"Hey, hey, hey." "On this "Gold Rush"..." "I got boulders the size of small cars in my way." "There could be 100 or 200 ounces just in this little section." "Fireworks." "Yeah!" "Whoo!" "With this cleanup, we beat last year's total." "That's a big pan of gold." "In Dawson City, Tony Beets is on the ropes." "His dream of getting his second dredge running this season is over." "At the start of this season," "Tony vowed he'd barge his 70-year-old dredge down the Yukon River to Dawson." "But problems with his fleet of barges... and the struggle to find a skipper..." "I can't turn my back on this for a day." "have left the $1-million dredge stranded 100 miles away at Thistle Creek." "Now, with the Yukon River starting to freeze," "Tony has no choice but to get his fleet onto dry land." "First up, Tony's 20-ton barge." "Hey, Tony!" "Pull the slack up!" "Hey, hey, hey!" "Tony's son Mike will haul it out of the water using the Oshkosh, a military-grade eight-wheel drive semi capable of towing 60 tons." "Daughter Monica helps out in the loader." "People seem to call my dad crazy." "But, I mean, I think he's actually done pretty well for himself." "Can't back up straight?" "Don't worry." "We'll push it." "Looking good there!" "Good." "All right." "My tires, they're basically sunk in." "Hooked on." "Okay." "He needs the help of his little sister!" "For two months," "Tony has been trying to convince sternwheeler Captain Brad Whitelaw to skipper his power barge." "Yeah, man." "I couldn't be more glad." "Yeah, no." "This, this came on real quick." "Running out of water and filling full of ice." "Season's done." "What are you up to?" "That's a pretty dangerous trip and now, the river's down so low." "Yep." "Lot of ice in there." "Uh..." "Tell you what, as long as I'm the Captain, if it's too dangerous..." "Yep." "We're turning back." "I'll always help the Beets family, Tony." "See ya, Tony." "So, yeah." "It's all hands on deck." "The final push, the end of the season." "Going for 1,000 ounces." "I really want to make sure that my guys are taken care of for the winter." "Hopefully, we can pull this off." "To hit his 1,000-ounce, $1.2-million season goal," "Todd Hoffman is running two operations," "Fairplay and Sacramento." "Both Fairplay and us, we're on the gold." "We're doing good." "But... every time I look at those mountains," "I'm a little bit scared and a little bit more worried." "Because, at any day, it could dump two or three feet of snow overnight and we will be shut down." "10,000 feet up In the Rockies, winter is about to hit." "Aw, crap." "At Fairplay..." "This sucks!" "You can't catch gold with mud." "Rusty Red is running out of water." "I'll show you some mud, Todd." "Look at that water." "Wow." "It's thick." "I don't have any fresh water coming." "Yeah" "Look at the snow on the mountains." "All the headwaters are frozen." "We got no water coming in now." "The temperature has plummeted to 20 degrees and the creek that feeds their holding pond has frozen." "Hopefully Freddy figures out the solution because pretty scary right now." "Without water, we're not getting any gold." "Trust me." "That river, we got water." "It's just getting there's gonna be a nightmare, Trey." "It's gonna be a nightmare." "Their only option..." "The nearby Platte River." "But it's 200 feet down a 70-degree slope." "I think I'm just gonna go for it." "I'm gonna try and cut on this slope." "Takes some big cajones." "So just take it easy, be safe, and keep it upright." "Whew." "I hope this works." "Freddy's old friend, Trey Poulson, has over 20 years of operating experience." "My dad had a saying growing up." "He'd always say it." "If you're not living on the edge, you're just taking up space." "Right now, we're living on the edge." "Basically cutting out little avalanches." "I'm letting the bank come down and using the material that comes down to push out." "You really have to be careful." "Too much of that on that side, pop you up." "It can be a bad day." "Holy moly." "That's what'll get you right there." "That come down on your tracks when you're down on the side and have nowhere to go." "There!" "We got her!" "We're down on land." "With the road completed, it's Andy's job to transport the pump down to the river." "I uh..." "I don't know if I can go down this." "What do you think if I brought the dozer around and just, uh, acted as an anchor for you?" "10-4." "Better safe than sorry." "Got to hook this chain to that dozer to keep this hoe from tipping over." "Come on in, Trey." "On your call, Andy." "All