Gold Rush: Dave Turin's Lost Mine (2019–…): Season 2, Episode 7 - Blue Room Bonanza - full transcript
♪
dave:
It's just unbelievable.
Why do we come to the wildest
parts of the planet
to find gold?
It's back to my roots --
in the snow prospecting.
It gets into your blood,
it doesn't go away, dave.
Narrator: With winter about to
close down the mining season,
dave turin and gold-mining
veteran juan ibarra
are hunting for gold
at a remote 100-year-old claim.
Any idea how far up
they went?
I'm just trying to find
some virgin ground here.
The best gold was
right up the middle,
and they got it.
Even this far out
in the bush,
I'm haunted by
the old-timers.
So, juan, I'm just thinking,
looking at this,
I don't think this
was worked.
These have been here
a long time.
That's virgin ground.
I'll go pan this.
♪
what the hell?
No.
[bleep] me.
[bleep]
do you see that?
Boom!
-Yeah!
[ laughing ]
captions paid for by
discovery communications
♪
dave:
When you're mining for gold,
you know the odds
are stacked against you.
That's the worst one yet.
Last week, we widened
our search at birdseye...
Let's just take
the fence down.
I don't think it's gonna
be a big deal,
...But we overstepped our mark.
Get your excavator,
get your car,
float everything up,
and just get out of here.
Fence is boundaries, dave.
You [bleep] crossed it.
Now you got one
pissed-off landowner.
Dave: And now we've only got
three or four weeks max
before the winter
shuts us down.
[bleep] cold.
And we still need to find
260 ounces
to hit my 400-ounce target.
If we find a piece of ground,
I still think we can do it.
Miracles can happen.
I've seen it before.
Is there another channel heading
anywhere that we can find?
And this is the strongest team
I've ever had.
All: All in!
Dave: But if we're going to
go home with enough gold,
we need to turn this around
and fast.
♪
♪
dave said, "find something.
Chase that channel."
well, this channel's been
skirting the edge of the road.
I got to see
if it goes under the road,
and if it does, so be it.
We'll take the road out.
I just pray it's under there.
Narrator: After losing access
to the cyanide cut
in the south of the claim,
the team has been kicked back
to the northern edge
of the property,
where it's already
mined three cuts.
The most profitable,
the dredge edge,
produced 64 ounces
from gold-rich channels,
and jason believes there
could be one more channel
hidden under the haul road,
but it means cutting their
lifeline to the gold fields.
This works, it'll be like
following the yellow brick road.
That would finish off our season
and hopefully
set us right on our goal.
Dave: When these channels were
formed, there was no road there.
So, it don't matter
if there's a road or not,
I got to go underneath of it.
Say goodbye to
your haul road, casey.
Goodbye.
♪
jason: Trying to find where this
channel goes from glacial till
to an actual pay zone.
I know we're starving for dirt,
but you still want to make sure
it has gold in it
and it's worth the cost to run.
Nathan:
You know, we can't afford
to have any more mistakes.
It might be 60 degrees today,
but in three days, negative 3.
It's -- [chuckles]
it's coming to a close soon.
♪
♪
I know this, right here,
is our zone,
right on top of the clay.
♪
this pan is horrible.
There was four micro-fines
in this pan.
I'd love to show you, but you'd
never been able to see it.
Definitely not mineable.
We found no other ground
anywhere else on this property.
We have looked and looked.
I don't know.
I think it's time to go home.
Sucks.
♪
we're in trouble.
Weather's setting in.
The guys are getting
anxious and nervous, you know?
And right now,
I can't just create ground
that has gold in it.
It's gonna take all of us
to find something.
But, you know, the guys are all
looking to me,
like, for answers, and...
Sometimes as a leader,
you don't have the answers.
[ sighs and sputters ]
I don't know.
I don't know where
we're going next.
♪
♪
dave, you got copy?
Yeah, go ahead, chris.
Dave, I've had
a piece of ground
just call my name every single
day since we've been here --
right behind
the blue room.
Chris, I don't think
there's anything over there.
There's a lot of
overburden piles over there.
I know. I've been studying that
every day,
and the waste piles
are so close together.
I'm thinking the dredge
didn't get up in there.
I don't know, but I feel
pretty good about it.
Well, at this point, chris,
I'm open to anything.
All right,
I'll meet you over there.
-You think there's gold here?
-Right here.
Slammed between
these two piles.
I know it looks like
they mined all through it,
but it just might be a spot
that they didn't do.
Dave: I don't know.
You see the piles?
I know. I know.
You got piles there
and piles there.
Narrator: Chris believes
the strip of land
where the team stores
its equipment
was missed by the old-timers.
In the late 1930s,
birdseye was mined
using a dragline dredge.
The machine worked the land
in straight lines
and left behind rows
of overburden.
Chris has noticed two rows
much closer together than normal
and believes the dredge
worked either side
but not in between,
leaving behind a strip
of gold-rich ground.
Now these two piles are
real close together, dave.
I haven't seen
anywhere else
where there's
two piles that close.
Everywhere else,
they're spread out on one side,
but it might be where
the dredge couldn't get.
I mean, it's worth a shot.
I don't know.
What's it gonna take you,
10 minutes?
Okay. I mean, all right.
I'll dig a p--
I'll dig a hole.
It's worth a try.
We don't have anything else.
-All right.
-Okay.
♪
we got some gravel
out of it.
And it's not that deep.
Go pan it.
See what you get.
♪
I'm hoping this is it.
There's a lot riding on this.
I have nowhere else to go.
You want to take a look?
Oh, yeah.
There's a piece of gold
right there.
There we go.
Look at what I'm looking at.
I see three good-size chunks
right there,
and there's a bunch
of fines in there.
That'll make us through
the season, won't it?.
That'll get us
through the season.
We got it.
Oh, boom! Yeah!
That's a good pan.
Good job.
-Start stripping.
-All right, buddy.
Chris: It's an honor that,
you know, dave listens to me.
Now we got some ground
to go after.
We've got some good goals,
so we better go
start stripping right now.
Dave:
Well, that was a great pan,
and that's the best news
I've had in a long time.
If that kind of gold
is left over there,
that's exactly what we needed.
We can still go for 400 ounces.
It's a long shot.
But, you know what?
It might be a miracle.
Narrator: Coming up --
plunging temperature...
Winter's here.
Narrator: ...Knocks team turin
off course.
That's a [bleep] [bleep]
narrator: And when the blue room
starts to pay...
That's 6.5 right there.
[ all exclaiming ]
narrator:
...Dave heads to the far north
to hunt for his next lost mine.
And every time we've touched
somewhere, we've found gold.
You see that?
-Boom!
-Yeah!
[ laughing ]
juan: That's pretty
[bleep] good.
♪
hey, let's move
this [bleep]
narrator:
Morning at birdseye.
Well, chris had a hunch,
over here where
the blue room's at, you know,
about some gold being there,
so him and dave prospected it,
and it turned out
pretty damn good.
So, we're gonna move this
[bleep] out of the way.
Narrator: ...Loader operator
chris taylor followed his nose
and found gold under the team's
blue porta potty.
I'm proud of my [bleep]
okay?
Good for the old blue room.
Keeping the gold safe
for us, right?
[ laughs ]
♪
we all use the bathroom there,
so...
But, yeah, it's been [bleep]
on gold this whole time.
You know?
