Gold Rush: Freddy Dodge's Mine Rescue (2021): Season 2, Episode 10 - Legend of Freddy and Juan - full transcript
Well, I shouldn't show you
what's in this safe.
I don't even know
if it's legal to put
this stuff in a...
in a vault or not, but ah...
What the hell.
Let's open it up.
Food!
When you need a pantry,
you need a pantry.
I'll show you
some pictures here.
So my dad put this
photo album together.
My father was a...
an expert writer.
He was one of the top jockeys.
Actually, he was
the top jockey
in North America.
After he got out
of World War II,
he went into the Pacific
and was on
a destroyer out there,
fighting the Japanese.
Well, here's a picture
of part of the ranch
I grew up on in Walden.
That was
a few thousand acres,
for sure.
But, you know,
it was a really good place
to grow up.
These are
the Medicine Bow Mountains.
It's just old
black and white photos.
You should have seen
it in color.
In the winter
you're feeding cows,
in the summer,
you're haying.
My dad put me, you know,
on a tractor,
I was scared
to death at, like,
five years old,
about flipped it over
on myself a couple of times.
But you know,
growing up like that,
it puts a work ethic in ya.
I was never given
anything in life.
The work
never stops
for gold recovery
expert Freddy Dodge,
and master
fabricator Juan Ibarra,
as they help
struggling miners.
Ready.
How is it going,
Rick?
- Good to meet you, Todd.
- Good to meet you, man.
Argh!
This is the last chance
for me to have
a roof over my head.
When they're not
on the road rescuing mines,
the quest for golden riches
continues at home.
Beautiful gold bar.
Gold is money
and money is gold.
Now, Freddy...
Slate.
...and Juan,
That year probably took
some time off
of Freddy's life.
...give exclusive
access to their families...
I can only handle him
for a few weeks at a time,
so it's always good
that he is on the road.
...and reveal
the backstory
to their gold mining legend.
That shows
his dedication.
He'd take a part
off his truck,
to get that gold.
I was born in Colorado.
And Colorado is gold country.
Freddy Dodge is back home
after six months on the road.
Well, as an example.
I think the Yukon produced
around 12 or 13 million
ounces of gold.
And I think Colorado's
maybe 60 or 70 million
ounces of gold.
And this roughly
the same time period.
You know, I've been
messing with gold
since I was just a kid.
Just with a gold pan,
not even knowing what
some of it looked like sometimes.
But it was always
just a passion.
So I stuck with it.
When I was a kid
I thought I was born
in the wrong century.
I'm glad now I wasn't born
in the 1800s.
But as a kid you know,
I always dreamed about
the cowboys
and the prospectors.
Gold ran through
the veins of Freddy's family.
My dad you know, he was...
he was kind of a prospector.
Right. He never...
He never made it big in gold.
But he tried.
My dad dug a hard rock
mine at the ranch there
he found a showing.
And about, pretty much
by himself, drifted in,
like, 100 feet
into the mountain,
into solid rock.
And then, like
he went up 50 feet or so.
But there wasn't enough gold
there to make it worthwhile.
So you've got Derek, Rocky,
myself and little brother Joe.
Derek, my older brother,
disappeared into the Yukon
when I was just a little kid.
He had gold mining
in his head.
Rocky got me started
in fabrication and taught me
more than I can ever explain.
My first recollection
of Freddy was when he was
probably five or six,
with a pan in the creek.
Probably didn't know
what he was doing
but he was having fun trying.
Our parents
basically stated,
"If you take Freddy with you,
you gotta keep him with ya".
So we'd go up to the shop
and I'm gonna stay there
for hours working,
doing whatever.
Freddy was
an excellent student.
'Cause he wanted to learn it.
And he wanted to learn
to be the best of them.
Well, when I was a kid,
I had gold fever
and adventure fever.
And I tied the two together.
A thousand miles west,
outside of Reno,
Juan Ibarra is also back home
working on a new project.
So we're here in Nevada, uh,
Northern Nevada.
This is actually a shop
that my family and I
put together.
Today's an exciting day.
We actually got a new
service bed getting delivered.
A bed for his new
33-ton service truck...
My current truck
right now I've had it
for eight years.
We've ran it
all over the place.
Well, you can tell
Juan is, kind of,
a flashy guy,
'cause the first time
he showed up
in the Yukon he had
a big orange Peterbilt
It definitely doesn't
stand out at all.
When I'm on the highway
or whatever,
people recognize the truck.
They pass you.
They give you a thumbs up.
They come back.
They start taking pictures
of the truck.
The son of a bitch,
it gets stuck if you throw
a banana peel under the tire.
The truck that I run today,
I hate to say that
she's a highway queen
or a highway princess,
'cause she really isn't,
but she really wasn't
designed for off-road.
You know, there,
there's...
My bumper that I have,
it's a little low.
Um, my tanks sit a little low.
So yeah, she...
I've put her in some horrible
situations and sometimes
it hasn't worked out too well.
Hey. Hey. Hey.
Juan. Stop.
We've put, you know,
a couple of hundred thousand
miles on it.
But it's time. It's time.
It served its purpose.
It's been a great truck.
But it...
it's time to upgrade.
With weeks
to finish his rescue rig
before he hits the road,
Juan awaits delivery
of all new parts.
The truck will have
a specially designed
service bed
with custom storage units.
The three foot by eight foot
front deck
will house his 1,800 pound
welding unit,
with a subframe below,
to safely secure
eight feet of hose.
Once completed,
the service bed will attach
to a brand new 2022
Mack Granite truck
with a 2,700 pound
Palfinger crane.
Well, here it is.
Though Juan
has found his passion
in gold mining,
his root was more indirect
than Freddy's.
Nice.
I had my own
plumbing business.
And we still have our own
plumbing business to this day.
Just regular
household repairs.
Some sewer line repairs,
water line repairs.
But my business
was struggling
and got really, really bad.
So, uh, I was trying
to find a way to make
some extra money.
I actually took a job working
at a, at a gold mine
here in Nevada.
My first experience in
gold mining was ah, shoot,
must have been in 2012.
It was actually
a position that was, uh,
they call it a drill doctor,
is what it is.
So basically I repair anything
that's pneumatic underground.
And uh, so I went to work
there, worked there
for about a year.
And shortly after that,
I actually...
There is a job, job fair
for a company out of Alaska
and they were looking
for mechanics.
So I applied for the job.
I ended up getting the job.
We are getting ready
to do our walk through.
This is my shop.
That's kind of
where I got my start
and, you know, honestly,
it was out of necessity.
Um, you know,
financially things were
really tight for us.
I was at, at the verge
of, you know,
losing my business,
losing my house, everything
and so you know,
just trying to make money,
that's what it was.
- Hey, how you doing?
- Good. Mike, how you doing?
Good.
Awesome. You made it, huh?
- I did. Drive was pretty good.
- Good. Good.
What I wanna do
is I wanna just unload
it right here.
Okay. Yeah. We can do that.
We just leave enough room
to be able to walk around it.
Do we have any sawhorses?
Those big ones, huh?
- Yeah.
- Where they at?
- Way over there.
- I got those, we got those foldable one's right there.
Juan has
brought in buddy Matt
and brother-in-law Travis
to help get his all new truck
ready for the road.
Once it comes off,
we'll have to cut some
blocking for the front of it.
So that way
it actually sits level.
All right.
Ready when you are, Mike.
- Juan, coming up.
- Okay.
This is gonna be a real nice
upgrade for me.
You know,
I've ran that truck for years.
So it's, it's time
to upgrade it
and we're gonna build
something that's
purpose-built for what I do.
- How we looking, Juan?
- Look good. Go ahead and come down.
Moving down. Moving down.
When Todd called me
and asked me to
come up to the Yukon,
I knew I had to put
a truck together,
you know I had a smaller truck
but it wasn't really
what I wanted.
And it didn't have enough room
for all my tools.
So, I spent almost
every dollar that I had
putting the truck together,
getting things ready to go.
In 2015,
Juan took his Peterbilt north
to go and work
for the Hoffman crew.
Got a new face in camp. Juan.
Nice to meet you, Juan.
Juan's a mechanic.
He has a great resume.
He has worked at mines.
The main thing is
he's a family guy like us.
So basically, I quit my job
or quit the contract I had.
Put a ton of money
into a truck,
tooled it up, went on the road
for 3,200 miles.
Went up to, you know,
the Yukon,
to go work for someone
that I'd never really
met before.
It was here
that Freddy and Juan
met for the first time.
Freddy Dodge was the first guy
to come out and befriend me.
We're crooked
this way, Juan.
Really what I need
to do is get higher.
So I can get that bottom one
into that corner.
Let's go down.
Yeah, that's good now.
You know, you could tell right
away, right off the get-go
that he's a down to earth guy.
What do you think?
- We did it, buddy.
- Think we did okay?
That's how we
became friends.
It's a...
He tells a lie then I tell
a lie and then we compliment
each other's lies.
Freddy's Spanish
is getting better this year,
for sure.
Juan's first stint
on the Hoffman crew
kept him away from his wife,
Andrea for six months.
