪
♪
Well, the good news is there
is big gold out here.
Karla has already
found a nugget.
Narrator: at his new claim,
rick is on the gold.
The bad news is we might not be
getting them all.
They might be going right out
the back of the plant,
so if we're going to get
2,000 ounces this year,
we need every single
one of them.
Narrator:
to fix the plant to catch
the larger nuggets,
rick calls on hometown buddy
chris kruse,
a welder-fabricator,
for help.
Kruse, you saw that nice gold
nugget that karla found, right?
Yeah.
So the good news is we know
that they're out here, but...
I like that.
Yeah.
The bad news is I think
we could probably...
We're probably losing some.
I mean, there's a good chance
that they just
[bleep] right out the end.
I'm trying to think of a way
that we can put a trap
before that punch plate,
like a nugget trap, right.
And what does this have
to do with me?
Well, because it's going
to have to be built.
Oh, we can't just go buy
a nugget trap?
No, you can't just go buy
a nugget trap.
Alright.
Any large nuggets
entering the plant will skip
over the holes
in the punch plate
passing out
into the tailings.
Rick's plan: weld heavy-duty
rails onto the ridge
beneath the hopper
to trap any big nuggets
before they reach
the shaker deck.
Kruse:
like, I'm used to working off
an actual blueprint
made from a cad program
with dimensions
and, you know, parts list,
and it tells me exactly
what material I need to use
and that sort of thing,
and this is going to be new
and be a learning experience
just like I knew
this whole season would be,
but I don't know.
I don't have a clue
what a nugget trap is.
It's going to be
pretty damn ugly,
but all I really care about
is the pretty stuff
that hopefully finds
its way inside there.
Narrator:
kruse heads to a bush scrap
yard to scavenge some steel.
Kruse: hopefully, this helps us
get every bit of gold
out of the ground
that we can.
Rick said there's going to be
some real small-scale railroad
track up here.
I don't know.
I'm starting to feel like
maybe these guys sent me
on a wild-goose chase.
It's like we're out here
looking for samsquanch,
not looking for steel.
Oh, there's rick's raw
steel rack.
Little bit different than
the rack back in the shop
in milwaukee, but...
Alright.
Now I got to figure out
how to get that
[bleep] back to the truck.
♪
mm.
Yeah!
Trap some nuggets in that plant.
I might even get a pat
on the back from zee.
♪
♪
The way that I'm looking at
is that we take this,
and we start in the back.
That's the way
it's going in.
Or we could just find a small
little train to mount on these
and just have it deliver
nuggets to me in my office.
[ laughing ]
boxcar full of nuggets.
[ laughter ]
♪
it's pretty cool.
Rick got me the coolest
welding helmet
probably in existence.
♪
Ryan:
i'll be excited to see
if it catches a bunch
of big gold nuggets.
Kruse: that's what
i'm talking about.
Narrator: four hours later,
rick is ready to fire up.
Should we throw a bucket of dirt
through this thing,
see what
this nugget trap can do?
Well, you hammered it
out pretty quick,
so I thank you for that, but
let's just see if she holds on.
Narrator:
ryan loads the pay dirt,
but the crew will have to wait
until the end of the week
to find out
if the nugget trap is catching.
Kruse:
I want to see all them nuggets.
I want to see them
just spilling out of there.
♪
♪
Parker: you know,
i'm pretty sad to see dean go.
I really wanted him to succeed,
but now we have to go in there
and try figure out how to undo
all these mistakes,
and it's going to cost us a lot
of time that we just don't have.
Narrator:
parker schnabel is 3 weeks
behind schedule, a foreman down,
and he still hasn't mined
an ounce of gold.
Every day not sluicing
is potentially a bunch of gold
that's left in the ground
that we aren't going to get.
Narrator:
if he can't turn things around,
it could cost him everything.
Nobody here has their ass
on the line, you know.
They're all very talented people
that can all get a job anywhere.
I can't, you know?
I'm -- when I...
If this company blows up,
you know,
my debt is still my debt.
It's nobody else's.
Narrator:
parker heads to dean's old pad
to make a plan
with mitch and brennan.
Parker: this has turned
into a massive [bleep].
Not only is this pad
not big enough,
but we're going to have to
double the length of this berm.
We're going to have to mock
a whole nother piece
of the cut out.
We're going to have
to have two ponds.
What?
Narrator: parker plans to double
dean's setup.
First, he'll dig out
the gold rich pay dirt
from a second section
of the cut.
He'll make a second pond
which will allow sediment
to settle
as the water recirculates.
Finally, he'll create
a bigger pad
so he can install
the wash plant.
We've lost a [bleep] ton of time
already this season.
That's why dean is out.
We've got to be sluicing
by the end of the day.
Man, you look at the amount
of time
that's been spent on this --
I know.
You guys are inheriting
a [bleep] situation,
but we've all got
the problem now,
and we just have
to try charge forward
and get a plan going because
the bleeding has got to stop,
and we got to get
a plant running.
Alright.
Thanks, guys.
Well,
our work just doubled.
I better go task up
the crew here
and get everybody
over we need.
Narrator:
parker is taking a huge risk
digging a new pond
and doubling the size
of the pad,
but if the gold is as good
as he thinks it is here,
it'll pay off big.
Parker is the boss, and he just
changed the game plan here,
so we're going to do
what he says.
He wants the wash plant set
up there by the end of the day.
That doesn't give us much time
to get a lot of work done.
♪
We don't have enough ground
from up on the bank
to build our pad
all the way across,
so I'm pushing
this bedrock up.
Narrator:
brennan excavates bedrock
as fast as he can for mitch
to use building
the extra large pad.
It'd be really good for
everybody's morale
to start seeing some gold.
We're making progress,
but we just can't get
to panic right now.
Mitch, tyson and I are trying
to get this done.
[bleep]
[bleep] sakes.
Ripper tooth fell out.
Narrator: work grinds to a halt.
Brennan has broken a ripper
tooth on the bedrock.
This is [bleep] frustrating.
What'd you do?
It's gone.
The tooth is gone.
Let's give you
a new point.
♪
♪
[bleep] no.
Might get it now.
♪
Whew.
Narrator: half an hour later,
with help from the boss,
brennan is back in business.
Fire it up!
[ engine revs ]
back to work.
[ laughs ]
♪
narrator:
by the end of the shift,
the crew has cleared
a quarter of the pay dirt
from the new pond and are
halfway to building a new pad.
We're getting there slowly.
It's too bad what happened
with dean,
but I'm just really glad
that mitch and brennan are here,
and they're taking charge
of the situation
and filling the gap,
and that's what we need.
So sunnier days ahead, right?
♪
♪
Narrator:
on top of paradise hill,
mike beets
is ready to run pay dirt
for the first time in 2 years,
but first, he needs water
to run his trommel.
Just heading over
the little silt hills here.
I'm here to open up
our pond today,
so I can start getting
water to my plant.
Narrator: the closest source
of water is a pond fed
by hunter creek 1/2
a mile down the hill,
but this abandoned feeder
pond is silted up.
Mike: one of my biggest problems
is going to be making sure
I have enough water
to feed my pump.
What I'm clearing in front
of is a fish gate.
You need them by law to stop
fish from going into your pond.
Got to be careful
because there's
a steel grate
underneath there,
and it'd be super easy
for me to bend [bleep].
♪
Ooh, I [bleep] touched it.
So close yet so far-feeling.
Narrator: mike ditches
the 300-horsepower excavator
for an alternative technique.
I need a stick.
Pff, useless.
To get a little bit of a stream
going because once I get that,
the water will cut the rest,
and it will go a lot easier
and faster if I let the water
do the work, so...
Our ancestors did this
[bleep] for thousands
and thousands of years,
and they didn't have
the toys we do nowadays.
So sometimes, it doesn't hurt
to get a little stone age.
Doesn't hurt to be a caveman
once in a while.
♪
Pond is starting to fill up now
nicely, starting to look good.
Once I clear it out a bit more,
so I can get a bit more flow,
it'll be nice.
No water, no sluicing.
No sluicing, no [bleep] haul.
♪
♪
[ engine starts ]
narrator: tony needs
this old pump to work
if he has any chance of
getting mike's trommel sluicing.
I'm going to go check if it's
coming out of the plant,
and if it is,
should be good to go here.
♪
We ain't got no water.
Tony beets, do you copy?
Tony beets?
Tony: go.
Is that thing sitting
at its proper rpms?
No water.
I'm going to have a little look.
I'm going to go drive
along it and find out...
Ooh, yeah.
That's a leak, all right.
Narrator: a bypass valve
was left wide-open.
♪
Mike: so if you don't shut it
off here quick,
it's going to wash
out our road here.
♪
♪
Whew!
Now I'm going to go check
if it's coming out of my plant.
♪
♪
There is water.
I got water to my plant,
so now I'm going to have
a look around,
make sure
it's all flowing right,
and then I'm going to
go see about sluicing.
Narrator:
mike calls in the whole family
and monica's best friend,
ruby, to help him run
the first dirt of the season.
Aye, dad. Yes.
Come up here.
Firing up the trommel.
[ trommel humming ]
I got the sluice box.