Dave: We're gonna call it
the blue room cut
and finish the season,
finish it strong.
Narrator: It's not just the
restroom that needs relocating.
Dave must strip the land
before he can run pay.
You think about the history
of mining in montana,
and there was a town named
diamond city.
10,000 people
lived in that area,
right on top of a bunch of gold.
Guess what? They moved it --
moved the whole town,
tore it down, took the gold out.
Pretty amazing, and here we are.
We're gonna dig up
right beneath our feet,
and we're gonna find some gold.
One minute you think
you're going home,
next minute
you're stripping a new cut.
♪
jason: We got two machines
dancing together right now
'cause we got to get this open
as fast as possible.
Get it through that trommel,
all before the weather
really sets in.
We already had our cold snap,
you know,
below zero or whatnot.
Well, it ain't the only one
for the year.
The next one's
just around the corner.
Casey: I seen
there's a cross right now.
Just want to get
as much gold as we can
and go home
and show our families
we pulled up whatever we could
out of this birdseye mine.
♪
narrator: In five hours,
the team runs 600 tons of pay
from the new cut.
It's almost a full day,
still running, no breakdowns,
plenty of water.
We're good, guys!
♪
narrator: The next morning,
the temperature plummets
to zero degrees.
♪
everything is frozen.
Look at the bowl -- solid.
-You ready?
-Yeah.
-Oh.
-Oh, [bleep]
-oh, crap.
-It froze that fast?
Oh, nate,
she's locked up.
How are we supposed to flush
each line out now?
I don't know.
Heat it up, see if
we can get it to get going.
It's getting harder and harder
to start in the morning.
It's too cold.
But the real problem is
we're losing time.
It's gonna be at least
an hour and a half of shutdown.
That's really costly.
We have no income
unless that trommel's turning.
Yeah, we got some ice on top,
but you know what?
We're gonna bust that out.
Get some of this nice, warm sun
showing,
it might be okay.
Dave:
We're running out of days.
I mean, it's 9:00
in the morning,
and we still can't get going.
♪
oh, it's wet in there.
Here.
You ready?
-Yeah!
-Coming on!
-Coming on!
-Come on. Give us water.
[ motor starts ]
whoo! We're back
in business, boys!
Narrator:
With the pump thawed out,
the next job is to bump start
the ice-encrusted trommel.
Nathan: All we need is
the excavator moving.
Push it over manually.
Don't like doing that
because you're forcing it.
You force [bleep], it don't work
out the best sometimes.
♪
it's always scary when you're
trying to turn that trommel
over with an excavator.
I could seriously
poke a hole in that,
and then we're screwed.
-You ready dave?
-Yeah, turn it on.
-Yeah, man.
-Yeah, man.
It's starting to move gravel.
You hear it?
We're rolling.
Good morning, birdseye.
Coming from the frosty area,
we are a good
16 degrees outside.
Everything has thawed out.
The bowl material is good to go
on the sleuths,
and belts are good.
Let's throw some rocks
in a box, buddy.
Man: You got it.
Putting rocks in a box.
♪
little ice buildup right here.
Yeah, this little canal here,
this feeds our gold room,
so if we lose this,
then we're done for sure.
I got to chip out of here
and clean this out a little bit,
and I'll be back in business.
♪
narrator:
The first concentrates from the
blue room cut are ready to run,
and jesse faces
a constant battle
to keep the gold-recovery
equipment thawed out.
But as long as I can keep it
above freezing,
I'll be all right.
I can dress warm,
but I can't have
my machines freezing up on me.
♪
narrator:
With four hours lost
to the cold weather
this morning,
the team is playing catch-up.
Dave said that at the end
of this cut,
had the best pan
out of the whole season so far.
As long as we're getting gold,
we're still in the game.
We're right on that last push.
This is really nice.
I'm excited, man.
Season changer.
Nate, nate,
tell him to stop!
Nate, tell him to stop!
Nate!
[ machinery squealing ]
[ indistinct shouting ]
let's kill everything.
Let's kill everything.
[bleep] what the [bleep]
happened there?
All that [bleep] ice
fell on the belt.
Chris, go shut
the water off for us.
[bleep]
ugh, [bleep]
how much [bleep]'s in there?
♪
[bleep]
see all this ice
sitting here?
It fell down on the belt.
Didn't hurt anything.
Yeah, go ahead
and start it, chris.
-I'll go turn us all back on.
-Okay.
Nathan:
Coming, coming on, dave!
That was close.
Dave:
You can see where the belts
were rubbing on the ice.
The ice pushes on the belts,
and then it slowed it down,
and the belt were slipping
'cause the ice is building up.
I don't know how much longer
we can go.
It's mother nature saying,
"time to get the [bleep] out."
she's telling us,
"closing time's coming, boys.
Time to go."
dave: When we start having
problems with ice building up
under the trommel,
it's getting to be the end.
It really is, but right now
we haven't got our goal,
so I'm not ready to quit.
♪
narrator:
Birdseye mine, montana...
Gold is pretty, and it's yellow.
And you think you have a lot
of it at a lot of times,
and there's not there
as much as you think.
But I never did get excited
until I weigh it.
Narrator:
After fighting the freeze,
jesse is running the first
concentrates
from the blue room cut.
We're within a couple weeks
of getting run out of here,
so we got to go like crazy.
Trying to push it
to bring the gold total up.
♪
I'm looking forward
to seeing the gold count.
We're washing rock.
I'm sure dave and them
ran it to its max.
-How's it look?
-Pretty good.
-Ooh, there's some gold.
-Yeah.
Dave: Let's see how much we got.
What do you think?
Gosh.
It's hard to guess.
That stuff's so fine.
I don't know.
It doesn't look like a lot.
I'm hoping for it's over 4.
♪
♪
what did we get?
4.8.
-Nice!
-That was exciting.
I was feeling
pretty desperate.
I didn't know if we were
gonna pull it off again,
but we're back on the goal.
Dave:
4.8 ounces is really good.
We're on good ground
in that blue room cut.
I'm encouraged, but we got
a long ways to go.
We're a team.
Team turin, baby.
Narrator:
With gold back in the box,
dave calls a morning meeting
to discuss
how to finish the season.
All right, guys, look,
the blue room cut is producing,
4.8 is one of our best
cleanups yet.
[ all exclaiming ]
we're gonna tear it up,
put it through the plant.
Dude, we're gonna knock it
out of the ballpark.
However, I want you listen.
Today, it's a reality check.
I know my goal
was 400 ounces,
but it's really going to take
one heck of a miracle
to get to 400 before
the weather shuts us out,
but I've been looking
at the numbers.
If we get to 200,
I'll get my stake back,
and you'll make more money
than last year.
I still believe
in the dream.
I think we can go over 200,
and we're gonna kick ass.
What do you think?
Jesse:
Yeah, it's bittersweet
when you finally get
a really nice clean-out.
But the weather's
coming in,
if we can make the 200,
everybody'd be
tickled to death.
You keep digging the dirt.
We're gonna get it done.
We're gonna win.
Everybody in?
-All in. All in.
-All right.
All: All in!
-There we go. There we go.
-Got it.
I changed my goal to 200 ounces.
I think that's a realistic goal,
but we could still get
to 400 ounces.
"the montana miracle"
we're gonna call it.
I'm gonna keep
those guys motivated.
As long as we've got ground,
we got to put the hours in,
and then we can hit it.