right." "Let's roll." "Easy, Andy." "Easy, guys." "I'll tell you what." "When you got steel tracks and you're on solid rock," "If I start sliding and he can't hold me, we both go all the way to the bottom." "Freddy!" "I'm slipping!" "I'm slipping!" "Andy!" "Watch out!" "In Colorado, Andy Spinks is teetering on the edge." "I'm slipping!" "I'm slipping!" "I'm slipping!" "To provide water for the wash plant, he's hauling a pump down to the river in his 70-ton excavator." "Just set the pump right there, Andy!" "Okay." "That son of a gun is steep." "It's like roller skating on ball bearings." "If that sucker would've taken off, If you hadn't have been hooked to me," "I'd have been all the way in the river." "No doubt." "Let's get the lines hooked up, pump some water." "Sounds good." "Starting the pump." "I got 1,200 rpm, Trey!" "1,300!" "Freddy's new water supply is flowing." "The Hoffman crew can get back to running Rusty Red at 150 yards an hour." "Sure a nice sight, water coming into that pond." "Hopefully now, we have no more obstacles to our 1,000!" "The winter's setting in." "We still have a lot of gold to find and real cold this time of year." "Parker is still 1,100 ounces short of his 4,000-ounce, $4.8-million season goal and the Klondike winter will freeze him out in the next couple of weeks." "Not quite at our goal yet...but you know, we've never gone home before without hitting our goal and.." "I don't think anything's gonna change this year." "In fact, I know nothing's gonna change this year." "We'll be here fighting it 'till the bitter end and we're gonna get it" "At Indian River," "Rick is pushing hard to get 1,000 ounces." "While up at the Creek Cut" "Parker is running some of the best pay dirt he has ever mined." "This Creek Cut's paying off good." "But, you know, we're still a long way off of 4,000 ounces." "If they had any problems, then we're gonna be in trouble." "What the fuck?" "Overnight, the Creek Cut has flooded." "Is it just bleeding through?" "Yeah, through here, this berm." "Just keeps finding places to crack through." "It looks like we didn't pack the thing down enough." "Yeah." "And this could really cost us." "Water from the settling pond has leaked through the berm, flooding the Creek Cut." "Parker normally builds a berm using rock trucks and a dozer." "But for the Creek Cut berm, he used a super conveyor which didn't compact the dirt." "Water is now seeping from the settling pond through the berm into the cut." "We're kind of fucked up, aren't we?" "Yup." "We can't dig pay dirt that's underwater." "Yeah." "I..." "I..." "I need you to deal with it." "Okay." "Um..." "All right." "Fine." "I'll get this water out of the cut." "I don't care if it takes all day." "For fuck sakes." "I got a lot of ditching ahead of me." "Trying to get rid of all this water." "It's gonna make for a long day." "To stop water flowing in to the Creek Cut," "Rick will excavate a 60-foot-deep mega trench through an old berm, allowing the water in the settling pond to escape into the existing drainage ditch." "Been working at this for about six hours." "Come on, you sheep." "Um, well, once I bust through..." "Last little bit here, our s..." "Our settling pond should start draining through this ditch." "After that, we shouldn't have any issues." "That's it." "Yeah, it's moving out pretty quick." "So that's a good sign." "Good deal." "Four hours later the Creek Cut is already drying out." "You know, we've still got 1,100 ounces to do but both plants are on the pay and running good." "So... you know, we don't have a whole lot of time left." "But 4,000 is still within shot." "All season," "Tony Beets has been wanting to head upriver to retrieve his second dredge." "Now... that day has finally come." "We're going on a fuckin' boat that Tony built." "We gotta bring everything we need for survival." "Fuckin' cold." "It's gonna be colder on the water." "Hey, Tony." "All right." "How are you?" "You sure this is..." "this is what you want to do?" "Well..." "Tony's last-ditch plan... journey 100 miles up the mighty Yukon River to Thistle Creek, dismantle the dredge and get as much of it back before the Yukon freezes for the winter." "Holy fuck." "Uh." "No, it's iced in." "Yeah, we got to chip away from the steering here." "That's for sure." "Oh yeah." "Yeah." "I can stand on." "There's a lot of work before there's any consideration of going out on a river full of ice." "This is more than just a challenge." "This is.." "crazy." "Bullshit." "No bullshit" "Tony uses a forced-air heater to thaw out the