"Something break?" "On this "Gold Rush"..." "That doesn't sound right." "It's broke." "It's cracked right off." "Ow!" "We're fucked." "[ horn blowing ]" "Enough is enough." "It's scary." "We ain't got gold in that cut." "You're nowhere near deep enough." "You're going to be well over 100 feet." "So you're telling me that I'm only halfway down?" "I'm scared." "I'm really scared now." "At Paradise Hill," "Tony Beets is expanding his viking fleet so he can transport his new dredge 100 miles up the Yukon River." "The two halves of his 30-ton barge must become one massive steel hull." "Okay, up." "His challenge..." "Perfectly line up two 15-ton steel sections and weld them solid." "To make the vessel seaworthy," "A team of specialists arc weld the barge at over 20,000 degrees." "Last year, Tony paid $1.5 million for a second dredge 150 tons heavier than his first." "It was built in 1946 but is now abandoned 70 miles south at Thistle Creek." "To move the dredge to Eureka Creek," "Tony will load it onto his barge and pull it upriver by tugboat." "Tony's foreman, Gene Cheeseman, has worked on the tugboat, Kid Commando, for three weeks." "He's split it into three parts, ready to haul it down to the Yukon River, 15 miles away in Dawson." "When we get down to the river, then we've got to put the top house on it and the wheelhouse and get all the systems hooked back up." "It's a lot of work." "While the barge gets a coat of paint," "Tony enlists his family to transport the tug." "Son Mike is the point man in the Oshkosh," "A 22-year-old 12-liter, 8-wheel-drive combat transporter." "Get moving, 'cause I'm not stopping." "[ air horn blows ]" "Go, go, go, go!" "Mike:" "Only fuckin' concern I have is..." "It might be too high." "Mike:" "Oh, yeah, I know." "It says 5.3 and you guys were estimating 5.2, right?" "Mike:" "If it doesn't fit, we'll just cut the bridge." "Minnie:" "Just keep him going, Mike." "Even if Tony's math is correct," "Kid Commando has just four inches' clearance." "One wrong move from Mike could damage the tug and the bridge, putting the whole project back by weeks and cutting off access to the city." "Minnie:" "It looks really good from the back side." "Go, go, go, go." "Minnie:" "It's awesome, Mike." "He's fine, Tony." "He'll fit." "[ horn blows ]" "Buckland is our second chance." "Let's hope it's not our last chance." "This season, Todd set a massive" "$6 million, 5,000-ounce target." "But so far, he's only mined 138 ounces," "Worth just $165,000." "But so far, he's only mined 138 ounces," "Worth just $165,000." "Things are so bad, Todd's not paying his crew until they strike more gold." "The bottom line is is that we all have bills to pay." "You know, Logan just bought his first house." "Kevin had another baby." "We all have families." "All these guys, they didn't come to work for nothing," "So they're obviously all not super happy right now." "My dad has the pressure on him to get some gold for the whole team and their whole families." "They're running Buckland dirt through Monster Red," "But no one knows if they've hit the pay streak that would turn their season around." "We're going 50 feet deep to get to this pay dirt here." "Gawd." "What a nerve-wracking... situation." "You know, Kevin, all these guys, they've dug just a monster cut down there." "Let's hope that there's gold in the bottom of it." "'Cause..." "Heard lots of stories and..." "I just, I don't know." "That's... that's the truth." "Now, after two days of running," "Dave and Kevin shut down to see if they're finally on the money." "That's it." "We are done for the day." "Let's go check the sluices and see how much gold we got." "There's no gold on this side." "I don't see a single piece." "I don't see anything in here." "I'm not seeing any gold up in here." "There's nothing here." "That was 1,200 yards we just ran through there." "It ain't good enough." "Back to the drawing board." "[ groans ]" "We got all our eggs in this basket right here," "And if this doesn't work, I mean, we're done." "I mean, we're done-done." "This is it." "This is the last chance." "Marvin better have some answers." "They lease the Buckland mine from claim owner Marvin Wirth." "At 50 feet, it's the deepest cut Todd's ever mined." "His whole operation hangs in the balance." "Dude, we got a problem." "We ain't got gold in that cut." "I'm telling you, Todd." "That doesn't sound right." "We dug down probably 50 feet, tested all the way down." "Well, I'm going to tell you this." "You're nowhere near deep enough." "What?" "You're going to be well over 100 feet." "You're telling me we're not even halfway there yet?" "Todd, that's