I got the distributor.
I got the trommel.
I got the conveyor,
and I got the feeder all running
on the plant right now.
Only thing left now
is to wash some rocks.
Narrator: after a disastrous
start to this season,
if mike finds gold in paradise,
the beets family
will be back in business.
Mike:
everything is running smooth.
I should shut up before
something doesn't run so smooth.
♪
♪
♪
♪
Hey, dad.
A little bit messy,
but that's to be expected.
I can do that, yeah.
Narrator:
the beets family's gold
operation has been shut down.
Now, tony's taking a risk
in green-lighting youngest son
mike to mine unpredictable
ground at paradise hill.
After running for 24 hours,
they shut down
to check for gold.
How's it looking?
Don't see anything yet.
If mike's hit dead spots
instead of gold,
his plan to rescue
the family business will fail.
Mike! Good job!
Hot dang.
Yeah.
Nice and yellow.
It's good to see
some gold in the box.
-good job, mike.
-good job, mike.
He's bringing home the bacon,
all right.
[ laughs ]
yeah.
After a disastrous start,
mike is the first
to catch gold this season.
♪
♪
Parker:
the cluster cut has definitely
lived up to its name.
Right now, I'm just putting
some finishing touches
on the plant pad here.
At least I know
the plant will fit.
Narrator: in the cluster cut,
parker's crew
has doubled the size
of dean's old pad
and added a whole new
tailings pond in just one day.
You know, our plant pad
is just about done,
thank [bleep]
narrator:
since he bought it 6 years ago,
parker's wash plant,
big red, has produced
$13 million of gold.
They're finally ready
to move it into place.
Parker:
hey, mitch, I think we're ready
for a plant up here.
There's no room
for error now.
Like, we have to start
sluicing today.
Narrator:
the first task: get the sluices
into position on the pad.
Right now, we got the sluice
runs up the pad here.
Be careful with the sluices.
Keep coming straight, guys.
Looking good.
Looking good, matt.
♪
Matt: okay, so how do you
want to do this?
I'd get it closer
to the ground
for if something lets go
we don't drop it 8 feet here.
Matt, I don't like
how those things bend.
You can see how
much they're flexing.
Easy!
Something goes wrong here,
there's going to be no sluicing
for big red any time soon.
♪
There we go.
There we go.
We're good to go.
Narrator:
now for the biggest challenge:
dragging big red
up the steep ramp
along the narrow berm
and onto the pad.
I'm going to walk the 700
down to big red,
hook it up and start
dragging her this way.
♪
It's been quite the struggle
to get to where we're at,
and we're pretty close
to making some money again.
It's definitely a little steeper
than what we like,
but we just don't
really have the time
or the materials to,
you know, cut this down
and probably make it
as good as it should be.
Narrator:
to get the plant into place,
mitch needs to drag
big red onto the berm
then reposition
on the other side of the plant
so he can drag it
the final 100 yards
to its new purpose-built pad.
♪
Mitch: come on, baby.
Be good to us here.
That's more like it.
It's kind of trapped
down here now.
Everything starts looking
pretty cramped.
Narrator: between big red
and the edge of the berm,
there is just 15 foot of leeway
for the 14-foot-wide
excavator to pass.
You going to take this thing,
brennan, or what?
You want me to?
Go for it.
Dude, it's not a good feeling
dragging this thing around.
Narrator: mitch hands
the controls to brennan
for the dangerous maneuver.
Look out, kids!
He's going to be coming
right through here,
so watch yourselves.
Watch that edge, man!
That's going
to be really soft!
Narrator: the edge of the berm
is made of loose gravel.
Hey! Hey!
You're getting really close
to this edge!
It's a 25-foot drop
to the pond below.
♪
You guys are going
to want to move.
That's right where
he's going to be.
Everybody needs to get
the [bleep] out of my way!
Whoo!
[ laughs ]
narrator: finally, brennan can
haul big red into place.
Mitch:
you ready to roll?
We just have a lot
of catching up to do,
so that's
the scariest part about it.
Mitch: we've almost got
big red into place.
You can see our sluice
runs lined up there
to our pond nicely.
Nice and easy, man.
There you go.
Brennan:
what do you think, mitch?
I'd give that one, like,
a 6 and a half.
I've seen you do better.
Well,
you weren't guiding me!
You were too busy talking
to the [bleep] cameraman!
-good job, boys!
-yeah!
Let's get
this baby going.
All we need now is some pay
dirt and some water,
and we're going
to be making money.
Well, hopefully the boss
likes it
because the last time
he left he wasn't too happy.
Parker:
why you talking about me?
Now, I know it's been a bit
of a hectic few days,
but I really appreciate
you guys coming together
and getting this done.
It's a nice set up, guys.
Good job.
Thanks.
Yeah.
I really like it.
What say we fire
this baby off?
Well, should we go hit
the pump?
-yeah.
-sTart making some money.
Parker:
it's about time.
Everybody clear!
Narrator:
after a month of false starts,
big red is ready to sluice,
and parker
can finally find out
if his struggle to open
the first cut
on his own ground
will pay off.
Here comes some dirt!
Another 30,000 more,
and we can go home.
Narrator:
for parker schnabel, the race
to mine out his own claim is on.
♪
Right now, we may not
have a foreman,
but we've got
a hell of a team.
So we'll make it work.
♪
Narrator: coming up...
Rick: boom!
There could be a [bleep]
life-changing amount of gold
in that pile back there.
Ready to rock and roll.
The last thing we needed was
a really bad first cleanup.
♪
This is where everyone sleeps,
and we eat.
I can't seem to sleep there.
I sleep over there
in my wilderness retreat.
Come check it out.
♪
There's no shoes
past this line.
I come here every day
and practice on things
i'm no good at, play guitar.
I can't really tell you
what I'm working on, but...
Well, enough with that.
I also practice on my golf.
The ball is going to go
right in that hole over there,
the canadian flag.
oh!
After that practice swing.
Okay.
Eye on the ball.
♪
[ chuckles ] I'll take it.
♪
♪
What do you say, guys?
You think we're ready
for a mat pull?
We'll call that the last bucket.
Narrator: rick has moved
his entire operation
to duncan creek on
the promise of giant gold.
After 2 weeks running, he shuts
down for his first gold cleanup
and to check if crews'
nugget trap is working.
It didn't fall out.
You see how it's nice
and loose in here?
Kruse: oh, yeah.
So it's not getting, like,
all jammed up.
no.
If there's any big nuggets
in there,
they're going to the bottom.
I'm happy
it's still in there.
So am i,
and you know what?
I'm going to call it
a success.
First welling job
in the mine.
Booyah.
Nice job, kruse.
-see some gold, rick?
-loader?
Oh, baby.
-no way!
-ooh!
-nice, nice, nice, nice, nice.
-look at that!
Oh, ho, ho, huh?
I got another.
-oH, baby.
-yes!
Okay, I'm starting
to feel better.
[ laughs ]
boom!
Rick:
just the first little bit here.
I mean, we're still, basically,
we're just getting dialed in.
ooh.
It's gold.
oh.
I'll be honest with you.
I was feeling a little
[bleep] nervous.
All jokes aside,
there could be a [bleep]
life-changing amount of gold
in that pile back there.
There really could.
Not for you guys.
Maybe for me.
[ laughter ]
narrator:
karla processes the concentrate
from the wash plant
to separate out the gold.
To test kruse's nugget trap,
she's split the gold
into two pans:
one from without the nugget trap
and one with it.
I kept them separate, and they
look pretty damn even to me.
Let's weigh up the first one.
Yeah, this is the one.
This is pre-nugget-trap.
Narrator:
first up: 3 days of run time
without the nugget trap.
Rick: well, that's blowing away
in the wind.
Karla: ooh.
Let's keep that small stuff.
Man: don't breathe.
[ tapping bowl ]
♪
so there's one at 18.24,
18.24 ounces.
I mean, for how long we run,
that wasn't bad.
That wasn't bad.
Yeah.
Narrator: worth over $25,000.
Let's see what we did
with the nugget trap.
Rick: going for it.
Giving her hell.
Narrator: next: 3 days
with crews' modification.
So, I got...
♪
[ tapping bowl ]
it's 18.4.
oh!
And then...
Oh, 8 1/2
ounces of nuggets.
-damn!
-ooh!
[ laughs ]
dude, we got about 45 ounces
of gold here, right?
All right.
How sweet is that?
This is what's getting me
real excited.
Like, that's [bleep] cool, huh?
Narrator: 45 ounces of gold
is worth $63,000,
with almost $12,000
worth of nuggets.
That's pretty sweet, huh?
Yeah.
Your nugget trap, bro!
It's not your gold.
You do that.
Narrator:
the nugget trap has increased
recovery by almost 50%.
If rick continues to catch
the giant nuggets,
he's heading
for a monster payday.
And for what we're doing,
and the time of the year
that it is, like,
i'm not happy about that at all,
and this gold, I mean,
i'm excited about that.
Like, I want to go home
with pockets full of that.
You guys are all great
at what you do at home,
and to walk away from that
and start something new
and to jump into something
different is humbling.
It's really humbling.
Well, I'll be honest.