Let's get that 200.
I want these guys to go home
with their heads up.
Nathan: We get 200 ounces,
that's a [bleep] load of money.
$1,500 an ounce --
that's good money for, you know
the time that we're out here.
When this team says
they're all in, we're all in.
♪
narrator: Team turin is finally
on good gold,
but now an urgent new mission
pulls dave away
at the worst possible time.
Hey, guys, I'll see you
in a couple days.
It's a journey to a mine
in the far north
that could be a game changer
for next season.
I got a tip
from a friend of mine.
His name is juan ibarra.
I used to work with him
on the hoffman crew.
It's a lost mine in alaska.
It's got hard rock and placer.
I've got to check it out now
before the winter
shuts alaska down.
So I'm gonna go out and
hopefully find some more gold.
Narrator: 2,000 miles north
in the alaskan wilderness,
dave's destination is
the remote nixon fork mine.
Holy cow. Wow.
His old friend juan ibarra
ran maintenance at the mine
before it shut down.
1918 is when they actually
found the hard-rock deposit,
but before that in 1917
was when they found
the placer gold.
I really think, for me
and my little company,
I think hard rock
could be the future.
So that's what
I was thinking.
You know, this would be
a great spot for you.
Juan plans to show dave
around nixon fork
and introduce him to
current owner blane wilson.
Blane, how you doing?
Doing good, juan.
How about yourself?
-Excellent.
-Been a long time.
Yeah, blane this is dave.
Dave, blane.
Dave, it's a pleasure.
Blane wilson.
Nice to meet you.
You've got some placer
and some underground.
We do. One thing that's
quite interesting here
is there's so much
that hasn't been touched,
and every time we've touched
somewhere, we've found gold.
-Well, can we go check it out?
-Absolutely.
-Let's go, huh?
-Go.
Narrator: In 2015,
blane became the latest
in a long line of
nixon fork mine owners.
Whoa!
Now, that's amazing.
Holy [bleep]
look at that.
10-stamp mill.
I've never seen
a 10-stamp mill before
that's still
actually standing.
A stamp mill is a machine
used to crush hard-rock ore
into fine gravel,
which can then be processed
further to recover the gold.
This large steam-powered example
has 10 separate stamps.
In 1922, the mill produced
$1.7 million of gold
in today's money.
Dave: I stand in awe
at what they did,
but it also gives me
the passion to do the same...
...Because I'm walking
in the path of greatness.
These men were great
that put this together.
♪
narrator: Since the source
of nixon fork's gold
was discovered in 1917,
it has produced
nearly seven tons.
Pioneers dragged their equipment
and supplies
hundreds of miles
through frozen terrain
to dig tunnels
in this gold-rich mountain.
This is the crystal mine.
This one has several miles
of underground workings.
This is the biggest tunnels
I've ever seen.
Narrator:
To get the hard-rock gold,
the old timers burrowed into
either side of the mountain,
creating two tunnels
called mystery and crystal.
Blane's reports suggest
that between the two tunnels
lies a mother lode of gold
that could hold as much
as a million ounces.
Dave: You know they're getting
a lot of gold
when they build their tunnels
this big.
Ooh, this is a little scary.
-That's a big slab right there.
-Yeah.
-This is an area here to here.
-Exactly. Exactly.
-Okay.
-Hey, hey.
Blane: There's an old
mining hole here.
Just avoid that, please.
Hey, dave, dave, dave, dave,
dave, dave, dave!
Get out from under that.
I need you back.
Right now, back.
She's still loose
right there.
-Son of a gun.
-Whoa!
-Yeah.
-We good in here now, juan?
-We're fine now.
-Okay.
Narrator: In alaska --
deep and treacherous
underground tunnels.
Dave:
Well, that's cool.
Dave turin is searching
for gold-bearing quartz veins.
There it is.
That's solid, and it's okay.
So we're trying to get
some good samples.
Juan:
That's a good rock there.
Make sure you get that.
Beautiful.
We got our sample.
All right.
I think we should take it
to the assay lab.
We'll put it in
the furnace.
Dave: It's impressive.
There's a lot of gold taken out,
and I believe there's
a lot of gold left in.
Proof's in the bag.
We'll find out what's in there.
Narrator: To extract the gold
from the hard-rock ore,
blane runs a fire assay.
Blane: Abracadabra.
Narrator: The ore is crushed
to a fine powder
and mixed
with a blend of chemicals.
Blane: We're gonna add
a little bit of soda ash.
♪
dave: So what's the temperature
of your oven?
Right now were sitting
at 2,050 degrees fahrenheit.
Dave: Brought it down here,
pulverized it,
and then we put it in there.
It's quite a process.
Narrator:
The heat from the furnace
separates the heavy metals,
including gold
from the waste material.
Slag is the material
of the flux
and all the material
we don't want,
all the prec-- the stuff
that's not precious metals.
Dave: Right there, little pieces
of heavy metal.
So right now that's mixed
lead and the...
Lead, gold, and silver.
Okay.
That one came out
pretty easy.
Narrator: The sample is then
returned to the furnace
to burn off
the remaining impurities
and reveal
how much gold remains.
All right,
we'll see you in an hour.
-Sounds great, guys.
-Lets go run some numbers.
Everything has to be
brought in on the airplane.
Our fuel, our food, crew
all has to be
brought in on plane.
That's been the downfall
of this site --
you know,
how remote it is.
I think a guy's gonna need
a couple million dollars
to get this opened up and get
it started, repair everything.
I think $2 million
is a little shy, honestly.
I think we're gonna
probably be in the closer
to $3.5 million,
$4 million range.
How many dollars per ton
for production here?
We're gonna be in the $750
range per ton to produce.
Gold's $1,500 an ounce.
Your break-even is
1/2 an ounce per ton then.
Exactly. The problem is
that initial startup cost.
Let's go talk to blane,
see what those assays look like.
Let's do it.
-Are we ready?
-Let's do this.
Wow.
Well, there it is
right there.
Oh, that's better.
Yeah.
All: Ohhhh!
I like that one.
Look at that.
-There we go.
-That's what we're looking for.
The one bb's
a pretty good size.
Look at how bright
that gold is, though.
-Oh!
-Whoo!
-That's nearly a gram.
-Almost a gram out of that.
-Wow.
-Out of that.
-That little bit of...
-That was ore?
-A tiny, little bit ore.
-What does that translate to?
So with that sample right there,
for each ton of ore,
today's gold price
is $1,991 per ton.
-Whew!
-Wow! There we go.
Narrator: Over double
dave's break-even number.
That was amazing.
We put maybe a teaspoon of ore
and got almost
a gram of gold out of it.
I've never seen that before.
It gives me a whole different
view on hard-rock mining.
That was a lot of gold,
and it's really gonna give me
something to think about.
♪
narrator:
Back at birdseye mine montana,
team turin is full-steam ahead
mining the blue room cut.
Jason: You guys hear that?
That's equipment.
That's backup alarms.
That's tracks tracking.
We're on the bed ground
we've had all season.
Didn't even know we had it.
Narrator:
The end of another day,
and jesse has finished
processing
yesterday's concentrate.
I'll tell you what --
it's a different feeling
whenever we come to
the principal's office
when the principal's not here,
isn't it?
[ laughter ]
-let's do it.
-All right.
If we get over three ounces,
I'll be tickled to death.