a whole different level of mining." "We're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of fuel, labor, time, energy." "Listen, Todd." "If you open this up, you can't run out on us." "If it doesn't work out exactly as you planned." "The question that I have is do we have the ability to dig that deep?" "I'm gonna be honest with you." "If you're not smart enough to do it," "You might as well just go home now and just save everyone the trouble." "There'll be gold at the bottom." "Let's kick some ass!" "I was really hoping for a ton of gold in the box today." "A third of the way through the season," "Parker Schnabel has just 787 ounces of gold," "Worth $944,000." "Gold's not really coming in like..." "I thought it would." "To stand any chance of reaching his 4,000-ounce," "$4.8 million goal," "He needs Sluicifer to run Klondike pay dirt for 12 straight hours a day." "You know, I thought we'd be up there at three ounces an hour or so, but we're more like two." "That's a pretty big difference." "you know." "Over a.." "1,500-hour sluicing season, that's 1,500 ounces short we'd be." "That doesn't sound right." "No." "Rattling going on in the wash plant somewhere doesn't sound quite right." "Not sure if it's a rock or broken spring or what it is." "[ rattling ]" "It's foreman Rick Ness' job to keep the plant running." "Wow." "Holy shit." "What do we got going on?" "There's a plate that goes from the prewash to the shaker deck." "It's fuckin' broke." "It's cracked right off." "Something break?" "Yeah." "Bad." "The whole fuckin' plate that transitions from the prewash to the shaker deck, is in three fuckin' pieces." "For fuck's sake." "Every hour the wash plant is down costs Parker $2,500 in lost gold." "Aw fuck." "What we gonna do about this one." "It's down to mechanic Mitch Blaschke to fix the problem." "How's it going?" "Not good." "Oh, it's fucked." "Why?" "Shit, the screen cage is in half, almost." "We've got something major going on." "It's basically tearing itself apart." "When the plant is running," "The inlet chute never gets closer than three inches from the prewash." "But as the machine shuts down, the irregular vibrations cause the plate to hit the prewash, resulting in a series of cracks." "Right now, we're just going to get it welded up," "You know, for the amount of hours we've got on this wash plant," "We've got big problems." "We've kind of pushed everything back up in place." "We're welding it from the top side," "Weld it from the bottom side," "Should make it a lot stronger." "We're just trying to get through it as fast as we can." "They cut the lip down on it, took about a half an inch off." "So," "We gave it a little bit more clearance." "Oh, shit!" "Ow!" "Fuckin' bitch.." "[ laughs ]" "I'm watching a forest fire start in Parker's hair." "[ laughs ]" "Mitch and Jordan have done a great job of getting this thing fixed." "Now we're just putting things back together, and we'll be..." "Yeah." "We'll be sluicing again in... 20, 30 minutes." "In just two hours," "Mitch welds the cracks with an ingenious bush fix." "You can see all the welding we had to do here where the tray broke," "You can see the gussets that we added in here to give it some strength." "Aye, it was broke pretty good." "Everything's holding together well." "And it doesn't look like it's breaking back apart anymore." "Really happy." "Now we're fuckin' gold mining." "You're telling me that I'm only halfway down to where we got to end up?" "And it's been a chore to get to this part." "At the Buckland mine in Oregon," "Andy Spinks has opened up a 50-foot cut." "They've just discovered he might have to dig another 50." "All of my knowledge and everything that I've done" "As far as stripping and doing a cut," "I've pretty much exhausted it." "I've never dug a hole this deep before." "Either we figure out a solution or we're done." "I'm scared." "I'm really scared now." "What's the solution?" "What are we gonna do?" "It's not going to be easy by any stretch of the imagination, but" "I've got the solution." "It's going to take some planning, but we'll do it." "How?" "Switchback it" "The whole way down, just like a mountain pass." "Build zigzags to the bottom till we hit bedrock." "Establish a face, mine our way out." "Unlike Andy, safety officer Trey Poulson has spent two decades in deep-pit mining operations." "Digging below 50 feet will open up a whole new raft of challenges." "What you're talking about is all foreign," "So it might as well be another language." "You show me how and I'll dig the dirt out." "It's above me." "It's above my pay grade." "I'm not going to lie, it's