Gold Rush: Alaska (2010–…): Season 7, Episode 2 - Eye in the Sky - full transcript

Narrator: On this "gold
rush"...

What would grandpa say
if he saw this, huh?

He'd be pretty proud
of you, kid.

Parker: Running a new plant
is always a little stressful.

How come there's
no [bleep] water?

We need to start
producing some gold.

We've got work to do.

We're gettin' our ass
kicked pretty good up here.

Everybody's reputation's
on the line on this hill.

Todd: This is real fuel
we're burning.

These are real salaries
we gotta pay.



-Where is it? Where is the
gold?
-I don't know.

-Hammer time.
-This is your call, todd.

Whew.

Monica: So what, it's a flying
dutchman now?

This is
spectacularly [bleep].

I don't know what
tony was thinking.

No one can push your buttons
like family can.

captions paid for by
discovery communications

we're working 12-plus hour
days.

And the bummer part of it all
is
we're not getting gold.

Narrator:
At the high bar mine,

kevin hiatt
feeds pay into the plant.

I have mouths back home to
feed.
I have a pregnant wife.

And right now, there's
no paycheck waiting for me.



Narrator: Todd hoffman has
moved
his entire mining operation

from the klondike
2,000 miles south

to the blue mountains
of oregon.

For over 100 years,

people have tried and failed

to mine the legendary
nuggets at the high bar.

Last year,
the hoffman crew's scout

revealed game-changing
gold nuggets.

Look at that one.

That's one of the best
nuggets I've ever seen.

Todd was inspired to go

for his highest
ever season gold.

I want 5,000 ounces.

I wanna see a miracle
on this mountain.

Narrator: But their first week

produced
a disappointing 38 ounces,

just 15% of what
they need each week

to hit todd's goal.

We're getting our ass
kicked pretty good up here.

This isn't turning out
like I dreamed.

This isn't, you know,
the bill of goods

that we were sold up here.

This is real fuel
we're burning.

These are real salaries
we gotta pay.

Hopefully this thing
can turn around.

But right now,
it's not going good.

Narrator: Claim owners
william and jarrod wirth

are also feeling the pressure.

We know this place.
We know there's good gold
here.

But it comes in strings
of good days and bad days.

And we got off
to a pretty bad start.

And the whole hoffman crew
right now is really
discouraged.

Narrator:
With the stakes so high,

down in the gold shack,
jack hoffman

is doing an early cleanup
after 3 more days of running.

Oh, my gosh.

After running 4,500 yards,

I would expect a whole lot
more.

That's not worth running.
I can do that in my backyard.

Narrator: To stay on target,

they need this cleanup
to be around 125 ounces.

What do you got?

12.35.

Oh.

Narrator:
Worth less than $15,000.

12.35.

[ groans ]
big deal, you know.

I mean, to do a cleanup
for 12.35, it's --

it's hardly worth doing.

I mean, seriously,
that is terrible.

So much for 5,000 ounces,
guys.

We'll be damn lucky if we can
pull out 1,000 this year.

Guys, this ain't even
covering our fuel.

It'd be nice
if we could get the --

if we could get
the cameras outta here.

You and you, out.

Get out.

Out, out, out.
Shut the door.

So here's the deal.

Last year we tested.
We were at $20 plus a yard.

And here we are at 4 bucks
a yard.

I am pissed off.

We must have hit
a couple good spots

when we were prospecting.

And now we've missed 'em.
I don't get it. Where is it?

Where is the gold?
I don't know.

How 'bout the wirth boys?
They got any idea?

They mined it.

Yeah, but they just mined this
one little section up here.

And maybe that's where
all the gold was.

I don't know.
Well, let's get freddy.

We've still got a lot
of ground that's untested.

Let's get him out there,
get his nose to the ground,

find that gold.

I'm gonna go talk
to william and jarrod.

How's it goin'?

Well, not good, man.

We got another bad cleanup.
It's really bad.

To be honest with you,
I'm feelin' sick inside.

We need to get that gold.
I'm losin' money.

And this ain't going
like we were hoping.