Ha, ha.
Uphill. Uphill. Uphill
I thought
it was crazy,
'cause we never met
the Hoffmans
and they always seemed like
a nice family
and everything,
but it was, you know,
we didn't know when
was the next time
we were gonna be able
to see each other.
You okay?
Andrea and Juan
have four children.
How old are you?
You're only one, too.
It's my little girl.
You wanna come say hello?
Come here.
How you doing, sweetie?
You're finding crystals?
Yeah.
Really? What kind of crystals?
Are you panning, Juanito?
Are you gonna
find gold in there?
- Yeah.
- Yeah?
By yourself?
There's a little bit
of a special connection there
with Aiden, for sure.
She, uh, about killed me,
about killed
my wife, but really.
No, no. You know, Aiden...
It... It's one
of those things that...
it's kinda hard
to even talk about.
Andrea unexpectedly
went into labor at home,
forcing her mechanic husband, Juan
to add a new skill
to his repertoire
It happened two years ago,
but it's still kinda fresh
in my mind.
You know, we ended up
delivering her
ourselves at home and...
and, uh...
You know, to this day,
I think about it, like,
my whole world
could've changed there
in a matter of seconds.
I look at Aiden...
I remember
when she came out,
and I actually
had to pull her out.
She was, uh, you know,
completely blue,
non-responsive and,
you know, to now...
I look at this little girl
that runs around and...
I'm definitely putty
in that little girl's hands.
And fortunately,
it all worked out well,
but it could've gone so wrong.
I could've lost my wife,
I could've lost my daughter.
You know, my entire world
could've been wrecked.
Leaving with
Juan and myself
going out on the road
helping other miners.
I've still got my own business
that I gotta attend to.
But when
separation anxiety kicks in,
Juan is never more
than a phone call away.
Hola.
How's it going, Juan?
Oh, doing all right.
Just, uh, headed out
to change a sluice box.
Oh, okay. Okay.
Hey, see you later, my friend.
Pulling in
to the mine here.
and, uh, it's time to change
a sluice box.
Today, Freddy
collects the gold concentrate
from his local mines.
Hopefully, there's
a lot of gold in it.
- I'll grab another hammer, bud.
- All righty.
Gotta hurry 'cause it's cold
this time of the year.
And if you don't get 'em in,
carpets will freeze solid on you.
Then, it's a real
pain in the ass.
- You want me to pull 'em up or you want to--
- Um, it doesn't matter.
Without
the flowing water,
Freddy has just 20 minutes
to change the mats
on the 30-foot sluice runs
before they freeze.
We've got
Cameron here.
He's one hell of a guy
changing sluice boxes.
He's one hell of a fabricator,
and he's one
hell of a good guy.
So Cameron started with us
right out of high school
and, uh, now,
he manages the company.
When I'm gone, he takes care
of, pretty much, everything.
When I'm back,
he still takes care
of most of it.
Yeah, exactly.
After nearly
four decades,
Freddy has identified
the secrets of maximizing
gold recovery
in the sluices.
Well, I'm not gonna
get into it with you guys
on pitch or water flows
or any of that, right?
'Cause there are a few things
we wanna keep to ourselves.
But I've tried
to teach the Hoffmans,
everybody, efficiency.
You put your boards close
so you can grab them.
The sluice box,
keep it simple.
Test your metal.
See what size
of gold you've got.
And are you screening
to the right size
for the material you have.
Get your water flows
where you think
they need to be
for your material.
Test your bottom mat.
See how much gold's
carrying to the end.
- You want me to pass you mats, Fred?
- Sure.
Keep it simple.
Complication usually
costs money.
We just changed
a 30-foot sluice box
- in what 15 minutes, Cameron?
- Yeah, 15, 20 minutes.
Yeah...
you see a lot of guys,
you know, that we've helped,
will go out on a little bitty
sluice box that's...
you know, half this wide
and half this length,
take some two hours
to change, right?
You seeing how efficient
this stuff came out of there?
The first time we saw
Todd Hoffman's sluice box
it was... not a joke,
but he had, you know,
a 20-foot sluice box
with 8-foot of riffles in it.
Rest of it, just plates.
You know, slick iron.
What does
slick iron do, Cameron?
- Uh, it doesn't catch any gold.
- No.
- Slick plates don't catch gold, huh?
- No. Exactly.
In 2010,
Todd Hoffman called on Freddy
to help salvage his mining
operation in Alaska.
Hope this is Fred.
- Hey, man. I'm Todd.
- Good to meet you, Todd.
Hey, good to meet you, man.
The rookie miners
had a complicated set-up
that was failing
to catch any gold.
Well, we'll have
a look at the plant
and see how much gold
you're losing.
How does my dad's
nugget trap look to you?
Not good.
But definitely use this area
to catch gold, Todd.
Right now, it's just
a straight shoot
that material slides down.
They just didn't know
what they were doing.
Their sluice box was wrong.
Their trommel was wrong.
Their nugget traps were wrong.
So what we wanna
do here, Todd,
is we wanna make
a true nugget trap.
with riffles in it.
Remember one thing, Todd,
slick plates can't catch gold.
If your riffles
are packing up,
you're losing
all of your gold recovery
that's possible
in the sluice box.
My suggestion is get
more pitch to this box
and complete riffles
all the way down.
I can't even believe I got
two ounces that I got.
I can't either.
Todd's not the guy out there
digging ditches, right?
But he's the guy
that will listen to people...
to a point.
Back in Nevada,
Juan's new service truck
takes shape.
We're gonna get
this welder unboxed.
We're gonna get...
we're gonna get it in place.
This is gonna sit on top
of that new welding deck,
but we wanna, kinda,
get it figured out
where it's gonna go
and how we're gonna
run all the hoses.
Juan has traded
his 1992 Peterbilt
for a 2022 Mack truck.
Side shift it this way
and then you wanna go
over about a foot.
The welder unit
will sit on Juan's
custom-made deck.
That looks good.
I like that it's a little
wider than my old deck.
But a key member
of the build team
is missing today's action.
The plan is, my dad
is definitely gonna be helping
me with the new truck.
Um, right now,
he's not feeling 100%,
so he wasn't able to
be here with us, but, uh...
Yeah, once he feels better,
he's gonna be here at the shop
and he'll start helping us
put this new truck together.
Juan Sr. played a key role
in putting together
the old Peterbilt.
When we put
this truck together years ago,
I think, it's fair to say
that my dad and I bonded.
We... We spent
a lot of time together
putting it together and...
picking out what
we were gonna do,
how we were
gonna do things and...
you know, it was
long nights, late nights.
It's kind of
a bittersweet thing
to see this thing,
you know...
just basically
see it go 'cause...
it was a family affair,
putting the truck together.
Hey, Dad.
Hi, Juan.
We're here
at the shop, uh.
Let me show you
what we've got.
Made a little bit of progress
with the truck
that got delivered today.
Sounds good.
So we got the bed here.
We got the...
We got the welding deck
in place.
Kinda what we wanted.
In my family line,
we're actually...
we come from a long
line of miners.
My dad was actually
the first generation
that wasn't a miner.
But my grandfather,
my great-grandfather,
my great-great-grandfather,
they were all miners.
And they were all gold miners.
We're just trying to
mock everything up.
See what... what...
what's gonna go where
and how we're gonna do it.
Growing up,
my dad was a plumber,
so I worked alongside my dad
ever since I was a little kid,
since about 8 years old,
9 years old.
Growing up with four sisters,
I used to go
to all the activities
my sisters would go to, so...
Early on, they started doing
ballet and, you know,
piano lessons, violin lessons
and everything else.
Eventually, I started
doing ballet too.
So then, my dad
finally got to the point
where he's like,
"Well, that's enough of that.
My son is gonna start
going to work with me," so...
Working alongside
my dad, as a kid,
I really didn't like it.
You know, 'cause
I used to see all my buddies
you know, they...
they'd go hang out.
You know, after school,
go and play around
and do whatever, you know.
Get involved in sports.
I never had that option.
I didn't get to do that,
you know.
After school, my dad
would be there every day
to pick me up
and I'd go to work with him
until 9:00, 10:00 at night
every day.
But now, you know,
years later,
I look back, I'm like,
"That... that was amazing."
That's the best upbringing
I could've had.
I, kinda like having
the welder this way
I like having it next to
the cab when I get in
and out of the cab,
so I can start it up
and shut it down.
And how you gonna
change the oil?
Just remember...
details, details.
Yeah, maybe I'll think
about changing it.
Flipping it around.
I... I think my dad...
being that I'm his son,
he expected more out of me.
I think of my son and I want
my son to strive as well.
You know,
I don't want him just to be...
mediocre or average.
I want him to really excel
in what he does
and really try hard, so...
I think my dad
has always, kind of,
put that in me.
That, "Hey, you know what,
it is...
you just don't wanna be
average. You wanna do
better than that."
So my dad hasn't
seen the truck built
I just showed him a little
on camera, right now,
and he's excited about it.
He, uh... He came up
with a good question though.
Right now, the way
I got the welder set up,
it's not really very efficient
to be able to check the oil
or even change the oil, so...
