Gold Rush: Alaska (2010–…): Season 3, Episode 13 - The Merger - full transcript
Todd forces his crew and Dave's crew to merge into one team. The Dakota Boys use their new equipment to get back down to the bottom of the Glory Hole. Parker risks his life to get pay dirt from an abandoned mine site.
.
Here we go. In the gold fields
of North America...
Let's get it on, baby!
..four crews of miners
are out to strike it rich.
I'm seeing gold.
Todd Hoffman has two teams split
across two claims.
I knew we're on the gold down there.
..in pursuit of a million-dollar
mining season.
Well, things are going our way.
At Quartz Creek,
with the trommel out of action,
Todd makes a gut-wrenching decision.
I'm gonna shut down Quartz Creek.
Shut her down.
And at the Indian River claim...
That's the piece of crap
that's shut us down.
..Mitch attempts to fix
the wash plant
by using Jack's beloved
400 excavator.
We could, you know, blow the seals
out in the motor on this.
At Porcupine Creek in Alaska,
just as their season
starts looking up...
Oh, (BLEEP).
..the Dakota boys
are out of business, again.
Shut it off.
And at Big Nugget...
We need to find dirt that gets
a lot better than this.
..Parker Schnabel's search for gold
pushes him to the edge
of a 100-metre cliff.
(BLEEP)
It's 106 days into the Klondike's
150-day mining season.
At Quartz Creek, Todd Hoffman
has abandoned his trommel.
The mine is at a standstill.
Todd has called an emergency meeting
with the crews from Indian
River and Quartz Creek.
I want to update everybody,
including Indian River.
If you look at our operation,
it didn't go any...
anywhere near how
we expected it to go, so...
And a lot of that fault
just goes right on my head.
The investor wants me to start
giving guys their pink slip
and send them home.
I can blame it on this,
that and the other,
but in the end it's...
it's my fault.
My team has been awesome,
every single guy,
and worked hard through a lot of
crap.
And so, just want to tell you,
you guys at Quartz Creek,
thanks, you know?
But, guys, Indian River's gold count
is carrying us.
So...
I'm gonna shut down Quartz Creek.
At the beginning of the season,
the Hoffman crew split
into two competing teams.
It's gonna get the most gold this
year. It's the best team around.
Dave Turin took the lead
on the Indian River claim,
leaving Todd
in charge of Quartz Creek.
I'm gonna ruffle some feathers
this year.
Gonna be my way or the highway.
Unable to get his turbo trommel
working properly...
Oh, you are fricking kidding me.
..Todd and his crew have produced
just seven ounces of gold
so far this season.
It's gonna be turned off
for the season. I'm really sorry.
But Dave's crew
has had great success,
producing 223 ounces of gold...
Nice job!
..worth around $350,000.
That's a lot of money.
I'm pretty proud of this, Jack.
Disappointed with Todd's results,
their investor Jason Otteson
threatened to pull the plug
unless Todd cut costs.
Cut some heads. There's way
too many people here right now.
I am really sorry, guys,
the Quartz Creek guys, you know,
how this turned out.
But we got to pick one operation
and Indian River
is the most efficient operation
and that's the best chance we're
gonna get to 1,000 ounces.
But here's the deal.
To push Indian River
from 500 to 1,000,
we got to open up a lot more ground.
We can get the 1,000 ounces
if we all work at one plant.
Now we got to throw all the horses
behind one plant, that's Indian.
I'm not gonna send anybody home.
It's a high-risk strategy,
but this is what it'll take
to save our 1,000-ounce season.
Your thoughts?
I know my team,
Greg, Chris, Freddie and I,
we're pretty proud
of what we've accomplished.
This is not gonna be easy.
This could just completely unravel
and fall apart.
The question is,
can we mesh this thing together
without ripping apart?
We can do it. We can get 1,000
ounces and do it right.
Can you hold all this together?
I'll do my best.
Can we come together
to get the 1,000 ounces?
Because if we don't, this is it.
This is the last year
and away we go.
Back to our old lives.
You want to do that?
Hell no, I don't want to go back to
my old life. Well, I don't either.
You guys with me? ALL: Yeah.
Let's do it. Let's do it. Dad,
will you throw a prayer up for us?
Heavenly Father, give us the
strength to get that 1,000 ounces.
If we don't work together,
we are gonna be divided,
and if we are divided
we are gonna fall.
Amen. ALL: Amen.
I have done the math.
We can do this.
There is a chance of getting
1,000 ounces.
Just get it ready to go.
We're gonna move all the equipment
down to Indian.
It's kind of a bummer
we got to leave it.
At this point in time, we got to do
what we got to do to survive.
Whoo!
Well now we're getting somewhere.
With two excavators,
two rock trucks and a dozer,
Todd's crew makes the journey
from Quartz Creek to Indian River.
They now have double the manpower
and double the machinery
to work their best ground.
The crews will have to put aside
their differences
and work together to hit
their 1,000-ounce goal.
I have to sacrifice what our team
has accomplished together.
We're gonna put that aside,
and now it's a new day.
We've got to move forward with
a new team and join forces.
Can we do it? It's a long shot, but
I'm willing to take the gamble.
South at Porcupine Creek...
"Dakota" Fred and his team are
digging gold-rich grey material.
Whoo! We're digging gold now, baby.
Large river-washed boulders are
a sign that they are on the gold.
Fred, every pan I do of this grey
material is producing five to six
specks.
I like it. Me too.
I just know this is gonna be good.
If you could ever get to the bottom
of the grey layer,
you would never have to work again
in your life.
Dig, Fred, dig. I'm a-digging.
After a season of nonstop
breakdowns...
Oh, crap.
..last week, Fred bit the bullet
and invested in new equipment.
Whoa!(LAUGHING)
And immediately, the decision paid
off with a $20,000 cleanout.
That's a lot of gold for us.
They're now processing the best
paydirt they've seen all season.
Oh, nice grey boulders.
(LAUGHS) I like it.
Might be a good day at the sluice
box next, next time we clean out.
I got a ton of rocks here
I got to get out.
Y'all been shoving them rocks
over the top all the time.
Those rocks are huge right now.
Gonna break my damn derocker.
That's gonna be some gold in there.
Fred's getting a little too excited
and giving me huge rocks that
shouldn't go through this machine.
It could cause a huge problem,
but there's gold.
There's good gold
on these huge boulders.
Melody, stand clear.
Slow and easy so it doesn't hit
the spray bar.
Here she comes.
Oh (BLEEP).
(BLEEP)
(BLEEP) Fred, you gotta
come see this. Come back?
The tyre deck is on the ground,
exposing every damn tyre.
Shut it off.
Shut it down.
Oh (BLEEP).
This is what looks like it broke.
At Porcupine Creek,
a massive boulder
has just destroyed the Dakota boys'
derocker.
Well, let's see.
There's three, four, five,
maybe six areas that broke off,
and I can't tell which is the top.