You're not gettin' gold,

we're not gettin' gold,
the bottom line.

-Right.
-I mean, I can't stress
enough.

When we were up here mining,

you know, those results
that we had were real.

Well, here's the deal though.
I can't sit here

and lose my ass all summer.
We're in the same boat, man.

If you're not making money,
we're not making money.

We're both losing
our asses.

I'm not gonna throw
in the towel yet.

But at some point,

we gotta see some
frickin' gold, you know?

[ motor cranking, turns over ]

let's go dredging again.

Here's what makes the money.

Narrator: At eureka creek,

tony beets is
testing son kevin

by putting him
in charge this season.

It feels good to be back here.

Oh, this is nice.

Narrator:
Kevin pulled in a massive

258-ounce cleanup last week,

worth $310,000.

And tony finally paid off
his million-dollar dredge.

Gonna drop my bucket line
down to a about level.

And off we go.

All profits will now
go towards a second dredge.

-Not too bad. What's up?
-What's up?

-Yeah.
-Yeah.

Yeah?

I'd complain,
but you wouldn't listen.

Narrator: Tony's plan --
level out the old dredge

tailings to build
a 1,500-foot landing strip

in the next 2 days.

Narrator: Tony pulls kevin off
the dredge,

and monica away
from stripping overburden.

You know, you think you're
doing everything okay,

and then he comes in and
decides
to change the plan on you.

It's just, you know,
a pain in the ass.

It's frustrating is what it
is,
having to sit here

and do these random jobs

when there's other things
I'd rather be doing.

There's a lot of things
I'd wanna go [bleep] do,

pretty much anything but this.

Narrator: Rather than
haul the logs away,

tony orders the rock trucks

to dump logs straight
into the pond.

Tony is like
a natural disaster.

You don't tell a hurricane
to [bleep] off.

You just weather it.

Then once it's done,
you get back to life as
normal.

By the time jason starts
the night shift,

tony's logs have drifted
in front of the dredge.

Jason: Starting to get
a little bit darker here.

And, uh, we got a lot
of logs here floatin' out

in front of us.

You know, we gotta
really pay attention

to whether or not we're
catching
logs instead of rocks.

We got a big mess out there
on the pond right now.

And it's something we've
really gotta keep on top of.

Oh, it's coming.
There it goes.

That's the kinda [bleep]
we gotta watch out for, eh?

-Oh, yeah.
-That stuff plugs up

the trommel and stuff
when it gets wedged in there.

[ bleep ]

seems to be quite a pain
in the ass here tonight.

There's more sticks
coming up here.

[ grinding ]
[ bleep ]

-shut it down.
-Oh, man.

Our season starts now!

Narrator: At scribner creek,
parker's new wash plant

is running pay dirt
for the first time.

The $600,000 one-of-a-kind

is parker's biggest ever
investment in his future

and his vision
of the perfect plant.

With it, he plans to mine
3,000 ounces this season.

Parker: This plant's a big
investment for us.

You know, we've sunk
all our savings into it.

Uh, it should be
a real good, efficient machine

and should help us, uh, should
help us catch a lot more gold.

That side has a lot
more water, huh?

-What's --
-look at all that water.

Oh, [bleep].

Parker: There's one big,
big, big problem.

That's just too much
water right now.

So we have no water here,

and we've got tons
of water up here.

Houston, we have a problem.

Narrator: Just 5 minutes in,

water is bursting
over the sluice runs,

taking gold with it.

Parker: Probably have him
shut it down, huh?

Yeah, shut it down.

Tyson!

[ power stops ]

this is a little depressing.

-Gettin' antsy?
-I'm gettin' not antsy.

I'm gettin' scared.
I care about the gold.

I care if we're losin' it.

You know,
everything looked great

on this plant
when it pulled into the yard.

But you never know
till you start runnin' it.

Really, that whole diverter
system on each side [bleep].

How much can we tune
where the water goes?

We can't.

I think that's back
to the drawing boards.

Yeah.

We've sunk a mountain of money
into this wash plant,

and, you know, we should be
able to crank it up

and just start runnin' dirt.