What I'm gonna do is
I'm actually gonna
turn it around.
Juan will use
the crane on his old Peterbilt
one last time
to implement his dad's advice.
Well, and really
it has our name
on the side of the truck.
My dad's name and my name,
so we wanna
make sure it's right.
We're gonna flip it around.
It's gonna change
the layout a little bit,
but I think it's gonna be
a better layout.
Well, that looks good, guys.
I think that'll actually
work better.
Now we have the controls...
the crane controls,
the welder, everything
on the one side.
Ensuring everything
is in working order
is critical,
as Juan found out
on a journey to the Yukon
in his old rig.
You know,
it's kinda embarrassing.
Here I am a mechanic,
and I'm showing up
to work with a broken truck.
I made it. I'm broke,
but I made it.
That's what
I was hoping, you know.
Lost the transmission.
- Ooh.
- Yeah.
Second I hit the Jake Brake,
all you hear is just gears.
It's just stripping out, yeah.
I went
to work for Tony and...
it actually was... it was
actually a really good fit.
Working for Tony
and his family was,
I gotta say,
it was really enjoyable.
Tony, even though he's
really kind of a hard ass,
but he's a great guy
to work for.
Juan
helped Tony rebuild
an ancient gold dredge
that hadn't run
since the 1940s.
Hold it.
Now, the tricky part
is gonna be
getting it on top
of these posts.
It's like a ballet, man.
It's like a dance.
You gotta just
get it right, you know.
You know, he tells you
what he wants.
That's what he wants.
and simple,
just get it done.
And it worked out well.
We had a great relationship.
That first year,
we got the second dredge.
I would say
75% accomplished.
Tony couldn't find
the parts he needed,
so the end of the season
came earlier than planned.
Time to go home.
Unfortunately,
we didn't get to finish it.
But who knows?
You know,
we talked about the...
Just a little bit ago,
but, you know,
if it ever comes up that
there's an opportunity
to finish that dredge,
I'd love to do that.
I was so involved
in the assembly of it,
I wanna be there to finish it.
That works out better.
I wasn't sure,
but that's gonna work good.
- What do you think?
- That works for me.
Yep. All right.
Let's do it.
Well, let's fire up the table.
Let it warm up
a few minutes here.
Then we'll run some gold.
Back at his workshop,
Freddy is ready
to clean the concentrate
from the mats he pulled.
With the black sand,
you can see those
little specks in there.
That's gold.
We're gonna take it
from pounds and pounds
of black sands
and heavies, down to,
hopefully, many ounces of gold
or at least a few
ounces of gold,
looking at it.
So, let's make some gold.
So, as you can see here,
we're separating stuff
by a specific gravity
on the table.
Uh, our gold is the heaviest
element we've got on here.
So, pure gold
has a specific gravity
of 19.3.
You know, the other things
we have here are irons, right?
We got a lot of iron
on the table.
Which is magnetite.
This probably has
a specific gravity
of around 6.
So, the gold weighs,
per volume,
three times
what that black sand weighs.
So we're using
gold's own weight against it.
To catch it.
We use it against it
in the sluice box,
we use it in the jigs,
we use it on the table.
And that's how we're able
to separate the gold
from those other lighter sands
that are out there
that which I'm glad
it's heavy,
'cause if it was light
I don't know
how we'd catch it.
I didn't invent
this style of table,
but this table's my design.
Mine and Rocky helped me
on it a lot.
Freddy
and his brother Rocky
sold their table design
to hundreds of miners
around the world.
Rocky and myself
have always worked together,
you know, building stuff.
Rocky's designed
a tremendous amount of plants
over the years.
For all kinds
of different things,
for gold, for aggregate.
You name it.
I'd say it's like
watching paint dry.
But it never gets old
watching yellow lines of gold
run down a table.
- How's it going, Rocky?
- Pretty good.
Runnin' some gold.
You know,
some nice lines of gold...
- Yeah.
- Beautiful gold.
Pretty clean.
Freddy and Rocky
always shared the same
fascination with gold.
Remember that, uh,
gold wheel we made?
- When we were kids out of a 55-gallon drum?
- Yeah.
- Windshield...
- Windshield washer motor.
Yeah.
It worked though,
that little gold wheel.
It would get
one out of ten flakes.
We're both kind of the same.
He left home when he was
16 years old
with just his clothes
and his car.
Then when I was 16 years old,
I left home and I just had
my clothes and my car.
I can build the plants
but he knows the recovery.
The architecture, the ground
and everything else.
'Cause that's what he does.
Rocky's a master
at designing plants
and, uh, I'm pretty dang good
at catching gold.
So, by putting those together,
we, you know,
we've done great things
for a lot of people
around the world.
Freddy's talent
was on full display
on a prospect in South America
with the Hoffmans.
- Where do you wanna start?
- Down by the water.
Okay, let's go.
It's my first time ever
panning in the ocean.
Well, first time
for everything, buddy.
I don't know
if there's a unique challenge
panning in sea water or not,
except catching the water.
Watch out for
the Portuguese man o' war.
What the hell
is that?
- See it? Right there.
- Oh, yeah, yeah.
- Yep. Right here?
- Yeah.
If there's
profitable gold here,
this is the easiest spot
we'd ever mine.
We need to build
a plant that we can
actually get material through.
I don't know
what we'll build it out of,
but we'll find something.
You're gonna build
a wash plant on the beach?
That's crazy.
It's pretty simple,
you just build something.
You need something
and there's nothing available
like we did on the beach.
You use what's available
in the area.
You know,
we used wood because, uh,
that's what was available.
We didn't have welders,
we didn't have grinders,
we didn't have things
to cut metal with.
We're trying to build
a wash plant to last for...
20 years.
We're building a wash plant
to do a good test.
Get our hoses to it,
start feeding
material through it
and see if there's any gold
on this beach.
We got water.
You know,
it took a day to build it.
- Good job, Freddy! Whoo!
- Thank you.
But it proved that that wasn't
a good place to mine.
A buck a yard, Freddy?
- That's my guess.
- That's terrible.
One of my bigger mistakes
with the Hoffmans was
Todd talking me
into going to Guyana.
It was just a mess.
This is what I can say.
Dave and myself
found a spot
that had gold.
Decent gold.
Never in my life,
thought I'd see $50 a yard.
And then, we didn't end up
going to that spot.
We went to another spot that
Todd had some fantasy
that it was
full of gold and diamonds.
which ended up
just being a nightmare.
One thing about the jungle,
it was so hot
that I didn't care
I'd prospect
and I'd pan in those creeks.
I'd stand right
chest-deep in water
in the creek.
They're like,
there's caiman in there.
there's electric eels,
there's snakes.
I'm like, I don't care
'cause it feels good.
It's better than standing out
in 110-degree sun,
in 100% humidity.
I'll take my chances
with the caiman.
I should've never been
in that spot
in the first place.
But, uh, Todd's one,
he'll listen to your advice
up to a point
and then he's gonna do
what Todd wants to do.
Todd did
listen to Freddy
when it came to wash plants.
And together
with brother, Rocky,
he designed and built
the Hoffman's four
brand-new plants.
Well, we'd made
numerous plants for Todd.
If you know the ground,
you can twist things
a bit to make it better.
And I spoke to Fred about
what the material's like.
Does the plant need
a nugget trap?
Can they afford the water
for a nugget trap?
Do they have the water
to run a big sluice system
like that?
After talking to Fred,
this and that,
the design just fell together.
So, like Monster Red, right?
It's one hell of a plant.
You designed the plant.
I, you know,
had a lot of design
in the sluices
and the gold recovery system
on it.
I love that plant,
but I'm tired
of moving that plant.
I've moved it
into the Yukon,
put it together,
moved it around the Yukon
a couple of times,
tore it down,
moved it to Oregon,
tore it down,
moved it to Colorado
tore it back down in Colorado
and moved it back
to the Yukon.
It's lucky that the bolts
aren't worn out in it.
It doesn't have
an odometer on it.
Too many miles.
It's a flippin'
nice plant
but I'm flippin'
tired of moving it.
I could probably
put it back together
in my sleep.
Back in Nevada,
welder now in place,
Juan is making progress
fabricating for his new
service truck bed.
On this unit,
the way this is set up,
it runs a hydraulic
and also air.
And, obviously,
it's a welder and a generator,
but to keep it clean,
I don't like having
a bunch of hoses
just kind of
ran on the side of it,
so what we're gonna do,
we're gonna build a frame,
so this sits up
a little higher,
so we can get
all the hoses underneath it
and that way,
it stays clean and tidy.
If you look
on this other truck,
we actually...
That's how I did it years ago.
I had to build
a subframe for it,
so that way
all my hoses,
my welding leads,
my power leads
and then, also hydraulic
and air lines
go underneath the deck,
so that way it stays clean
and organized.
Gonna boom up and own.
So, we'll run our
2X2 across there.
- Basically build a frame for it.
- Okay.
Juan has ordered
six 20-foot lengths
of 2X2 steel.
So, we got the steel here,
that's gonna be
for the subframe,
where the welder's gonna
sit on top of.