Do you know? This is the top.
It's got the metal. Down there?
Yeah, the metal's still here.
OK. All right,
the weld's broke on it.
Oh (BLEEP).
(SIGHS)
The derocker washes the gold
from the rocks on a moving deck
that is rocked back and forth
by three pairs of wheels.
A series of welds holds
the top of the deck in place.
But a massive boulder
has snapped the welds,
causing the heavyweight deck
to crash to the ground.
(FRED SIGHS) It is a disaster.
If the machines are down,
we're not running.
That's all there is to it.
As soon as you think
you could even halfway run,
something else breaks on you.
It's like last year all over again.
Just another breakdown.
Damn it!
Across the creek
at the Big Nugget Mine,
Parker Schnabel is waiting for the
results of a four-day run
of Emerson trench paydirt.
His grandfather John
pays him a visit.
Hi. I see you're getting more dirt
out of the hole?
There's nothing in it, though.
Not a thing, huh?
Not much.
You came over this way
and it didn't improve, huh?
We're on bedrock on this side.
You come in...
We can't go down on this side
because that's bedrock.
I'm surprised you're on bedrock,
but you are.
Every time I got to bedrock I took a
fire hose and cleaned it down or...
Yeah, but every time you got
to bedrock you got gold.
Yeah. (LAUGHS)
Parker has been chasing good ground
all season.
We just don't have
any ground to dig.
He set his hopes on Smith Creek,
but drill tests showed that the
bedrock there is too deep to mine.
88 feet to bedrock. No gold.
Parker's only hope is Emerson trench,
but last week a test pan down
at bedrock showed no gold.
I'm not seeing any colours at all.
I don't know what to say.
Parker has now run 2,000 yards
of bedrock dirt
to find out once and for all if
Emerson trench can save the mine.
Hey, buddy, it's all cleaned up.
All the way down to the micron gold.
Parker needs five ounces of gold
just to cover his running costs
for the last four days.
It looks like... it looks like we're
at about 2.3 ounces of gold.
Not great. Um...
Yeah, not very good.
That certainly does not cover
the expenses of the mine.
What? You know, we've been running
bad material. What the (BLEEP)?
Emerson trench just doesn't hold
enough gold.
That was an awful lot of work
for 2.3 ounces of gold.
That's not good enough,
and we need more.
We really do need
to find some better dirt.
Our costs are... 2,000 bucks a day,
and we need 190 ounces
just to break even,
so we need to find dirt
that gets a lot better than this.
Desperate for answers,
Parker turns to Gary Groggin,
a six year Big Nugget veteran.
If this is the way our season ends,
we're gonna be in big trouble.
Do you know any other ground
that's easily accessible?
Not that's easily accessible.
Have you considered doing
the Discovery claim?
There could be good paydirt there.
Try to work out a lease deal
to run it.
All right, well, I'll go up there
and take a look at it.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Took you by...
We need some ground somewhere.
Right.
The Discovery claim is three
kilometres uphill from Big Nugget.
Back in 1898, miners pulled 100
ounces a day from the claim,
using just a basic
wooden sluice box.
That's around $160,000 a day in gold
at today's prices.
This claim that we're going
to look at
is the original Discovery claim
on Porcupine Creek,
and it's, you know, the one
that was mined the most.
Probably had the most gold on it,
and it's where it all started,
and there's a lot of history to it.
And there's one little chunk
of untouched ground left on it.
Wow. I mean, right there you can see
that there's river gravels.
Hm. When gold was discovered
on this creek,
this didn't get touched
because their old campsite sat here,
on, you know, good paydirt,
and they mined everything around it.
But they never finished up, they...
So they left, you know, a nice
little chunk of ground here
and we need it.
I'm gonna go talk
to the owner of this ground
and see if I can't
make a deal for it.
The last time I talked to him he did
call my grandfather a (BLEEP),
so that kind of has me turned off
to working with him.
He doesn't like the cameras, he
doesn't want to be a part of that,
so I'm gonna go up alone
and I'd appreciate it
if you guys would stay here
and actually listen to me for once.
We don't have any (BLEEP) ground.
If we don't get this,
we might as well go home.
North in the Klondike,
Todd Hoffman has shut down
his Quartz Creek claim.
His crew has joined forces with
Dave Turin's men at Indian River.
That sluice box
has to run all the time.
That's our main goal right now,
boys.
We need truck drivers
and dozer operators.
I know everybody here can operate
and it's everybody in, OK?
Hey, we had to eat our pride a
little bit up there,
but we've got one chance
to get to 1,000 ounces,
and that's coming together, circling
the wagon right here round this
plant.
Dave, all of that falls on your
shoulders,
but we got the manpower,
we got equipment.
We got a great team assembled.
We started out competing against
each other,
now we've gotta join forces.
I thought we'd do 500 ounces
through this wash plant
and now we're asking it to do 1,000.
That's a huge goal.
We still got it.
We still got a chance, guys.
All season, Indian River's wash plant
has been the key to their success.
Team Turin got the best plant
in the Klondike.
It's chewed through 38,000 yards of
paydirt from their first cut.
And we'll walk away
with a couple hundred ounces.
And with the cut finished,
Dave raced to get pay gravel in a
second cut they call the Upper Bench.
I'm on it, finally.
This is the reason we gold mine.
Now, to keep their dream
of a 1,000-ounce season alive,
the combined crews have
to open up twice as much ground
and push double the pay dirt
through the wash plant.
There you go, the first seven yards
of a new beginning right there.
With the wash plant eating through
140 yards of paydirt an hour,
Andy, Mitch and Walt...
Right on!
..get busy ripping
and stripping new ground.
Hey, Chris, lots of gold in this
stuff coming off Bench cut.
Coming at you, buddy.
You throw it, I'll catch it, man.
This site has to go real big now,
and that's what we're doing.
We've got three dump trucks,
two excavators and a dozer,
so we're getting after it.
Yeah, it feels really good to
finally be producing some gold.
As long as we get this dirt moved.
'Yeah, Dave, we'll get a heck of a
lot more done joining forces.'
This is really good gold right here.
(SQUEALING)
What the heck was that?
Shut her down!
Dave!
Suddenly the feed conveyor
grinds to a halt.
There's hydraulic oil everywhere.
I got to figure out
where it's coming from.
This conveyor's
hydraulically operated.
The pump pumps oil to the motors,
the motor turns this belt
and makes it go.
If we've blown a seal
in the hydraulic pump,
then we're in trouble.
These, these are crucial days now.
We're on the best paydirt that we've
ever seen and we have a breakdown.
Not good news.
That's the piece of crap
that's shut us down.
Right in there there's a seal that
needs to be around that shaft
and it's not sealing off the oil.
This is bad,
this has... shut us down.
Until they can get
a replacement pump,
the entire Hoffman operation
is at a standstill.
We're not gonna fire up again?
No, we're done.
