"I need that Mammoth Channel to have friggin gold in it." "315)\fs32} On this Gold Rush" "That mud will not go through." "We got to shut down." "Whoa!" "I think the sky's the limit." "I really do." "They're not getting scrubbed clean enough." "I don't have any curl!" "It'll have to fuckin work." "That's it?" "Our whole fuckin cut's flooded." "What a fuckin mess." "Parker doesn't like to lose." "the winner of the game is who finds the most gold." "I hate the thought of getting beat by Todd." "Parker." "You better friggin mine hard." "I lost the bet." "Kevin suckered me into this one." "315)\fs32}It's 6:00 am" "And there's a new bull cook at McKinnon Creek." "Kevin." "huh?" "I bet him on that cleanup." "And I won." "Dave's decision to shut down their wash plant." "that almost looks like lingerie." "It's not lingerie." "It looks like it." "Ha ha ha." "Led to a disappointing 121 ounce cleanup." "And Dave lost his bet." "you're a man of your word." "A bet's a bet." "I wish it would have been 200 or plus." "I think we're gonna get it now." "We'll see." "I hope you're right." "So Andy said that he's probably gonna start running the Mammoth Channel today." "today we'll know how good that thing is." "And I think it's gonna be awesome." "The entire Hoffman crew stopped sluicing to excavate a channel of mud." "That produced a 9 foot mammoth tusk." "Dave has a hunch that the black muck also contains a pile of gold." "Andy Spinks gets a first look at their new pay dirt." "this is some of the first dirt from the Mammoth Channel that's going to the plant." "bedrock." "It's not usually that close to the pay." "hopefully it's got some good gold in it." "I think it will." "Kevin feeds the new pay into Monster Red." "We have to hope that this Mammoth Channel pays off like Dave and Andy think." "I wasn't for it." "I still kind of think it was a bad idea." "394)} Now we're in a deficit." "And if we don't make that up with this Mammoth Channel then" "We're in big trouble. 700 ounces Todd wants this season." "I need a break." "395)} I need that Mammoth Channel to have friggin gold in it." "We found a huge Mammoth tusk." "So I called a tusk expert." "You Bruce?" "It's nice to meet you finally." "Hey man." "No kidding." "I've heard your name around these parts." "Yeah." "Bruce Schindler has worked with mammoth ivory for over 20 years." "Look at this thing." "That's beautiful." "intact." "It's amazing." "We found this in a mud seam." "It almost looked like a river went through this area." "So I'm hoping it's a good sign." "I think you're gonna be very pleased." "you're finding gold." "They're always found together." "And think about it." "The mammoth are like people." "They like to live where living's easy." "And the living is easy in these wide open plains." "These are the same plains that the gold's been deposited in because that's where the water's slowing down." "So these gold bearing creeks are the same creeks the mammoth are drinking out of." "So I think this is a good omen for you." "I hope you're right." "man." "sometimes you find good gold." "And that's what I'm concerned about." "So I hope that Mammoth Channel pays off." "You've got to be kidding me." "Kevin to Andy." "Kevin to Andy." "Kev." "this stuff's not running through this feeder." "It's getting stuck." "It's jammed up." "dude." "We got to figure something else out." "load it." "It's got gold in it." "It's too close to separate it so." "Put it through the plant." "We're not gonna throw gold away so." "You're just gonna have to deal with it." "It won't work." "and it's all mud." "There's not just enough rock in it." "To make it go through our feeder." "That mud just hangs up." "And it just blocks everything up and it will not go through." "Brandon Unsworth can't keep up with the buildup of the thick black mud." "Know what?" "I've never seen anything like this." "It's just fuckin shit." "Absolute shit." "look." "Consistency of cow shit." "My foot's stuck in it and I'm shoveling it." "This is a is what it is." "This better pay off." "but I can't run straight mud." "So I either got to let it sit and dry." "and that ain't gonna work." "Black mud is clogging up the feeder faster than they can clear it." "Right there that could be the best gold in that whole super cut." "And I can't run it through