engine room and heat up the hull." "Everything seems to be working." "Tony is barging in a loader and a pair of welders to dismantle the 70 year old dredge." "We're done?" "We're, uh we're heading out of here." "After five months of delays, Tony's power barge is finally heading upriver to bring back his dredge." "Go to 1,750." "Freddy's been busting his ass on this plant." "We have water." "We got to pump out of the Platte River." "Dave's over there running Double Trouble at Sacramento Creek." "They're competing with each other and they're both getting gold." "Three weeks ago, Dave Turin bet Freddy Dodge $100 his Sacramento crew would catch more gold in the race to 1,000 ounces." "But at Fairplay," "Freddy and Andy's pay dirt contains twice as much gold." "We're on the best pay that, we've had all season." "I think we're probably gonna kick their butt." "It's gonna be, nice watching Dave hand over that $100 bill to Freddy." "Boulders are fricking huge." "I've never even begun to see boulders this size." "I tell you what, I get any more rocks like this," "I ain't gonna be able to mine this ground, that's for dang sure." "Come on, you son of a gun." "That's the biggest boulder I've seen so far." "That's 20,000 pounds, I'll bet you." "And I got one down here that's even bigger than that." "Crap." "Excavator won't even touch it." "Freddy, you might want to come take a look at this." "Got kind of a problem down here." "It's slowing me down." "What's going on, Andy?" "I got boulders the size of small cars in my way to getting this pay dirt out." "Holy cow." "It's a catch-22, Andy, 'cause the gold's probably pretty damn good in here." "Big rocks can mean bigger and more gold." "It's a good sign." "But at the same time, those big-ass rocks slow us way down because we have to double or triple move 'em." "Or maybe not even be able to move 'em." "Then we can't get pay to the plant." "Thousands of years ago, a receding glacier deposited monster boulders and gold-rich dirt." "When the river from the melt water washed down most of the dirt and gold, it concentrated valuable pockets of gold beneath the boulders." "Come on." "Come on." "Andy's 460 excavator is rated to lift over 50,000 pounds, the weight of eight heavy-duty pick-ups." "Whoa!" "Look out!" "But it still can't move the biggest of the boulders." "Hey, Todd." "You got to get your butt down here and look at this." "Aww." "Well, at this point in time, Todd, I am frustrated with this." "I cannot get these boulders out." "Some of those big rocks, it pulls the whole excavator over." "Some of our best pay came from un... right on that far side of that boulder." "There could be 100 or 200 ounces just in this little section." "Well, I'll tell you what." "I keep screwing around with these boulders, Kevin's gonna run out of pay." "You want... what do you want to do, Freddy?" "I mean.." "Fireworks." "Make big rocks into small rocks." "Yeah." "Let's fricking blow 'em up." "Huh?" "Blow 'em to rat shit." "You blow 'em up and we can move the material." "We'll call a blaster, and hopefully, we don't have to shut down." "Okay." "We'll do it." "Let's go, Freddy." "Let's go." "If we can't get through those damn rocks right there, we're gonna run out of pay." "At this time of the year, it'll be game over for us." "Yeah." "Nice and level." "Tony is five hours into his 100-mile journey upriver to dismantle his second dredge." "You know, we were able to get out today." "But I don't know how many more days we're gonna get." "Skippering the power barge," "Yukon River veteran Brad Whitelaw." "Any day right now is a blessing." "Yeah, but not with the ice in the river you can see how flat it is." "You can't read the river anymore." "You can't see where the shallows are with the ripples." "This ice is blocking the view of it all." "Yeah, uh, even with a steel hull, this much weight and the momentum, a big rock, a rock edge... cut that damn thing wide open." "Can just rip her right open like a can." "Yeah." "Man, you run aground again, there's nobody out here and there's no help." "The 60 ton power barge is approaching one of the most treacherous parts of the river, notorious for its shifting sandbars." "Fuck, you can see the difference." "I come through here about three months ago and there was..." "yeah." "at least 3, 4 feet more of water than there is now." "and I'm gonna just pull back here." "and... and we'll just take it real easy." "Yeah." "I don't see the depth finder working." "Hey, Kevin, we need to lift this depth sounder by the water." "That's in there