Which is really gonna (BLEEP) us.
At the Big Nugget Mine
in southeast Alaska,
Parker has run out of good ground,
but he's persuaded the owner
of the neighbouring Discovery claim
to lease him some promising land.
So, it looks like
we got ourselves a deal.
Parker signed a contract
that gets him ten acres
for a ten per cent cut of the gold.
I think that that
is all gonna be pretty good dirt.
You know, bedrock's nice and close,
and then...
that should be all good
paydirt for about 50 yards back.
It isn't too far fetched for,
you know,
every load of dirt that I'm bringing
out to be worth 500 bucks.
Even if I only do 20 loads in a day,
that's not too bad a money.
So getting the paydirt
isn't gonna be a problem.
The real problem
is getting it to the plant.
The road's barely wide enough
for a truck.
If we're gonna be hauling dirt
down it, it concerns me.
We'll only have like one foot
of extra width
on that whole chunk
of road right there.
This is the bad part.
Nothing down there
is gonna stop a rock truck
from going the 300 feet straight
down to the river.
To transport Discovery paydirt
to his wash plant,
Parker's only option is a dirt road
that was never designed
to hold a 25-ton rock truck.
Better go do this, then.
Desperate for paydirt, Parker has
no choice but to test the old road.
I'm a little nervous, but
we go where the gold is, right?
If Parker makes
the slightest mistake,
the truck could plunge 100 metres
down to the creek below.
There's no room for error.
The outside of this road's
really soft,
but the biggest concern
is losing a tyre on the inside.
The risk with that is there's
all these chunks of rock.
Because this road, I mean, it was
not designed for dump trucks at all.
I mean, this a little horse trail.
(BLEEP).
(BLEEP). (METAL SQUEALING)
Don't even think about it,
you (BLEEP).
Oh (BLEEP).
(BLEEP)
(BLEEP)
That's not happening.
Parker will need to make this trip
hundreds of times to make serious
money.
But the ten-metre-long truck
can't make the tight turn.
The road from his new claim down
to Big Nugget is just too dangerous.
I want gold, but I don't know
if it's worth dying over.
At Porcupine Creek,
Dakota Fred and his team
have suffered another
major breakdown.
What a damn disappointment.
A massive boulder has crushed
the deck of the derocker,
causing it to crash
to the ground below.
Well, we're going to attempt
to put this deck on,
and so I'm gonna get in the loader
and be on the lower end
while Fred brings it on up,
and Dustin's gonna be in between
trying to chain it up,
so we can drag it back on
and get back to mining.
Putting the derocker back together,
you're working with heavy steel.
If it comes loose, something goes
wrong or a chain pops,
things are gonna just get wrecked.
Fred plans to lift the deck above
the derocker using the excavator
while down below,
the loader will pull it into place.
Once in position,
Fred will attempt to weld the deck
back onto the top of the derocker.
It weighs about 10,000 pounds.
That's a pretty heavy lift
for our little excavator.
If the bucket can't hold
the weight of the deck,
Dustin could be crushed.
Got a lot of weight hanging up
there.
Hurry up. Come on now.
Watch that hook.
Dustin, step back.
'All right, Melody, back it up.'
Back up. Tell her to back up!
(BEEPING)
Hold on, Dustin.
Come... Hold up. Stop.
(CLUNK)
'Stand by. Stand by. Stand by.
'Everybody stand by.
'All right, Melody,
really slow, try to come back.
'Don't try to jerk it real hard.
'Try to do it real slow and gentle.
'Slow and steady.'
There you go. You got it.
'Everybody stop.
'Fred, I need you to pull it back up
a little bit.
'Melody, I need you
to come off of it.
'Come on down.
Down, down, perfect, beautiful.
'Almost there.
Oh, that's it right there.'
Beautiful. Worked perfectly.
Just can't wait to see that thing
in operation again, yeah.
We'll see how it goes.
As soon as he gets it welded
back in place, we're back.
And that, folks,
one welded out deck.
All right, let's go turn it on
and see if it's gonna work.
So far, so good.
I don't see any problem with it.
Firing up. (ENGINE STARTS)
The derocker is running,
but the only way to test the fix
is to hit it with more boulders.
Take it easy, Mel.
Doing great.
It's working! I love it!
Yeah, Fred. Awesome job.
Hey, that thing's
working nice up there now.
Plenty nice.
We're getting really good
at fixing broken stuff.
Got everything back together
in one day.
At Indian River,
the two Hoffman crews
are down to just one wash plant,
but it's blown a hydraulic pump
and no one is producing any gold.
We have issues
and we need to figure it out.
We need to figure it out quick.
I am out of time.
Mechanic Mitch Blaschke
is under tremendous pressure.
We've got a new improved pump
on the way up,
but unfortunately it's anywhere
from three days to three weeks out
by the time it gets here, so we
can't afford any down time.
I've got an idea to get this thing
back up and running.
Pretty good chance it won't work,
but there's a small chance
that it will.
Just gonna bring down Jack's old 400
and try and use the hydraulic system
off it to run this feeder.
I'll either look an idiot,
this'll be a real bad idea,
and people will laugh at me,
but if it works, it works, you know?
So I'm gonna give it a try.
Jack has had his 400 excavator
since the Hoffmans'
first mining season.
It's probably most important piece
of equipment.
It's his pride and joy.
There's no ways I'd leave this 400.
Now Mitch plans
to cannibalize it for parts.
Yeah, I got to be careful
with Jack's baby here.
I don't want to do anything
to damage it.
He'll come down here
and probably kill me.
All right, so...
I just hope I got all the right
fittings to make this work.
I'm gonna disconnect these lines
that run the thumb right here,
hook it up to our plant.
It's kind of like doing
a blood transfusion.
The 400's hydraulic pump
controls its thumb.
Mitch's plan is to connect the
excavator's hydraulic hoses
to the wash plant.
If he can get
the hydraulic pressure right,
he'll get the feed conveyor
running again.
It's an ingenious fix - if it works.
So that should be my power.
This is the pressure line
in from our pump.
What I'm gonna do is put it to the
pressure side on that thumb circuit.
Now the 400 is gonna pump its fluid
out through the motor on this,
which should run the conveyor.
How's it going? You know,
if the pressures aren't right,
we could, you know, blow the seals
out the motor on this.
Keep our fingers crossed
that doesn't happen.
It's a risk I think we have to take.
You know, right now, we're not
producing any gold.
We've got cut one finished,
we've got the Bench cut ready to go.
We can't even run material
right now.
Let's see what happens.
This is the moment of truth.
Cross our fingers, you know?
If it doesn't work, cut the wire.
Fire in the hole.
The motor on the feed conveyor
only requires a pressure of
2,000 pounds per square inch.
But the excavator's hydraulic system
is capable of producing 3,200.
If Mitch gets the pressure wrong, it
could blow the system on the feeder,
putting them out of action for weeks.
Not what I was hoping for.