the plant." "We can't run the Mammoth Channel." "We got to shut down." "I'm heading to Todd's to see if he wants to buy a dozer." "20 year old mine boss Parker Schnabel is on his way to McKinnon Creek." "384)}I had a itchy trigger finger at an auction the other day and ended up buying a new D10." "I'm trying to sell our old one so that I can keep some money in the bank." "Parker sneaks a look at the Hoffman's super cut." "That's a big fuckin cut." "He's gone big scale this year." "those are what?" "massive coal mines run." "The cost on those is phenomenal." "the winner of the game is who finds the most gold." "Parker has yet to set his season goal. $3 million gold haul." "Seems like it's a friendly visit." "He's probably gonna talk to you about I don't know what. come here." "or is he good?" "or is he good?" "he's fine." "So dude." "You got a good start this year or not?" "But when isn't it?" "you're all settled in for the season now?" "Yeah." "Looks like you guys have a whack of iron around." "Yeah." "That's actually kind of why I'm here." "Really?" "and I was wondering if you wanted to buy the old 10 that you sold me." "How much?" "I gave you 120 for it." "And we put about 120 into it last year." "And so I'm trying to get 200 out of it." "Uh huh." "so." "let me know." "Don't hold it for me." "Alright." "You know what?" "We're gonna come out of here with the most amount of gold." "All the power to you." "Parker." "You better friggin mine hard." "Whatever." "I don't trust Parker Schnabel." "I got kind of a sordid history with the kid." "And I'd like to beat Parker this year." "I think he's nervous cause I got a lot of ground opened up already and I'm not panicking." "He really wants to pull more gold out of the ground than us." "he'll beat us." "and I hate the thought of getting beat by Todd." "and um" "I'm not about to let that happen." "After a disastrous start to the season" "Parker Schnabel is slowly clawing his way back." "just 32 ounces less than Todd Hoffman." "Parker's Treasure Island is running out fast." "Whoa." "He needs to find more ground." "And this time he wants to go big." "I think that post right in there is our boundary line." "Okay." "we could go right up to our line." "And then over to the edge of the other cut." "That the old miners did." "000 feet?" "Probably pretty damn close." "I know." "It's a lot of ground." "this could" "We could spend the rest of the season over here." "Well?" "maybe." "What do you think?" "We're ready to tackle this?" "Be a big undertaking." "We'll get it." ""It's just moving dirt." "It's just moving dirt." "before moving south to Treasure Island." "between the creek and the boundary of his claim." "000 square feet bigger than Todd's super cut." "Parker leads the charge into his massive new cut in his new D10 dozer." "There's a bit of a sense of urgency here." "I'm just trying to get this ground stripped as quick as we can and." "This is gonna be the main tool to get that done." "We've got a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it." "Todd's got one giant super cut that he's been pulling out of all season and." "Parker doesn't like to lose." "I'm in it with him." "I don't like to lose either." "So we're really throwing everything we got at this cut." "It's taking all of our machines." "All of our guys." "but we're moving a ton of dirt." "And it's gonna be a nice big area." "I think we'll smoke them no problem." "Kev." "That's just pure mud." "Aah." "The Hoffmans wash plant Is jammed full of thick black mud from the Mammoth Channel." "And they're losing valuable sluicing time." "This Mammoth Channel's becoming a pain in the ass." "now we're losing time because we can't run it." "here it is." "This is what we're fighting." "and it's so sticky." "you can see the way it sticks to the side of the equipment." "This is what we're dealing with." "I don't know about this Dave." "This whole plant's jamming up." "I'm wondering if we shouldn't just go around the Mammoth Channel and just forget it?" "And we can keep friggin running." "I'm not ready to abandon it." "I think there's gold in that stuff." "Dave." "And we ain't getting any gold if we can't get it through the friggin plant." "I think that stuff will slide right through." "blocking pay dirt from running through to the wash