Come on, baby, keep climbing.
Keep climbing.
What's she at?
What do got?
That's 6.5 right there.
-6.5 ounces.
-Is it?
-That's a --
-that's 16 bucks.
[ all exclaiming ]
-now we're looking good.
-Here we go, here we go.
-Nice.
-Good job.
Narrator:
At almost $10,000 worth of gold,
it's the best day's cleanup
of the entire season.
-That's positive.
-That's positive.
-True.
-All in.
-Ready? One, two, three.
-All in!
6.5 ounces in 600 yards --
that's an outstanding cleaning
for this property.
And it puts a lot of confidence
and reassurance back into,
at least me,
that we are doing it right
because when you get these
low cleanups all the time,
you start wondering,
"am I losing that gold
that we think should be there?"
no, the gold's just not
in the ground.
That proves it.
Nathan:
I'm ecstatic by that result.
You know, we been getting kicked
all season long,
and finally to get 6.5
on a full cleanup --
that's incredible.
That's 16 bucks a yard.
♪
♪
it's just unbelievable.
Why do we come to the wildest
parts of the planet
to find gold?
It's back to my roots --
in the snow prospecting.
It gets in your blood,
it doesn't go away, dave.
Narrator: In alaska, dave
and juan turn their attention
to nixon fork's placer deposits
in the land once worked
by the old-timers.
Any idea how far up
they went?
I'm just trying to find
some virgin ground here.
The best gold was
right up the middle,
and they got it.
♪
even this far out
in the bush in alaska,
I'm haunted by
the old-timers.
Here we are.
So, juan, I'm just thinking,
look at how big these rocks are.
These have been here
a long time.
I'd guess this is
probably virgin.
Now let's see
if you can dig it.
I've never placer mined
here before,
but that's how this place
was found, was placer gold.
So hopefully there's still
some left that we can find.
♪
-that's virgin ground.
-I'll go pan this.
You know, what I'm
mining in montana,
I mining at
$7.50 a yard.
To make any money
up here,
it's probably got to be
closer to 40 bucks.
Well, you know,
you got to consider
everything's got to be
flown in.
It's all gonna be just,
you know, times three.
♪
what the hell?
No.
[bleep] me.
[bleep]
I'm not [bleep]
[bleep] kidding me.
[ laughs ]
that's pretty
[bleep] good.
Do you see that?
That's the biggest nugget
I've ever panned!
Boom!
-Yeah!
[ laughing ]
oh, I cannot
believe that!
Had to come all the way
to alaska to...
Kiss my ass.
There it is.
Look at that guy.
It's the first nugget
I panned.
That's awesome.
That's pretty damn good.
For that, I think
I'd come back to alaska.
For that, I'd come
with you, dave.
Fricking nugget country
right here.
I know.
Dave: I got to get
my wits about me
and make a good
business decision.
It's got to be calculated,
and I've got to go
through the numbers,
but right now I'm so fricking
happy to pan a nugget
that it's like,
I'm just happy!
♪
oh, here he comes.
He got snow cone.
Look at his helmet.
Nathan: Jesse, what have
you been doing?
You thawed out again?
[ laughs ]
-this is camo.
-This is camo?
I'm going hunting
later on today.
-Looks like papa smurf.
-A little yard gnome.
I haven't had my medicine yet,
so I'm a snowman.
[ laughs ]
oh, that was
just disgusting.
[ laughs ]
we're starting to hit
a new low.
It's pretty obvious
cabin fever's setting in.
You're eating the snow
off the top -- oh!
Quality h2o right there.
Now, would you have done that
if it was yellow?
[ laughs ]
I thought it was banana.
Oh!
Narrator:
At the beginning of the week,
team turin ran out of ground.
I can't just create ground
that has gold in it.
Narrator: But chris's hunch
about the blue room
hit pay dirt.
Ooh, there's some gold.
We're back on the gold.
And after recalibrating
the team's goal...
Dave: If we get to 200,
I'll get my stake back,
and you'll make more money
than last year.
Narrator:
...Dave headed to alaska
to prospect for the future.
Dave: Do you see that?
It's the biggest nugget
I've ever panned!
Boom!
-Yeah!
[ laughing ]
♪
narrator:
Morning, at birdseye,
and the unpredictable
montana weather
takes yet another turn
for the worse.
Casey: Winter's here.
We were always saying it
was knocking at our door.
It's actually here.
Narrator:
Despite freezing temperatures
bringing a season low of
negative 2,
the team decides to press on.
♪
♪
[bleep]
a lot worse than I [bleep]
I just don't want to flip this
truck over and get it stuck.
My big fear.
That 40-ton truck
that casey's in --
it don't matter
who's driving it.
You put something like that
on icy roads
and make the wrong move,
anything in its way
is gonna be decimated.
That truck --
it has no forgiveness
for anything that's in its way.
This [bleep]
trying to run
in conditions like this.
Starting to feel [bleep]
about to start risking things
we don't need to risk.
Safety number one,
machinery number two.
I can't keep it
on the [bleep] road.
Nathan: You know what?
Let it drop. Close the convoys.
Casey: Yeah. Okay.
♪
nate has a tough decision
to make.
If we want to continue to mine,
keep on working as a team
with this equipment...
We got shut down.
♪
♪
yeah, we're pretty much
screwed.
The weather's, you know,
got us down,
and don't look like
we're gonna make our goal
on our gold count.
Was sitting on the best ground
we've seen all year,
and now we can't mine it.
♪
narrator:
With birdseye at a standstill,
nathan and jason break the news
to dave in alaska.
-Hey, what's up, guys?
-Dave, how you doing, man?
All right.
How are you guys?
Well, do you want --
we'll start off positive.
We had...
We got a 6.5-ounce
cleanup.
What?
Yeah. 800 tons.
No way.
Yeah, buddy.
So that's good.
That's really good.
-However...
-What?
...The weather has came in
so hard,
we can't run another yard
of that dirt.
You guys are down?
Dude, it's frozen.
We had about
probably five inches,
six inches of ice.
So now we got this awesome
cut that we're doing,
good gold,
and can't friggin' run it.
Makes me nervous the weather's
setting in already.
What's going on with you,
dave?
They can't fly,
so I'm kind of stuck here
for awhile.
All right, man.
I just hope it's not
the end of our season.
All right, well,
keep me posted.
We really need a couple more
weeks to finish this season.
-All right.
-Bye, dave.
Be safe, brother.
-All right, man.
-You too.
-Bye.
-Bye.
Now we find out
he's stuck over there.
He can't come help.
It's not an ideal situation
at all.
It's really frustrating
when you finally get ground
and then you get froze out,
and now dave's stuck in alaska.
Pretty disheartening right now,
to be honest with you.
Dave: Winter is setting in.
Winter always wins in montana.
I can't even do anything.
I'm stuck here, so I don't know.
It's not good.
♪
got unfinished business.
Man:
Winter's definitely here.
Dave:
We're running out of time.
I got to get to the loader.
I can't talk to you right now.
[ indistinct shouting ]
everything's riding on this.
-Come on, baby.
-Yeah!
Back to business, boys!
Do not stop until we hit 200.
There I come, baby.
I'm bringing the pain.
-Oh, [bleep].
-Nathan!
We've formed bonds
that never, ever be broken.
So proud of these guys,
and that's my family.
I've got the last load
right here.