I wouldn't do it if it wasn't
with you guys, so.
Yeah.
Yeah, by the way, thanks.
Thanks for having us again.
First rally gold weigh
of the year?
-rally.
-yeah.
-I Like it.
-oNe, two, three, rally!
♪
♪
Parker:
we'll just shut everything down.
Narrator:
after 2 days of running
in the cluster cut,
parker shuts down
for his first gold weigh.
♪
Before we get a result on this,
I just want to thank you guys.
It's a tough time with all these
permitting issues
and ground issues
and losing dean.
The real bummer of it is just,
there was a lot of
added expense this spring.
I really just want to thank
you guys for buckling down
and getting things going
and taking care of business.
Alright.
O me!
I'm ready to rock and roll.
Get this stuff on the scale
and see how we did.
Narrator:
after his foreman quit,
parker doubled down
with a whole new mining plan.
Last year, parker averaged
50 ounces a day.
For 2 days' work,
he hopes to hit 100 ounces.
Chris: 60, 80...
No way.
...90, a hundo, 110, 115...
What?
124.3
[ laughter ]
[bleep] unreal!
-no [bleep] way!
-yeah!
Narrator: worth $174,000,
parker's gamble
to start with the cluster cut
has paid off big.
I thought you were going
to tell me, like, 65 or 70.
Chris: yeah, that's pretty
impressive, you guys.
I -- honestly, I'm extremely
surprised by this.
You guys really stepped up
to the plate.
I got to agree with parker.
You guys did a smashing job
of taking over like that.
Thank you very much.
Cheers, guys.
You guys, great job.
Let's keep it up.
Mm-hmm.
Parker:
really, I'm just relieved
because the last thing we needed
was a really bad first cleanup.
Like, with the amount of [bleep]
that's gone on,
just so many delays
and so many issues,
and it's never going to be easy.
Buddy,
that's what I'm [bleep].
Over 100? [bleep]
if it were easy,
everybody would be doing it.
[ laughs ]
yeah, yeah, yeah!
Okay!
What!
Let's go find some
more gold, brother.
Narrator:
next time on "gold rush"...
With a foothold
on paradise hill,
tony beets looks to expand
his operations.
Wait, wait, wait!
What the [bleep]?
Just as the cluster cut
takes off,
parker hits a roadblock.
I cannot be doing this
the rest of the summer.
[bleep] damn it!
I feel like just
sluicing myself.
[bleep]!
Narrator:
and rick goes prospecting
for even bigger nuggets.
What the hell?
It looks like it's falling
out of the sky.
Oh, [bleep].
Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Public shouldn't leave reviews for lawyers.
on this "gold rush"...
Our season starts right now.
There could be a life-changing
amount of gold
in that pile back there,
really could.
Not for you guys, maybe for me.
Narrator:
as the price of gold surges,
rick ness looks to cash in,
hunting monster nuggets.
Rick: oh, baby.
With only 1 year to pull gold
out of his massive claim,
parker and his foreman...
I don't get what the [bleep]
is going on here.
...reach the boiling point.
Get these piles of [bleep]
back there and get this set up.
We've got to be sluicing
by the end of the week.
-are you ready to roll?
-whoo!
[ laughs ]
if you got a better plan,
parker, I'm game.
Every day not sluicing
is a bunch of gold
that's left in the ground
that we aren't going to get.
Narrator: the beets family
hits a major setback.
Tony gambles big
to save his season.
Yeehaw!
We're starting a convoy.
[ tires screeching ]
[ crashes ]
tony beets, do you copy,
tony beets?
captions paid for by
discovery communications
♪
today is a big day.
Here we go.
I'm going to do the eyes.
I'm going to do a smile.
-she's smelling the bacon.
-oh, yeah.
It's coming.
Classic american breakfast
right here, ryan.
-yeah.
-tall stuff if you want,
you can just put the rest
of that pancake
mix in, like,
a shake bottle for me.
I'll just drink it.
[ laughter ]
narrator: rick ness and his crew
are almost ready to mine
for big gold.
-whoo, yeah, day one.
-whoo!
In the mountains above
the legendary keno city,
rick's claim contains
both fine gold and big nuggets.
Yeah, I feel really lucky
to have found this new spot
surrounded by these mountains,
really got to hope
there's gold in them.
Narrator: 150,000 years ago,
at the top of mount hinton,
a glacier formed.
When it reached the quartz vein
containing the mother lode,
it plucked nuggets
and fine gold.
They traveled down the mountain
and were deposited
in sporadic pockets
and in the pay layer
rick is mining.
I've doubled the goal
for this year.
I want to get 2,000 ounces.
We did a little
over 1,100 last year.
That broke us even, and
that's fine for a first year,
but I've got to make
a profit this year.
Narrator: if rick can hit
his goal, he'll mine
$2.8 million worth of gold.
Get a little gold in the box,
and maybe we can prove that it
all isn't all just a dream.
Narrator: if they hit it big,
rick and his buddies
will share in a monster payday.
I think we're all
super stoked to see
what it's going to look like.
It's going to give us
a good idea of what the season
holds in store for us.
Narrator:
after 6 months of downtime,
rick is just about
ready to sluice
in his shaker deck
wash plant.
I'm excited about the start.
Whoo!
[ laughs ]
because once that plant
starts going then...
Then we're going.
Then we're going nonstop so...
Twelve-hour days.
It's ready to go right now.
Hook that hose up,
turn everything on.
♪
You guys ready for this?
-yeah.
-I am ready for this.
We're 2 months earlier than
we were last year, sluicing.
This is a major
accomplishment,
and I'm just
going to keep it short
and say our season
starts right now.
And there's a pre-start.
-it won't work?
-it's got to warm up.
-it starts in 30 seconds.
Starts now.
[ engine starts ]
that sweet, sweet music.
Ready??
Hit the plant,
let's load some dirt in it.
♪
Oh, yeah.
Narrator:
all they need now is water.
Hey, zee, you want to fire up
that pump there, buddy?
Narrator: to get the water,
rick uses a high-powered pump
located 500 feet away,
next to a creek.
All right. Here we go.
Rick: the waterline is full,
but we ain't pushing any...
We ain't pushing any through
the plant, really,
just a little bit.
Okay, let's just hold off
for a minute
and then see if it equalizes.
Narrator:
the plant needs 3,000 gallons
of water every minute.
Take it up another couple rpm,
I guess.
I think we're just going
to build until we get
enough pressure
to pressurize the whole system.
Try firing it up to 1,700.
Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Public shouldn't leave reviews for lawyers.
Narrator: even at full revs,
the pump is not delivering.
All right.
I'll go shut it down.
[ engine stops ]
I guess it's not enough water.
Narrator: rick's shaker deck
is a massive machine
for washing gold off the rocks.
First, you load the pay.
The vibrating deck bounces rocks
out of the tailing chute.
Water jets blast fine material
and gold through holes
in the screen deck into sluices,
where the heavier gold
is caught in the riffles,
but with no water,
rick is not mining.
Rick: we're just -- we're trying
to pump it too high.
The first plan doesn't
always work,
so, you know,
we're on to plan b here.
Narrator: rick's plan,
move the pump 300 feet upstream.
This will raise the pump
10 feet higher
and should increase
the water pressure in the pipe
4 pounds per square inch.
Alright.
[bleep] it, let's do it.
I'm done [bleep] around here.
Zee: is that one coming loose?
Hold on.
♪
♪
That's pretty good.
Are you clear over there?
man:
Looking pretty level, hey?
Think they're good?
Yeah, I'm going to go ahead
and fire this up.
Is that all right, rick?
Fire that [bleep] up.
What are we waiting on?
Let's do this.
Alright.
Here comes your water.
[ engine starts ]
you want me to take it
all the way up to 2,200 again?
Yeah, buddy.
Narrator: it's time to put
rick's plan to the test.
♪
♪
Here it comes.
♪
♪
That's better.
There we go.
We got water in the prewash,
quite a bit, actually.
I don't know.
I think that's the best
it's got so far.
Whoo-hoo!
♪
Shaker deck coming hot.
[ deck rattling ]
♪
here we go.
Let's see what this gold mining
is all about.
Let her rip.
Ho, ho, ho, I will.
First bucket.
And we are officially
gold mining in 2019.
We can take a lot of pride
in that, buddy.
Holy [bleep]
uh...
[ laughs ]
we are making money.
Narrator:
a hunt for nuggets is on.
Rick: oh, yeah.
Whoo!
Whoo, whoo!
Whoo!
I'm a little bit happy.
I was super grumpy this morning
because I was like,
"oh, we should just --
I wish we were just running,"
and now this makes it
all better.
We're actually -- we're running.
I'm vibrating.
I'm vibrating.
Everything about this
is different, and I love it.
♪
♪
Parker:
been a really rough start.
We should be up
and sluicing by now.
We're a little bit out
of control, really.
Narrator: parker schnabel's
lifetime ambition to mine
his own claim
is off to a bad start.
Mining this much ground
would normally take 3 years,
but parker has just 1 year
left on his water license.
Two weeks in,
he's still not sluicing.