got me nervous, but..." "We'll get there." "For everybody's sake here, I hope you're right," "Because everybody's futures relying on this." "It's a hell of a plan." "Let's see if we can fricking pull it off." "Andy, do it?" "Let's do it." "Let's do it." "Andy and his crew get to work, digging down one bucket at a time in a desperate search for the pay streak." "So, Todd and Trey and I just had a meeting, and looks like we've got to go down 100 feet total in depth." "It's not the news that I was hoping for." "I've never dug a hole this deep before." "You know, right now, all I can hope for is the pay streak." "Guys are getting tired of moving dirt every day and not seeing any gold." "Over the next 10 days," "Andy plans to dig down five feet a day." "We got some water, Todd." "Holy frig." "What do you mean "some" water?" "Overnight, we've got 20 foot of water in our ditches." "That's a lot of water." "We don't know how fast it's coming in." "[ groans ]" "We've gone down 50 feet and that's what we hit." "And we've got another 50 to go." "If we don't get gold in this hole," "I honestly don't know what we're going to do." "This'll probably be our last cut ever." "So either we get this water figured out or we're screwed, completely screwed." "If we don't get gold in this hole," "I honestly don't know what we're gonna do." "What do you guys want to do?" "What should we do?" "The Hoffman crew is trying to dig down to a gold-rich pay streak," "But they've hit the water table and their cut is flooded." "I think we just put a pump right in the corner," "Bring it all the way down to the end of our mine limit and put it in those old existing ponds." "You guys figure out the plan." "Where are we gonna take the water." "Let's do it." "Let's do it." "Trey's toughest challenge?" "Pump the water 60 feet vertically to get it out of the cut." "He needs a 200-horsepower pump" "And a heavy-duty piping system." "This pump with this size pipe, is gonna to be moving 2,500 gallons per minute." "What we're going to do is weld the pipe." "Then we'll run all the way down to where we're going to turn into our pond." "The cut's drowning, and" "We've got to get ahead of this water." "Ho!" "Come into the center right here." "The pump, it'll be sending the water up through this pipe and out." "So we had to make another... sweep 90 for the suction on the back of the pump." "So Juan and I have built a 90 out of scrap iron in the middle of the desert." "I like it, man." "Hey." "What do you think of that?" "They've got the pump set." "Now we've just got to put the pipe in." "It's going to come up, travel here," "Make a corner," "Loop all the way around to the pond." "Should be good to go." "Let's do it." "How many feet?" "We got about 1,100 feet?" "1,100 feet of pipe." "Once we get this water out of it, we can see what the bottom holds." "We're good to go." "Keep your fingers crossed." "Hey, Todd." "Are you guys in place?" "Yeah, we're in place." "Fire it up." "Moment of truth." "So either we get this water figured out or we're screwed." "Here we go, guys." "[ motor cranking ]" "Come on, baby." "[ motor cranking ] [ motor starts ]" "I can hear air pushing out." "Can you hear it?" "Anything yet?" "Nope, nothing yet." "Trey's been working with high-powered centrifugal pumps all his mining career." "We've got a big bubble of air in there," "So, open the valve." "Let the air out." "Move the water." "Keep your fingers crossed, Randy." "This had better work." "Got 'er." "We got some water coming out." "That's awesome!" "She's pumping." "All right!" "Yeah!" "Man, Randy, we dodged a bullet there." "Woo, buddy." "We needed some good news." "A little bit's better than none." "We needed some good news." "A little bit's better than none." "Todd and his team can get back to digging down to the elusive pay streak." "Let's go get some gold!" "Working!" "That's what we needed right there." "Up, up, up, up." "In Dawson City," "Tony Beets puts together Kid Commando, the tugboat that will transport his dredge from Thistle Creek." "Happy?" "Yep." "When it's put together, it's really tall," "So I'm a little worrisome." "We even got a crowd to watch." "Wow." "More, more, more, more." "More, more, more, more." "Keep her..." "Keep her rolling, keep her rolling." "There you go, there you go." "Back it up, back it up, back it up, back it up," "Back it up, back it up." "Easy on the brake pedal." "Keep her going, keep her going." "Keep her going." "Bit more, bit more." "Hang in there, Mike." "Keep her going." "Keep her going." "It's not floating." "We're starting to get a little water on the deck there." "The stern of Kid