We're gonna get this
all unloaded
to get it in the shop.
This forklift actually,
it'll turn sideways,
they call it a four-way.
But not only
does it go forward,
but it'll actually go
sideways as well.
So, that way,
when you have 20-foot material
trying to get
through a 14-foot door
it doesn't fit, but you can go
sideways with it.
He's
a shoppin' machine, Juan is.
He loves to shop.
Juan's younger than I am
by 20 years.
So, he's got skills
that I don't have
as far as
you know, new electronics.
We both have skills
that complement one another.
Right, so we work
really good together.
No amount
of expertise could prepare
them for their season in 2017,
when Freddy bought a claim
in Colorado
and set up as a mine owner.
Everything was ready to run.
I had everything ready,
the water was hooked up,
the pumps were hooked up,
the electrical was hooked up.
You know, I'd rebuilt,
I'd put a new screen
on the plant,
I'd armored the conveyors up.
It was ready to roll
and it was ready
to roll harder.
Hello.
You don't have my consent
to film me.
"You're in violation
of Park County
land-use regulations.
Your property
which is zoned residential,
mining and commercial uses
are not permitted
in a residential
zone district.
Order. Based on the foregoing,
you are hereby ordered
to cease and desist
all mining and commercial
activities immediately."
That's it.
I've got most
of my life savings
tied up in that plant.
And I got friends
that need a job
Honestly, that year
probably took some time
off of Freddy's life.
And I hate to say that
because Freddy aged
a lot that year.
He had the burden of...
You know, he has a dozen guys
there that are working.
You know,
they're all expecting gold
at the end of the season.
You know,
he had a ton of his own money
tied up in it.
Everybody, listen up.
I want all machines off.
We're gonna fight
for our rights on this, okay.
All right, Doug,
we're shutting down.
Millions of dollars
on the line,
Freddy refuses to go down
without a fight.
I'm here today to try
to get you to lift this cease
and desist order.
That property was first mined
almost a 160 years ago.
It can't be zoned residential.
According to Statute 34-1-305.
That plant sitting out
at that mine,
every piece of that is out
of my pocket, right?
It's my life savings
sitting there.
I tried to do a good job.
All I wanna do,
is mine this property.
And I believe we have
the legal right to do that.
It's all up to
the county commissioners now.
After two weeks
of deliberation,
Freddy gets his decision.
They've lifted the cease
and desist until--
You are kidding me.
Yee-haw!
Way to go, buddy.
Once we got
the plant running in Colorado,
once we got all
our t's crossed, i's dotted,
Then, we did good.
Hey.
That's good man.
- Yeah.
- All right. Yeah.
Well, let's melt some gold.
After cleaning
the concentrate on his table,
Freddy prepares
for the final stage.
There's what it weighed
before, 29.35.
The fine gold
worth almost $53,000
is now ready for smelting.
I know the purity
of the gold within 0.5%.
But sometimes you don't know
what your melt loss is,
cause you always have
a little bit of sand,
a little bit
of impurities with it.
And, by me melting it myself,
I know what those
impurities are.
Melt lost in this
should be around 2%.
But, I don't wanna try to get
it any cleaner than that
with gravity.
If you do,
you'll start losing gold.
So... And 2% is
really clean.
Most gold miners
are five, six, seven,
eight percent.
Well, this is
an induction furnace that's
using electricity,
to melt the gold.
So, there's electric coils
around the crucible in there
that superheat.
While they're heating
that crucible up,
you know, we're gonna
heat it up to 2,000 degrees.
Gold melts at 1,930 degrees,
pure gold does.
Let it sit there,
and cook for a minute.
and then start
pouring some bars.
We wanna heat our mold up.
Get it up to temperature,
we don't wanna pour
into it cold.
We get a reaction between
that hot gold
and that cold steel.
So, we're gonna get
this mold up to, oh,
700 degrees or so
before we pour our gold
into it.
So, what we're doing now,
is just the settling smoke.
We're gonna put a thin layer
of smoke in our mold.
It just puts a thin membrane
of smoke between the gold,
and our mold.
Getting close now.
In Nevada,
Juan's almost ready
to attach the subframe.
Oh, that's it, Trav.
All welded it up.
- That looks good.
- Not bad, huh.
Let it cool off
for a second,
but then we'll put it
under the welder,
and get it set in place,
and see where we're going
to drill the holes.
Let's get it over there.
We'll hold it in place
and get the first couple
of bolts started here.
Travis and I actually went
to school together
and, you know,
we became friends.
and started hanging out.
That's how I met Andrea,
his sister,
and we eventually got married.
Yeah, Travis has been
one of my closest friends
since we were kids.
So what I'm gonna do is,
I'm actually gonna center it
on the deck,
that way it looks
a little more,
you know, uniform.
So, we're gonna move it over
a little bit, then, drill it,
and then bolt it in,
then it's done.
Well, Trav,
we got it all bolted in.
Really, what we need now
is a truck.
Yep.
We don't wanna leave this
like bridge number two,
not done.
Got the battery in,
let's give it a shot,
let's start it up.
She's alive.
Now that Juan's
done all he can before his
truck arrives in a few weeks,
he can get down
to some more serious business.
So here's the prepared meat.
Oh! I'm wasting away to nothing.
Haven't eaten for,
at least, six hours.
Actually, it has
probably been only four.
You know, it's kinda nice,
you know, we're out here
in the middle of nowhere, but,
my wife,
she'll bring the kids up
and everything,
and halfway through
the workday, it'll be nice
to be able to just stop
and make some food
for my wife and the kids
and hang out.
It's the simple things
in life, you know.
It's not about, you know,
crazy fancy meals.
It's just about enjoying
each other's company, and,
you know,
something simple like this,
it's really enjoyable.
I could only handle
him for a few weeks at a time.
So it's good that he's out
on the road all the time.
Yeah, don't you have to go
to work soon?
So I grew up only, like,
two miles away from here.
So, just, same views,
just a little further back.
And the kids seem to like
a lot of dirt, so we picked
the perfect place.
They're fun and they're
at the right age where
everything's always muddy.
We gotta get enough flux
on there.
So when we pour our bar,
that flux covers the top
of the bar to keep the air
from hitting it.
'Cause if the oxygen hits it,
it can make a mess
and make an ugly bar.
Well, let's pour a gold bar
and see what it looks like, guys.
The induction
furnace has turned Freddy's
fines into liquid gold.
Well, just let her cool now.
Hopefully, it come out good.
We've had
all these civilizations
over the years that have,
used gold as a monetary device
and they've made coins
out of them.
Without gold, your cell phone
wouldn't be as small as it is.
It'd probably be that big,
'cause gold is also the most
conductive of all of them,
all minerals.
So, it's also
the most malleable.
So gold can be smashed,
practically, to transparency,
before it comes apart,
pure gold.
Well, let's see what
this bar looks like.
One gold bar.
You can see our slag
underneath here, that's our
flux that we put in there.
And, here's our gold.
So, let's cool it off
and see what it looks like.
After smelting,
the original 29 ounces
of gold...
Sounds like gold.
...the bar
shouldn't weigh less
than 27 ounces.
One gold bar.
One beautiful gold bar.
28.80.
So in my head,
a little under 2% melt loss
on it, which is damn clean.
This is big, huh!
It's the new welder.
- No?
- No.
- It's yours?
- It's yours.
No? Whose is it?
It's Juanito's?
- Yeah.
- That's Juanito's new truck?
You excited
about your new truck, Juanito?
It's gonna be about
the same size. But it's gonna
be a little taller.
And just a little bit longer.
Okay.
Yeah?
It will be stronger.
Do you want me to hug you?
After six years
working together,
Juan paid his buddy
the ultimate tribute.
Did he kiss you?
Oh, he licked you?
What's his name?
He's baby Freddy.
Freddy.
You named him Freddy?
Well, that's sure an honor, Juano.
There's nobody I'd rather be
out on the road with,
than Mr. Juan Ibarra.
I met Juan
in the Yukon,
years and years ago.
We became friends
right off the bat.
I knew right then,
that he's the type of guy
that I enjoy working with.
He's truly a good person.
He's truly good
at what he does,
and he's very intelligent.
Freddy's been
a great friend.
- Mmm-hmm!
- You know, and...
You know, it means the world
to me that
he could ask anybody to be
on the road with him and,
he asked me to be
on the road with him.
Fred's a great guy.
He really is.
He's got a, a heart of gold.
And, we both enjoy helping
the people that we're helping.
And it's really real,
what we're doing.
It isn't T.V. baloney.
Juan and myself
are helping them
get more gold,
and more money
in their pocket.
These struggling miners...
they are the little guys,
the mom and pops.
So, if Juan and myself
can go in there,
and help them get
a little more gold.
Help them get another
10% or 15% or 20%
or whatever.
You know, that's more money
in their pocket, right?
Freddy and Juan
will soon be hitting
the road again
to help more struggling
gold miners turn a profit.
There's still
a lot of gold out there.
The old-timers
didn't get it all.
There's gold to be found.
There's gold to be mined.
