"Alright." "Let's go." "We gotta get this stuff moving." "What's going on?" "okay." "six down on their luck men left Oregon." "for the Alaskan wilderness." "hey." "They dropped everything." "to find gold." "This is where the gold is boys." "To live the American Dream." "until we dig the gold out of the ground." "you know." "Pay for their houses." "and all fall enduring stop." "Disappointment 294)} Three months making no fuckin money" "Disputes 294)}Don't argue with me." "And disaster 294)} Help him." "as the harsh Alaskan winter arrives 294)}We need every little flake of gold we can get." "The crew is just inches from what they have been after all along." "274)}Yoo hoo." "Gold rich bedrock." "294)}We know what's there now." "I would sure like to have some more of it." "But before they can get their hands on millions of dollars worth of gold." "274)} Sure feel the temp dropping." "They still face" "Floods 294)}Bad day to be a pumpologist." "Landslides." "294)}It's getting a little too dangerous." "And sub freezing temperatures." "294)} Running out of time." "Snow is really frozen." "They have to strike it rich before the Arctic blast freezes them out." "274)}This is the best material so far." "274)} We're not gonna leave it behind." "Early October in Porcupine Creek Alaska." "Jack Hoffman measures the mining crew's progress." "looks like it's at 60 feet." "I've just got a little ways to get to touch bedrock." "That's where the gold's laying." "So that's what I'm hoping." "The rookie miners have spent the season digging as deep as they can to find gold." "We're gonna walk out of here rich men." "the more gold the dirt holds." "Holy shit." "We got our first real nugget." "000 dollars." "none of the crew has made a nickel." "My time was wasted." "Ah fuck it." "And the brutal Alaskan winter is upon them." "We got real low water pressure." "Could have a frozen hose or something." "It's stuck." "Time is running out to hit gold rich bedrock and save their failed season." "I know where the bank is." "Under the rock ." "They plan to keep digging to hit bedrock before the freeze." "But the deeper they go." "The more dangerous it gets." "Right now we're about 35 feet below the creek." "That's melted glacial water coming out way up north on top of the mountain." "cutting into the levy that holds back the creek." "more and more creek water was able to leak into their hole." "About a 50/50 gain." "Water's coming in about as fast as we're pumping it out." "We've got water coming in everywhere." "What it's doing is washing all the dirt away from the rocks." "We're losing a lot of stability." "Just don't know if we can go any deeper than that." "Jack digs deeper." "I don't know if I can go too much deeper." "The ground beneath the 400 excavator begins to give way." "Yo!" "It's crappy." "Jack has no choice but to get out." "Get moving." "Can't get it out of the hole." "Easy easy." "Jack is the team's most experienced operator." "It takes all his skill to keep the 400 from slipping into the hole." "294)}(whistle)" "Jack!" "Your track is sloughing." "Good lord." "Jack just barely gets out with the 400." "uh." "It'll tighten your pucker up." "I'll tell you that." "the team is relying upon a 4 inch pump." "But it's a losing battle." "Thurber's looking at it now." "My assistant pumpologist." "See this water coming out here." "Water comes out of there it will cavitate." "It'll suck air through there." "Like a hole in your straw." "You can suck all you want." "The hole's above your liquid you're not gonna get anything." "You're just gonna suck air and that's what it's doing." "The crew has to drain the hole to have a chance of reaching bedrock." "To do so they need another pump." "I'm gonna run over to Schnabel's and see if he'll loan me a 6 inch pump." "We're just not gonna.." "That pump's not doing it." "but hopefully." "One more time." "veteran miner John Schnabel has already proved that there are millions of dollars of gold here in Porcupine Creek." "Schnabel's become wise to the signs that the Alaskan winter's close." "Ho." "I thought I'd see you guys running." "we're just getting everything put away for the winter here." "274)}" "You're done." "So you're all shut down." "that it pushed the windshields out of those two machines on the far right." "See the plywood on the front of them." "274)}" "You're kidding." "Wow." "They landed on the steering wheel broke 'em all to pieces." "Geez." "294)}" "So the snow was over 10 feet in places." "Oh geez." "I hate even asking you this." "I basically came over to see if I could borrow a pump from ya." "We