This might take some tuning.
Just trying to bring
the pressure up.
We're right at 1,000 pounds.
(METAL SQUEALING)
(ENGINE STOPS)
It's running.
Yeah! Hey, Greg, it's working!
Nice job, man.
Best piece of hillbilly engineering
you might ever see.
It's pretty cool,
and it's working right now.
I feel really good about it.
Kind of a different way to run your
hopper, but you know what?
Indian River's back running.
Indian River is processing paydirt
once again.
Mitch's ingenuity has kept their
dream of a million-dollar season
alive.
Man, I tell you, Mitch pulled
some real magic on this deal.
It's just humming right along.
Feeder's running. It actually gives
us an extra week of sluicing.
We don't get that pump for another
week, but we're still running.
At the Big Nugget Mine,
Parker Schnabel has called in
his father Roger
to help him widen the dirt road
up to his new Discovery claim.
Until he can safely get his rock
truck up the road, he can't get gold.
Um, so what we're trying to do
is, like, widen this road.
So you want to take all those trees
out and widen that whole thing. OK,
no sweat.
Before they can start
on the old dirt road,
they have to clear the way.
My dad started out logging
out of college,
and so he's cut down a lot of trees.
Pretty experienced with ones
that are tight spots and whatnot.
I'm hitting all this
rotten interior.
With a real rotten log,
you don't know how it'll fall.
I'm having some nervousness about
that one tree in particular.
I need to put it in a direction I
think it'll fall, so it's safer.
I don't want to make an undercut and
have it fall the opposite way.
Parker, what do you think?
Or we could just blow the thing up?
I'm not blowing any trees up,
Parker.
Dad, get out of there!
(BOTH LAUGH) Some good excitement
for the day.
Finally, Parker can start digging
into the hillside.
I've got to widen this road, I mean,
these corners are just suicide.
Ah! We made it.
Next step is to get a truck up here
and start getting dirt to the plant,
hopefully.
I've got no mirror on this side.
Parker reaches the corner
that stopped him on his first attempt
in the rock truck.
It's wider now, but still dangerous.
If his back tyres slip,
it's a 100-metre drop
down to Porcupine Creek.
Think we made it.
Ha-ha! We're in business.
Parker finally has access
to good quality paydirt.
I'm pretty happy with
the decision to come up here.
It should be good paydirt,
hopefully.
I think it might push it up over
our break even
and it'll give us a good cushion
as for time.
At Indian River, Mitch has
commandeered Jack's 400 excavator
to keep their wash plant running.
But no one told Jack.
I'm looking for the 400.
Disappeared. I thought Todd might
have done something stupid like sold
it?
What's going on, Mitch?
We kind of had to borrow the 400.
Well, I know the 400's your baby,
but right now it's saving the day
down here at Indian River.
It's the heartbeat right now
of this whole hopper,
and, without that running, the whole
plant's shut down, so. Yeah.
If it was anybody but you,
Mitch, I'd be pissed off.
At Porcupine Creek,
with their derocker fixed,
the Dakota boys and Melody have now
run gold-rich material for 25 hours.
The cinch thing for the cable ties?
We're hoping for a really good
cleanout.
It's been a long haul.
That stuff's hard.
It is. Turns into, like, concrete.
Look up here.
Is that what I think it is
down here?
That is a big flake of gold.
Yeah.
Holy cow, we blew out some gold.
Why is the gold making it this far
down there?
Should never make it down here.
Never. Look at this.
It really set up, Fred.
It... it actually set up.
I mean, I can't get it out.
Riffles are designed
to capture the gold
as it washes down
through the sluice box.
The grey material they have run
is so fine,
it's clogged the riffles
and set like concrete.
Fred and Dustin may have washed away
thousands of dollars of gold
out the end of the sluice box.
They're too hard, Fred.
I think we messed up so bad on this.
We just had disaster after disaster.
I really have high hopes for this,
but I kind of feel
like we just blew it all out.
It's the worst fricking trommel
cleanout I've ever done.
This is potentially
a very big cleanup
and we're not gonna miss anything
out of it,
so we're gonna take
a little extra time.
It's a war against dirt.
Dakota Fred's running costs
for the season are $150,000,
around 93 ounces of gold.
He only has 75 ounces so far.
Fred needs a massive 18 ounces
of gold from this one cleanout
just to break even.
Let's just weigh that thing up
and find out what we've got.
Nine, ten, 12.
Hey Dustin, Melody,
y'all come over here.
What's up? I know y'all
just got off your machines.
Y'all saw the last cleanup? He's
hiding it. Is that the weigh in?
Yeah. You're looking
at 28.4 ounces. 28?
That's our biggest cleanup yet.
Absolutely. Wow.
I'm sorry to interrupt you.
You said 28? 28.4.
Whoa! Hold that real careful.
That is heavy, huh? Oh, it is!
That's incredible. In a week.
Hey $45,000 worth of gold,
right there.
That's way more than I thought
it was gonna be.
You know what this is for?
(CLANG)
100. Yes!
They now have 104 ounces
for the season,
worth around $160,000.
They have finally broken even.
The rest of the gold they get
is all profit.
28 ounces in one cleanout,
that's a new record for us
and extremely encouraging.
God, that's amazing actually!
If we can just keep this going
for a couple more weeks,
we'll definitely meet our goal
of doubling last year.
Whoa! See this?
Oh, my God. I've never seen
the riffles like this.
At Indian River, the Hoffman crew
lost two days of sluicing
due to a wash plant breakdown,
but thanks to Mitch's ingenuity,
they've still managed to run 4,000
yards of paydirt this week.
It's time for their first cleanout
since Todd combined the Quartz Creek
and Indian River crews.
We're all chomping at the bit
to see what our results are.
You know, Logan, Sterling, we've all
been working really hard up here.
It's about time we see
a really good cleanup
and everybody's faces get to shine
on this one, you know?
Here comes Jack.
Jack.
Here we go, buddy.
Jack with one hand behind his back.
Yeah.
Uh... I'll tell you what, it...
I'm pleasantly surprised.
Good. Thank God.
Yeah, you guys did really
a good job.
There's 46 ounces. (CLAPPING)
(CHEERING) That's great! Nice!
This will be our first cleanup
together, guys.
It's pretty awesome.
Todd's merger is working.
In one week, even with
a major breakdown,
Todd and Dave have pulled 46 ounces
of gold,
worth around $70,000,
out of Indian River.
That's fricking awesome, Todd.
Sweet, man.
If we keep working like this, we can
do it. Definitely.
We got a shot at this, guys.
This merger hasn't been easy, but
I think it was the right move, OK?
We just got 46 fricking ounces
on top dirt.
1,000 ounces are within reach.
Let's fricking jump
on 1, 000 ounces' back and kill it.
Who's with me? I'm in.
I'm with you, Todd. Yeah.
Let's do it.