There's gold to be sold.
And as long as the gold's
in the ground,
we're gonna catch it.
what's in this safe.
I don't even know
if it's legal to put
this stuff in a...
in a vault or not, but ah...
What the hell.
Let's open it up.
Food!
When you need a pantry,
you need a pantry.
I'll show you
some pictures here.
So my dad put this
photo album together.
My father was a...
an expert writer.
He was one of the top jockeys.
Actually, he was
the top jockey
in North America.
After he got out
of World War II,
he went into the Pacific
and was on
a destroyer out there,
fighting the Japanese.
Well, here's a picture
of part of the ranch
I grew up on in Walden.
That was
a few thousand acres,
for sure.
But, you know,
it was a really good place
to grow up.
These are
the Medicine Bow Mountains.
It's just old
black and white photos.
You should have seen
it in color.
In the winter
you're feeding cows,
in the summer,
you're haying.
My dad put me, you know,
on a tractor,
I was scared
to death at, like,
five years old,
about flipped it over
on myself a couple of times.
But you know,
growing up like that,
it puts a work ethic in ya.
I was never given
anything in life.
The work
never stops
for gold recovery
expert Freddy Dodge,
and master
fabricator Juan Ibarra,
as they help
struggling miners.
Ready.
How is it going,
Rick?
- Good to meet you, Todd.
- Good to meet you, man.
Argh!
This is the last chance
for me to have
a roof over my head.
When they're not
on the road rescuing mines,
the quest for golden riches
continues at home.
Beautiful gold bar.
Gold is money
and money is gold.
Now, Freddy...
Slate.
...and Juan,
That year probably took
some time off
of Freddy's life.
...give exclusive
access to their families...
I can only handle him
for a few weeks at a time,
so it's always good
that he is on the road.
...and reveal
the backstory
to their gold mining legend.
That shows
his dedication.
He'd take a part
off his truck,
to get that gold.
I was born in Colorado.
And Colorado is gold country.
Freddy Dodge is back home
after six months on the road.
Well, as an example.
I think the Yukon produced
around 12 or 13 million
ounces of gold.
And I think Colorado's
maybe 60 or 70 million
ounces of gold.
And this roughly
the same time period.
You know, I've been
messing with gold
since I was just a kid.
Just with a gold pan,
not even knowing what
some of it looked like sometimes.
But it was always
just a passion.
So I stuck with it.
When I was a kid
I thought I was born
in the wrong century.
I'm glad now I wasn't born
in the 1800s.
But as a kid you know,
I always dreamed about
the cowboys
and the prospectors.
Gold ran through
the veins of Freddy's family.
My dad you know, he was...
he was kind of a prospector.
Right. He never...
He never made it big in gold.
But he tried.
My dad dug a hard rock
mine at the ranch there
he found a showing.
And about, pretty much
by himself, drifted in,
like, 100 feet
into the mountain,
into solid rock.
And then, like
he went up 50 feet or so.
But there wasn't enough gold
there to make it worthwhile.
So you've got Derek, Rocky,
myself and little brother Joe.
Derek, my older brother,
disappeared into the Yukon
when I was just a little kid.
He had gold mining
in his head.
Rocky got me started
in fabrication and taught me
more than I can ever explain.
My first recollection
of Freddy was when he was
probably five or six,
with a pan in the creek.
Probably didn't know
what he was doing
but he was having fun trying.
Our parents
basically stated,
"If you take Freddy with you,
you gotta keep him with ya".
So we'd go up to the shop
and I'm gonna stay there
for hours working,
doing whatever.
Freddy was
an excellent student.
'Cause he wanted to learn it.
And he wanted to learn
to be the best of them.
Well, when I was a kid,
I had gold fever
and adventure fever.
And I tied the two together.
A thousand miles west,
outside of Reno,
Juan Ibarra is also back home
working on a new project.
So we're here in Nevada, uh,
Northern Nevada.
This is actually a shop
that my family and I
put together.
Today's an exciting day.
We actually got a new
service bed getting delivered.
A bed for his new
33-ton service truck...
My current truck
right now I've had it
for eight years.
We've ran it
all over the place.
Well, you can tell
Juan is, kind of,
a flashy guy,
'cause the first time
he showed up
in the Yukon he had
a big orange Peterbilt
It definitely doesn't
stand out at all.
When I'm on the highway
or whatever,
people recognize the truck.
They pass you.
They give you a thumbs up.
They come back.
They start taking pictures
of the truck.
The son of a bitch,
it gets stuck if you throw
a banana peel under the tire.
The truck that I run today,
I hate to say that
she's a highway queen
or a highway princess,
'cause she really isn't,
but she really wasn't
designed for off-road.
You know, there,
there's...
My bumper that I have,
it's a little low.
Um, my tanks sit a little low.
So yeah, she...
I've put her in some horrible
situations and sometimes
it hasn't worked out too well.
Hey. Hey. Hey.
Juan. Stop.
We've put, you know,
a couple of hundred thousand
miles on it.
But it's time. It's time.
It served its purpose.
It's been a great truck.
But it...
it's time to upgrade.
With weeks
to finish his rescue rig
before he hits the road,
Juan awaits delivery
of all new parts.
The truck will have
a specially designed
service bed
with custom storage units.
The three foot by eight foot
front deck
will house his 1,800 pound
welding unit,
with a subframe below,
to safely secure
eight feet of hose.
Once completed,
the service bed will attach
to a brand new 2022
Mack Granite truck
with a 2,700 pound
Palfinger crane.
Well, here it is.
Though Juan
has found his passion
in gold mining,
his root was more indirect
than Freddy's.
Nice.
I had my own
plumbing business.
And we still have our own
plumbing business to this day.
Just regular
household repairs.
Some sewer line repairs,
water line repairs.
But my business
was struggling
and got really, really bad.
So, uh, I was trying
to find a way to make
some extra money.
I actually took a job working
at a, at a gold mine
here in Nevada.
My first experience in
gold mining was ah, shoot,
must have been in 2012.
It was actually
a position that was, uh,
they call it a drill doctor,
is what it is.
So basically I repair anything
that's pneumatic underground.
And uh, so I went to work
there, worked there
for about a year.
And shortly after that,
I actually...
There is a job, job fair
for a company out of Alaska
and they were looking
for mechanics.
So I applied for the job.
I ended up getting the job.
We are getting ready
to do our walk through.
This is my shop.
That's kind of
where I got my start
and, you know, honestly,
it was out of necessity.
Um, you know,
financially things were
really tight for us.
I was at, at the verge
of, you know,
losing my business,
losing my house, everything
and so you know,
just trying to make money,
that's what it was.
- Hey, how you doing?
- Good. Mike, how you doing?
Good.
Awesome. You made it, huh?
- I did. Drive was pretty good.
- Good. Good.
What I wanna do
is I wanna just unload
it right here.
Okay. Yeah. We can do that.
We just leave enough room
to be able to walk around it.
Do we have any sawhorses?
Those big ones, huh?
- Yeah.
- Where they at?
- Way over there.
- I got those, we got those foldable one's right there.
Juan has
brought in buddy Matt
and brother-in-law Travis
to help get his all new truck
ready for the road.
Once it comes off,
we'll have to cut some
blocking for the front of it.
So that way
it actually sits level.
All right.
Ready when you are, Mike.
- Juan, coming up.
- Okay.
This is gonna be a real nice
upgrade for me.
You know,
I've ran that truck for years.
So it's, it's time
to upgrade it
and we're gonna build
something that's
purpose-built for what I do.
- How we looking, Juan?
- Look good. Go ahead and come down.
Moving down. Moving down.
When Todd called me
and asked me to
come up to the Yukon,
I knew I had to put
a truck together,
you know I had a smaller truck
but it wasn't really
what I wanted.
And it didn't have enough room
for all my tools.
So, I spent almost
every dollar that I had
putting the truck together,
getting things ready to go.
In 2015,
Juan took his Peterbilt north
to go and work
for the Hoffman crew.
Got a new face in camp. Juan.
Nice to meet you, Juan.
Juan's a mechanic.
He has a great resume.
He has worked at mines.
The main thing is
he's a family guy like us.
So basically, I quit my job
or quit the contract I had.
Put a ton of money
into a truck,
tooled it up, went on the road
for 3,200 miles.
Went up to, you know,
the Yukon,
to go work for someone
that I'd never really
met before.
It was here
that Freddy and Juan
met for the first time.
Freddy Dodge was the first guy
to come out and befriend me.
We're crooked
this way, Juan.
Really what I need
to do is get higher.
So I can get that bottom one
into that corner.
Let's go down.
Yeah, that's good now.
You know, you could tell right
away, right off the get-go
that he's a down to earth guy.
What do you think?
- We did it, buddy.
- Think we did okay?
That's how we
became friends.
It's a...
He tells a lie then I tell
a lie and then we compliment
each other's lies.
Freddy's Spanish
is getting better this year,
for sure.
Juan's first stint
on the Hoffman crew
kept him away from his wife,
Andrea for six months.
Ha, ha.