You know, with the money
that we spent on the ground,
which is half a million bucks,
we're about 1.5
into the cluster cut,
in that piece of ground now,
that we've spent on it,
and with the water license
expiring, like,
we really risk
leaving gold in the ground.
Narrator: every week he isn't
sluicing costs parker
around 300 ounces of gold,
worth half a million dollars.
Parker: I was in haines
last week talking to my dad,
and the big questions
he asked were just,
"do you have a handle
on the operation
and the cost
and where the money goes?
Does everybody know
what the game plan is?"
narrator: parker's foreman
dean tosczak has over 30 years
mining experience.
She enjoys doing it.
I love spending time
with my daughter, so...
That one took you,
like 5 minutes solid.
-have a good day.
-you, too.
-love you.
-love you, bye.
Parker charged dean
with getting the wash plant up
and running
by the end of last week.
Dean: no, I spent a lot
of last night up,
thinking about how I'm going
to catch up on things here.
We should have been
sluicing weeks ago.
I have a feeling I'm going to
have a couple of long days here.
Narrator: parker has opened up
the cluster cut
on the western end
of this claim
where the drill tests
showed the most gold.
There is no water source
on parker's ground,
so dean will have to design
a system of ponds
to recirculate the water
for the wash plant.
Trying to figure out
what I need,
what I can use and what I can't,
and we'll see how it goes.
Come on.
♪
Do you have 10 minutes
to walk me through this?
yep.
Probably this way is better,
parker.
Parker: what is the plan?
Like, we're fighting room
up here.
We don't have the space
or the time
that we need to set up
our ponds normally.
Narrator: miners normally sluice
into a previous cut,
but on this new ground,
dean doesn't have that option.
So my plan is put the plant
right in here,
put a pad right here
on the edge of our berm,
sluice runs heading
to the corner.
So you're going to put a berm
across here.
You're going to put
the plant on it,
and you're going to sluice
into that pond?
Dean: yeah.
Dean's plan, dig out
the gold-rich pay dirt
from a
60,000-square-foot section.
Next, surround the hole
with a 30-foot berm
and flood it to form a pond.
Then build a pad on one corner
for the wash plant.
Water will be pulled
from the pond and released back
in after
it's run through the sluice.
Okay, so what do you need
to make this happen?
Every machine you can give me
and every person you got.
Alright.
I'll go talk to brennan,
get everybody else down here.
You've got until the end
of the week.
Dean has just 5 days
to start producing gold.
As far as I'm concerned,
any plan is better than no plan,
and, at this point,
we just got to get sluicing
and get some money
coming in.
Parker is starting
to get on edge,
and I know that probably money
is starting to get tight.
Brennan: I'm coming in.
You're going to start
getting some berms filled.
Then we'll get the wash
plant pad built, as well.
Finally a plan, and things are
going to start coming together
here in the next little while.
Right now,
we're just racing the clock.
I know dean has made a promise
to parker that,
you know, we'll have
a wash plant set up here
and running
by the end of the week.
That's quite a bit to do here
in a short period of time.
You know, dean has told me
he's got a handle on it,
and I have to trust that he can
follow through with that,
and if he can't, then we have
to find someone who will,
I guess.
Narrator: up ahead...
[ laughs ]
whew. There's gold.
Rick: boom.
That's the biggest nugget
I've ever seen.
[ laughs ]
♪
♪
narrator:
tony beets is in crisis.
Without a water license,
he can't draw water
from the indian river
or operate any machinery
on his gold ridge claims.
Both his million-dollar
dredges are out of action,
putting the family business
at risk.
Eldest son kevin has stepped up.
He's opened a 100-acre
cut that tony thinks
could bring in $2 million.
Okay, whoever is dumping
right now, go forward,
go forward a bit, go forward
a bit, level out, then dump.
If you dump like that, you might
tip, and then we're [bleep]
I like to call it babysitting
because you got to keep
an eye on these folks.
Narrator:
kevin has removed 500,000
yards of worthless overburden
and is just feet
from hitting pay dirt.
As the only operation going,
honestly, overall,
it's going good.
Yeah, we're moving some dirt.
We got a nice big cut.
This will be nice.
Narrator: he should be sluicing
by the end of the week,
but he's still waiting for a
contract with parker schnabel,
who holds the water license
for this ground.
Two weeks ago, parker agreed
to share the permit with tony.
I don't want to be liable
for any messes you make.
yep.
Yeah, not an issue.
But he's still not delivered.
Hey, there, youngster.
Hi, chris.
How are you doing?
Good.
How you doing, young one?
A few finishing touches,
and we're ready to start
cleaning some gold.
Right on.
I told you about all this stuff
with tony,
about the license and he wants
to use our license.
Yeah.
But one of the clauses
is our company
will become responsible
for the camp and all activities.
Our company?
We'll be responsible
for his camp and all activities.
If anything goes wrong,
it's our name on the license.
What if somebody gets hurt?
You're not going to sign this,
are you?
I mean, you got to look
after your business, parker.
Yeah, I know.
What's tony always told you
all these years?
"business is business," right?
Yeah.
History shows that tony
looks out for tony,
and tony is a businessman.
You've got to be
a businessman, too.
Yeah.
I ain't signing it.
I think you're making
the right choice.
♪
♪
Yeah, I got an e-mail,
and he's not signing.
yep.
With no permit,
kevin's gold-rich ground
at the airstrip is shut down.
Two weeks into the season,
and the beets family
has nowhere to mine.
What the [bleep] is going on?
Without that water license,
our entire operation
indian river
is [bleep] dead.
There is literally
nothing left for us here.
♪
♪
-hi, nona.
-hello.
I was just wondering if I could
get a breakdown
of what we're spending
right now.
Narrator:
almost 3 weeks into the season,
parker schnabel hasn't
mined an ounce of gold.
Nona: repairs and maintenance
so far this year,
this number right here.
Two-twenty?
Yeah, plus probably
another 10, 15?
Yeah, at least.
Wages are $470,000
fuel,
we are at $440,000
we've already burnt half a
million dollars in fuel almost?
Yep, this year, and the total
for right now,
we are at $1.15 million.
And that -- you don't have
groceries or anything in that.
Basically, it's just repairs,
wages and fuel is what I've got.
So we're probably
closer to $1.4 million.
[bleep]
that's a lot of money.
We ain't screwing around.
[ chuckles ]
now we've got to do
the opposite
and make some money.
Yeah, no kidding.
We need to get that plant going.
The sooner the better,
right?
♪
Parker: that's a lot of money
to pour into the ground.
It's, like, if we hit it big
gambling last year,
which we had
a very good season,
then this is the equivalent
of putting it right back
on the table
and rolling the dice again.
♪
♪
♪
We do have a lot of ground
to get through this year,
so the only way we're going
to do it is getting the plant up
and going,
which still hasn't happened.
Narrator:
parker has just 1 year to mine
ground that should take 3.
He's given foreman dean
5 days to start sluicing,
but with no water source
on the claim,
dean must build a system
to recirculate water.
He's already way
behind schedule.
Oh, right now we're building
the pond,
get this corner cleaned out,
and then we'll make
a pond for our pad.
Narrator:
dean has excavated the pay dirt
from one corner of the cut
to form a pond.
Next, he must complete the berm
and build a pad
for the wash plant to sit on.
Then there's, you know,
no natural ponds for us
to really work with.
Dean seems to think he has
a plan here for a wash plant pad
and a spot
to sluice into, so...
We've got about 80 to 100 feet
of berm to put up,
but I think that we might
be able to pull this off.
Parker: we've been burning money
like there's no tomorrow.
There's only so much gold
in the ground,
and there's only so much money
in the coffers.
Parker: hey, dean,
where is the wash plant?
We've got to get
the plant going.
Like, how come
that hasn't happened?
Because I haven't
got there yet.
We still need to put
a pad up for the plant.
We're not even close
to being ready.
If you got a better plan,
parker, I'm game,
but this is all
I can think of.
There's no good solution
for none of this.
The bleeding has to stop.
Like, we are burning cash
like there's no tomorrow,
but I'm counting on you here
to get a plant up
and going
and stop the bleeding.
Get these piles the [bleep]
back there and get this set up.
We've got to be sluicing
by the end of the week.
I dropped the ball.
I'm sorry, parker.
I don't get what the [bleep]
is going on here, man.
Like, what the [bleep]
dean has blown through
every timeline
that I've given him
and that he's given me,
and we're still not close,
and this is how
you just get [bleep]
okay, we're going to
change up things here.
We need to get this berm
in so...
Narrator:
dean, with only 2 days left,
brings in more crew
to speed up the pad build.
Copy there, dean-o?
Got a lot to get done
and running out of time.
You guys think anyone
has ever dug a bigger hole?
I've got to make sure
this pad is ready.
I've got every man and every
piece of equipment
that parker can give me,
and I hope it's going
to be enough
to make this
all happen in time.
♪
♪
Narrator: tony beets' season
is at a standstill.
With no water license
for his gold-rich claims
on the indian river,
he needs to find a way forward.
Youngest son mike thinks
he has a solution.
30 miles north
of indian river,
the beets family owns another
1,300-acre patch of ground
on top of paradise hill.
This is where tony first started
in the klondike 30 years ago.