Commando is in the river." "If water gets into the hull, the whole vessel could sink." "Back it up, back it up." "Back it up, back it up." "Tony Beets' tugboat, Kid Commando, is on the point of flooding." "Because it won't float free from the lowboy." "Gene's got a plan..." "Fire up the engines and attempt to back Kid Commando off the lowboy." "Boat, swaying." "Gene's trying the engines." "Woo!" "It's floating!" "Come on." "Deck it." "Oh, look at it lean." "Look at it lean." "Ew!" "I'm not going on that boat." "Hell, no!" "Woo!" "Hell, no." "There's always another step." "Never ends." "If it did, I'd be out of a fuckin' job." "We're getting down to the bare minimum pay left in this section of the boundary cut." "At Scribner Creek," "Tyson is running the last few thousand yards of of boundary cut dirt before the crew moves on to a new cut." "We probably have another two shifts left." "This pay is pretty good right now 'cause it falls through the grizzlies nicely." "Sluicifer's hungry and so it's all up to us to keep her fed." "To hit their 4,000-ounce, $4.8 million goal, he needs to keep 250 yards an hour running through the plant." "Up at the screen deck, foreman Rick makes his daily inspection." "Oh, that's just great." "Well, there's just lots of dirt and rocks coming out of the side of our shaker box," "Covered up our bypass valve for our plant." "Why the fuck, is it doing that?" "Where's Mitch?" "Once again, it's down to Mitch to solve the problem." "Yes, this couldn't have come at a worse time." "I'm flying out tomorrow," "Heading to Oregon to get get married." "I got 10 other projects I wanted to get done," "And at the end of the day, there's only so many hours." "Some things you can be late for in life." "I'm thinking wedding, probably not a good one." "What's going on, man?" "I don't fuckin' know." "Should shut it down." "You can see how this side of the prewash is all clear," "And this side, we got six inches of rock." "That's fuckin' shit." "When the water's working right," "These valves cross so that it's not pushing one way more than the other." "I'm looking at our plate here and it just looks like we're hitting way off the side." "So we need to make sure that our water's hitting nice and center." "I'm fuckin' glad you're still here, Mitch." "Ho ho ha ha." "Shit." "I'm glad this didn't happen 10 days later." "Yeah." "Mitch is about to leave for his wedding." "I'm damn glad that he's not gone now." "Because... for things like this, there's, there's not too many people I know that can deal with it better, you know?" "He'll get this thing back running." "Tyson, why don't you go and turn the water on?" "Okay." "Mitch adjusts the pressure of the nozzles, equalizing the water distribution in the prewash to keep the pay dirt flowing steadily." "The water was short on this side." "So it was pushing more on the far side and it was pushing all the material over this way." "That's more like it." "Parker's lost less than two hours of mining," "And Mitch can get back to his to-do list before leaving tomorrow to get married." "All righty." "Later." "Later, Mitch." "Thanks, Mitch." "We've moved a tremendous amount of dirt and Todd spent a lot of money." "Bottom line is if there's not gold in the ground, nobody get's paid." "So," "I'm very, very nervous right now." "In Oregon, the Hoffman crew's water problem is under control, but Monster Red is shut down until Andy hits a pay streak." "Already over 50 feet, he may need to dig down to 100." "Andy's the best operator we got." "Maybe we'll find a little pay dirt here." "We've got to keep digging deeper, find that damn gold." "We've got no other choice." "I'm just going to dig as far down as I can dig a hole for right now, and just see if I can pull anything up that looks different than what we've been digging." "Rather than excavate the entire pit," "Andy digs a trench to fast-track towards a pay layer." "If he doesn't find one," "Todd's dream of a 5,000-ounce season will be shattered." "10 feet down, he stops to check." "What's it look like?" "In that ditch right there." "Can probably see it better down here." "It started dropping." "Can probably see it better down here." "It started dropping." "We all of a sudden started getting into gravels." "We got into that." "Good." "Went down deep, it just kept going," "We got into that." "Good." "Went down deep, it just kept going," "And then right on that placing, there is a black layer." "Look at that." "That's mineable, there." "That's a pay layer." "That's mineable, there." "That's a pay layer." "That's going to make everybody a little bit happy." "This ground isn't as deep as Marvin thinks." "All year we've been getting our ass kicked, but..." "Damn, this sure looks good right now." "That right there tells me a lot, just the angles of it," "The type of rock, the way it's laid in there." "I know there's gold right there." "I would do this." "Take this layer, this material that came right off of bedrock," "That ditch, 1,000-yard run through the plant." "I think our luck's changing." "Let's just call this the ditch test." "Let's just run it." "Pull the mats, see what we got." "That's probably where we're going to get our whole season's worth of gold." "All right, fuck.]