plant." "Dave's solution is to line the hopper with smooth plastic." "wet mud can slide down into the plant." "how long is it gonna friggin take?" "but I think the Mammoth Channel has enough gold to make it worth one day of downtime." "Give me one more shot at this." "I say we eh?" "I think it's worth it." "I hope you're right." "Dave and Kevin have to get all of the mud out of the hopper." "Your friggin Mammoth Channel got me some good digging." "Can't avoid it." "It's uh..." "The only alternative Is to leave this pay in the channel." "And we wouldn't sluice it." "you're wrong." "you're right." "I'll be right." "If we can sluice it." "With the hopper empty" "Ready?" "Yup." "They can install the plastic lining." "buddy." "Kevin." "Hand it to Dave?" "Is it this one?" "Yeah." "Juan." "yeah." "Look how slick it is." "I hope that mud will hit that and just slide right down." "It's bolted in." "bolt down the plastic." "Can you see that?" "Yeah." "go ahead." "so we're gonna put a piece of steel on the very top." "394)}To kind of safeguard it from getting any dirt or rocks behind the sheet." "Dave." "The Hoffman crew will never find out how much gold is in the Mammoth Channel mud." "buddy." "so." "We got to get back up and running as soon as we can." "Go ahead and get that thing down." "Fire this thing up." "We need to run." "we're back going." "It cost us some time." "I hope it works." "000 yards of Mammoth Channel pay dirt." "It's working." "and through the plant like it's supposed to so." "Those plastic pieces did the trick." "good news." "We are back up and running." "I'll take that mud." "Kev." "This is the solution." "It's exactly what we needed." "and I think it's gonna be good gold." "the two men that rebuilt the dredge refused to work overtime and left." "Tony is in trouble." "He bought his old gold dredge for a million dollars." "a tenth of what Tony needs to recoup his investment." "The last dredge cleanup produced a pathetic 11 ounces." "Tony and foreman Gene Cheeseman head to their tailings pile to figure out why the dredge is under-performing." "Looks like it could be a piece." "well they're not getting quite scrubbed clean enough." "not rolling over to get clean." "It's obvious." "That makes sense." "The lost gold on the tailings should have been collected in the dredge." "Tony's plan:" "Install a spray bar along the entire length of the trommel and grouser bars to flip rocks as they travel down." "The combination should clean all the gold off the tailings so that it can collect in the sluices." "Mechanic Matt Beaudry has to build a spray bar out of the materials they have on site." "390)} These are the 2 Inch nozzles that we're gonna use here." "cut it and weld 'em in." "Matt cuts a 2 Inch hole every 2 feet down the length of the pipe." "Then he welds on 12 nozzles." "Gene manufactures the grouser bars." "Not any easy ways to get in there." "Pretty tight." "Try and come in through there?" "it's gonna have to go all the way up in there and it's gonna be a bitch to get it back that way." "The crew hits a roadblock." "There's no way to get their new 24 foot spray bar into the dredge." "it's kinda and just... 330)} Taking a couple of minutes and looking at things here." "Seeing if we can make it work." "Mike." "If we use the 235 and walk right up to the edge here and push the thing through down the belt." "Oh." "You figure it'd get a straight enough shot at it?" "I don't see why not." "Gene comes up with a radical plan." "Use the 235 excavator to feed the spray bar down through the end of the stacker." "While Mike Beaudry directs from the lift." "there's a window in the way." "or is it gonna break?" "It's probably gonna break." "But we can get it out." "It's up to you." "just pull it off there." "we'll get another piece." "Okay." "good job on salvaging that." "(laughs) so watch yourself." "Oh shit." "Is it halfway in there yet?" "be able to get close enough." "It's gonna get hard for me to get loose of it." "I don't have any curl." "The arm on Gene's excavator isn't long enough to push the 350-Pound pipe all of the way into the stacker." "we need to get it loose." "Gene." "Perfect." "Mike." "Okay." "Right now it's on my knee." "pull." "Aah." "That's pretty nice." "everything went pretty good." "Now we just got to get the thing down