You know, I took a risk, gambled,
and it's... it's working,
but can 12 guys hold it together
long enough to accomplish, you know,
something that's literally
almost out of reach?
I don't know. I believe we can.
subtitles by Deluxe
Here we go. In the gold fields
of North America...
Let's get it on, baby!
..four crews of miners
are out to strike it rich.
I'm seeing gold.
Todd Hoffman has two teams split
across two claims.
I knew we're on the gold down there.
..in pursuit of a million-dollar
mining season.
Well, things are going our way.
At Quartz Creek,
with the trommel out of action,
Todd makes a gut-wrenching decision.
I'm gonna shut down Quartz Creek.
Shut her down.
And at the Indian River claim...
That's the piece of crap
that's shut us down.
..Mitch attempts to fix
the wash plant
by using Jack's beloved
400 excavator.
We could, you know, blow the seals
out in the motor on this.
At Porcupine Creek in Alaska,
just as their season
starts looking up...
Oh, (BLEEP).
..the Dakota boys
are out of business, again.
Shut it off.
And at Big Nugget...
We need to find dirt that gets
a lot better than this.
..Parker Schnabel's search for gold
pushes him to the edge
of a 100-metre cliff.
(BLEEP)
It's 106 days into the Klondike's
150-day mining season.
At Quartz Creek, Todd Hoffman
has abandoned his trommel.
The mine is at a standstill.
Todd has called an emergency meeting
with the crews from Indian
River and Quartz Creek.
I want to update everybody,
including Indian River.
If you look at our operation,
it didn't go any...
anywhere near how
we expected it to go, so...
And a lot of that fault
just goes right on my head.
The investor wants me to start
giving guys their pink slip
and send them home.
I can blame it on this,
that and the other,
but in the end it's...
it's my fault.
My team has been awesome,
every single guy,
and worked hard through a lot of
crap.
And so, just want to tell you,
you guys at Quartz Creek,
thanks, you know?
But, guys, Indian River's gold count
is carrying us.
So...
I'm gonna shut down Quartz Creek.
At the beginning of the season,
the Hoffman crew split
into two competing teams.
It's gonna get the most gold this
year. It's the best team around.
Dave Turin took the lead
on the Indian River claim,
leaving Todd
in charge of Quartz Creek.
I'm gonna ruffle some feathers
this year.
Gonna be my way or the highway.
Unable to get his turbo trommel
working properly...
Oh, you are fricking kidding me.
..Todd and his crew have produced
just seven ounces of gold
so far this season.
It's gonna be turned off
for the season. I'm really sorry.
But Dave's crew
has had great success,
producing 223 ounces of gold...
Nice job!
..worth around $350,000.
That's a lot of money.
I'm pretty proud of this, Jack.
Disappointed with Todd's results,
their investor Jason Otteson
threatened to pull the plug
unless Todd cut costs.
Cut some heads. There's way
too many people here right now.
I am really sorry, guys,
the Quartz Creek guys, you know,
how this turned out.
But we got to pick one operation
and Indian River
is the most efficient operation
and that's the best chance we're
gonna get to 1,000 ounces.
But here's the deal.
To push Indian River
from 500 to 1,000,
we got to open up a lot more ground.
We can get the 1,000 ounces
if we all work at one plant.
Now we got to throw all the horses
behind one plant, that's Indian.
I'm not gonna send anybody home.
It's a high-risk strategy,
but this is what it'll take
to save our 1,000-ounce season.
Your thoughts?
I know my team,
Greg, Chris, Freddie and I,
we're pretty proud
of what we've accomplished.
This is not gonna be easy.
This could just completely unravel
and fall apart.
The question is,
can we mesh this thing together
without ripping apart?
We can do it. We can get 1,000
ounces and do it right.
Can you hold all this together?
I'll do my best.
Can we come together
to get the 1,000 ounces?
Because if we don't, this is it.
This is the last year
and away we go.
Back to our old lives.
You want to do that?
Hell no, I don't want to go back to
my old life. Well, I don't either.
You guys with me? ALL: Yeah.
Let's do it. Let's do it. Dad,
will you throw a prayer up for us?
Heavenly Father, give us the
strength to get that 1,000 ounces.
If we don't work together,
we are gonna be divided,
and if we are divided
we are gonna fall.
Amen. ALL: Amen.
I have done the math.
We can do this.
There is a chance of getting
1,000 ounces.
Just get it ready to go.
We're gonna move all the equipment
down to Indian.
It's kind of a bummer
we got to leave it.
At this point in time, we got to do
what we got to do to survive.
Whoo!
Well now we're getting somewhere.
With two excavators,
two rock trucks and a dozer,
Todd's crew makes the journey
from Quartz Creek to Indian River.
They now have double the manpower
and double the machinery
to work their best ground.
The crews will have to put aside
their differences
and work together to hit
their 1,000-ounce goal.
I have to sacrifice what our team
has accomplished together.
We're gonna put that aside,
and now it's a new day.
We've got to move forward with
a new team and join forces.
Can we do it? It's a long shot, but
I'm willing to take the gamble.
South at Porcupine Creek...
"Dakota" Fred and his team are
digging gold-rich grey material.
Whoo! We're digging gold now, baby.
Large river-washed boulders are
a sign that they are on the gold.
Fred, every pan I do of this grey
material is producing five to six
specks.
I like it. Me too.
I just know this is gonna be good.
If you could ever get to the bottom
of the grey layer,
you would never have to work again
in your life.
Dig, Fred, dig. I'm a-digging.
After a season of nonstop
breakdowns...
Oh, crap.
..last week, Fred bit the bullet
and invested in new equipment.
Whoa!(LAUGHING)
And immediately, the decision paid
off with a $20,000 cleanout.
That's a lot of gold for us.
They're now processing the best
paydirt they've seen all season.
Oh, nice grey boulders.
(LAUGHS) I like it.
Might be a good day at the sluice
box next, next time we clean out.
I got a ton of rocks here
I got to get out.
Y'all been shoving them rocks
over the top all the time.
Those rocks are huge right now.
Gonna break my damn derocker.
That's gonna be some gold in there.
Fred's getting a little too excited
and giving me huge rocks that
shouldn't go through this machine.
It could cause a huge problem,
but there's gold.
There's good gold
on these huge boulders.
Melody, stand clear.
Slow and easy so it doesn't hit
the spray bar.
Here she comes.
Oh (BLEEP).
(BLEEP)
(BLEEP) Fred, you gotta
come see this. Come back?
The tyre deck is on the ground,
exposing every damn tyre.
Shut it off.
Shut it down.
Oh (BLEEP).
This is what looks like it broke.
At Porcupine Creek,
a massive boulder
has just destroyed the Dakota boys'
derocker.
Well, let's see.
There's three, four, five,
maybe six areas that broke off,
and I can't tell which is the top.
Do you know? This is the top.
It's got the metal. Down there?
Yeah, the metal's still here.
OK. All right,
the weld's broke on it.