So I'm not real happy
about having to, uh,

shut down and work on it
first thing.

I hope that this is
the only problem

and not the first of many.

Mitch: Not exactly what you
wanna have to do,

you know, is start welding
parts
on your brand-new wash plant.

We're just gonna try and
divide
the top end of our sluice box

here to try and, uh,

even out our water flow
a little bit.

Narrator: Every minute,
3,300 gallons of water

and gold-rich material pass
through the plant

into two diverter boxes.

The diverters
should distribute

the material evenly
into the sluice runs below.

But the water is
flowing down so fast,

it's building up in the corner
of the sluice runs,

causing the diverter box
above to overflow.

Mitch's plan --
add partition plates

at the start of each sluice
run
to even out the flow.

We're just, uh, getting
these plates welded in.

So what's gonna happen
is as the water's

coming out of diversion
shoots,

it'll hit this and then get
redirected down the sluice run

instead of it all sliding
over to this far side.

We're also adding a piece
of old conveyor belt here

that's just gonna
hopefully help, uh,

any material
that's splashing around

stay inside the sluice runs

instead of ending up
on the ground.

You wanna latch this diverter?

Well, let's turn the water on,
see how this works.

Parker: Fire it up!

[ whirring ]
firin' it up.

Here it comes.

Parker: I thought this would
be
a great design,

but I'm not real
impressed with it.

Mitch: That's much better.
We've got a nice,

even distribution
of our water now.

Looks 100 times better.

Well, we opened
it up quite a bit.

Getting this backboard
on here should definitely help

keep it inside the runs and...
Right on.

Should we have tyson
throw some dirt at it?

Yeah.

[ whirring ]

this thing got
built in the city.

They hauled it out here
to the country and...

Yeah.
We had to redneck it up a bit.

[ laughing ]

time to get some gold.

All the [bleep] that
they're dumping has trees in
it.

Trees plus dredge is not

a good [bleep]
combination, clearly.

Narrator: At eureka creek,
the dredge is shut down.

In his guerrilla attempt
to build a runway,

tony beets has dumped logs
into the sluice pond

that are clogging up
the bucket line.

There's a 6-foot chunk
just lined up right now.

Hey, you, uh, wanna gimme
a hand with this one?

[ grunting ]

honestly, I don't know
what tony was thinking.

I do know it [bleep]
me up though.

Can't [bleep] dredge with
that.

Narrator:
As the new dredge master,

kevin should be mining.

But tony's mistake
has cost him 7 hours running.

And we're back to dredging.

Narrator: But the pond is
still full of debris.

Uh, tony has yet
to come to a realization

that if he gives us a job,
we'll do the job.

But he just likes
to meddle too much.

[ thud ]

we got some logs
jammed in the...

I'm gonna start losin'
my cool here real quick.

[ grinding, clattering ]

[bleep] line keeps
slipping back.

Ah, [bleep].

Shut her off.

[ power stops ]

I wonder if they didn't
[bleep]
come off entirely.

It is way over
that spool there.

This is, uh,
spectacularly [bleep] up.

Narrator: The bucket line
is normally held in place

by a large spool.

But a log that got caught

under the line
has forced it off.

She's jammed in real good
from the looks of it.

She's bent
pretty [bleep] good.

I'm gonna call on
my professional, mike.

Mike, do you copy?
Yeah?

We got some great news for ya.

It involves the bucket line.

[ bleep ] okay.

So just gonna walk
over there and pop it back on.

[ grinding ]

tell me when you want me
to back it off.

Yeah, I'll let you know.

[ thud ]

narrator: The bucket line
weighs 24 tons.

If one of the pins
in the chain breaks,

it could put the dredge
out of action for days,

pushing kevin's season
even further behind.

[ clicks ]
whoa!

Kevin: He's caught.
What's he caught up on?

Kev, drop your bucket ladder.

[ whirring ]

I don't like this.

[ thud ]

narrator:
Kevin has called tony down

to see the log problem
for himself.

Yeah, don't move anything.