Mike knows the claim well.
Mike:
I really like paradise hill.
It wasn't until I got
to paradise hill
that I ran my own plant and had
to make sure it kept running,
kept feeding pay, all that.
So I didn't really truly learn
how to be a gold miner
until I got out
to paradise hill.
So this is basically where
I learned how to get going.
I got this nice big wall of pay
that's sitting there,
waiting to be taken.
I'm pretty sure I can get
a decent amount of gold
out to this hillside here.
Better go pitch the plan.
Narrator:
but to go after gold here,
mike needs to convince
tony it's worth
the investment.
Mike: hey, dad.
I got a lot of pay
sitting in the [bleep]
hillside that
I can get to.
Tony: yeah?
Thawed, nice, and all I need
is a couple things here,
and I can get sluicing.
Yeah, I'm offering you a way to
get gold right off the bat here.
Narrator: millions of years ago,
pressure in the earth's crust
caused a section of bedrock
and pay dirt to buckle,
eventually forcing
one section to rise up
and over another,
making the ground unpredictable
with high concentrations
of gold,
as well as dead spots.
Yeah.
Mike's whole paradise hill plan
now rides
on getting an ancient
30-year-old trommel
up and running.
I think let's fire her up.
The trommel drum spins,
sieving out large rocks,
sending the finer material
down through the sluices
to catch gold.
With the airstrip shut down,
brother and mechanic,
kevin, comes to help.
yes.
Right, raising an old ancient
machine from the grave,
get her going for the first time
in a long time.
Going to fire up the trommel
and see what explodes.
So this trommel has not
turned in at least 2 years.
I just got a picture of those
movies where you get,
like, these ancient machines,
like in "star wars"
or something,
and they're just coming back
to life all of a sudden,
and they take off, and you get
that epic feeling of,
"oh, wow,
that's a piece of history
that's just coming to life."
yep.
My only question is, "why are we
still standing here?"
let's go.
First issue is to make sure
everything turns.
Narrator:
first up, the conveyor.
We've got the heat conveyor
going right now,
make sure that spins
and everything runs good.
I'd say standard startup,
sluice sparks, trommel.
Narrator: the big test firing up
the 40-ton trommel drum
which hasn't run
in over 2 years.
Mike: hey, it spins.
Oh, yeah.
I still like that sound.
Hey, keep the trommel going,
please.
♪
[ laughs ] yeah.
♪
Narrator:
it's a step closer to sluicing,
but the rest of the heavy
equipment at paradise
is way past resurrecting.
♪
♪
It's pretty nice right now.
We've got a ton
of pay dirt to run.
It's right next to a wash plant.
Narrator: the hunt
for giant nuggets is on.
Rick: really couldn't ask
for any better right now.
Narrator:
two weeks into the season
and rick has been sluicing
in the mountains
above keno for 3 days.
As he loads the rock trucks
with pay dirt,
zee and kruse drive them
to the wash plant.
Kruse, are you ready to be
all about that truck life?
I am ready to be all
about that truck life.
So I've been around
this equipment
but never been behind
the wheel on it.
Pretty intimidating at first.
Narrator: and every hour,
ryan loads 100 yards
of pay dirt into the plant.
This pay is here.
It's ready to run.
We don't have to strip
to get it,
so it's kind
of a no-brainer to run it.
♪
Ooh, ooh.
It's a new place, and I'm
still learning about things.
With these boulders like this,
a lot of people get really crazy
about getting all wash
in the boulders
because a lot of times that gold
is really smashed up on them.
And so I'm still in that early
stage of the year
where I'm like,
"ooh, maybe
i'll find a nugget
stuck to a boulder."
The glacier has just scoured
everything,
and it's all that,
like, quartz veins.
It's like red.
It's beautiful.
There's chunks of bedrock.
There's garnets,
other metallic stuff.
ah.
There certainly is no [bleep]
shortage of boulders out here,
but if they've all got
gold stuck to them...
♪
Ooh, I know that car.
Karla is here.
Narrator: rick will have his
first batch of gold concentrate
ready to clean up
in a few days,
so he's called in an old friend
to run his gold room.
Is this the right place?
Rick:
that is so typical!
Parking your car
and letting it rolling away.
Let it rolling away
from you.
Oh, you're lucky
I have shoes on. [bleep]
[ laughing ]
oh, welcome to keto.
Oh, thanks
for having me again.
Yeah, no kidding.
It's so beautiful.
What do you see?
Running dirt.
We're sluicing almost 2 months
earlier than last year.
That's awesome.
Yeah, [bleep] yeah.
The even crazier thing
is that from the top
all the way to the bottom,
it's all pay dirt.
It's all that gold in it.
Holy cow, man.
Yeah.
Super proud of you for getting
all this organized
and, like, having people
showing up
and getting to work right away.
Yeah, rick.
Thank you.
After a long day of sluicing,
rick calls the team together.
Rick: hey, guys.
You want to shut it down,
and let's all meet
by the wash plant.
It's karla. [ laughs ]
zee, don't pretend you
didn't Miss me.
Rick, you said
karla wasn't coming.
That's the reason I came up.
-how you doing?
-I'm good. You?
-good.
-this is kruse.
-hi, cruise.
-hi, I'm kruse.
-hi.
-karla, gold room.
We're going to have a lot
more gold this year.
I know.
We got to find out
exactly what we got.
I mean, it looks good.
Yeah.
But we don't [bleep]
know until it goes across
the table and goes in a jar.
Yeah, I want to check
this wash plant out.
♪
Karla: oh.
Ooh-hoo-hoo!
♪
It's the biggest nugget
I've ever seen.
Is that the biggest
one you've seen, karla?
That's the biggest one
I've ever seen.
You, too?
Hell, yeah.
Guess I'll stick this
in the safest place around here.
[ laughs ]
[ chuckles ]
nobody is going in there.
Karla: oh, rick!
I found a clonker.
Oh, a clo-- yeah?
Holy [bleep].
I know.
That's gorgeous.
I know.
I kind of get it.
I feel like an old-timer.
Like,
you just get all gaga.
That's amazing.
Yeah, you're drooling.
This here is one of the reasons
i'm here.
It's coming from right there,
mount hinton.
That's the source
of all this big gold.
I'm here to hunt for these,
and that's the first of many.
♪
♪
Narrator: tony beets is taking
a huge gamble
moving his operation
to paradise hill.
This ground is unpredictable,
but it's the only chance
he has of saving his season
and the family business.
Tony shut down paradise
2 years ago
and moved all his best equipment
30 miles south to indian river.
Mike: dad told me
we're getting all this
[bleep] to paradise,
so he must have liked my idea.
Narrator: now he's tasked mike
to bring it all back.
Mike: we're going to go start
sluicing up on the hill.
You good to go?
Yeah, good to go.
Let's get going.
Okay.
Plan is we're going to
take 460 on the kenworth,
360 here on the oshkosh,
and we're going to drive it
all the way up to --
Drive it to paradise hill.
Narrator:
the lowboy trailer is rated
to carry a maximum 40-ton load.
That trailer,
look at that.
The 460 weighs in at almost 50.
Most trailers,
they have a bend...
A reverse bend with that,
so they kind of bend like that
so when you put weight on,
they sit flat.
That [bleep]
is sitting like that.
[ laughs ]
♪
lead the way, ruby.
Pilot car is important
to let other people
on the road know
we're coming.
Narrator: lynn brings up
the rear in the grater.
[ horn blares ]
yeehaw,
we're starting a convoy.
Narrator:
ahead of them, 50 miles
of treacherous dirt roads,
soft from the runoff
after the spring melt.
♪
Mike to scriba,
do you copy, mike, scriba?
Can you go up
the hill first, please?
Scriba: yeah.
Oh, that poor trailer.
The worse thing that can happen
is the trailer decides to go...
Which would suck like [bleep]
because that's
a very nice trailer.
Am I actually going
to make this turn?
Narrator:
mike's first challenge:
a hairpin turn.
Mike: the problem is we have
so much weight on the thing,
you lose the ability to turn.
I guess, hey, I turned somewhat.
♪
When my dad first came up,
first mining job he ever
got was on paradise hill,
and that's the first place I got
started full-time with pay.
Now my dad is giving me
the people and the [bleep]
equipment to get paradise hill
up and running.
So hopefully with that,
I can buy my siblings some time
to get their operations going.
My dad has this thing,
an aura of respect.
You can't help
but respect the guy.
You know when my father
is going to retire?
I'll be putting him
in that suit again.
He'll be on the wrong side
of the grass.
That's when he will retire.
Narrator: half a mile ahead,
at the hunker summit,
the first half of the convoy
waits for mike to catch up.
Ruby: are you going to put
michael ahead of you?
We're going to have
to go slower.
Put it in low range.
Oh, yeah because mikey beets
goes slow.
[ laughs ]
mike powers over the summit
and straight
into a 1,000-foot
downhill danger zone.
[indistinct]
because you go down the hill.
♪
Mike: come on. Turn, you.
[ tires screeching ]
i'm getting sucked right
into the [bleep] corner.
[ crashes ]
holy [bleep]
hey, mike, do you copy?