Uphill. Uphill. Uphill
I thought
it was crazy,
'cause we never met
the Hoffmans
and they always seemed like
a nice family
and everything,
but it was, you know,
we didn't know when
was the next time
we were gonna be able
to see each other.
You okay?
Andrea and Juan
have four children.
How old are you?
You're only one, too.
It's my little girl.
You wanna come say hello?
Come here.
How you doing, sweetie?
You're finding crystals?
Yeah.
Really? What kind of crystals?
Are you panning, Juanito?
Are you gonna
find gold in there?
- Yeah.
- Yeah?
By yourself?
There's a little bit
of a special connection there
with Aiden, for sure.
She, uh, about killed me,
about killed
my wife, but really.
No, no. You know, Aiden...
It... It's one
of those things that...
it's kinda hard
to even talk about.
Andrea unexpectedly
went into labor at home,
forcing her mechanic husband, Juan
to add a new skill
to his repertoire
It happened two years ago,
but it's still kinda fresh
in my mind.
You know, we ended up
delivering her
ourselves at home and...
and, uh...
You know, to this day,
I think about it, like,
my whole world
could've changed there
in a matter of seconds.
I look at Aiden...
I remember
when she came out,
and I actually
had to pull her out.
She was, uh, you know,
completely blue,
non-responsive and,
you know, to now...
I look at this little girl
that runs around and...
I'm definitely putty
in that little girl's hands.
And fortunately,
it all worked out well,
but it could've gone so wrong.
I could've lost my wife,
I could've lost my daughter.
You know, my entire world
could've been wrecked.
Leaving with
Juan and myself
going out on the road
helping other miners.
I've still got my own business
that I gotta attend to.
But when
separation anxiety kicks in,
Juan is never more
than a phone call away.
Hola.
How's it going, Juan?
Oh, doing all right.
Just, uh, headed out
to change a sluice box.
Oh, okay. Okay.
Hey, see you later, my friend.
Pulling in
to the mine here.
and, uh, it's time to change
a sluice box.
Today, Freddy
collects the gold concentrate
from his local mines.
Hopefully, there's
a lot of gold in it.
- I'll grab another hammer, bud.
- All righty.
Gotta hurry 'cause it's cold
this time of the year.
And if you don't get 'em in,
carpets will freeze solid on you.
Then, it's a real
pain in the ass.
- You want me to pull 'em up or you want to--
- Um, it doesn't matter.
Without
the flowing water,
Freddy has just 20 minutes
to change the mats
on the 30-foot sluice runs
before they freeze.
We've got
Cameron here.
He's one hell of a guy
changing sluice boxes.
He's one hell of a fabricator,
and he's one
hell of a good guy.
So Cameron started with us
right out of high school
and, uh, now,
he manages the company.
When I'm gone, he takes care
of, pretty much, everything.
When I'm back,
he still takes care
of most of it.
Yeah, exactly.
After nearly
four decades,
Freddy has identified
the secrets of maximizing
gold recovery
in the sluices.
Well, I'm not gonna
get into it with you guys
on pitch or water flows
or any of that, right?
'Cause there are a few things
we wanna keep to ourselves.
But I've tried
to teach the Hoffmans,
everybody, efficiency.
You put your boards close
so you can grab them.
The sluice box,
keep it simple.
Test your metal.
See what size
of gold you've got.
And are you screening
to the right size
for the material you have.
Get your water flows
where you think
they need to be
for your material.
Test your bottom mat.
See how much gold's
carrying to the end.
- You want me to pass you mats, Fred?
- Sure.
Keep it simple.
Complication usually
costs money.
We just changed
a 30-foot sluice box
- in what 15 minutes, Cameron?
- Yeah, 15, 20 minutes.
Yeah...
you see a lot of guys,
you know, that we've helped,
will go out on a little bitty
sluice box that's...
you know, half this wide
and half this length,
take some two hours
to change, right?
You seeing how efficient
this stuff came out of there?
The first time we saw
Todd Hoffman's sluice box
it was... not a joke,
but he had, you know,
a 20-foot sluice box
with 8-foot of riffles in it.
Rest of it, just plates.
You know, slick iron.
What does
slick iron do, Cameron?
- Uh, it doesn't catch any gold.
- No.
- Slick plates don't catch gold, huh?
- No. Exactly.
In 2010,
Todd Hoffman called on Freddy
to help salvage his mining
operation in Alaska.
Hope this is Fred.
- Hey, man. I'm Todd.
- Good to meet you, Todd.
Hey, good to meet you, man.
The rookie miners
had a complicated set-up
that was failing
to catch any gold.
Well, we'll have
a look at the plant
and see how much gold
you're losing.
How does my dad's
nugget trap look to you?
Not good.
But definitely use this area
to catch gold, Todd.
Right now, it's just
a straight shoot
that material slides down.
They just didn't know
what they were doing.
Their sluice box was wrong.
Their trommel was wrong.
Their nugget traps were wrong.
So what we wanna
do here, Todd,
is we wanna make
a true nugget trap.
with riffles in it.
Remember one thing, Todd,
slick plates can't catch gold.
If your riffles
are packing up,
you're losing
all of your gold recovery
that's possible
in the sluice box.
My suggestion is get
more pitch to this box
and complete riffles
all the way down.
I can't even believe I got
two ounces that I got.
I can't either.
Todd's not the guy out there
digging ditches, right?
But he's the guy
that will listen to people...
to a point.
Back in Nevada,
Juan's new service truck
takes shape.
We're gonna get
this welder unboxed.
We're gonna get...
we're gonna get it in place.
This is gonna sit on top
of that new welding deck,
but we wanna, kinda,
get it figured out
where it's gonna go
and how we're gonna
run all the hoses.
Juan has traded
his 1992 Peterbilt
for a 2022 Mack truck.
Side shift it this way
and then you wanna go
over about a foot.
The welder unit
will sit on Juan's
custom-made deck.
That looks good.
I like that it's a little
wider than my old deck.
But a key member
of the build team
is missing today's action.
The plan is, my dad
is definitely gonna be helping
me with the new truck.
Um, right now,
he's not feeling 100%,
so he wasn't able to
be here with us, but, uh...
Yeah, once he feels better,
he's gonna be here at the shop
and he'll start helping us
put this new truck together.
Juan Sr. played a key role
in putting together
the old Peterbilt.
When we put
this truck together years ago,
I think, it's fair to say
that my dad and I bonded.
We... We spent
a lot of time together
putting it together and...
picking out what
we were gonna do,
how we were
gonna do things and...
you know, it was
long nights, late nights.
It's kind of
a bittersweet thing
to see this thing,
you know...
just basically
see it go 'cause...
it was a family affair,
putting the truck together.
Hey, Dad.
Hi, Juan.
We're here
at the shop, uh.
Let me show you
what we've got.
Made a little bit of progress
with the truck
that got delivered today.
Sounds good.
So we got the bed here.
We got the...
We got the welding deck
in place.
Kinda what we wanted.
In my family line,
we're actually...
we come from a long
line of miners.
My dad was actually
the first generation
that wasn't a miner.
But my grandfather,
my great-grandfather,
my great-great-grandfather,
they were all miners.
And they were all gold miners.
We're just trying to
mock everything up.
See what... what...
what's gonna go where
and how we're gonna do it.
Growing up,
my dad was a plumber,
so I worked alongside my dad
ever since I was a little kid,
since about 8 years old,
9 years old.
Growing up with four sisters,
I used to go
to all the activities
my sisters would go to, so...
Early on, they started doing
ballet and, you know,
piano lessons, violin lessons
and everything else.
Eventually, I started
doing ballet too.
So then, my dad
finally got to the point
where he's like,
"Well, that's enough of that.
My son is gonna start
going to work with me," so...
Working alongside
my dad, as a kid,
I really didn't like it.
You know, 'cause
I used to see all my buddies
you know, they...
they'd go hang out.
You know, after school,
go and play around
and do whatever, you know.
Get involved in sports.
I never had that option.
I didn't get to do that,
you know.
After school, my dad
would be there every day
to pick me up
and I'd go to work with him
until 9:00, 10:00 at night
every day.
But now, you know,
years later,
I look back, I'm like,
"That... that was amazing."
That's the best upbringing
I could've had.
I, kinda like having
the welder this way
I like having it next to
the cab when I get in
and out of the cab,
so I can start it up
and shut it down.
And how you gonna
change the oil?
Just remember...
details, details.
Yeah, maybe I'll think
about changing it.
Flipping it around.
I... I think my dad...
being that I'm his son,
he expected more out of me.
I think of my son and I want
my son to strive as well.
You know,
I don't want him just to be...
mediocre or average.
I want him to really excel
in what he does
and really try hard, so...
I think my dad
has always, kind of,
put that in me.
That, "Hey, you know what,
it is...
you just don't wanna be
average. You wanna do
better than that."
So my dad hasn't
seen the truck built
I just showed him a little
on camera, right now,
and he's excited about it.
He, uh... He came up
with a good question though.
Right now, the way
I got the welder set up,
it's not really very efficient
to be able to check the oil
or even change the oil, so...
What I'm gonna do is
I'm actually gonna
turn it around.