." "Let's go." "[ air horn blowing ] [ motor starts ]" "Todd can finally fire up Monster Red." "and run a 1,000-yard test" "To see if they've found the elusive pay streak." "Hopefully there's enough gold in there to put a lot of gold in in these guys' pockets, 'cause I'll tell you what." "They deserve it." "Parker has a reputation for driving too fast." "Even his dog Dozer seems to agree." "Get in there." "You still mad at me driving like an idiot, Dozer?" "I'm rebuilding the trust." "Dozer, I'll take it easy." "Come on!" "Up." "Is this so bad?" "Remmber You used to love this shit." "Is this so bad?" "Remmber You used to love this shit." "10-4." "This is my last scoop." "You know, we've been running non-stop for three days with minimal downtime, so..." "We're really hoping to see the runs lit up today." "After two months and 100,000 yards," "Sluicifer runs the final boundary cut pay." "There will be one last gold weigh, before Parker starts mining his new cut." "Alrighty." "Let's do this cleanup and let's try and make it quick" "So we can get this beast back to chowing dirt." "So, this is the last of it," "The last of the boundary cut here." "You been a good cut." "To be on track for his 4,000-ounce," "$4.8 million goal," "Parker needs his final boundary cut cleanup to produce 148 ounces." "40, 60," "100." "140." "Keep shaking." "Holy cow." "Come on." "192.4." "192 ounces is worth around $230,000." "You know, you do the math, that's, like, a lot." "[ laughter ]" "The best cut we've ever done." "Yeah." "A lot." "It's our best one yet." "If we keep some cleanups like this going, we're going to hit that 4,000-ounce goal." "Hell yeah, buddy." "So..." "Don't leave, Mitch." "Sorry, buddy." "I got to go." "Actually, you know, Mitch, we do have something for ya." "It's fresh out of the sluice box." "It's your share of the gold cut." "We really appreciate what you do there." "[ laughter ]" "Nice!" "Either out of the jig or the table." "We found it somewhere." "Yeah, buddy." "We got lots of belt repairs right there." "[ laughter ]" "I think I'd better be on that flight." "I've missed a lot of things for work," "But you know what?" "I think this is one of those, boys." "Want to miss your own wedding one of them?" "I think this is one of those, boys." "Want to miss your own wedding one of them?" "[ laughter ]" "To Mitch and Haley." "to Mitch and Haley." "Thanks, boys." "Cheers." "This fuckin' barge is definitely a lot heavier than the, uh, tug." "I put this sucker at double." "Every day, Tony is getting closer to transporting his 70-year-old dredge from Thistle Creek." "His tug, Kid Commando, is in the water." "And he's finished painting and welding his barge." "All he needs now is for his son Mike to truck the 30-ton steel vessel down to Dawson and launch it into the river." "[ horn blowing ]" "Hmph." "It's always fun driving that Oshkosh." "Can't state that enough." "Next, Mike needs to float the barge." "Getting the tugboat in was tough," "But the barge is twice as wide, twice as long, and nearly three times the weight." "Just like the tugboat," "Mike can't drive the Oshkosh deep enough to get the barge to float free." "If Mike goes any further, he could sink the Oshkosh with him inside it." "Enough is enough." "It's scary." "But Mike is not prepared to quit." "[ engine starts ]" "Here goes nothing." "Back it up, back it up, back it up." "Oh, my god!" "Yeah!" "That's awesome." "Ha ha." "We just drove forward and backed up, hit the brakes." "Nya." "It came clean off." "Whoa Fuckin' smart ass." "Cheers." "Prost." "To a job well done." "One step closer in moving the second dredge." "That's for sure." "[ lightning strike ]" "Sluicifer!" "Next time, one mega-packed" ""Gold Rush"" "Look out!" ""Gold Rush"" "Look out!" "Rick...." "There's no gold here." "Dave's dozing the pay." "Whoa!" "What are you doing?" "Get out of the way." "I'm gonna go down in that cut." "Find that damn gold." "I don't have the right fuckin' tools." "I can't fuckin' get anything done." "How much?" "Holy shit!"