need two pumps running in there or we're not gonna get that water out of there and then we're done." "Schnabel's pump is already drained and packed away for the long winter." "All he has for Todd is a warning." "a burden trying to get out of here.." "What's your guess for this year man." "I'm not guessing." "I've left." "Uh." "Ha ha ha." "I'm ready." "So." "That ought to be a sign." "This is my last day up here." "He he he." "um." "I get the picture John." "I get the picture." "Okay." "Take care of yourself." "See you man." "Todd leaves with only a stark warning for his rookie miners." "I don't think they know any.. thing about the weather condition." "How it changes so rapidly here." "That cold air runs down this canyon like water runs down the canyon." "This is Alaska." "So he didn't think of.." "They could get froze out overnight." "and running the leaking one is using up precious diesel." "I don't want to sit here and burn the fuel." "keep the pump running." "I'm just gonna have Chris turn the pump off." "Chris Doumitt has worked round the clock to keep the pump running and the glory hole dry." "you know I get up in the morning and work and then stay up till 1:30 at night babysitting this thing so that they can run in the morning." "I should be able to move the water and I can't do it." "that's frustrating." "I'm not gaining on that water down there." "I know you're not gonna like this." "I need you to go down right now." "You stayed up all night running that." "I need you to turn it off." "Okay." "Yeah." "we're just treading water." "landing." "It's keeping it from becoming Lake Porcupine and keeping it in the hole." "I'd rather turn it off." "find a new pump and then really hit it." "It's gonna take hours." "Just friggen do it okay." "Just kinda stupid if you ask me." "We're running out of time." "Weather's setting in." "End of the season's coming around." "It doesn't make sense to me to let it turn into a lake again." "and we're so close." "265)\fs28}Up ahead." "The miners work day and night in a race against time." "Ha ha." "That's a rush." "And they finally hit pay dirt." "Just drop dead fantastic." "But can they pull enough gold out of the ground to turn a profit before the snows bury Porcupine Creek." "I don't think Alaska wants us mining any more." "The Hoffmans are racing the Alaskan winter to hit bedrock and gold." "and Jack can't dig." "It fills up so friggen quick it's not funny." "Yeah." "is water." "it's gotta just be loaded with gold." "I don't think Jack will ever dig again." "Unless he digs through 30 feet of water." "Man can't do that." "The crew desperately needs another pump." "if I exhausted all my resources and who I know who's got a pump." "I'll see what I can do.." "gonna have to see a pump first." "That's right." "isn't another gold mine." "they're all shut down." "They know we're living on borrowed time." "preparing for 12 feet of snow to be on top of everything." "We haven't." "he'll have to get creative." "I kinda know where the bones are buried." "How you doing?" "Fred." "Ralph Vigilantey." "How you doing man." "if they can get to it." "it was halfway up a mountain." "You can follow me up and then I'll ride up with you cause we're cramped for space for turnarounds up there." "Fred has no choice but to make an attempt to get it." "just muddy tracks left by loggers." "up on this mountain here." "See if we can find where they got this pump stashed." "They think the road's good enough here." "We'll see." "Not exactly like running down to your rental store and picking one up." "I'd like to say just one thing fellas." "Mission accomplished." "Little more." "Little more." "Little more." "Whoa." "Right there." "Hey." "Nice pump man." "Nice pump." "That'll work." "This is definitely gonna do the job." "When did you say it's gonna start freezing?" "Thursday they're probably talking temperatures in the 20's." "That'd be the end of our mining." "we should have that thing pumping water like crazy." "I sure hope that crew appreciates this." "Well." "We got us a pump boys." "We got us a pump." "I'm a happy camper." "And I know you are man." "Good job man." "Everyone jumps in to get the borrowed pump up and running." "Get away from my truck." "we might be able to get material out." "Might be able to hit bedrock." "Might be able to get a whole bunch of gold." "Yeah." "Just a whole bunch of mights." "no no no no." "By doing that it comes down." "That should do it." "There you go." "You got it." "This is a 6 inch pump." "this is more than twice the capacity." "will probably pump anywhere from 1000 to 1200 