Steady now!

There you go.
Back in action.

Ladies and gentlemen,
we are dredging once again.

Okay.

Narrator: Tony's meddling
and makeshift runway

has cost kevin
a shift and a half.

That's around $20,000
in lost gold.

Trees.
Yeah.

With all those big sticks,

we'd be watching
the bucket line,

about every 5 minutes,
have to stop and move
something.

Yeah.

He realized he [bleep] up.

So one of these years,
maybe it'll click for him

that if he backs off,

stops meddling in everything
we try to do,

then he can, you know,
just stay home on the couch.

But until then, he's probably
gonna be flying in,

flying out, raising hell,
then leaving.

257 yards an hour.

I mean, it's just massive.

The only thing
missing is gold.

Narrator: Parker's efficient
new wash plant

runs dirt twice as fast
as last season.

And he's cut back on crew.

So everyone's in
the boundary cut,

trying to keep it fed

even his new girlfriend.

Australian veterinary nurse
ashley yule is pitching in

and hauling pay.

How's ashley doin'?

Good.
Super trucker.

'cause they've got such
a small team, um,

parker came and asked me

to see if I can help out
and drive the truck.

She's gonna hate my guts
by the end of this.

Hey, babe, I've got real --
somethin' real fun

for you to do --
a haul truck.

Oh, you wanna come to
the yukon for an adventure?

Here, do this 800 times.

[ laughs ]
a week.

Parker doesn't give me
any slack being his
girlfriend.

When we're working,
he just treats me

like another crew member.

I like it that way.

We've --
we've got [bleep] to do.

Parker: I was a little worried
about her being up here

just because
I am a grumpy [bleep].

And, uh, I did make the
mistake
of telling her

I generally don't
like truck drivers.

And I was like, "oh,
you'll love truck driving."

oh, why'd you
and ashley get married?

Oh, she's just such
a good rock truck driver,

gotta put a ring on that.

I'm loving it.

-Hi.
-Howdy.

-How's it going?
-All right.

How's your afternoon,

your wonderful afternoon
in a rock truck?

Great.
It's been great.

No, I've actually
been really enjoying it.

Narrator:
Parker heads over to check

on his custom-designed
wash plant

before the end
of its second shift.

All right. How come there's
no [bleep] water?

I have no idea.

Once again,
there's a major problem.

We have hardly any water.

Oh, [bleep] sake.

Maybe it sucked somethin' up,
um, when we fired it up.

-But, yeah.
-What's the deal here?

I think we need to go
pull the suction out.

Let's run down there

and probably have to
unbolt the hose, pull it off.

Hopefully it's an easy fix.

-I think we found the problem.
-Oh, yeah.

They're in there pretty good.

Narrator:
Rocks are blocking the pump.

So mitch checks the other end
of the suction hose.

You're free
from your cage!

Look, the foot of the cage
is over there.

That's the problem.

The protective cage
which filters out rocks

from the pond has broken
free from the hose.

You know, the cage
was made outta old scrap

that we had kickin' around
in the yard.

Narrator: Jordan welds
the cage back on.

And parker attempts
to tighten the screw fitting

at the end of the hose.

-It's goin' a little bit.
-Oh, yeah!

Look at that.

Money.

[ laughter ]

yeah, parker'd be super good
at the fair

where they've got the two
dudes

and the logs
floatin' out there...

-Log rolling?
-...And you run on 'em.

-Log rolling.
-Yeah.

Somebody with some weight
should do this.

I don't know why
you're lookin' at me.

I'm on a diet.

[ laughs ]

[ thunder rumbles ]

-we're good?
-Yeah.

-Ready to try this again?
-Yeah.

We need to put
some dirt in here.

Fire in the hole!

[ rumbling ]

there's $500,000 or $600,000
in this wash plant,

so we need to start
producing some gold.

Hammer time.

[ hammering ]

narrator: After a
disappointing
12-ounce cleanup,

todd hoffman is desperate

to find good gold at high bar.

He's sent freddy dodge

to prospect the outer
reaches of the claim.