[ cheering ]
anything under 200 is a failure.
That's our season total.
[ cheering ]
dave:
It's just unbelievable.
Why do we come to the wildest
parts of the planet
to find gold?
It's back to my roots --
in the snow prospecting.
It gets into your blood,
it doesn't go away, dave.
Narrator: With winter about to
close down the mining season,
dave turin and gold-mining
veteran juan ibarra
are hunting for gold
at a remote 100-year-old claim.
Any idea how far up
they went?
I'm just trying to find
some virgin ground here.
The best gold was
right up the middle,
and they got it.
Even this far out
in the bush,
I'm haunted by
the old-timers.
So, juan, I'm just thinking,
looking at this,
I don't think this
was worked.
These have been here
a long time.
That's virgin ground.
I'll go pan this.
♪
what the hell?
No.
[bleep] me.
[bleep]
do you see that?
Boom!
-Yeah!
[ laughing ]
captions paid for by
discovery communications
♪
dave:
When you're mining for gold,
you know the odds
are stacked against you.
That's the worst one yet.
Last week, we widened
our search at birdseye...
Let's just take
the fence down.
I don't think it's gonna
be a big deal,
...But we overstepped our mark.
Get your excavator,
get your car,
float everything up,
and just get out of here.
Fence is boundaries, dave.
You [bleep] crossed it.
Now you got one
pissed-off landowner.
Dave: And now we've only got
three or four weeks max
before the winter
shuts us down.
[bleep] cold.
And we still need to find
260 ounces
to hit my 400-ounce target.
If we find a piece of ground,
I still think we can do it.
Miracles can happen.
I've seen it before.
Is there another channel heading
anywhere that we can find?
And this is the strongest team
I've ever had.
All: All in!
Dave: But if we're going to
go home with enough gold,
we need to turn this around
and fast.
♪
♪
dave said, "find something.
Chase that channel."
well, this channel's been
skirting the edge of the road.
I got to see
if it goes under the road,
and if it does, so be it.
We'll take the road out.
I just pray it's under there.
Narrator: After losing access
to the cyanide cut
in the south of the claim,
the team has been kicked back
to the northern edge
of the property,
where it's already
mined three cuts.
The most profitable,
the dredge edge,
produced 64 ounces
from gold-rich channels,
and jason believes there
could be one more channel
hidden under the haul road,
but it means cutting their
lifeline to the gold fields.
This works, it'll be like
following the yellow brick road.
That would finish off our season
and hopefully
set us right on our goal.
Dave: When these channels were
formed, there was no road there.
So, it don't matter
if there's a road or not,
I got to go underneath of it.
Say goodbye to
your haul road, casey.
Goodbye.
♪
jason: Trying to find where this
channel goes from glacial till
to an actual pay zone.
I know we're starving for dirt,
but you still want to make sure
it has gold in it
and it's worth the cost to run.
Nathan:
You know, we can't afford
to have any more mistakes.
It might be 60 degrees today,
but in three days, negative 3.
It's -- [chuckles]
it's coming to a close soon.
♪
♪
I know this, right here,
is our zone,
right on top of the clay.
♪
this pan is horrible.
There was four micro-fines
in this pan.
I'd love to show you, but you'd
never been able to see it.
Definitely not mineable.
We found no other ground
anywhere else on this property.
We have looked and looked.
I don't know.
I think it's time to go home.
Sucks.
♪
we're in trouble.
Weather's setting in.
The guys are getting
anxious and nervous, you know?
And right now,
I can't just create ground
that has gold in it.
It's gonna take all of us
to find something.
But, you know, the guys are all
looking to me,
like, for answers, and...
Sometimes as a leader,
you don't have the answers.
[ sighs and sputters ]
I don't know.
I don't know where
we're going next.
♪
♪
dave, you got copy?
Yeah, go ahead, chris.
Dave, I've had
a piece of ground
just call my name every single
day since we've been here --
right behind
the blue room.
Chris, I don't think
there's anything over there.
There's a lot of
overburden piles over there.
I know. I've been studying that
every day,
and the waste piles
are so close together.
I'm thinking the dredge
didn't get up in there.
I don't know, but I feel
pretty good about it.
Well, at this point, chris,
I'm open to anything.
All right,
I'll meet you over there.
-You think there's gold here?
-Right here.
Slammed between
these two piles.
I know it looks like
they mined all through it,
but it just might be a spot
that they didn't do.
Dave: I don't know.
You see the piles?
I know. I know.
You got piles there
and piles there.
Narrator: Chris believes
the strip of land
where the team stores
its equipment
was missed by the old-timers.
In the late 1930s,
birdseye was mined
using a dragline dredge.
The machine worked the land
in straight lines
and left behind rows
of overburden.
Chris has noticed two rows
much closer together than normal
and believes the dredge
worked either side
but not in between,
leaving behind a strip
of gold-rich ground.
Now these two piles are
real close together, dave.
I haven't seen
anywhere else
where there's
two piles that close.
Everywhere else,
they're spread out on one side,
but it might be where
the dredge couldn't get.
I mean, it's worth a shot.
I don't know.
What's it gonna take you,
10 minutes?
Okay. I mean, all right.
I'll dig a p--
I'll dig a hole.
It's worth a try.
We don't have anything else.
-All right.
-Okay.
♪
we got some gravel
out of it.
And it's not that deep.
Go pan it.
See what you get.
♪
I'm hoping this is it.
There's a lot riding on this.
I have nowhere else to go.
You want to take a look?
Oh, yeah.
There's a piece of gold
right there.
There we go.
Look at what I'm looking at.
I see three good-size chunks
right there,
and there's a bunch
of fines in there.
That'll make us through
the season, won't it?.
That'll get us
through the season.
We got it.
Oh, boom! Yeah!
That's a good pan.
Good job.
-Start stripping.
-All right, buddy.
Chris: It's an honor that,
you know, dave listens to me.
Now we got some ground
to go after.
We've got some good goals,
so we better go
start stripping right now.
Dave:
Well, that was a great pan,
and that's the best news
I've had in a long time.
If that kind of gold
is left over there,
that's exactly what we needed.
We can still go for 400 ounces.
It's a long shot.
But, you know what?
It might be a miracle.
Narrator: Coming up --
plunging temperature...
Winter's here.
Narrator: ...Knocks team turin
off course.
That's a [bleep] [bleep]
narrator: And when the blue room
starts to pay...
That's 6.5 right there.
[ all exclaiming ]
narrator:
...Dave heads to the far north
to hunt for his next lost mine.
And every time we've touched
somewhere, we've found gold.
You see that?
-Boom!
-Yeah!
[ laughing ]
juan: That's pretty
[bleep] good.
♪
hey, let's move
this [bleep]
narrator:
Morning at birdseye.
Well, chris had a hunch,
over here where
the blue room's at, you know,
about some gold being there,
so him and dave prospected it,
and it turned out
pretty damn good.
So, we're gonna move this
[bleep] out of the way.
Narrator: ...Loader operator
chris taylor followed his nose
and found gold under the team's
blue porta potty.
I'm proud of my [bleep]
okay?
Good for the old blue room.
Keeping the gold safe
for us, right?
[ laughs ]
♪
we all use the bathroom there,
so...
But, yeah, it's been [bleep]
on gold this whole time.
You know?
Dave: We're gonna call it
the blue room cut
and finish the season,
finish it strong.