Mike?
Scriba: yeah.
I got sucked into the ditch.
♪
Hey, I'm going to try
to back up.
You in low?
yep.
You're going to
sink yourself down.
Narrator: mike beets is hauling
two excavators
to open up a new cut
at paradise hill
in an attempt to save
the family business.
Halfway into
the 50-mile journey,
he's got the 18-ton oshkosh
with its 48-ton load
stuck in a ditch.
You won't be able to pull
that trailer out the way it is.
Mike:
I didn't realize I was getting
sucked in so quickly.
I ended up going a little
too far off the edge.
At least,
I didn't think I was.
In fact, looking at my tires,
I wasn't.
[bleep] load [bleep]
went right into
the [bleep] damn ditch.
They're going to hook a chain
up to the lowboy
and try to slowly pull it
out while I back up.
The biggest issue is just
getting the trailer
out of the [bleep] ditch.
I'm going to back it up
until the trailer is on
to the [bleep] road.
Narrator: one false move
and the 48-ton excavator
could tip off the trailer.
I'm good.
[ engine revs ]
♪
pull her. Ready?
The sooner, the better.
Okay, we're going
to start pulling.
♪
♪
Mike, pull! Pull!
♪
Hey, hold up!
Stop.
Go ahead, mike.
♪
♪
Narrator:
the convoy is back on the road.
Mike: tony beets, do you copy,
tony beets?
Tony: mike.
We'll be there soon.
ah.
Getting too old
for this [bleep].
But we got all
the equipment here,
and now we can get
my operation up and running.
♪
♪
It's about time we got sluicing,
but I've been saying
that for 2 [bleep] weeks.
Narrator: it's the end
of the week in the cluster cut.
Foreman dean puts the finishing
touches to his wash plant pad.
I have no doubt in my mind
we'll be ready
to set the plant up today.
I've been building berms
and settling ponds
for over 30 years.
I think this might end up being
the best pad I ever built.
Narrator:
after 3 weeks of delays,
dean is back on track.
I think parker has been a little
bit unfair about things,
but I also know that he's under
a lot of pressure.
He has a lot of money
sunk into this,
and sometimes the people
that work around him
take the grunt of it.
Narrator: a quarter of a mile
away in the yard,
mitch and brennan hook wash
plant big red to the excavator.
How's it going, guys?
So you do you feel like you got
a pretty good handle on this?
As long as there's enough room
down there to put everything.
It looks pretty tight.
It's going to be like
a whole bunch of [bleep]
in a real small space.
All right.
Well, that's the real issue.
♪
Yeah, this looks good.
Brennan, you copy, brennan?
Hey, deano.
I think we're ready
for a plant up here.
Yes, sir.
Let's just pull of 10,000 ounces
and we'll all be laughing.
Narrator:
in just 5 days, dean has moved
20,000 yards of dirt
to build a series of berms,
a pond to recirculate water
and a pad for the wash plant.
Ready to rock?
I'm ready.
Mitch, you ready?
Let's do it.
♪
She's alive!
-whoo!
-[Bleep] yeah.
Good luck, man.
We'll see you on the other side.
♪
You got her.
Take her nice and easy.
You got a ways to go,
buddy!
Yeah, this is a good feeling
to finally get
this plant drug down
in the cluster cut,
but at least
it's on the goal,
and we're going
to get there today.
Finally start bringing
some money in.
Yah, yah!
[ laughs ]
looking good, my man.
♪
Well, I'm glad we're going to be
finally making some gold here.
It's about time.
Narrator: brennan sets the plant
down in the cut,
ready for its final move
up onto the pad.
[bleep] yeah.
-nice job, buddy.
-thanks, brother.
That was one of
the smoothest ones ever.
Hell, yeah.
That went nice.
Mitch: I mean, I think
the scariest part
was when your nipples
came out, myself.
wow.
I know, right?
ooh!
Glad we got over that.
Good thing I shaved them.
Narrator: before dragging
the plant onto the pad,
parker calls on dean
to mark out a spot.
Parker: can we lay
this out real quick?
yep.
We need a upstream
and skid.
You want a bit of room there,
probably right about here
i'm thinking.
Narrator:
big red is 52 feet wide.
Allowing for the 16-foot
sluice box,
dean's pad needs to measure
at least 70 feet across.
And then we need 52?
Yeah.
Here's 20.
20 to there.
You got 40.
You're at 40 feet here
and at 52 feet, we need to be
16 feet wide, and doumitt needs
to be able to do cleanups.
What do you need?
How many more feet?
12 feet at 16 wide,
and then we still have
to be able to do cleanups.
I mean, there's no way.
How are you even going
to set stuff in?
I don't know even know
how you're going to get in here
with the machines
to set this stuff in here.
Just no [bleep] room.
♪
♪
Narrator:
dean's pad can just about fit
big red, but parker is convinced
he hasn't allowed enough space
to operate around it.
Enlarging the pad
could take days.
Can you guys all [bleep]
back off?
♪
♪
♪
How do you figure?
I know
it's a little small.
I'll meet you back
at my office.
♪
♪
♪
I have no idea what the [bleep]
is going on.
Why are we undoing
everything we just did?
I don't know.
You don't have a clue either?
no.
Did dean just quit on us?
I have no idea, but we just
need to figure out...
[bleep]
...what we got to do here.
It's time like this where
the last thing
I ever want to be doing
is running a business really,
but sometimes
it's part of the job,
I guess. [bleep] hate it.
♪
♪
♪
♪
Are you in there?
I just want
to talk to you.
I asked you to come down
to the office, but...
Okay. Alright.
Alright.
Well, that was productive.
No, I asked dean to come
to my office,
but obviously, he doesn't
want to talk, so whatever.
♪
♪
♪
♪
I've already wasted
enough time here.
I'm not willing to waste
anymore time.
Glad to be rid of him.
Narrator:
parker schnabel is in a race
to mine out his entire claim
in just 1 year,
but only 3 weeks
into the season,
his foreman, dean,
has quit.
Parker, the last 3 weeks,
has run around saying this
and saying that
and telling me to do this
and telling me to do that
and then the following day
coming over and giving me
[bleep] for doing
what he told me to do,
and yeah, I'm not going
to have anymore of that.
I'm done with it.
It's cost me a lot of sleep
in the last month,
and it's all [bleep].
I've seen everybody but parker.
It's problem better that
we don't get on fighting terms
before I leave, and...
You got everything?
Yeah.
♪
Hey, dean.
That's your last paycheck.
Okay.
Good luck.
You, too.
♪
Narrator:
two weeks behind schedule
and without a foreman,
parker schnabel is in trouble.
♪
♪
Well, the good news is there
is big gold out here.
Karla has already
found a nugget.
Narrator: at his new claim,
rick is on the gold.
The bad news is we might not be
getting them all.
They might be going right out
the back of the plant,
so if we're going to get
2,000 ounces this year,
we need every single
one of them.
Narrator:
to fix the plant to catch
the larger nuggets,
rick calls on hometown buddy
chris kruse,
a welder-fabricator,
for help.
Kruse, you saw that nice gold
nugget that karla found, right?
Yeah.
So the good news is we know
that they're out here, but...
I like that.
Yeah.
The bad news is I think
we could probably...
We're probably losing some.
I mean, there's a good chance
that they just
[bleep] right out the end.
I'm trying to think of a way
that we can put a trap
before that punch plate,
like a nugget trap, right.
And what does this have
to do with me?
Well, because it's going
to have to be built.
Oh, we can't just go buy
a nugget trap?
No, you can't just go buy
a nugget trap.
Alright.
Any large nuggets
entering the plant will skip
over the holes
in the punch plate
passing out
into the tailings.
Rick's plan: weld heavy-duty
rails onto the ridge
beneath the hopper
to trap any big nuggets
before they reach
the shaker deck.
Kruse:
like, I'm used to working off
an actual blueprint
made from a cad program
with dimensions
and, you know, parts list,
and it tells me exactly
what material I need to use
and that sort of thing,
and this is going to be new
and be a learning experience
just like I knew
this whole season would be,
but I don't know.
I don't have a clue
what a nugget trap is.
It's going to be
pretty damn ugly,
but all I really care about
is the pretty stuff
that hopefully finds
its way inside there.
Narrator:
kruse heads to a bush scrap
yard to scavenge some steel.
Kruse: hopefully, this helps us
get every bit of gold
out of the ground
that we can.
Rick said there's going to be
some real small-scale railroad
track up here.
I don't know.
I'm starting to feel like
maybe these guys sent me
on a wild-goose chase.
It's like we're out here
looking for samsquanch,
not looking for steel.
Oh, there's rick's raw
steel rack.
Little bit different than
the rack back in the shop
in milwaukee, but...
Alright.
Now I got to figure out
how to get that
[bleep] back to the truck.
♪
mm.
Yeah!
Trap some nuggets in that plant.
I might even get a pat
on the back from zee.
♪
♪
The way that I'm looking at
is that we take this,
and we start in the back.
That's the way
it's going in.
Or we could just find a small
little train to mount on these
and just have it deliver
nuggets to me in my office.
[ laughing ]
boxcar full of nuggets.