We're just staking it
in areas

where we think
has some potential.

So we'll punch some holes in
it

and see what lives
underneath it.

You know, if anywhere
where we're standing here

is gonna have decent gold --

that's got some...
-Yeah.

Potential.

We aren't supposed
to be prospecting.

We're supposed to be
mining right now.

You always have to do
some prospecting.

But the amount of gold
we've been getting

at the plant isn't cutting it.

So basically it's turned us
from miners into prospectors.

[ bird cries ]

-over there.
-Yeah, those are dredged
daily.

Question is, did they
get all the gold?

Narrator: Fifteen miles east,

dave's investigating
a radical backup plan.

He's brought todd to check out

a separate claim
called the buckland,

owned by the wirth brothers'
uncle, marvin.

Let's give it a shot.
Let's just see what happens.

It's not -- it's not
gonna hurt us anything

to go talk to this guy.

-Marvin.
-How ya doin', man?

-Good.
-So, uh,

you got this claim down here
that's a possibility.

And that's the reason
why we're here, so...

Yeah.

Are you interested
in leasing it?

Yeah. A lease
isn't out of the question.

Todd: Okay.

I mean, I see
the dredge tailings.

It's been dredged.

Yeah, and they got some decent
gold out of it.

The dredge ran basically
the full length

of this spot,
right up till here.

But no one's been in here
seriously since the '20s.

How do we know they
didn't just pick it clean?

I mean, these old guys
were pretty good.

I guess, to put it in
a nutshell, todd, um,

the dredge didn't make it
to the bottom.

I mean, the boulders
are this tall down there.

Wait a minute,
what do you mean, this tall?

I mean, they're that
tall or taller.

How do we know, marvin,

that the dredge couldn't go
through those big rocks?

Come on around here
and I'll show ya something.

This is our
dredge bucket graveyard.

This is what the boulders
did to those.

-Holy frick.
-Look at those dredges.

Look at that, dave.

This is basically evidence
that,
uh, they were chewing on 'em.

I don't see how they could've
got past that boulder layer.

If the boulders did that
to that thick a bucket,

I mean, do you think
we can even handle it?

It's worth a try.

Those weren't
very big machines.

It's old technology.

With our equipment,
we might have a shot.

Tell ya what, dave.
Let's just go walk it.

This is definitely
dredge track, isn't it?

Do you really think
we should tackle this?

Those old dredges
only went 20 feet deep.

Maybe the gold's at 40 feet.

Narrator: Dave's research
shows
that almost 100 years ago,

dredges mined
the buckland claim,

but only reached 20 feet.

The dredge buckets
were unable to penetrate

a layer of large boulders.

And dave believes there are
rich gold deposits

below the dredged areas.

Oh, I don't know what to say.

The high bar,
I thought that we --

we would be knockin' it dead
by now up there.

We're gonna need
some kind of a plan b.

We're placer miners.
That's what we know.

That up there is
a wild goose chase.

You can't tell
where the gold is.

At least we know
the gold is at bedrock here.

This is still a crap chute.

If the gold's in here,
todd, we'll get it out.

I'm willing to take a gamble.

Start digging, dan!

Narrator:
At the high bar mine,

the hoffman crew is
still desperate to find gold.

So freddy dodge has been
forced
to prospect in a valley

on the edge of the claim.

The reason we came in here is

because if that material's
in here,

there's a good chance
it got reconcentrated.

What's a sluice box do?

It concentrates material.

A valley can be
nature's sluice box.

So over tens or hundreds
of thousands of years,

it's a slow
concentration process.

I wanna find where
the bedrock starts.

Yeah.

And then just --
we'll cut us --

I'll trench in and see
what the hell lives in there.

In my mind, if the gold's
on this property,

the best gold should be here.

Hey, dan,
I just wanna look at it.

That feels virgin
to you diggin', doesn't it?

-Oh, it's hard diggin'.
-Yeah.

I mean, if it was tailings,
it'd be a lot looser than
that.

Right.

Narrator: Freddy's looking for
signs of an ancient riverbed.