Narrator: It's not just the
restroom that needs relocating.
Dave must strip the land
before he can run pay.
You think about the history
of mining in montana,
and there was a town named
diamond city.
10,000 people
lived in that area,
right on top of a bunch of gold.
Guess what? They moved it --
moved the whole town,
tore it down, took the gold out.
Pretty amazing, and here we are.
We're gonna dig up
right beneath our feet,
and we're gonna find some gold.
One minute you think
you're going home,
next minute
you're stripping a new cut.
♪
jason: We got two machines
dancing together right now
'cause we got to get this open
as fast as possible.
Get it through that trommel,
all before the weather
really sets in.
We already had our cold snap,
you know,
below zero or whatnot.
Well, it ain't the only one
for the year.
The next one's
just around the corner.
Casey: I seen
there's a cross right now.
Just want to get
as much gold as we can
and go home
and show our families
we pulled up whatever we could
out of this birdseye mine.
♪
narrator: In five hours,
the team runs 600 tons of pay
from the new cut.
It's almost a full day,
still running, no breakdowns,
plenty of water.
We're good, guys!
♪
narrator: The next morning,
the temperature plummets
to zero degrees.
♪
everything is frozen.
Look at the bowl -- solid.
-You ready?
-Yeah.
-Oh.
-Oh, [bleep]
-oh, crap.
-It froze that fast?
Oh, nate,
she's locked up.
How are we supposed to flush
each line out now?
I don't know.
Heat it up, see if
we can get it to get going.
It's getting harder and harder
to start in the morning.
It's too cold.
But the real problem is
we're losing time.
It's gonna be at least
an hour and a half of shutdown.
That's really costly.
We have no income
unless that trommel's turning.
Yeah, we got some ice on top,
but you know what?
We're gonna bust that out.
Get some of this nice, warm sun
showing,
it might be okay.
Dave:
We're running out of days.
I mean, it's 9:00
in the morning,
and we still can't get going.
♪
oh, it's wet in there.
Here.
You ready?
-Yeah!
-Coming on!
-Coming on!
-Come on. Give us water.
[ motor starts ]
whoo! We're back
in business, boys!
Narrator:
With the pump thawed out,
the next job is to bump start
the ice-encrusted trommel.
Nathan: All we need is
the excavator moving.
Push it over manually.
Don't like doing that
because you're forcing it.
You force [bleep], it don't work
out the best sometimes.
♪
it's always scary when you're
trying to turn that trommel
over with an excavator.
I could seriously
poke a hole in that,
and then we're screwed.
-You ready dave?
-Yeah, turn it on.
-Yeah, man.
-Yeah, man.
It's starting to move gravel.
You hear it?
We're rolling.
Good morning, birdseye.
Coming from the frosty area,
we are a good
16 degrees outside.
Everything has thawed out.
The bowl material is good to go
on the sleuths,
and belts are good.
Let's throw some rocks
in a box, buddy.
Man: You got it.
Putting rocks in a box.
♪
little ice buildup right here.
Yeah, this little canal here,
this feeds our gold room,
so if we lose this,
then we're done for sure.
I got to chip out of here
and clean this out a little bit,
and I'll be back in business.
♪
narrator:
The first concentrates from the
blue room cut are ready to run,
and jesse faces
a constant battle
to keep the gold-recovery
equipment thawed out.
But as long as I can keep it
above freezing,
I'll be all right.
I can dress warm,
but I can't have
my machines freezing up on me.
♪
narrator:
With four hours lost
to the cold weather
this morning,
the team is playing catch-up.
Dave said that at the end
of this cut,
had the best pan
out of the whole season so far.
As long as we're getting gold,
we're still in the game.
We're right on that last push.
This is really nice.
I'm excited, man.
Season changer.
Nate, nate,
tell him to stop!
Nate, tell him to stop!
Nate!
[ machinery squealing ]
[ indistinct shouting ]
let's kill everything.
Let's kill everything.
[bleep] what the [bleep]
happened there?
All that [bleep] ice
fell on the belt.
Chris, go shut
the water off for us.
[bleep]
ugh, [bleep]
how much [bleep]'s in there?
♪
[bleep]
see all this ice
sitting here?
It fell down on the belt.
Didn't hurt anything.
Yeah, go ahead
and start it, chris.
-I'll go turn us all back on.
-Okay.
Nathan:
Coming, coming on, dave!
That was close.
Dave:
You can see where the belts
were rubbing on the ice.
The ice pushes on the belts,
and then it slowed it down,
and the belt were slipping
'cause the ice is building up.
I don't know how much longer
we can go.
It's mother nature saying,
"time to get the [bleep] out."
she's telling us,
"closing time's coming, boys.
Time to go."
dave: When we start having
problems with ice building up
under the trommel,
it's getting to be the end.
It really is, but right now
we haven't got our goal,
so I'm not ready to quit.
♪
narrator:
Birdseye mine, montana...
Gold is pretty, and it's yellow.
And you think you have a lot
of it at a lot of times,
and there's not there
as much as you think.
But I never did get excited
until I weigh it.
Narrator:
After fighting the freeze,
jesse is running the first
concentrates
from the blue room cut.
We're within a couple weeks
of getting run out of here,
so we got to go like crazy.
Trying to push it
to bring the gold total up.
♪
I'm looking forward
to seeing the gold count.
We're washing rock.
I'm sure dave and them
ran it to its max.
-How's it look?
-Pretty good.
-Ooh, there's some gold.
-Yeah.
Dave: Let's see how much we got.
What do you think?
Gosh.
It's hard to guess.
That stuff's so fine.
I don't know.
It doesn't look like a lot.
I'm hoping for it's over 4.
♪
♪
what did we get?
4.8.
-Nice!
-That was exciting.
I was feeling
pretty desperate.
I didn't know if we were
gonna pull it off again,
but we're back on the goal.
Dave:
4.8 ounces is really good.
We're on good ground
in that blue room cut.
I'm encouraged, but we got
a long ways to go.
We're a team.
Team turin, baby.
Narrator:
With gold back in the box,
dave calls a morning meeting
to discuss
how to finish the season.
All right, guys, look,
the blue room cut is producing,
4.8 is one of our best
cleanups yet.
[ all exclaiming ]
we're gonna tear it up,
put it through the plant.
Dude, we're gonna knock it
out of the ballpark.
However, I want you listen.
Today, it's a reality check.
I know my goal
was 400 ounces,
but it's really going to take
one heck of a miracle
to get to 400 before
the weather shuts us out,
but I've been looking
at the numbers.
If we get to 200,
I'll get my stake back,
and you'll make more money
than last year.
I still believe
in the dream.
I think we can go over 200,
and we're gonna kick ass.
What do you think?
Jesse:
Yeah, it's bittersweet
when you finally get
a really nice clean-out.
But the weather's
coming in,
if we can make the 200,
everybody'd be
tickled to death.
You keep digging the dirt.
We're gonna get it done.
We're gonna win.
Everybody in?
-All in. All in.
-All right.
All: All in!
-There we go. There we go.
-Got it.
I changed my goal to 200 ounces.
I think that's a realistic goal,
but we could still get
to 400 ounces.
"the montana miracle"
we're gonna call it.
I'm gonna keep
those guys motivated.
As long as we've got ground,
we got to put the hours in,
and then we can hit it.
Let's get that 200.
I want these guys to go home
with their heads up.