tight." "Yep!" "Now it's froze up." "Of course." "Get out of the way." "Yeah, okay." "This is getting a little too skinny for me here." "Yeah, It's getting too shallow." "I'll just back it off and..." "Really getting shallow, Tony." "I'm nervous." "I don't want to get this..." "I don't want to get your ship stuck." "Watch your bulkhead!" "70 miles up the Yukon River..." "I'm nervous." "I don't want to get this..." "Yeah, I don't want to get your ship stuck." "Tony's 60-ton power barge is navigating through treacherous sandbars." "Watch your bulkhead!" "Yeah, watch out for that thing." "Two and a half feet, Tony." "That's it." "Yeah, I'm pulling out of here." "We can't... we can't go any further than this." "Yeah, because you can see those rocks there, right?" "After a brush with a sandbar and with the light fading," "Brad plays the safety card and moors the barge up for the night." "Man." "You're gonna trust that knife?" "You don't fuckin' know where that's been." "Shit." "When you fricking uh, came up on that one spot there, sand or rock, it almost sounded like a rock 'cause it had a bang to it." "Yeah, I know." "There was something alongside of the ship and that's never a good feeling." "and I couldn't get out of there quick enough." "You got to respect the challenges of this river." "We all know people that have gone out and then they're not..." "They didn't make it back home." "Yeah, we'll get and do it in the daylight." "Yup." "See what tomorrow brings." "Yeah." "What a dork!" "Fine." "8:00 a.m. The crew is up early for the final push to Thistle Creek." "I want to drive." "No kidding." "Having completed 100 miles in 18 hours," "Tony spots familiar ground." "Yeah, we're here now, Tony." "Close it in." "Then, wherever we may land," "Looks like you can't go wrong here." "Lot's of beach." "Under these conditions, I think we fared pretty good." "After five months of failures," "Tony has managed to get his power barge to Thistle Creek." "Tony can finally start dismantling his second dredge." "Geez!" "At Fairplay, giant boulders are blocking the Hoffman crew from mining gold-rich pay dirt." "Freddy and Todd's solution," "Blow them up." "He's a local blaster." "You Mark?" "Todd?" "Yeah." "Todd." "This is Freddy." "Pleasure to meet you." "Fred?" "I'm Freddy." "If you follow this road right down, Andy's down there in the excavator and you can talk to him and tell him what you want." "See what we got." "Thank you." "To clear the boulders," "Freddy's called in Colorado Blaster, Mark Mayer." "I love my job." "Where else in the world do you get to go blow things up on somebody else's property." "Make a mess and let them clean it up." "How you doing?" "Andy." "Nice to meet ya." "What do we got going on here?" "There's good gold In the ground." "I just need to get to it, and those rocks are in my way." "Well, looks like we have two options." "We can wait for... god to send down a lightning bolt and break those rocks." "Or I've got some dynamite." "Let's go with the dynamite." "Ha ha ha." "I'll get out of your way." "No worries." "Mark brings in the commando drill truck." "Its diamond-core drill will bore a 2-inch diameter hole into the heart of the boulder." "I started when I was 13." "Blew these two fingers off." "Big mistake." "I've gotten better." "I still have my head." "Look at that." "He's cutting like a hot knife through butter right there." "Drills through it pretty quick." "Underneath those boulders, I guarantee there's a lot of gold." "Looking good, Mark!" "Good job!" "The drill's job is done." "Extra gelatin dynamite." "That ought to do it." "To blast a 20,000-pound boulder, it will take a stick and a half of dynamite." "The energy equivalent of this is on the order of about 100 million horsepower." "What's cutting it do, Mark?" "Cutting will allow the cartridge to shrink and expand in the bore hole so we get most of the energy down on the ground and in the rock." "We'll have to tamp it a little bit, very lightly." "Finish her up with sand." "That'll do it." "Let's get out of here." "The detonator box is wired and ready to fire." "They're gonna blast!" "We got to take cover!" "10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1." "Blasting." "Fire in the hole." "Damn, that was awesome!" "Bye-bye, boulders." "I love blasting." "You're all having fun." "Kick-ass, man." "(Air horn warning))" "All clear!" "Awesome." "No more big boulders." "Look at that!" "That'll work." "That I can move." "Good job, Mark." "My pleasure." "Bring it in!" "Andy, get the excavator!" "Let's go!" "Andy's 