What do you think?
Does it look like a flow?

From here, it does.

When water flows move rocks,
your rocks'll be flat.

The thicker end'll be
upstream.
It's called shingling.

And they'll lay on each other.

We're looking deep
in a hole right now.

But it looks to me like we
might
have that goin' on in there.

And if that's the case, we've
had some concentration going

where it should be
better gold than up there.

Narrator:
Millions of years ago,

a river carried
these rocks downstream.

The flat rocks settled
on the creek bed,

overlapping each other
in a process called shingling.

Their formation acts like
riffles on a wash plant,

catching gold between them.

Over time, these natural
riffles

could have caught
a large concentration of gold.

Fire it up.

[ motor cranks, starts ]

trey and freddy run
half a yard of dirt

from the new test hole
through his mini trommel.

-First bucket, trey.
-Here we go.

It's be cool, trey, if there
was
even $10 worth of gold in it.

That's 20 bucks a yard.

That beats the hell
outta what's been goin'.

Yeah, absolutely.

Everybody's
reputation's on the line

on this hill, including mine.

If we don't find
somethin' up here,

we're not gonna look good.

Right now I'm excited
and nervous.

I'm excited that
there's a chance

that could be one hell
of a good spot.

And I'm also nervous
I'm gonna look

like an idiot for diggin'
there.

[ clattering ]

see anything, trey?

No, I'm not seeing anything,
fred, not on top.

-Moment of truth, guys.
-Yeah.

We got gold
for a half a yard.

Look at there. Ha ha!

Look at that --
yellow gold.

[ chuckling ]

so far.
Real thing?

[ chuckling ]
yeah.

Nice, trey.

That could be
a serious game changer.

I think we're gonna be
in pretty good shape.

[ men laugh ]

narrator: At scribner creek,

chris doumitt has returned
to the crew late,

just in time for parker's
first cleanup of the season.

You almost gotta think,

"what would grandpa say
if he saw this, huh?"

he'd be pretty
proud of ya, kid.

It's a very weird thing
slamming 220 yards an hour

and 3,300 gallons
a minute of water and material

at a plant like this
that we've never ran

and knowing that there
should be about,

you know,

$3,000 or $4,000
worth of gold

every hour comin' into it.

And what percentage
of that is goin' out?

And until we get dialed in,

it can be a very
expensive learning curve,

which I'm scared about.

How's she lookin', boss?

To be honest,
it doesn't look great.

There's no [bleep]
gold in the box.

There really should be
60 ounces in here.

And I'm not seein' it.

You see those little
bald spots in here?

You can see
the bare miners moss.

It'd be nice if it was
all evenly distributed.

Could be that gold's
gettin' pounded into this moss

and we just can't see it.

Yeah, keep 'er goin'.

Yay, the first shovel full.
One of many, many, many.

Narrator: Parker and chris
clean up the concentrate.

Parker's about to find out

if this $600,000 wash plant,

the biggest investment
of his life, will pay off.

Oh, here he comes. Golly.
Looks like he's got a heavy
box.

Chunky.

There's 30, 50.

Yeah, keep goin'.

Seventy.

-There's -- there's 80.
-There's 100.

-A hundred? Ha ha!
-[ whistles ]

whoa.
126 and a quarter.

[ laughter ]
for 40 hours.

That's pretty damn good.

Narrator:
That's over $150,000,

a quarter of the cost
of the wash plant.

I was getting a little nervous

running it
through the gold room.

We all were.

Narrator: To hit parker's
3,000-ounce season goal,

they need to produce
1 1/2 ounces an hour.

Three ounces an hour.

This is probably our best
first cleanup we've had up
here.

That's a smokin' start
right there.

-Yeah.
-Yeah, it is.

So I guess the only thing
left is,

what are we gonna name
this wash plant?

[ laughter ]
goldibox?

This bedrock is just right.

[ laughing continues ]

sluicerella.

[ laughing ]

more like sluicifer.

-Sluicifer.
-Sluicifer.

-Dude, that fits perfect.
-Yeah.

Our new wash plant, sluicifer.