Nathan: We get 200 ounces,
that's a [bleep] load of money.
$1,500 an ounce --
that's good money for, you know
the time that we're out here.
When this team says
they're all in, we're all in.
♪
narrator: Team turin is finally
on good gold,
but now an urgent new mission
pulls dave away
at the worst possible time.
Hey, guys, I'll see you
in a couple days.
It's a journey to a mine
in the far north
that could be a game changer
for next season.
I got a tip
from a friend of mine.
His name is juan ibarra.
I used to work with him
on the hoffman crew.
It's a lost mine in alaska.
It's got hard rock and placer.
I've got to check it out now
before the winter
shuts alaska down.
So I'm gonna go out and
hopefully find some more gold.
Narrator: 2,000 miles north
in the alaskan wilderness,
dave's destination is
the remote nixon fork mine.
Holy cow. Wow.
His old friend juan ibarra
ran maintenance at the mine
before it shut down.
1918 is when they actually
found the hard-rock deposit,
but before that in 1917
was when they found
the placer gold.
I really think, for me
and my little company,
I think hard rock
could be the future.
So that's what
I was thinking.
You know, this would be
a great spot for you.
Juan plans to show dave
around nixon fork
and introduce him to
current owner blane wilson.
Blane, how you doing?
Doing good, juan.
How about yourself?
-Excellent.
-Been a long time.
Yeah, blane this is dave.
Dave, blane.
Dave, it's a pleasure.
Blane wilson.
Nice to meet you.
You've got some placer
and some underground.
We do. One thing that's
quite interesting here
is there's so much
that hasn't been touched,
and every time we've touched
somewhere, we've found gold.
-Well, can we go check it out?
-Absolutely.
-Let's go, huh?
-Go.
Narrator: In 2015,
blane became the latest
in a long line of
nixon fork mine owners.
Whoa!
Now, that's amazing.
Holy [bleep]
look at that.
10-stamp mill.
I've never seen
a 10-stamp mill before
that's still
actually standing.
A stamp mill is a machine
used to crush hard-rock ore
into fine gravel,
which can then be processed
further to recover the gold.
This large steam-powered example
has 10 separate stamps.
In 1922, the mill produced
$1.7 million of gold
in today's money.
Dave: I stand in awe
at what they did,
but it also gives me
the passion to do the same...
...Because I'm walking
in the path of greatness.
These men were great
that put this together.
♪
narrator: Since the source
of nixon fork's gold
was discovered in 1917,
it has produced
nearly seven tons.
Pioneers dragged their equipment
and supplies
hundreds of miles
through frozen terrain
to dig tunnels
in this gold-rich mountain.
This is the crystal mine.
This one has several miles
of underground workings.
This is the biggest tunnels
I've ever seen.
Narrator:
To get the hard-rock gold,
the old timers burrowed into
either side of the mountain,
creating two tunnels
called mystery and crystal.
Blane's reports suggest
that between the two tunnels
lies a mother lode of gold
that could hold as much
as a million ounces.
Dave: You know they're getting
a lot of gold
when they build their tunnels
this big.
Ooh, this is a little scary.
-That's a big slab right there.
-Yeah.
-This is an area here to here.
-Exactly. Exactly.
-Okay.
-Hey, hey.
Blane: There's an old
mining hole here.
Just avoid that, please.
Hey, dave, dave, dave, dave,
dave, dave, dave!
Get out from under that.
I need you back.
Right now, back.
She's still loose
right there.
-Son of a gun.
-Whoa!
-Yeah.
-We good in here now, juan?
-We're fine now.
-Okay.
Narrator: In alaska --
deep and treacherous
underground tunnels.
Dave:
Well, that's cool.
Dave turin is searching
for gold-bearing quartz veins.
There it is.
That's solid, and it's okay.
So we're trying to get
some good samples.
Juan:
That's a good rock there.
Make sure you get that.
Beautiful.
We got our sample.
All right.
I think we should take it
to the assay lab.
We'll put it in
the furnace.
Dave: It's impressive.
There's a lot of gold taken out,
and I believe there's
a lot of gold left in.
Proof's in the bag.
We'll find out what's in there.
Narrator: To extract the gold
from the hard-rock ore,
blane runs a fire assay.
Blane: Abracadabra.
Narrator: The ore is crushed
to a fine powder
and mixed
with a blend of chemicals.
Blane: We're gonna add
a little bit of soda ash.
♪
dave: So what's the temperature
of your oven?
Right now were sitting
at 2,050 degrees fahrenheit.
Dave: Brought it down here,
pulverized it,
and then we put it in there.
It's quite a process.
Narrator:
The heat from the furnace
separates the heavy metals,
including gold
from the waste material.
Slag is the material
of the flux
and all the material
we don't want,
all the prec-- the stuff
that's not precious metals.
Dave: Right there, little pieces
of heavy metal.
So right now that's mixed
lead and the...
Lead, gold, and silver.
Okay.
That one came out
pretty easy.
Narrator: The sample is then
returned to the furnace
to burn off
the remaining impurities
and reveal
how much gold remains.
All right,
we'll see you in an hour.
-Sounds great, guys.
-Lets go run some numbers.
Everything has to be
brought in on the airplane.
Our fuel, our food, crew
all has to be
brought in on plane.
That's been the downfall
of this site --
you know,
how remote it is.
I think a guy's gonna need
a couple million dollars
to get this opened up and get
it started, repair everything.
I think $2 million
is a little shy, honestly.
I think we're gonna
probably be in the closer
to $3.5 million,
$4 million range.
How many dollars per ton
for production here?
We're gonna be in the $750
range per ton to produce.
Gold's $1,500 an ounce.
Your break-even is
1/2 an ounce per ton then.
Exactly. The problem is
that initial startup cost.
Let's go talk to blane,
see what those assays look like.
Let's do it.
-Are we ready?
-Let's do this.
Wow.
Well, there it is
right there.
Oh, that's better.
Yeah.
All: Ohhhh!
I like that one.
Look at that.
-There we go.
-That's what we're looking for.
The one bb's
a pretty good size.
Look at how bright
that gold is, though.
-Oh!
-Whoo!
-That's nearly a gram.
-Almost a gram out of that.
-Wow.
-Out of that.
-That little bit of...
-That was ore?
-A tiny, little bit ore.
-What does that translate to?
So with that sample right there,
for each ton of ore,
today's gold price
is $1,991 per ton.
-Whew!
-Wow! There we go.
Narrator: Over double
dave's break-even number.
That was amazing.
We put maybe a teaspoon of ore
and got almost
a gram of gold out of it.
I've never seen that before.
It gives me a whole different
view on hard-rock mining.
That was a lot of gold,
and it's really gonna give me
something to think about.
♪
narrator:
Back at birdseye mine montana,
team turin is full-steam ahead
mining the blue room cut.
Jason: You guys hear that?
That's equipment.
That's backup alarms.
That's tracks tracking.
We're on the bed ground
we've had all season.
Didn't even know we had it.
Narrator:
The end of another day,
and jesse has finished
processing
yesterday's concentrate.
I'll tell you what --
it's a different feeling
whenever we come to
the principal's office
when the principal's not here,
isn't it?
[ laughter ]
-let's do it.
-All right.
If we get over three ounces,
I'll be tickled to death.
Come on, baby, keep climbing.
Keep climbing.
What's she at?