the conveyor and in the trommel." "Let's go." "three" "(Grunting from effort)" "Gene winches the spray bar into place using a come-along." "Gene?" "204)}One more click?" "234)}(click)" "Good." "Yeah." "that's perfect." "Watch your eyes." "Kevin Beets welds the six grouser bars into place." "Tony's chances of paying off the dredge depend on getting this fix to work." "390)} It'll have to fuckin work." "It'll have to fuckin do." "315)\fs32} Five miles east" "Parker and Rick are opening up their biggest cut ever." "In an attempt to beat Todd Hoffman this season." "so." "I do think it would be funny if we did beat him." "you know." "Yeah." "Be having nightmares about it all winter." "Parker will have to push his crew to the limit." "Is he good to go?" "Yeah." "Go ahead." "I'm just trying to keep the trucks moving." "Cause you got five trucks making over an hour and a half in a day." "So the key to dealing with mud is just keep it moving." "We're opening a lot of new ground." "Everybody knows what they're doing." "It's like a well oiled machine right now." "I'm pretty proud of it." "Yup." "That's pay dirt." "Yes!" "buddy." "Right on!" "But before Parker can make it over to his massive new cut..." "The rain's coming down really hard." "And I'm looking at the mountains." "There ain't no end in sight yet." "but something like this could bring it up in a hurry." "my goodness." "Our whole cut's flooded." "The whole thing." "315)\fs32} The next morning" "The Boundary Cut is under 6 feet of water." "How the fuck is there a lake in our cut?" "uh." "Something went awry last night." "That rain came up that much? huh?" "You bet." "I" "How the fuck did it come through there?" "It just blew through." "Cause we had a fuckin dam." "There was a bunch of ice there." "Yeah." "And we piled dirt on top of ice." "And it melted." "That water ate the ice away." "I'm thinking." "Heavy rains thawed out the permafrost dam that was holding back a small creek." "Millions of gallons poured into their new cut." "And could wash away gold in the pay dirt." "ah." "I don't even know what I'm gonna have the crew do today." "unless they want to put floaties on and go fuckin swimming." "damn it." "we're just finishing up this spray bar here." "Baffles are done." "Tony's dredge has been shut down for one full day." "While the crew made critical modifications to the trommel." "We'll see how she works when we fire up." "Fire it up." "they run the water to see if their new spray bar works." "it does." "you know?" "Gene runs pay dirt to see if the grousers flip rocks." "it's knocked all the sharp edges off." "it's looking pretty good to me." "The combination of spray bar and grouser should prevent gold from ending up in the tailings." "Tony now has a fighting chance to recoup his million dollar investment." "Yep." "We are screwed." "the biggest cut of his career." "And now it's flooded." "breached by water." "It's just a mess." "so." "I don't know." "We're screwed." "Parker's chances of beating Todd are sinking fast." "What a fuckin mess." "we're not hauling any pay out of here today." "uh." "we're at a standstill." "We're at a standstill." "We" "There's no way we're setting a pump in here to pump this out." "The pump would take too long." "We've got to find a different way to drain it." "You bet." "I'll just cut a big ditch." "A good sized ditch." "And" "She'll drop fast once I get that water flowing." "Rick and Willie Duchesne dig a 400 foot long drainage ditch." "To remove the water from the flooded cut." "Our season's depending on this right now." "We can't let this water beat us." "Cause it's." "Season will be over." "as far as I'm concerned." "So anything that I can do" "I'm gonna do it." "I don't want to be losing gold just because of water." "That's it." "baby." "After 3 hours of digging" "Right on." "She's coming." "She's coming." "The water's flowing." "We can get back in there and start mining." "Rick and Willie save the Boundary Cut." "Look at that." "Right on." "This is awesome." "I love seeing this." "yep." "Kevin Beets and Jason Folster arrive for their last shift of the week." "390)} Unexpected night shift." "I'm not overly happy about it." "20 and the 60." "Good." "Everything's on." "Losing Mike and Jerry has piled the pressure on the remaining crew." "Can't wait