Oh (BLEEP).
(SIGHS)
The derocker washes the gold
from the rocks on a moving deck
that is rocked back and forth
by three pairs of wheels.
A series of welds holds
the top of the deck in place.
But a massive boulder
has snapped the welds,
causing the heavyweight deck
to crash to the ground.
(FRED SIGHS) It is a disaster.
If the machines are down,
we're not running.
That's all there is to it.
As soon as you think
you could even halfway run,
something else breaks on you.
It's like last year all over again.
Just another breakdown.
Damn it!
Across the creek
at the Big Nugget Mine,
Parker Schnabel is waiting for the
results of a four-day run
of Emerson trench paydirt.
His grandfather John
pays him a visit.
Hi. I see you're getting more dirt
out of the hole?
There's nothing in it, though.
Not a thing, huh?
Not much.
You came over this way
and it didn't improve, huh?
We're on bedrock on this side.
You come in...
We can't go down on this side
because that's bedrock.
I'm surprised you're on bedrock,
but you are.
Every time I got to bedrock I took a
fire hose and cleaned it down or...
Yeah, but every time you got
to bedrock you got gold.
Yeah. (LAUGHS)
Parker has been chasing good ground
all season.
We just don't have
any ground to dig.
He set his hopes on Smith Creek,
but drill tests showed that the
bedrock there is too deep to mine.
88 feet to bedrock. No gold.
Parker's only hope is Emerson trench,
but last week a test pan down
at bedrock showed no gold.
I'm not seeing any colours at all.
I don't know what to say.
Parker has now run 2,000 yards
of bedrock dirt
to find out once and for all if
Emerson trench can save the mine.
Hey, buddy, it's all cleaned up.
All the way down to the micron gold.
Parker needs five ounces of gold
just to cover his running costs
for the last four days.
It looks like... it looks like we're
at about 2.3 ounces of gold.
Not great. Um...
Yeah, not very good.
That certainly does not cover
the expenses of the mine.
What? You know, we've been running
bad material. What the (BLEEP)?
Emerson trench just doesn't hold
enough gold.
That was an awful lot of work
for 2.3 ounces of gold.
That's not good enough,
and we need more.
We really do need
to find some better dirt.
Our costs are... 2,000 bucks a day,
and we need 190 ounces
just to break even,
so we need to find dirt
that gets a lot better than this.
Desperate for answers,
Parker turns to Gary Groggin,
a six year Big Nugget veteran.
If this is the way our season ends,
we're gonna be in big trouble.
Do you know any other ground
that's easily accessible?
Not that's easily accessible.
Have you considered doing
the Discovery claim?
There could be good paydirt there.
Try to work out a lease deal
to run it.
All right, well, I'll go up there
and take a look at it.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Took you by...
We need some ground somewhere.
Right.
The Discovery claim is three
kilometres uphill from Big Nugget.
Back in 1898, miners pulled 100
ounces a day from the claim,
using just a basic
wooden sluice box.
That's around $160,000 a day in gold
at today's prices.
This claim that we're going
to look at
is the original Discovery claim
on Porcupine Creek,
and it's, you know, the one
that was mined the most.
Probably had the most gold on it,
and it's where it all started,
and there's a lot of history to it.
And there's one little chunk
of untouched ground left on it.
Wow. I mean, right there you can see
that there's river gravels.
Hm. When gold was discovered
on this creek,
this didn't get touched
because their old campsite sat here,
on, you know, good paydirt,
and they mined everything around it.
But they never finished up, they...
So they left, you know, a nice
little chunk of ground here
and we need it.
I'm gonna go talk
to the owner of this ground
and see if I can't
make a deal for it.
The last time I talked to him he did
call my grandfather a (BLEEP),
so that kind of has me turned off
to working with him.
He doesn't like the cameras, he
doesn't want to be a part of that,
so I'm gonna go up alone
and I'd appreciate it
if you guys would stay here
and actually listen to me for once.
We don't have any (BLEEP) ground.
If we don't get this,
we might as well go home.
North in the Klondike,
Todd Hoffman has shut down
his Quartz Creek claim.
His crew has joined forces with
Dave Turin's men at Indian River.
That sluice box
has to run all the time.
That's our main goal right now,
boys.
We need truck drivers
and dozer operators.
I know everybody here can operate
and it's everybody in, OK?
Hey, we had to eat our pride a
little bit up there,
but we've got one chance
to get to 1,000 ounces,
and that's coming together, circling
the wagon right here round this
plant.
Dave, all of that falls on your
shoulders,
but we got the manpower,
we got equipment.
We got a great team assembled.
We started out competing against
each other,
now we've gotta join forces.
I thought we'd do 500 ounces
through this wash plant
and now we're asking it to do 1,000.
That's a huge goal.
We still got it.
We still got a chance, guys.
All season, Indian River's wash plant
has been the key to their success.
Team Turin got the best plant
in the Klondike.
It's chewed through 38,000 yards of
paydirt from their first cut.
And we'll walk away
with a couple hundred ounces.
And with the cut finished,
Dave raced to get pay gravel in a
second cut they call the Upper Bench.
I'm on it, finally.
This is the reason we gold mine.
Now, to keep their dream
of a 1,000-ounce season alive,
the combined crews have
to open up twice as much ground
and push double the pay dirt
through the wash plant.
There you go, the first seven yards
of a new beginning right there.
With the wash plant eating through
140 yards of paydirt an hour,
Andy, Mitch and Walt...
Right on!
..get busy ripping
and stripping new ground.
Hey, Chris, lots of gold in this
stuff coming off Bench cut.
Coming at you, buddy.
You throw it, I'll catch it, man.
This site has to go real big now,
and that's what we're doing.
We've got three dump trucks,
two excavators and a dozer,
so we're getting after it.
Yeah, it feels really good to
finally be producing some gold.
As long as we get this dirt moved.
'Yeah, Dave, we'll get a heck of a
lot more done joining forces.'
This is really good gold right here.
(SQUEALING)
What the heck was that?
Shut her down!
Dave!
Suddenly the feed conveyor
grinds to a halt.
There's hydraulic oil everywhere.
I got to figure out
where it's coming from.
This conveyor's
hydraulically operated.
The pump pumps oil to the motors,
the motor turns this belt
and makes it go.
If we've blown a seal
in the hydraulic pump,
then we're in trouble.
These, these are crucial days now.
We're on the best paydirt that we've
ever seen and we have a breakdown.
Not good news.
That's the piece of crap
that's shut us down.
Right in there there's a seal that
needs to be around that shaft
and it's not sealing off the oil.
This is bad,
this has... shut us down.
Until they can get
a replacement pump,
the entire Hoffman operation
is at a standstill.
We're not gonna fire up again?
No, we're done.
Which is really gonna (BLEEP) us.
At the Big Nugget Mine
in southeast Alaska,
Parker has run out of good ground,
but he's persuaded the owner
of the neighbouring Discovery claim
to lease him some promising land.