Juan will use
the crane on his old Peterbilt
one last time
to implement his dad's advice.
Well, and really
it has our name
on the side of the truck.
My dad's name and my name,
so we wanna
make sure it's right.
We're gonna flip it around.
It's gonna change
the layout a little bit,
but I think it's gonna be
a better layout.
Well, that looks good, guys.
I think that'll actually
work better.
Now we have the controls...
the crane controls,
the welder, everything
on the one side.
Ensuring everything
is in working order
is critical,
as Juan found out
on a journey to the Yukon
in his old rig.
You know,
it's kinda embarrassing.
Here I am a mechanic,
and I'm showing up
to work with a broken truck.
I made it. I'm broke,
but I made it.
That's what
I was hoping, you know.
Lost the transmission.
- Ooh.
- Yeah.
Second I hit the Jake Brake,
all you hear is just gears.
It's just stripping out, yeah.
I went
to work for Tony and...
it actually was... it was
actually a really good fit.
Working for Tony
and his family was,
I gotta say,
it was really enjoyable.
Tony, even though he's
really kind of a hard ass,
but he's a great guy
to work for.
Juan
helped Tony rebuild
an ancient gold dredge
that hadn't run
since the 1940s.
Hold it.
Now, the tricky part
is gonna be
getting it on top
of these posts.
It's like a ballet, man.
It's like a dance.
You gotta just
get it right, you know.
You know, he tells you
what he wants.
That's what he wants.
and simple,
just get it done.
And it worked out well.
We had a great relationship.
That first year,
we got the second dredge.
I would say
75% accomplished.
Tony couldn't find
the parts he needed,
so the end of the season
came earlier than planned.
Time to go home.
Unfortunately,
we didn't get to finish it.
But who knows?
You know,
we talked about the...
Just a little bit ago,
but, you know,
if it ever comes up that
there's an opportunity
to finish that dredge,
I'd love to do that.
I was so involved
in the assembly of it,
I wanna be there to finish it.
That works out better.
I wasn't sure,
but that's gonna work good.
- What do you think?
- That works for me.
Yep. All right.
Let's do it.
Well, let's fire up the table.
Let it warm up
a few minutes here.
Then we'll run some gold.
Back at his workshop,
Freddy is ready
to clean the concentrate
from the mats he pulled.
With the black sand,
you can see those
little specks in there.
That's gold.
We're gonna take it
from pounds and pounds
of black sands
and heavies, down to,
hopefully, many ounces of gold
or at least a few
ounces of gold,
looking at it.
So, let's make some gold.
So, as you can see here,
we're separating stuff
by a specific gravity
on the table.
Uh, our gold is the heaviest
element we've got on here.
So, pure gold
has a specific gravity
of 19.3.
You know, the other things
we have here are irons, right?
We got a lot of iron
on the table.
Which is magnetite.
This probably has
a specific gravity
of around 6.
So, the gold weighs,
per volume,
three times
what that black sand weighs.
So we're using
gold's own weight against it.
To catch it.
We use it against it
in the sluice box,
we use it in the jigs,
we use it on the table.
And that's how we're able
to separate the gold
from those other lighter sands
that are out there
that which I'm glad
it's heavy,
'cause if it was light
I don't know
how we'd catch it.
I didn't invent
this style of table,
but this table's my design.
Mine and Rocky helped me
on it a lot.
Freddy
and his brother Rocky
sold their table design
to hundreds of miners
around the world.
Rocky and myself
have always worked together,
you know, building stuff.
Rocky's designed
a tremendous amount of plants
over the years.
For all kinds
of different things,
for gold, for aggregate.
You name it.
I'd say it's like
watching paint dry.
But it never gets old
watching yellow lines of gold
run down a table.
- How's it going, Rocky?
- Pretty good.
Runnin' some gold.
You know,
some nice lines of gold...
- Yeah.
- Beautiful gold.
Pretty clean.
Freddy and Rocky
always shared the same
fascination with gold.
Remember that, uh,
gold wheel we made?
- When we were kids out of a 55-gallon drum?
- Yeah.
- Windshield...
- Windshield washer motor.
Yeah.
It worked though,
that little gold wheel.
It would get
one out of ten flakes.
We're both kind of the same.
He left home when he was
16 years old
with just his clothes
and his car.
Then when I was 16 years old,
I left home and I just had
my clothes and my car.
I can build the plants
but he knows the recovery.
The architecture, the ground
and everything else.
'Cause that's what he does.
Rocky's a master
at designing plants
and, uh, I'm pretty dang good
at catching gold.
So, by putting those together,
we, you know,
we've done great things
for a lot of people
around the world.
Freddy's talent
was on full display
on a prospect in South America
with the Hoffmans.
- Where do you wanna start?
- Down by the water.
Okay, let's go.
It's my first time ever
panning in the ocean.
Well, first time
for everything, buddy.
I don't know
if there's a unique challenge
panning in sea water or not,
except catching the water.
Watch out for
the Portuguese man o' war.
What the hell
is that?
- See it? Right there.
- Oh, yeah, yeah.
- Yep. Right here?
- Yeah.
If there's
profitable gold here,
this is the easiest spot
we'd ever mine.
We need to build
a plant that we can
actually get material through.
I don't know
what we'll build it out of,
but we'll find something.
You're gonna build
a wash plant on the beach?
That's crazy.
It's pretty simple,
you just build something.
You need something
and there's nothing available
like we did on the beach.
You use what's available
in the area.
You know,
we used wood because, uh,
that's what was available.
We didn't have welders,
we didn't have grinders,
we didn't have things
to cut metal with.
We're trying to build
a wash plant to last for...
20 years.
We're building a wash plant
to do a good test.
Get our hoses to it,
start feeding
material through it
and see if there's any gold
on this beach.
We got water.
You know,
it took a day to build it.
- Good job, Freddy! Whoo!
- Thank you.
But it proved that that wasn't
a good place to mine.
A buck a yard, Freddy?
- That's my guess.
- That's terrible.
One of my bigger mistakes
with the Hoffmans was
Todd talking me
into going to Guyana.
It was just a mess.
This is what I can say.
Dave and myself
found a spot
that had gold.
Decent gold.
Never in my life,
thought I'd see $50 a yard.
And then, we didn't end up
going to that spot.
We went to another spot that
Todd had some fantasy
that it was
full of gold and diamonds.
which ended up
just being a nightmare.
One thing about the jungle,
it was so hot
that I didn't care
I'd prospect
and I'd pan in those creeks.
I'd stand right
chest-deep in water
in the creek.
They're like,
there's caiman in there.
there's electric eels,
there's snakes.
I'm like, I don't care
'cause it feels good.
It's better than standing out
in 110-degree sun,
in 100% humidity.
I'll take my chances
with the caiman.
I should've never been
in that spot
in the first place.
But, uh, Todd's one,
he'll listen to your advice
up to a point
and then he's gonna do
what Todd wants to do.
Todd did
listen to Freddy
when it came to wash plants.
And together
with brother, Rocky,
he designed and built
the Hoffman's four
brand-new plants.
Well, we'd made
numerous plants for Todd.
If you know the ground,
you can twist things
a bit to make it better.
And I spoke to Fred about
what the material's like.
Does the plant need
a nugget trap?
Can they afford the water
for a nugget trap?
Do they have the water
to run a big sluice system
like that?
After talking to Fred,
this and that,
the design just fell together.
So, like Monster Red, right?
It's one hell of a plant.
You designed the plant.
I, you know,
had a lot of design
in the sluices
and the gold recovery system
on it.
I love that plant,
but I'm tired
of moving that plant.
I've moved it
into the Yukon,
put it together,
moved it around the Yukon
a couple of times,
tore it down,
moved it to Oregon,
tore it down,
moved it to Colorado
tore it back down in Colorado
and moved it back
to the Yukon.
It's lucky that the bolts
aren't worn out in it.
It doesn't have
an odometer on it.
Too many miles.
It's a flippin'
nice plant
but I'm flippin'
tired of moving it.
I could probably
put it back together
in my sleep.
Back in Nevada,
welder now in place,
Juan is making progress
fabricating for his new
service truck bed.
On this unit,
the way this is set up,
it runs a hydraulic
and also air.
And, obviously,
it's a welder and a generator,
but to keep it clean,
I don't like having
a bunch of hoses
just kind of
ran on the side of it,
so what we're gonna do,
we're gonna build a frame,
so this sits up
a little higher,
so we can get
all the hoses underneath it
and that way,
it stays clean and tidy.
If you look
on this other truck,
we actually...
That's how I did it years ago.
I had to build
a subframe for it,
so that way
all my hoses,
my welding leads,
my power leads
and then, also hydraulic
and air lines
go underneath the deck,
so that way it stays clean
and organized.
Gonna boom up and own.
So, we'll run our
2X2 across there.
- Basically build a frame for it.
- Okay.
Juan has ordered
six 20-foot lengths
of 2X2 steel.
So, we got the steel here,
that's gonna be
for the subframe,
where the welder's gonna
sit on top of.
We're gonna get this
all unloaded
to get it in the shop.