gallons a minute." "The crew's mining season depends on this pump." "they have no chance of reaching the gold." "Yoohoo." "Got a twist in the hose right here." "No oh." "Just checking on ya." "That pumps." "Yeah." "That pump's doing great." "Oi yeah." "There you go." "It's a fountain of youth." "Tastes like gold to me." "000 gallons of water per hour." "But Jack still can't get in the hole to dig just yet." "I'd like to have it just as close to empty as I possibly can." "I want to dig down." "I want to hit bedrock." "One of our guys is gonna be staying up all night." "Looks like another double shift for Chris." "It's cold." "Dark." "And late." "Chris has to add 10 gallons of fuel to the pump every 2 hours." "about 4 or 5 more times and I think we can call that project done." "Then we're in the money." "The crew has rationed fuel to last the rest of the season." "Running through the night uses an unplanned 50 gallons." "They're gambling on striking gold before they run out of fuel." "Chris is back to see if his cold night shift paid off." "but can only do so if the water level is low enough." "Perfect." "Excellent." "That's about as empty as we can get it." "I'll do another double shift if I have to get Jack down in there." "The massive effort to drain the flooded glory hole has paid off." "ready to be processed." "That glory hole material should be some good stuff." "Really good stuff." "deeper than anyone has ever been before on the Porcupine Creek claim." "We'll find out." "Looks pretty good right now." "looks like about 25 feet." "over 40 feet down." "Well it's pretty deep hole." "Jack Hoffman is digging deeper than anyone has before at Porcupine Creek." "Still looking for a nugget." "He's betting that the richest gold deposits are down on bedrock." "to find out if he's right." "That's the stuff we gonna run right now." "This is good old stuff here." "Came from 65 feet down in that glory hole." "It's been getting better and better every time we went down deeper." "Let's see if old Nellie Bellie is gonna crank here today." "that's tough." "dear." "Come on." "We find the right ground we're gonna be sweet." "The wash plant pans for gold on a huge mechanical scale." "High pressure water jets blast the dirt into slurry that falls into a shaker." "Larger stones are discarded." "where heavy gold pieces sink to the bottom and stay trapped." "it's crucial that the dirt is loaded at just the right rate." "But Fred is desperate to get to the gold." "Greg and Thurber are worried he's loading way too fast." "Gotta watch it." "He's getting all excited." "Jamming too much." "We're not gonna get a good idea what we got." "It's too thick." "they will clog up." "and they'll never know how much gold they lost." "so the heavy gold can drop." "Going down to take a good look." "Hey." "I haven't done nothing." "Fred." "Just a little bit." "Just a little bit." "It's like asking a kid to give up his Halloween candy when you ask Fred to slow down." "That his problem." "They're not just running the risk of losing gold." "a death blow for the mine at this late date." "If anything breaks we're really going to hurt on this one." "So I'm trying to make sure everything's running nice." "No problems." "Jack stops digging in the glory hole to halt the wash plant run." "He wants to check the riffles to be sure they're not losing any gold." "Turn the pump off." "One is off." "The riffles are fine." "And the material appears to be rich in gold." "we're consistently digging gold out of the ground." "look at that." "sluice box right now." "This is really good down here." "Gold in them der hills." "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha." "We know it's there now." "I would sure like to have some more of it." "the drew prepares for a big push on the remaining dirt." "This is one of our most important runs with the most positive amount of gold that we've ever ran through here." "Ready." "Let's wash some rocks." "I just got to relieve it to the fact they're going down." "we really miss our families but." "This is for our future." "Sure feel the temp dropping." "It's getting cold." "15 degrees really fast." "Starting to get huge snowflakes." "It's a little scary." "but not right now." "the snow gets really really deep." "supplies wise." "We're just not ready to stay a winter." "you're done." "The snow shower passes." "But it's a stark reminder." "Winter is upon them." "The crew has to make every minute count." "uh." "We're not gonna leave it behind." "running dirt into the night." "You fall." "No one's gonna know you're down." "So it's kinda