So, it looks like
we got ourselves a deal.
Parker signed a contract
that gets him ten acres
for a ten per cent cut of the gold.
I think that that
is all gonna be pretty good dirt.
You know, bedrock's nice and close,
and then...
that should be all good
paydirt for about 50 yards back.
It isn't too far fetched for,
you know,
every load of dirt that I'm bringing
out to be worth 500 bucks.
Even if I only do 20 loads in a day,
that's not too bad a money.
So getting the paydirt
isn't gonna be a problem.
The real problem
is getting it to the plant.
The road's barely wide enough
for a truck.
If we're gonna be hauling dirt
down it, it concerns me.
We'll only have like one foot
of extra width
on that whole chunk
of road right there.
This is the bad part.
Nothing down there
is gonna stop a rock truck
from going the 300 feet straight
down to the river.
To transport Discovery paydirt
to his wash plant,
Parker's only option is a dirt road
that was never designed
to hold a 25-ton rock truck.
Better go do this, then.
Desperate for paydirt, Parker has
no choice but to test the old road.
I'm a little nervous, but
we go where the gold is, right?
If Parker makes
the slightest mistake,
the truck could plunge 100 metres
down to the creek below.
There's no room for error.
The outside of this road's
really soft,
but the biggest concern
is losing a tyre on the inside.
The risk with that is there's
all these chunks of rock.
Because this road, I mean, it was
not designed for dump trucks at all.
I mean, this a little horse trail.
(BLEEP).
(BLEEP). (METAL SQUEALING)
Don't even think about it,
you (BLEEP).
Oh (BLEEP).
(BLEEP)
(BLEEP)
That's not happening.
Parker will need to make this trip
hundreds of times to make serious
money.
But the ten-metre-long truck
can't make the tight turn.
The road from his new claim down
to Big Nugget is just too dangerous.
I want gold, but I don't know
if it's worth dying over.
At Porcupine Creek,
Dakota Fred and his team
have suffered another
major breakdown.
What a damn disappointment.
A massive boulder has crushed
the deck of the derocker,
causing it to crash
to the ground below.
Well, we're going to attempt
to put this deck on,
and so I'm gonna get in the loader
and be on the lower end
while Fred brings it on up,
and Dustin's gonna be in between
trying to chain it up,
so we can drag it back on
and get back to mining.
Putting the derocker back together,
you're working with heavy steel.
If it comes loose, something goes
wrong or a chain pops,
things are gonna just get wrecked.
Fred plans to lift the deck above
the derocker using the excavator
while down below,
the loader will pull it into place.
Once in position,
Fred will attempt to weld the deck
back onto the top of the derocker.
It weighs about 10,000 pounds.
That's a pretty heavy lift
for our little excavator.
If the bucket can't hold
the weight of the deck,
Dustin could be crushed.
Got a lot of weight hanging up
there.
Hurry up. Come on now.
Watch that hook.
Dustin, step back.
'All right, Melody, back it up.'
Back up. Tell her to back up!
(BEEPING)
Hold on, Dustin.
Come... Hold up. Stop.
(CLUNK)
'Stand by. Stand by. Stand by.
'Everybody stand by.
'All right, Melody,
really slow, try to come back.
'Don't try to jerk it real hard.
'Try to do it real slow and gentle.
'Slow and steady.'
There you go. You got it.
'Everybody stop.
'Fred, I need you to pull it back up
a little bit.
'Melody, I need you
to come off of it.
'Come on down.
Down, down, perfect, beautiful.
'Almost there.
Oh, that's it right there.'
Beautiful. Worked perfectly.
Just can't wait to see that thing
in operation again, yeah.
We'll see how it goes.
As soon as he gets it welded
back in place, we're back.
And that, folks,
one welded out deck.
All right, let's go turn it on
and see if it's gonna work.
So far, so good.
I don't see any problem with it.
Firing up. (ENGINE STARTS)
The derocker is running,
but the only way to test the fix
is to hit it with more boulders.
Take it easy, Mel.
Doing great.
It's working! I love it!
Yeah, Fred. Awesome job.
Hey, that thing's
working nice up there now.
Plenty nice.
We're getting really good
at fixing broken stuff.
Got everything back together
in one day.
At Indian River,
the two Hoffman crews
are down to just one wash plant,
but it's blown a hydraulic pump
and no one is producing any gold.
We have issues
and we need to figure it out.
We need to figure it out quick.
I am out of time.
Mechanic Mitch Blaschke
is under tremendous pressure.
We've got a new improved pump
on the way up,
but unfortunately it's anywhere
from three days to three weeks out
by the time it gets here, so we
can't afford any down time.
I've got an idea to get this thing
back up and running.
Pretty good chance it won't work,
but there's a small chance
that it will.
Just gonna bring down Jack's old 400
and try and use the hydraulic system
off it to run this feeder.
I'll either look an idiot,
this'll be a real bad idea,
and people will laugh at me,
but if it works, it works, you know?
So I'm gonna give it a try.
Jack has had his 400 excavator
since the Hoffmans'
first mining season.
It's probably most important piece
of equipment.
It's his pride and joy.
There's no ways I'd leave this 400.
Now Mitch plans
to cannibalize it for parts.
Yeah, I got to be careful
with Jack's baby here.
I don't want to do anything
to damage it.
He'll come down here
and probably kill me.
All right, so...
I just hope I got all the right
fittings to make this work.
I'm gonna disconnect these lines
that run the thumb right here,
hook it up to our plant.
It's kind of like doing
a blood transfusion.
The 400's hydraulic pump
controls its thumb.
Mitch's plan is to connect the
excavator's hydraulic hoses
to the wash plant.
If he can get
the hydraulic pressure right,
he'll get the feed conveyor
running again.
It's an ingenious fix - if it works.
So that should be my power.
This is the pressure line
in from our pump.
What I'm gonna do is put it to the
pressure side on that thumb circuit.
Now the 400 is gonna pump its fluid
out through the motor on this,
which should run the conveyor.
How's it going? You know,
if the pressures aren't right,
we could, you know, blow the seals
out the motor on this.
Keep our fingers crossed
that doesn't happen.
It's a risk I think we have to take.
You know, right now, we're not
producing any gold.
We've got cut one finished,
we've got the Bench cut ready to go.
We can't even run material
right now.
Let's see what happens.
This is the moment of truth.
Cross our fingers, you know?
If it doesn't work, cut the wire.
Fire in the hole.
The motor on the feed conveyor
only requires a pressure of
2,000 pounds per square inch.
But the excavator's hydraulic system
is capable of producing 3,200.
If Mitch gets the pressure wrong, it
could blow the system on the feeder,
putting them out of action for weeks.
Not what I was hoping for.
This might take some tuning.
Just trying to bring
the pressure up.
We're right at 1,000 pounds.
(METAL SQUEALING)
(ENGINE STOPS)
It's running.