460 can now make light work of the shattered boulders." "That's all I needed, just a little bit of help." "Being able to run this material right here is what's gonna get us our 1,000 ounces 'cause it is loaded with gold." "At Scribner Creek, the crew's thoughts are turning to the end of the season." "Hey, Brennan." "Start thinking about what the first thing you're gonna do when you get home is?" "I can't wait to watch TV." "Yeah, I heard this..." "There's a show on, Friday nights." "Yeah, it's about some guys that mine." "And they kind of do some stuff like we do." "They must be the coolest." "There's even this one guy on there, looks like he's got a tattoo of a (bleep) on his neck." "(laughter)" "Fuck you, man." "We were wondering if you were listening in." "At Scribner, time is running out to hit Parker's 4,000-ounce, $4.8-million season goal." "Hey uh..." "The big freeze is coming fast and they're still 1,100 ounces short." "Hey, Ash." "Hello." "How's it going?" "How are you?" "Not too bad." "What are you guys up to?" "Weighing up some gold." "Yeah." "Come join us." "Rick, you're up." "Oh boy." "This season, Rick pledged to get 1,000 ounces at Indian River." "25" "He's still 300 ounces short." "Come on, 90." "We're at 100." "That's good." "109.4" "Worth over $130,000." "So, Doumitt, where's this put us at on Big Red?" "That'll put you at about 811 ounces." "I'm not gonna walk away with 800." "You know, that ain't..." "That ain't good enough for me." "So we're getting 1,000." "That's the attitude you need." "All right." "What'd we do last week, like 320-something?" "326." "Yeah." "That was a record for Sluicifer." "That's a big pan of gold, buddy." "This is some clean stuff, Doumitt." "Ashley, count it!" "70, 80, 90, 100, 140, 160, 70, 180, 90, 200." "There's another 100 left in there, man." "220, 250 280, 300." "Keep going." "340, 360, 380... 396.1" "Oh." "Yay." "$475,000 in gold, bringing Parker's weekly total to a massive" "505 ounces, worth $600,000." "I'd tell you what, you guys." "I got some smoking news for you." "With this cleanup, we beat last year's total." "We have 3,375 ounces..." "No way!" "right now." "That calls for a cheers!" "Yeah!" "Yeah!" "3,375 ounces, a staggering $4 million." "Yeah, I mean, we beat last year's total, which is impressive with these two cleanups, but the work's not done." "Parker still has to find 625 ounces of gold before he's frozen out." "So let's just keep pounding the dirt through, and let's see some 4,000 ounces in the box." "Yeah!" "Do it!" "Let's do it." "Whoo!" "Whoo!" "Whoo!" "In Colorado, the Hoffmans' two operations have been competing against each other in a bid to hit Todd's 1,000-ounce season goal." "Double Trouble just keeps running." "Only thing about it is, we need both." "Good." "We've got to have 'em both to get to 1,000 ounces." "You guys all done eating?" "You want to go check?" "Yeah." "To send his crew home with gold for the winter," "Todd still needs 220 ounces." "Got 'er done." "How'd we do, dad?" "Where are we at?" "Sacramento, 45.7" "Yeah!" "Not bad!" "Worth $54,000." "But Fairplay kicked your butts." "105.2" "Whoa!" "Yeah!" "Over $120,000." "Fairplay's way ahead of, Sacramento." "Hey, there's a little matter of the bet." "What are you at?" "Over 500 ounces." "and we're at 190." "and there's snow on the mountains." "Yeah." "I concede." "Mr. Dodge, this hurts." "It hurts a lot." "Here's your $100." "I'd frame that." "Here's the deal..." "The bet's over but the competition's still going." "That's right." "We're gonna bust ass." "We got to get over 1,000." "Okay." "So together, we did 150 ounces." "How close are we right now to 1,000?" "Where we at?" "Nine hundred and twenty nine." "Getting there." "We can get close." "That's a hell of a lot of gold in a short period of time." "This is just fantastic." "I..." "I love it." "Good job, you guys." "I lost 100 bucks." "I don't care." "We're gonna get 1,000 ounces." "$100 of Dave's money." "Subs by {\fs71.8\b1\i1} Jack T" "That's priceless." "I'm super happy." "I just can't believe it." "I can't believe the comeback in such a short period of time." "If we can keep running, uh.." "I think we're gonna sail right over 1,000." "On the season finale of "Gold Rush"..." "See how fuckin' thick this stuff is." "Well, this just nicely fucks me." "If we stop moving at this point, we die." "So we just got to keep everything going." "What the fuck?" "Shut her down!" "Shut her down!" "No way!" "Woo-hoo-hoo!" "(cheers)" "Let go of me now!" "Hey!" "I think I failed this year." "I will resign."