[ laughter ]
♪
it's pretty cool.
Rick got me the coolest
welding helmet
probably in existence.
♪
Ryan:
i'll be excited to see
if it catches a bunch
of big gold nuggets.
Kruse: that's what
i'm talking about.
Narrator: four hours later,
rick is ready to fire up.
Should we throw a bucket of dirt
through this thing,
see what
this nugget trap can do?
Well, you hammered it
out pretty quick,
so I thank you for that, but
let's just see if she holds on.
Narrator:
ryan loads the pay dirt,
but the crew will have to wait
until the end of the week
to find out
if the nugget trap is catching.
Kruse:
I want to see all them nuggets.
I want to see them
just spilling out of there.
♪
♪
Parker: you know,
i'm pretty sad to see dean go.
I really wanted him to succeed,
but now we have to go in there
and try figure out how to undo
all these mistakes,
and it's going to cost us a lot
of time that we just don't have.
Narrator:
parker schnabel is 3 weeks
behind schedule, a foreman down,
and he still hasn't mined
an ounce of gold.
Every day not sluicing
is potentially a bunch of gold
that's left in the ground
that we aren't going to get.
Narrator:
if he can't turn things around,
it could cost him everything.
Nobody here has their ass
on the line, you know.
They're all very talented people
that can all get a job anywhere.
I can't, you know?
I'm -- when I...
If this company blows up,
you know,
my debt is still my debt.
It's nobody else's.
Narrator:
parker heads to dean's old pad
to make a plan
with mitch and brennan.
Parker: this has turned
into a massive [bleep].
Not only is this pad
not big enough,
but we're going to have to
double the length of this berm.
We're going to have to mock
a whole nother piece
of the cut out.
We're going to have
to have two ponds.
What?
Narrator: parker plans to double
dean's setup.
First, he'll dig out
the gold rich pay dirt
from a second section
of the cut.
He'll make a second pond
which will allow sediment
to settle
as the water recirculates.
Finally, he'll create
a bigger pad
so he can install
the wash plant.
We've lost a [bleep] ton of time
already this season.
That's why dean is out.
We've got to be sluicing
by the end of the day.
Man, you look at the amount
of time
that's been spent on this --
I know.
You guys are inheriting
a [bleep] situation,
but we've all got
the problem now,
and we just have
to try charge forward
and get a plan going because
the bleeding has got to stop,
and we got to get
a plant running.
Alright.
Thanks, guys.
Well,
our work just doubled.
I better go task up
the crew here
and get everybody
over we need.
Narrator:
parker is taking a huge risk
digging a new pond
and doubling the size
of the pad,
but if the gold is as good
as he thinks it is here,
it'll pay off big.
Parker is the boss, and he just
changed the game plan here,
so we're going to do
what he says.
He wants the wash plant set
up there by the end of the day.
That doesn't give us much time
to get a lot of work done.
♪
We don't have enough ground
from up on the bank
to build our pad
all the way across,
so I'm pushing
this bedrock up.
Narrator:
brennan excavates bedrock
as fast as he can for mitch
to use building
the extra large pad.
It'd be really good for
everybody's morale
to start seeing some gold.
We're making progress,
but we just can't get
to panic right now.
Mitch, tyson and I are trying
to get this done.
[bleep]
[bleep] sakes.
Ripper tooth fell out.
Narrator: work grinds to a halt.
Brennan has broken a ripper
tooth on the bedrock.
This is [bleep] frustrating.
What'd you do?
It's gone.
The tooth is gone.
Let's give you
a new point.
♪
♪
[bleep] no.
Might get it now.
♪
Whew.
Narrator: half an hour later,
with help from the boss,
brennan is back in business.
Fire it up!
[ engine revs ]
back to work.
[ laughs ]
♪
narrator:
by the end of the shift,
the crew has cleared
a quarter of the pay dirt
from the new pond and are
halfway to building a new pad.
We're getting there slowly.
It's too bad what happened
with dean,
but I'm just really glad
that mitch and brennan are here,
and they're taking charge
of the situation
and filling the gap,
and that's what we need.
So sunnier days ahead, right?
♪
♪
Narrator:
on top of paradise hill,
mike beets
is ready to run pay dirt
for the first time in 2 years,
but first, he needs water
to run his trommel.
Just heading over
the little silt hills here.
I'm here to open up
our pond today,
so I can start getting
water to my plant.
Narrator: the closest source
of water is a pond fed
by hunter creek 1/2
a mile down the hill,
but this abandoned feeder
pond is silted up.
Mike: one of my biggest problems
is going to be making sure
I have enough water
to feed my pump.
What I'm clearing in front
of is a fish gate.
You need them by law to stop
fish from going into your pond.
Got to be careful
because there's
a steel grate
underneath there,
and it'd be super easy
for me to bend [bleep].
♪
Ooh, I [bleep] touched it.
So close yet so far-feeling.
Narrator: mike ditches
the 300-horsepower excavator
for an alternative technique.
I need a stick.
Pff, useless.
To get a little bit of a stream
going because once I get that,
the water will cut the rest,
and it will go a lot easier
and faster if I let the water
do the work, so...
Our ancestors did this
[bleep] for thousands
and thousands of years,
and they didn't have
the toys we do nowadays.
So sometimes, it doesn't hurt
to get a little stone age.
Doesn't hurt to be a caveman
once in a while.
♪
Pond is starting to fill up now
nicely, starting to look good.
Once I clear it out a bit more,
so I can get a bit more flow,
it'll be nice.
No water, no sluicing.
No sluicing, no [bleep] haul.
♪
♪
[ engine starts ]
narrator: tony needs
this old pump to work
if he has any chance of
getting mike's trommel sluicing.
I'm going to go check if it's
coming out of the plant,
and if it is,
should be good to go here.
♪
We ain't got no water.
Tony beets, do you copy?
Tony beets?
Tony: go.
Is that thing sitting
at its proper rpms?
No water.
I'm going to have a little look.
I'm going to go drive
along it and find out...
Ooh, yeah.
That's a leak, all right.
Narrator: a bypass valve
was left wide-open.
♪
Mike: so if you don't shut it
off here quick,
it's going to wash
out our road here.
♪
♪
Whew!
Now I'm going to go check
if it's coming out of my plant.
♪
♪
There is water.
I got water to my plant,
so now I'm going to have
a look around,
make sure
it's all flowing right,
and then I'm going to
go see about sluicing.
Narrator:
mike calls in the whole family
and monica's best friend,
ruby, to help him run
the first dirt of the season.
Aye, dad. Yes.
Come up here.
Firing up the trommel.
[ trommel humming ]
I got the sluice box.
I got the distributor.
I got the trommel.
I got the conveyor,
and I got the feeder all running
on the plant right now.
Only thing left now
is to wash some rocks.
Narrator: after a disastrous
start to this season,
if mike finds gold in paradise,
the beets family
will be back in business.
Mike:
everything is running smooth.
I should shut up before
something doesn't run so smooth.
♪
♪
♪
♪
Hey, dad.
A little bit messy,
but that's to be expected.
I can do that, yeah.
Narrator:
the beets family's gold
operation has been shut down.
Now, tony's taking a risk
in green-lighting youngest son
mike to mine unpredictable
ground at paradise hill.
After running for 24 hours,
they shut down
to check for gold.
How's it looking?
Don't see anything yet.
If mike's hit dead spots
instead of gold,
his plan to rescue
the family business will fail.
Mike! Good job!
Hot dang.
Yeah.
Nice and yellow.
It's good to see
some gold in the box.
-good job, mike.
-good job, mike.
He's bringing home the bacon,
all right.
[ laughs ]
yeah.
After a disastrous start,
mike is the first
to catch gold this season.
♪
♪
Parker:
the cluster cut has definitely
lived up to its name.
Right now, I'm just putting
some finishing touches
on the plant pad here.
At least I know
the plant will fit.
Narrator: in the cluster cut,
parker's crew
has doubled the size
of dean's old pad
and added a whole new
tailings pond in just one day.
You know, our plant pad
is just about done,
thank [bleep]
narrator:
since he bought it 6 years ago,
parker's wash plant,
big red, has produced
$13 million of gold.
They're finally ready
to move it into place.
Parker:
hey, mitch, I think we're ready
for a plant up here.
There's no room
for error now.
Like, we have to start
sluicing today.
Narrator:
the first task: get the sluices
into position on the pad.
Right now, we got the sluice
runs up the pad here.
Be careful with the sluices.
Keep coming straight, guys.
Looking good.
Looking good, matt.
♪
Matt: okay, so how do you
want to do this?
I'd get it closer
to the ground
for if something lets go
we don't drop it 8 feet here.
Matt, I don't like
how those things bend.
You can see how
much they're flexing.
Easy!
Something goes wrong here,
there's going to be no sluicing
for big red any time soon.
♪
There we go.
There we go.
We're good to go.
Narrator:
now for the biggest challenge:
dragging big red
up the steep ramp
along the narrow berm
and onto the pad.
I'm going to walk the 700
down to big red,
hook it up and start
dragging her this way.
♪
It's been quite the struggle
to get to where we're at,
and we're pretty close
to making some money again.