This forklift actually,
it'll turn sideways,
they call it a four-way.
But not only
does it go forward,
but it'll actually go
sideways as well.
So, that way,
when you have 20-foot material
trying to get
through a 14-foot door
it doesn't fit, but you can go
sideways with it.
He's
a shoppin' machine, Juan is.
He loves to shop.
Juan's younger than I am
by 20 years.
So, he's got skills
that I don't have
as far as
you know, new electronics.
We both have skills
that complement one another.
Right, so we work
really good together.
No amount
of expertise could prepare
them for their season in 2017,
when Freddy bought a claim
in Colorado
and set up as a mine owner.
Everything was ready to run.
I had everything ready,
the water was hooked up,
the pumps were hooked up,
the electrical was hooked up.
You know, I'd rebuilt,
I'd put a new screen
on the plant,
I'd armored the conveyors up.
It was ready to roll
and it was ready
to roll harder.
Hello.
You don't have my consent
to film me.
"You're in violation
of Park County
land-use regulations.
Your property
which is zoned residential,
mining and commercial uses
are not permitted
in a residential
zone district.
Order. Based on the foregoing,
you are hereby ordered
to cease and desist
all mining and commercial
activities immediately."
That's it.
I've got most
of my life savings
tied up in that plant.
And I got friends
that need a job
Honestly, that year
probably took some time
off of Freddy's life.
And I hate to say that
because Freddy aged
a lot that year.
He had the burden of...
You know, he has a dozen guys
there that are working.
You know,
they're all expecting gold
at the end of the season.
You know,
he had a ton of his own money
tied up in it.
Everybody, listen up.
I want all machines off.
We're gonna fight
for our rights on this, okay.
All right, Doug,
we're shutting down.
Millions of dollars
on the line,
Freddy refuses to go down
without a fight.
I'm here today to try
to get you to lift this cease
and desist order.
That property was first mined
almost a 160 years ago.
It can't be zoned residential.
According to Statute 34-1-305.
That plant sitting out
at that mine,
every piece of that is out
of my pocket, right?
It's my life savings
sitting there.
I tried to do a good job.
All I wanna do,
is mine this property.
And I believe we have
the legal right to do that.
It's all up to
the county commissioners now.
After two weeks
of deliberation,
Freddy gets his decision.
They've lifted the cease
and desist until--
You are kidding me.
Yee-haw!
Way to go, buddy.
Once we got
the plant running in Colorado,
once we got all
our t's crossed, i's dotted,
Then, we did good.
Hey.
That's good man.
- Yeah.
- All right. Yeah.
Well, let's melt some gold.
After cleaning
the concentrate on his table,
Freddy prepares
for the final stage.
There's what it weighed
before, 29.35.
The fine gold
worth almost $53,000
is now ready for smelting.
I know the purity
of the gold within 0.5%.
But sometimes you don't know
what your melt loss is,
cause you always have
a little bit of sand,
a little bit
of impurities with it.
And, by me melting it myself,
I know what those
impurities are.
Melt lost in this
should be around 2%.
But, I don't wanna try to get
it any cleaner than that
with gravity.
If you do,
you'll start losing gold.
So... And 2% is
really clean.
Most gold miners
are five, six, seven,
eight percent.
Well, this is
an induction furnace that's
using electricity,
to melt the gold.
So, there's electric coils
around the crucible in there
that superheat.
While they're heating
that crucible up,
you know, we're gonna
heat it up to 2,000 degrees.
Gold melts at 1,930 degrees,
pure gold does.
Let it sit there,
and cook for a minute.
and then start
pouring some bars.
We wanna heat our mold up.
Get it up to temperature,
we don't wanna pour
into it cold.
We get a reaction between
that hot gold
and that cold steel.
So, we're gonna get
this mold up to, oh,
700 degrees or so
before we pour our gold
into it.
So, what we're doing now,
is just the settling smoke.
We're gonna put a thin layer
of smoke in our mold.
It just puts a thin membrane
of smoke between the gold,
and our mold.
Getting close now.
In Nevada,
Juan's almost ready
to attach the subframe.
Oh, that's it, Trav.
All welded it up.
- That looks good.
- Not bad, huh.
Let it cool off
for a second,
but then we'll put it
under the welder,
and get it set in place,
and see where we're going
to drill the holes.
Let's get it over there.
We'll hold it in place
and get the first couple
of bolts started here.
Travis and I actually went
to school together
and, you know,
we became friends.
and started hanging out.
That's how I met Andrea,
his sister,
and we eventually got married.
Yeah, Travis has been
one of my closest friends
since we were kids.
So what I'm gonna do is,
I'm actually gonna center it
on the deck,
that way it looks
a little more,
you know, uniform.
So, we're gonna move it over
a little bit, then, drill it,
and then bolt it in,
then it's done.
Well, Trav,
we got it all bolted in.
Really, what we need now
is a truck.
Yep.
We don't wanna leave this
like bridge number two,
not done.
Got the battery in,
let's give it a shot,
let's start it up.
She's alive.
Now that Juan's
done all he can before his
truck arrives in a few weeks,
he can get down
to some more serious business.
So here's the prepared meat.
Oh! I'm wasting away to nothing.
Haven't eaten for,
at least, six hours.
Actually, it has
probably been only four.
You know, it's kinda nice,
you know, we're out here
in the middle of nowhere, but,
my wife,
she'll bring the kids up
and everything,
and halfway through
the workday, it'll be nice
to be able to just stop
and make some food
for my wife and the kids
and hang out.
It's the simple things
in life, you know.
It's not about, you know,
crazy fancy meals.
It's just about enjoying
each other's company, and,
you know,
something simple like this,
it's really enjoyable.
I could only handle
him for a few weeks at a time.
So it's good that he's out
on the road all the time.
Yeah, don't you have to go
to work soon?
So I grew up only, like,
two miles away from here.
So, just, same views,
just a little further back.
And the kids seem to like
a lot of dirt, so we picked
the perfect place.
They're fun and they're
at the right age where
everything's always muddy.
We gotta get enough flux
on there.
So when we pour our bar,
that flux covers the top
of the bar to keep the air
from hitting it.
'Cause if the oxygen hits it,
it can make a mess
and make an ugly bar.
Well, let's pour a gold bar
and see what it looks like, guys.
The induction
furnace has turned Freddy's
fines into liquid gold.
Well, just let her cool now.
Hopefully, it come out good.
We've had
all these civilizations
over the years that have,
used gold as a monetary device
and they've made coins
out of them.
Without gold, your cell phone
wouldn't be as small as it is.
It'd probably be that big,
'cause gold is also the most
conductive of all of them,
all minerals.
So, it's also
the most malleable.
So gold can be smashed,
practically, to transparency,
before it comes apart,
pure gold.
Well, let's see what
this bar looks like.
One gold bar.
You can see our slag
underneath here, that's our
flux that we put in there.
And, here's our gold.
So, let's cool it off
and see what it looks like.
After smelting,
the original 29 ounces
of gold...
Sounds like gold.
...the bar
shouldn't weigh less
than 27 ounces.
One gold bar.
One beautiful gold bar.
28.80.
So in my head,
a little under 2% melt loss
on it, which is damn clean.
This is big, huh!
It's the new welder.
- No?
- No.
- It's yours?
- It's yours.
No? Whose is it?
It's Juanito's?
- Yeah.
- That's Juanito's new truck?
You excited
about your new truck, Juanito?
It's gonna be about
the same size. But it's gonna
be a little taller.
And just a little bit longer.
Okay.
Yeah?
It will be stronger.
Do you want me to hug you?
After six years
working together,
Juan paid his buddy
the ultimate tribute.
Did he kiss you?
Oh, he licked you?
What's his name?
He's baby Freddy.
Freddy.
You named him Freddy?
Well, that's sure an honor, Juano.
There's nobody I'd rather be
out on the road with,
than Mr. Juan Ibarra.
I met Juan
in the Yukon,
years and years ago.
We became friends
right off the bat.
I knew right then,
that he's the type of guy
that I enjoy working with.
He's truly a good person.
He's truly good
at what he does,
and he's very intelligent.
Freddy's been
a great friend.
- Mmm-hmm!
- You know, and...
You know, it means the world
to me that
he could ask anybody to be
on the road with him and,
he asked me to be
on the road with him.
Fred's a great guy.
He really is.
He's got a, a heart of gold.
And, we both enjoy helping
the people that we're helping.
And it's really real,
what we're doing.
It isn't T.V. baloney.
Juan and myself
are helping them
get more gold,
and more money
in their pocket.
These struggling miners...
they are the little guys,
the mom and pops.
So, if Juan and myself
can go in there,
and help them get
a little more gold.
Help them get another
10% or 15% or 20%
or whatever.
You know, that's more money
in their pocket, right?
Freddy and Juan
will soon be hitting
the road again
to help more struggling
gold miners turn a profit.
There's still
a lot of gold out there.
The old-timers
didn't get it all.
There's gold to be found.
There's gold to be mined.
There's gold to be sold.
And as long as the gold's
in the ground,
we're gonna catch it.