I think it's gonna
give us a good season.

Here he comes.

Narrator: At eureka creek,

tony's runway
is finally complete.

And he's making
his maiden landing.

Now that he's airborne,
he'll be in every day.

Coming up with a new plan
every 10 minutes.

Monica:
The flying dutchman now?

Why? So you can be on us
every single day?

Yeah.

[ laughs ]

-hey, kevin.
-Hi, mom.

How ya doin'?

Narrator: At paradise hill,
the beets family arrives

for the dredge's second
weigh-in of the season.

-There we go.
-There ya go.

Tony: Forty. Fifty.

Sixty.

110, 120, 130, 140...

Ninety coming up.
Two hundred.

[ laughs ]

holy smokes.
Look at that.

277.58 ounces.

Cool.

Narrator: Over $320,000.

In just two cleanups,

new dredge master kevin

has already mined 536 ounces,

three-quarters of
last season's total.

That's really good.

That's pretty good for you
micromanaging everything.

Well, every time
we come up with a plan,

you come up with
something different.

Even when someone threw
some logs in the water.

What is this about logs?

Tony had the trucks dumping
dirt into our dredge pond.

-Yeah?
-The dirt was full of trees.

Oh.
So that kinda [bleep]

the bucket ladder a little
bit.
Okay, whatever.

But if that all happens
and you still did pretty
good...

No, no, I think
we did [bleep] great.

Probably another 50.

That's kind of
a challenge, dude.

If it's in the ground

and I can run for more hours,
I can get it out of there.

There's only 24 hours
in a day, doll.

I know, but we keep
having to stop

'cause someone wants
to go do [bleep].

Now is that a [bleep] promise?

'cause I will hold you to
that.

Tony has a trust issue.

It's clear that we are
hitting our ounce an hour.

He doesn't need to be
there at that point.

It's kind of a blessing
and a curse to work with
family.

I mean, you know you can
yell at your family.

They'll be there the next day.

But then your family --
and no one --

and absolutely no one
can push your buttons

like family can,
so trade-offs.

-Guys, let me show ya
something.
-Any good?

Narrator: At high bar,
freddy dodge

has brought down his
potentially
game-changing test pan.

That's out of a half a yard.

-Oh.
-Hey, look at that.

-Wow.
-That's the best gold

we've seen so far
in a pan this year.

Dude, I knew we were gonna
find somethin' up there.

I knew it.
Here comes dave.

It's a heck of a pan,

but how many of these pans
are down there a yard?

Dave's got a pan.

-What do you got?
-You gotta see this.

Check that out.
It's from the buckland.

-From the buckland?
-It's from the buckland.

It's deep, it's 40 feet.

-Whoa.
-Forty feet?

-Wow.
-But here's the deal, you
guys.

If we get down below
what that dredge did,

I'm tellin' ya, this could be
a game changer.

One good thing
about the high bar,

if we can find gold there,
that wash plant's sittin'
there.

Let me see these.

It's your call, todd.

Narrator:
Faced with a decision

that could make
or break their season,

todd calls on jack
to lead them in prayer.

Jack: Heavenly father,
we ask for your guidance

with this opportunity.

We're gonna have to work
harder
than we've ever worked.

Help us to trust you
for the results.

We pray this in your name,
amen.

-Amen.
-Amen.

That's a damn good pan.

So is this, dave.

[ exhales ]

tell ya what.

If we're going to get
anywhere near 5,000,

two mines gotta be
better than one.

I think we oughta do it.

[ horn honks ]
on the next "gold rush"...

This wind's gettin' worse
and worse.

Right now, we're standing
on a big-ass sail.

I don't think it should
be this heavy.

Now I am not moving at all.

Keep the damn thing running.
How's it going, gene?

It looks overwhelming.
Your problem, so to speak.

[bleep]
go to hell.

I'm a real underachieving
21-year-old,

that's for sure, todd.
Yeah? What do you think,

you've achieved everything

'cause you get a little
gold in your pocket?

I just got finished
burying my grandpa.

[bleep] like that.
You don't need to tell me