What do got?
That's 6.5 right there.
-6.5 ounces.
-Is it?
-That's a --
-that's 16 bucks.
[ all exclaiming ]
-now we're looking good.
-Here we go, here we go.
-Nice.
-Good job.
Narrator:
At almost $10,000 worth of gold,
it's the best day's cleanup
of the entire season.
-That's positive.
-That's positive.
-True.
-All in.
-Ready? One, two, three.
-All in!
6.5 ounces in 600 yards --
that's an outstanding cleaning
for this property.
And it puts a lot of confidence
and reassurance back into,
at least me,
that we are doing it right
because when you get these
low cleanups all the time,
you start wondering,
"am I losing that gold
that we think should be there?"
no, the gold's just not
in the ground.
That proves it.
Nathan:
I'm ecstatic by that result.
You know, we been getting kicked
all season long,
and finally to get 6.5
on a full cleanup --
that's incredible.
That's 16 bucks a yard.
♪
♪
it's just unbelievable.
Why do we come to the wildest
parts of the planet
to find gold?
It's back to my roots --
in the snow prospecting.
It gets in your blood,
it doesn't go away, dave.
Narrator: In alaska, dave
and juan turn their attention
to nixon fork's placer deposits
in the land once worked
by the old-timers.
Any idea how far up
they went?
I'm just trying to find
some virgin ground here.
The best gold was
right up the middle,
and they got it.
♪
even this far out
in the bush in alaska,
I'm haunted by
the old-timers.
Here we are.
So, juan, I'm just thinking,
look at how big these rocks are.
These have been here
a long time.
I'd guess this is
probably virgin.
Now let's see
if you can dig it.
I've never placer mined
here before,
but that's how this place
was found, was placer gold.
So hopefully there's still
some left that we can find.
♪
-that's virgin ground.
-I'll go pan this.
You know, what I'm
mining in montana,
I mining at
$7.50 a yard.
To make any money
up here,
it's probably got to be
closer to 40 bucks.
Well, you know,
you got to consider
everything's got to be
flown in.
It's all gonna be just,
you know, times three.
♪
what the hell?
No.
[bleep] me.
[bleep]
I'm not [bleep]
[bleep] kidding me.
[ laughs ]
that's pretty
[bleep] good.
Do you see that?
That's the biggest nugget
I've ever panned!
Boom!
-Yeah!
[ laughing ]
oh, I cannot
believe that!
Had to come all the way
to alaska to...
Kiss my ass.
There it is.
Look at that guy.
It's the first nugget
I panned.
That's awesome.
That's pretty damn good.
For that, I think
I'd come back to alaska.
For that, I'd come
with you, dave.
Fricking nugget country
right here.
I know.
Dave: I got to get
my wits about me
and make a good
business decision.
It's got to be calculated,
and I've got to go
through the numbers,
but right now I'm so fricking
happy to pan a nugget
that it's like,
I'm just happy!
♪
oh, here he comes.
He got snow cone.
Look at his helmet.
Nathan: Jesse, what have
you been doing?
You thawed out again?
[ laughs ]
-this is camo.
-This is camo?
I'm going hunting
later on today.
-Looks like papa smurf.
-A little yard gnome.
I haven't had my medicine yet,
so I'm a snowman.
[ laughs ]
oh, that was
just disgusting.
[ laughs ]
we're starting to hit
a new low.
It's pretty obvious
cabin fever's setting in.
You're eating the snow
off the top -- oh!
Quality h2o right there.
Now, would you have done that
if it was yellow?
[ laughs ]
I thought it was banana.
Oh!
Narrator:
At the beginning of the week,
team turin ran out of ground.
I can't just create ground
that has gold in it.
Narrator: But chris's hunch
about the blue room
hit pay dirt.
Ooh, there's some gold.
We're back on the gold.
And after recalibrating
the team's goal...
Dave: If we get to 200,
I'll get my stake back,
and you'll make more money
than last year.
Narrator:
...Dave headed to alaska
to prospect for the future.
Dave: Do you see that?
It's the biggest nugget
I've ever panned!
Boom!
-Yeah!
[ laughing ]
♪
narrator:
Morning, at birdseye,
and the unpredictable
montana weather
takes yet another turn
for the worse.
Casey: Winter's here.
We were always saying it
was knocking at our door.
It's actually here.
Narrator:
Despite freezing temperatures
bringing a season low of
negative 2,
the team decides to press on.
♪
♪
[bleep]
a lot worse than I [bleep]
I just don't want to flip this
truck over and get it stuck.
My big fear.
That 40-ton truck
that casey's in --
it don't matter
who's driving it.
You put something like that
on icy roads
and make the wrong move,
anything in its way
is gonna be decimated.
That truck --
it has no forgiveness
for anything that's in its way.
This [bleep]
trying to run
in conditions like this.
Starting to feel [bleep]
about to start risking things
we don't need to risk.
Safety number one,
machinery number two.
I can't keep it
on the [bleep] road.
Nathan: You know what?
Let it drop. Close the convoys.
Casey: Yeah. Okay.
♪
nate has a tough decision
to make.
If we want to continue to mine,
keep on working as a team
with this equipment...
We got shut down.
♪
♪
yeah, we're pretty much
screwed.
The weather's, you know,
got us down,
and don't look like
we're gonna make our goal
on our gold count.
Was sitting on the best ground
we've seen all year,
and now we can't mine it.
♪
narrator:
With birdseye at a standstill,
nathan and jason break the news
to dave in alaska.
-Hey, what's up, guys?
-Dave, how you doing, man?
All right.
How are you guys?
Well, do you want --
we'll start off positive.
We had...
We got a 6.5-ounce
cleanup.
What?
Yeah. 800 tons.
No way.
Yeah, buddy.
So that's good.
That's really good.
-However...
-What?
...The weather has came in
so hard,
we can't run another yard
of that dirt.
You guys are down?
Dude, it's frozen.
We had about
probably five inches,
six inches of ice.
So now we got this awesome
cut that we're doing,
good gold,
and can't friggin' run it.
Makes me nervous the weather's
setting in already.
What's going on with you,
dave?
They can't fly,
so I'm kind of stuck here
for awhile.
All right, man.
I just hope it's not
the end of our season.
All right, well,
keep me posted.
We really need a couple more
weeks to finish this season.
-All right.
-Bye, dave.
Be safe, brother.
-All right, man.
-You too.
-Bye.
-Bye.
Now we find out
he's stuck over there.
He can't come help.
It's not an ideal situation
at all.
It's really frustrating
when you finally get ground
and then you get froze out,
and now dave's stuck in alaska.
Pretty disheartening right now,
to be honest with you.
Dave: Winter is setting in.
Winter always wins in montana.
I can't even do anything.
I'm stuck here, so I don't know.
It's not good.
♪
got unfinished business.
Man:
Winter's definitely here.
Dave:
We're running out of time.
I got to get to the loader.
I can't talk to you right now.
[ indistinct shouting ]
everything's riding on this.
-Come on, baby.
-Yeah!
Back to business, boys!
Do not stop until we hit 200.
There I come, baby.
I'm bringing the pain.
-Oh, [bleep].
-Nathan!
We've formed bonds
that never, ever be broken.
So proud of these guys,
and that's my family.
I've got the last load
right here.
[ cheering ]
anything under 200 is a failure.
That's our season total.
[ cheering ]