It's definitely a little steeper
than what we like,
but we just don't
really have the time
or the materials to,
you know, cut this down
and probably make it
as good as it should be.
Narrator:
to get the plant into place,
mitch needs to drag
big red onto the berm
then reposition
on the other side of the plant
so he can drag it
the final 100 yards
to its new purpose-built pad.
♪
Mitch: come on, baby.
Be good to us here.
That's more like it.
It's kind of trapped
down here now.
Everything starts looking
pretty cramped.
Narrator: between big red
and the edge of the berm,
there is just 15 foot of leeway
for the 14-foot-wide
excavator to pass.
You going to take this thing,
brennan, or what?
You want me to?
Go for it.
Dude, it's not a good feeling
dragging this thing around.
Narrator: mitch hands
the controls to brennan
for the dangerous maneuver.
Look out, kids!
He's going to be coming
right through here,
so watch yourselves.
Watch that edge, man!
That's going
to be really soft!
Narrator: the edge of the berm
is made of loose gravel.
Hey! Hey!
You're getting really close
to this edge!
It's a 25-foot drop
to the pond below.
♪
You guys are going
to want to move.
That's right where
he's going to be.
Everybody needs to get
the [bleep] out of my way!
Whoo!
[ laughs ]
narrator: finally, brennan can
haul big red into place.
Mitch:
you ready to roll?
We just have a lot
of catching up to do,
so that's
the scariest part about it.
Mitch: we've almost got
big red into place.
You can see our sluice
runs lined up there
to our pond nicely.
Nice and easy, man.
There you go.
Brennan:
what do you think, mitch?
I'd give that one, like,
a 6 and a half.
I've seen you do better.
Well,
you weren't guiding me!
You were too busy talking
to the [bleep] cameraman!
-good job, boys!
-yeah!
Let's get
this baby going.
All we need now is some pay
dirt and some water,
and we're going
to be making money.
Well, hopefully the boss
likes it
because the last time
he left he wasn't too happy.
Parker:
why you talking about me?
Now, I know it's been a bit
of a hectic few days,
but I really appreciate
you guys coming together
and getting this done.
It's a nice set up, guys.
Good job.
Thanks.
Yeah.
I really like it.
What say we fire
this baby off?
Well, should we go hit
the pump?
-yeah.
-sTart making some money.
Parker:
it's about time.
Everybody clear!
Narrator:
after a month of false starts,
big red is ready to sluice,
and parker
can finally find out
if his struggle to open
the first cut
on his own ground
will pay off.
Here comes some dirt!
Another 30,000 more,
and we can go home.
Narrator:
for parker schnabel, the race
to mine out his own claim is on.
♪
Right now, we may not
have a foreman,
but we've got
a hell of a team.
So we'll make it work.
♪
Narrator: coming up...
Rick: boom!
There could be a [bleep]
life-changing amount of gold
in that pile back there.
Ready to rock and roll.
The last thing we needed was
a really bad first cleanup.
♪
This is where everyone sleeps,
and we eat.
I can't seem to sleep there.
I sleep over there
in my wilderness retreat.
Come check it out.
♪
There's no shoes
past this line.
I come here every day
and practice on things
i'm no good at, play guitar.
I can't really tell you
what I'm working on, but...
Well, enough with that.
I also practice on my golf.
The ball is going to go
right in that hole over there,
the canadian flag.
oh!
After that practice swing.
Okay.
Eye on the ball.
♪
[ chuckles ] I'll take it.
♪
♪
What do you say, guys?
You think we're ready
for a mat pull?
We'll call that the last bucket.
Narrator: rick has moved
his entire operation
to duncan creek on
the promise of giant gold.
After 2 weeks running, he shuts
down for his first gold cleanup
and to check if crews'
nugget trap is working.
It didn't fall out.
You see how it's nice
and loose in here?
Kruse: oh, yeah.
So it's not getting, like,
all jammed up.
no.
If there's any big nuggets
in there,
they're going to the bottom.
I'm happy
it's still in there.
So am i,
and you know what?
I'm going to call it
a success.
First welling job
in the mine.
Booyah.
Nice job, kruse.
-see some gold, rick?
-loader?
Oh, baby.
-no way!
-ooh!
-nice, nice, nice, nice, nice.
-look at that!
Oh, ho, ho, huh?
I got another.
-oH, baby.
-yes!
Okay, I'm starting
to feel better.
[ laughs ]
boom!
Rick:
just the first little bit here.
I mean, we're still, basically,
we're just getting dialed in.
ooh.
It's gold.
oh.
I'll be honest with you.
I was feeling a little
[bleep] nervous.
All jokes aside,
there could be a [bleep]
life-changing amount of gold
in that pile back there.
There really could.
Not for you guys.
Maybe for me.
[ laughter ]
narrator:
karla processes the concentrate
from the wash plant
to separate out the gold.
To test kruse's nugget trap,
she's split the gold
into two pans:
one from without the nugget trap
and one with it.
I kept them separate, and they
look pretty damn even to me.
Let's weigh up the first one.
Yeah, this is the one.
This is pre-nugget-trap.
Narrator:
first up: 3 days of run time
without the nugget trap.
Rick: well, that's blowing away
in the wind.
Karla: ooh.
Let's keep that small stuff.
Man: don't breathe.
[ tapping bowl ]
♪
so there's one at 18.24,
18.24 ounces.
I mean, for how long we run,
that wasn't bad.
That wasn't bad.
Yeah.
Narrator: worth over $25,000.
Let's see what we did
with the nugget trap.
Rick: going for it.
Giving her hell.
Narrator: next: 3 days
with crews' modification.
So, I got...
♪
[ tapping bowl ]
it's 18.4.
oh!
And then...
Oh, 8 1/2
ounces of nuggets.
-damn!
-ooh!
[ laughs ]
dude, we got about 45 ounces
of gold here, right?
All right.
How sweet is that?
This is what's getting me
real excited.
Like, that's [bleep] cool, huh?
Narrator: 45 ounces of gold
is worth $63,000,
with almost $12,000
worth of nuggets.
That's pretty sweet, huh?
Yeah.
Your nugget trap, bro!
It's not your gold.
You do that.
Narrator:
the nugget trap has increased
recovery by almost 50%.
If rick continues to catch
the giant nuggets,
he's heading
for a monster payday.
And for what we're doing,
and the time of the year
that it is, like,
i'm not happy about that at all,
and this gold, I mean,
i'm excited about that.
Like, I want to go home
with pockets full of that.
You guys are all great
at what you do at home,
and to walk away from that
and start something new
and to jump into something
different is humbling.
It's really humbling.
Well, I'll be honest.
I wouldn't do it if it wasn't
with you guys, so.
Yeah.
Yeah, by the way, thanks.
Thanks for having us again.
First rally gold weigh
of the year?
-rally.
-yeah.
-I Like it.
-oNe, two, three, rally!
♪
♪
Parker:
we'll just shut everything down.
Narrator:
after 2 days of running
in the cluster cut,
parker shuts down
for his first gold weigh.
♪
Before we get a result on this,
I just want to thank you guys.
It's a tough time with all these
permitting issues
and ground issues
and losing dean.
The real bummer of it is just,
there was a lot of
added expense this spring.
I really just want to thank
you guys for buckling down
and getting things going
and taking care of business.
Alright.
O me!
I'm ready to rock and roll.
Get this stuff on the scale
and see how we did.
Narrator:
after his foreman quit,
parker doubled down
with a whole new mining plan.
Last year, parker averaged
50 ounces a day.
For 2 days' work,
he hopes to hit 100 ounces.
Chris: 60, 80...
No way.
...90, a hundo, 110, 115...
What?
124.3
[ laughter ]
[bleep] unreal!
-no [bleep] way!
-yeah!
Narrator: worth $174,000,
parker's gamble
to start with the cluster cut
has paid off big.
I thought you were going
to tell me, like, 65 or 70.
Chris: yeah, that's pretty
impressive, you guys.
I -- honestly, I'm extremely
surprised by this.
You guys really stepped up
to the plate.
I got to agree with parker.
You guys did a smashing job
of taking over like that.
Thank you very much.
Cheers, guys.
You guys, great job.
Let's keep it up.
Mm-hmm.
Parker:
really, I'm just relieved
because the last thing we needed
was a really bad first cleanup.
Like, with the amount of [bleep]
that's gone on,
just so many delays
and so many issues,
and it's never going to be easy.
Buddy,
that's what I'm [bleep].
Over 100? [bleep]
if it were easy,
everybody would be doing it.
[ laughs ]
yeah, yeah, yeah!
Okay!
What!
Let's go find some
more gold, brother.
Narrator:
next time on "gold rush"...
With a foothold
on paradise hill,
tony beets looks to expand
his operations.
Wait, wait, wait!
What the [bleep]?
Just as the cluster cut
takes off,
parker hits a roadblock.
I cannot be doing this
the rest of the summer.
[bleep] damn it!
I feel like just
sluicing myself.
[bleep]!
Narrator:
and rick goes prospecting
for even bigger nuggets.
What the hell?
It looks like it's falling
out of the sky.
Oh, [bleep].
Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Public shouldn't leave reviews for lawyers.