dangerous." "that's it." "that's the way it goes." "We're gonna shut down." "That's it man." "They've run dirt from the bottom of the glory hole for 18 hours." "it was a good run so it's a good sign." "But the drew will have to wait for tomorrow's clean out to find out how much gold they've collected." "Ready." "Go." "Break." "That's it." "We're done." "The Hoffman crew wakes up after yesterday's 18 hour shift." "Bad day to be a pumpologist." "Melting snow and overnight rain have again overwhelmed the pumps." "It's going to take at least one full day to drain 40 feet of water from the glory hole." "But there's still plenty of work to be done cleaning the gold out of the wash plant." "We'll just start panning it out." "And if we're real careful we'll just pan every little ounce." "Would be nice to see some good color down there." "you know." "why not." "We need every little flake of gold we can get out of this clean out." "Let's do it." "Every little flake." "Let's do it." "and the concentrated material trapped inside carefully collected." "850 dollars." "they need to find 30 times that amount." "I believe and I'm hoping that this stuff is just full of gold." "We started out thinking we knew what we were doing." "then it proves we know what we're doing now." "The cold driving rain only complicates matters." "000 dollars they've spent." "it's anybody's guess as to how much gold we might have found." "I'm really up in the air." "Even the miner's moss matting that lines the lower sluice box should hold valuable gold." "There." "this gold's heavy." "You always think there's that nugget laying right there on the surface." "Kinda excited and start panning it and see what we do have." "Gonna show the guys what's really down there in the bottom of that hole." "and it leaves that gold in the pan." "That's yours." "Ha ha ha ha." "That's a rush." "It really is." "whoa." "Looks really good so far." "Yeah." "This stuff is really hot." "Last the day channel fellas." "We're finding corn flake size flakes of gold." "We'll have the last laugh." "right here." "and the crew can finally get warmed up." "and weigh their new total for the season." "Ready to do this?" "Yup." "See what we got." "That's pretty." "No one on the team has been paid all summer." "depends on the outcome." "family and mortgage and stuff at home that.." "Put that in jeopardy to do this." "there's no share." "and no nest egg." "That jar's heavy." "Alright man." "Let's go tell the guys." "it's uh." "Here it is." "We worked hard." "Everybody did and I'm real happy with ya." "There's 14.64 ounces here." "(Everybody cheering) 000 dollars." "is just from today's clean out." "500 dollars in gold." "was our absolute best one." "It just dropped dead fantastic." "that it's laying right down there on bedrock." "And there's gonna be a lot of it." "A lot of it." "after 5 months digging." "The dirt is getting richer with every scoop." "14 and a half ounces of gold." "That's an awful lot of gold." "That's almost a pound." "That's a lot of gold." "I know what we did to get that." "and we're gonna get that gold." "And we're gonna put it in your pockets." "the crew can truly say that they are on the gold." "winter will blast them out of Alaska." "I'm not playing around now." "Now it's for serious for me." "The Hoffman crew is in a mad scramble to beat the Alaskan winter." "It has taken 2 days to once again pump out 40 feet of water from their 65 feet deep glory hole." "in fact that pump had water on it." "has stretched the miner's resources to the breaking point." "We're out of fuel." "And it's dead." "it won't take mother nature very long to refill the glory hole." "000 dollars of gold." "kind of a fiasco right now." "so I can dig." "they have to reach bedrock." "and makes a 35 mile dash into town to buy more fuel with what money they have left." "It is the time of year where the snow's gonna be flying real soon." "So it's basically gonna be driver discretion." "ice." "it's touch and go whether the fuel truck will even be able to make the trip up the dangerous road to the claim." "On the money." "Alright." "Without fuel it's game over." "We're gonna do our best to get it to you." "Okay." "Alright." "Appreciate it." "No problem." "Jack is banking on the weather holding off long enough to get the critical fuel delivered." "The fuel's coming and I think we're gonna beat the weather." "We'll be alright." "Dawn at Porcupine." "Fred wakes to what miners call termination dust." "That don't look good." "It is snowing quite heavily right now." "Big old wet sloppy stuff." "No sign of it letting up." "Not