for this one to be over." "Ah fuck." "everything goes smoothly." "It's time for the weekly cleanup." "Wow." "didn't look." "I know that's there." "Oh." "Shake it out and put it back." "315)\fs32} By 6:00 pm that looks promising." "Tony has separated the gold from the concentrate." "she goes." "She goes." "worth about 12 thousand dollars." "If the dredge is going to pay for itself this season 30" "Tony needs at least 50 ounces a week." "50 80" "90 100" "110 120" "One thirt" "132.85" "Hell of a lot better than what we did the last time." "It's awesome." "000 dollars." "Tony's biggest gold haul yet on the dredge." "I'm pretty impressed with this." "there's always plenty of room for improvement." "And we're all learning how to run the damn thing." "We'll get it figured out and make it as efficient as we can make it." "000 dollars." "He's only a quarter of the way to a million dollars." "But the dredge is finally dialed in." "315)\fs32} Dawn at Scribner Creek an exhausted Rick Ness observes his daily ritual." "starting the day off with one cup of coffee." "just one cup." "One moderate cup." "The only way we can beat Todd and have a bigger season than we did last year is to and scale up our operation." "I'm just going to sell some gold." "and the fight's on." "Parker needs cash to double down on fuel and man hours." "cashing in half this year's gold take." "We got some gold to sell." "300 ounces." "300 ounces?" "That's right." "We'll get that going then." "000 degrees." "Looks pretty hot." "Yeah." "Hate to screw up and grab that." "are beaten off." "It's a little barbaric." "(chuckles)" "Like watching somebody shoot at your house with a shotgun." "Parker." "wow." "Look at those things." "Pretty cool bars." "They look nice." "Yeah." "Two 150 ounce bars." "sure." "Perfect." "which is about 345 grand." "what are you gonna spend it on?" "Fuel." "Fuel?" "000 dollars to forge ahead in the Boundary Cut." "Thanks for keeping us going." "Yup." "no problem." "take on the Hoffmans." "so." "I guess." "Put money in the bank and keep the operation going." "So." "Go write a few checks and get back to work." "315)\fs32} Sunday morning." "The Hoffman crew has run all of their Mammoth Channel pay dirt." "And they're finally ready for a cleanup." "Let's go." "they have to get 200 ounces a week." "It looks good." "But I don't know if it's good enough." "I don't think this cleanup will be 200." "And then I got to face Todd." "Dave's neck is on the line." "he insisted they run all of the Mammoth Channel pay dirt." "you'll find big gold." "cause it's not just Dave." "It's everyone's effort." "Yeah." "All of us pay when you make a mistake." "you know." "Never know." "I got a hunch he's right." "and they'll go away happy." "they'll kick him in the nuts." "Heh heh heh heh." "The miners and their families wait in the cook shack to find out if Dave was right." "Or if they wasted the entire week." "guys." "I know you've had a crappy week and everything." "well..." "What is it?" "It's good." "How good?" "Listen." "my gawd." "Freaking kidding me." "Look at that." "my geezus." "Whoa!" "Jack?" "236 ounces." "Gawd." "(cheers and clapping) eh." "Hey." "you know what?" "ever." "236" "Over a quarter of a million bucks came out of the Mammoth Channel and guess what?" "Nice." "guys." "Here we come." "you know." "Dave." "Look at that." "It's amazing." "Nice." "let's just go tear it down." "000 ounces of gold." "guys." "worth over $1 million dollars." "We thank you for this gold." "And we thank you for putting it in the ground just for us." "Amen." "Amen." "Amen." "The Hoffmans are already closing in on their gold total from last year." "700 ounce season." "I think the sky's the limit." "I really do." "290)\fnLucida Calligraphy} Subs by {\fs42.153\b1\i1} Jack T you find big gold." "And you know what?" "They were right." "315)\fs32} Coming up 355)\fs28} On a Gold Rush Special" "Parker Schnabel comes of age." "That's half an ounce." "A little over I'd bet." "Yeah." "(laughter)" "All season we worked to get that." "That's pretty cool." "Look at that." "192 ounces." "You got two ounce profit." "Yeah." "(laughter)" "We just found 1.4 million dollars worth of gold." "that's beautiful." "Wow." "Oh." "Ha ha ha." "That's 3 million dollars right there on the table." "(laughter and a toast)"