Yeah! Hey, Greg, it's working!
Nice job, man.
Best piece of hillbilly engineering
you might ever see.
It's pretty cool,
and it's working right now.
I feel really good about it.
Kind of a different way to run your
hopper, but you know what?
Indian River's back running.
Indian River is processing paydirt
once again.
Mitch's ingenuity has kept their
dream of a million-dollar season
alive.
Man, I tell you, Mitch pulled
some real magic on this deal.
It's just humming right along.
Feeder's running. It actually gives
us an extra week of sluicing.
We don't get that pump for another
week, but we're still running.
At the Big Nugget Mine,
Parker Schnabel has called in
his father Roger
to help him widen the dirt road
up to his new Discovery claim.
Until he can safely get his rock
truck up the road, he can't get gold.
Um, so what we're trying to do
is, like, widen this road.
So you want to take all those trees
out and widen that whole thing. OK,
no sweat.
Before they can start
on the old dirt road,
they have to clear the way.
My dad started out logging
out of college,
and so he's cut down a lot of trees.
Pretty experienced with ones
that are tight spots and whatnot.
I'm hitting all this
rotten interior.
With a real rotten log,
you don't know how it'll fall.
I'm having some nervousness about
that one tree in particular.
I need to put it in a direction I
think it'll fall, so it's safer.
I don't want to make an undercut and
have it fall the opposite way.
Parker, what do you think?
Or we could just blow the thing up?
I'm not blowing any trees up,
Parker.
Dad, get out of there!
(BOTH LAUGH) Some good excitement
for the day.
Finally, Parker can start digging
into the hillside.
I've got to widen this road, I mean,
these corners are just suicide.
Ah! We made it.
Next step is to get a truck up here
and start getting dirt to the plant,
hopefully.
I've got no mirror on this side.
Parker reaches the corner
that stopped him on his first attempt
in the rock truck.
It's wider now, but still dangerous.
If his back tyres slip,
it's a 100-metre drop
down to Porcupine Creek.
Think we made it.
Ha-ha! We're in business.
Parker finally has access
to good quality paydirt.
I'm pretty happy with
the decision to come up here.
It should be good paydirt,
hopefully.
I think it might push it up over
our break even
and it'll give us a good cushion
as for time.
At Indian River, Mitch has
commandeered Jack's 400 excavator
to keep their wash plant running.
But no one told Jack.
I'm looking for the 400.
Disappeared. I thought Todd might
have done something stupid like sold
it?
What's going on, Mitch?
We kind of had to borrow the 400.
Well, I know the 400's your baby,
but right now it's saving the day
down here at Indian River.
It's the heartbeat right now
of this whole hopper,
and, without that running, the whole
plant's shut down, so. Yeah.
If it was anybody but you,
Mitch, I'd be pissed off.
At Porcupine Creek,
with their derocker fixed,
the Dakota boys and Melody have now
run gold-rich material for 25 hours.
The cinch thing for the cable ties?
We're hoping for a really good
cleanout.
It's been a long haul.
That stuff's hard.
It is. Turns into, like, concrete.
Look up here.
Is that what I think it is
down here?
That is a big flake of gold.
Yeah.
Holy cow, we blew out some gold.
Why is the gold making it this far
down there?
Should never make it down here.
Never. Look at this.
It really set up, Fred.
It... it actually set up.
I mean, I can't get it out.
Riffles are designed
to capture the gold
as it washes down
through the sluice box.
The grey material they have run
is so fine,
it's clogged the riffles
and set like concrete.
Fred and Dustin may have washed away
thousands of dollars of gold
out the end of the sluice box.
They're too hard, Fred.
I think we messed up so bad on this.
We just had disaster after disaster.
I really have high hopes for this,
but I kind of feel
like we just blew it all out.
It's the worst fricking trommel
cleanout I've ever done.
This is potentially
a very big cleanup
and we're not gonna miss anything
out of it,
so we're gonna take
a little extra time.
It's a war against dirt.
Dakota Fred's running costs
for the season are $150,000,
around 93 ounces of gold.
He only has 75 ounces so far.
Fred needs a massive 18 ounces
of gold from this one cleanout
just to break even.
Let's just weigh that thing up
and find out what we've got.
Nine, ten, 12.
Hey Dustin, Melody,
y'all come over here.
What's up? I know y'all
just got off your machines.
Y'all saw the last cleanup? He's
hiding it. Is that the weigh in?
Yeah. You're looking
at 28.4 ounces. 28?
That's our biggest cleanup yet.
Absolutely. Wow.
I'm sorry to interrupt you.
You said 28? 28.4.
Whoa! Hold that real careful.
That is heavy, huh? Oh, it is!
That's incredible. In a week.
Hey $45,000 worth of gold,
right there.
That's way more than I thought
it was gonna be.
You know what this is for?
(CLANG)
100. Yes!
They now have 104 ounces
for the season,
worth around $160,000.
They have finally broken even.
The rest of the gold they get
is all profit.
28 ounces in one cleanout,
that's a new record for us
and extremely encouraging.
God, that's amazing actually!
If we can just keep this going
for a couple more weeks,
we'll definitely meet our goal
of doubling last year.
Whoa! See this?
Oh, my God. I've never seen
the riffles like this.
At Indian River, the Hoffman crew
lost two days of sluicing
due to a wash plant breakdown,
but thanks to Mitch's ingenuity,
they've still managed to run 4,000
yards of paydirt this week.
It's time for their first cleanout
since Todd combined the Quartz Creek
and Indian River crews.
We're all chomping at the bit
to see what our results are.
You know, Logan, Sterling, we've all
been working really hard up here.
It's about time we see
a really good cleanup
and everybody's faces get to shine
on this one, you know?
Here comes Jack.
Jack.
Here we go, buddy.
Jack with one hand behind his back.
Yeah.
Uh... I'll tell you what, it...
I'm pleasantly surprised.
Good. Thank God.
Yeah, you guys did really
a good job.
There's 46 ounces. (CLAPPING)
(CHEERING) That's great! Nice!
This will be our first cleanup
together, guys.
It's pretty awesome.
Todd's merger is working.
In one week, even with
a major breakdown,
Todd and Dave have pulled 46 ounces
of gold,
worth around $70,000,
out of Indian River.
That's fricking awesome, Todd.
Sweet, man.
If we keep working like this, we can
do it. Definitely.
We got a shot at this, guys.
This merger hasn't been easy, but
I think it was the right move, OK?
We just got 46 fricking ounces
on top dirt.
1,000 ounces are within reach.
Let's fricking jump
on 1, 000 ounces' back and kill it.
Who's with me? I'm in.
I'm with you, Todd. Yeah.
Let's do it.
You know, I took a risk, gambled,
and it's... it's working,
but can 12 guys hold it together
long enough to accomplish, you know,
something that's literally
almost out of reach?
I don't know. I believe we can.
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