quite freezing right now." "It's around about 34 degrees." "it might kill a few spirits around here." "there's no way to get it out of the ground." "and I just don't think that truck will make it." "A lot of snow." "Without fuel we're not running." "a little lesson here." "their mining season is over." "is we're just so darn close to the gold right now." "so." "When you hear that you get pretty excited." "It'd be nice to hit it right now but..." "Huh huh." "honk honk honk honk.)" "Dude." "What's that?" "come get it." "Wooh." "Can't believe it" "That guy's amazing." "Yeaaa." "Buenos dios." "Now we can run." "and the crew immediately puts it to use." "But no one knows if they have enough time to get to bedrock before the big freeze hits." "Another 3 or 4 degrees and it's gonna freeze up." "Not gonna be nice." "Probably tonight huh?" "Yeah." "Do we have some pretty bad weather coming in or what have you heard?" "I haven't heard the prediction cause I'm afraid to listen." "Yeah." "sloppy conditions is less than ideal." "making it unstable." "The hole's changed overnight." "It's gone from halfway decent to dangerous." "Right now it's a dangerous hole." "it was flowing so bad." "just that quick." "Hey Jack." "You ready to dig?" "I'm ready." "Yee-ah." "You got it." "Whoa." "Whew." "Whew." "Hee hee hee." "Good driving." "Woo." "Woo." "Well it looks like my dad 's really getting a bunch of good material up." "70 feet deep." "30 thousand years ago that this was deposited here." "I want to know what's down there." "This could be Jack's last chance to reach bedrock in the glory hole." "he pushes the 400 excavator to it's limit." "get out." "Jack Hoffman faces the end of the mining season." "he digs 70 feet down in the glory hole." "are being tested." "(whistles)" "It started caving away down below." "Made me nervous." "The melted snow and ice collapses the sides of the hole around him." "That's not safe anymore." "I'm gonna come up above." "Jack has no choice but to give up and get himself and their precious excavator out while he still can." "God's sake." "Check the ground." "Slow down." "Come on." "Come on." "Come on buddy." "Oh crap." "you know." "but I'm not interested." "Todd makes the decision no one wants to hear." "The digging will stop until conditions improve." "Go rest." "Yeah." "The way it goes." "Boy." "We were right there." "One good slam on the" "Deep freeze and we'll be finished." "it's clear Todd's decision to stop digging... was a wise one." "This isn't the..." "It isn't looking too good." "I don't think Alaska wants us greenhorns mining anymore out here." "because we just finally figured out how to start mining." "Start getting some gold so." "Hmm." "I'm just hoping it's not too deep in the morning." "the cold light of dawn confirms Todd's worst fears." "Winter has shut down the last working mine in Porcupine creek." "Geez." "they can't run." "or they'll be snowed in." "This might be it." "This is it." "Let's go." "Let's go." "Get in the truck." "Let's load up." "and then we're not getting out of here for sure." "I'm not real happy about leaving without accomplishing what we set out to do." "It finally is just unbelievable how close we were." "Like a football game." "We marched the ball all the way down 99 yards." "All we have is this one yard to go." "We have accomplished our goal." "We've proven that you can still do stuff like this here in America." "they'll have to negotiate the treacherous eight mile mountain road." "Hey guys." "It's getting a little dangerous up here." "That bridge looks like it's a little slippery." "Gonna be a pretty hairy ride to the bottom." "I am broker now than when I arrived in Alaska." "Broke." "Got some issues wit the finance company on my home." "So I got to deal with that when I get home." "I have a natural ability to fix anything except for myself." "It would take hundreds of thousands of dollars of operations." "The gold was my answer." "We're just plowing our way through here." "Looks like a monster tree over here." "Looks like it slid off the cliff." "Carpenter Chris Doumitt steps in to clear the roadblock." "We battle through and hopefully next spring we can get back up here and continue where we left off." "And get the gold." "Every tree up here's gonna be over the road." "We could have one fall on me right now." "I think we're gonna get about six million." "That's just a guess." "Just hit it." "Push it." "Ready." "Let's go." "Ram it." "That took care of that." "We're gonna come back and we're gonna kick some serious ass." "That's what's gonna happen." "274)}Subs by JacksonT"