[speaking]
[narrator] On thisGold Rush, Tony Beets drains the swamp...
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] ...in the hunt for gold.
Something needs to change.
This is our best shot right now.
[narrator] Running out of time, Fred Lewis calls in the big guns.
They're sluicing out of a mudhole.
A actual mudhole.
-[man] It's the last scoop! -[bleep] yeah!
[narrator] And Parker hits a major milestone.
What a nice feeling.
[honking]
We got some pretty good numbers of gold out of this thing.
-It's never enough. -[chuckles]
[Parker] This season's been a hell of a season.
With the whole Covid thing, I had no idea where we're going to end up,
but, you know, we've had two wash plants pounding away all season.
It's been really good.
[narrator] Twenty-six-year-old Parker Schnabel
is running two wash plants 24/7
to build a war chest and buy new ground.
He's about to enter phase two of his plan.
We just got sluice removed over to the airstrip cut
and it looks like it's going to produce some good gold.
Big Red's just finishing up in the last cut.
We're going to move Big Red down to the airstrip.
I'm having it join Slucifer.
We really need to get that ground mined out
and show that way can produce their ounces out of it.
[narrator] Over the last four years,
Parker has moved almost three million yards of dirt from the last cut,
and mine more than 12,000 ounces of gold,
the richest ground he's ever mined.
Now he needs the last 25,000 yards sluiced in just seven days.
This is something that we need to do very efficiently
if we're going to make it all work in time.
We got a lot of work to do.
We're short on people as well.
We're going to try and do everything we can done here by the end of the week.
Uh, it's gonna be tough. It's gonna be a challenge.
We're working as hard as we can to try and make this happen.
[Brennan] It's going to be a mad scramble here.
Cross my fingers, knock on wood,
whatever I got to do, just to try and ensure this cut will get finished.
Just trying to keep Big Red fed here with pay dirt as well.
I'm doing tailings, and...
doing both with one loader is... Keeps you really busy.
[Brennan] That is not look [bleep] good.
[bleep]
[groans] [bleep]
What in the [bleep] is on fire over here?
Cut the power!
Shut it down!
The [bleep] is burning up here?
Holy [bleep]
The [bleep] is going on here?
No [bleep] way.
[engine turns off]
Holy [bleep]
Mitch, you gotta copy. Mitch?
[Mitch] Yeah, Go ahead.
[Brennan] The [bleep] wash plant is on fire.
[Mitch] All right, man. But I'm on my way.
What's going on?
[Brennan] Holy [bleep]
Gonna have a heart attack.
[bleep] smoke bellowing out of there.
[Mitch] You got to be kidding.
[Brennan] Farsighted. Looks like it puke out of there.
I was wheeling the cut and just [bleep] ran up.
[Mitch] Oh, there it is.
We've got our return rollers gone. [bleep]
That grease is probably catching on fire.
There you can see all the bearings [bleep] out.
[narrator] A roller bearing on the radio stacker,
which feeds Big Red, has burned out.
[Brennan] Oh, this is great.
This is a big job.
It's gonna take three or four hours to change that out. [bleep]
Man, the days are clicking away here.
We've got to get this cut done.
-We got a lot of work to do down there so... -Yeah.
-...we can't be both places at once. -No, no.
I'm gonna go grab Shane and see if he can come over.
Okay. Perfect.
[honks]
[narrator] Now it's down to mechanic, Shane Smith,
to get them back up and running.
[Shane] She's pretty gnarly bound.
There isn't a bearing left in here,
so it's just running on a bare shaft smoking away.
And there's parts on the ground.
And we run everything right to the limit, so...
It's all part of the game.
Basically up to me to try and keep this thing running.
I can pull this whole motor off.
It's full of mud.
That's kind of the maintenance that they got to keep their eye on.
You can get the collar off the shaft.
Yeah, it wants to be a little difficult today.
I love burning stuff up.
It's my favorite thing.
Burning it up, blowing it up.
You got to have some kind of fun.
Blaze or precision cutting.
Getting closer.
Get the new bearing back in.
Nice snug fit.
Put this back on.
[Mitch] How's she looking, doctor?
I think we're ready to go.
[Mitch] Oh, yeah.
You should be able to wash some rocks.
-Thanks, man. -All right, man.
Good luck down there.
[Mitch] Oh, yeah. We need it.
[narrator] It's cost Parker four hours downtime
and $15,000 in lost gold.
But Big Red is back in business.
-[Shane] Did you hit that button? -Hit it.
[engine starts]
[machine whirring]
[man] Whoo!
He always gets it done, and he gets it done pretty darn quick.
And that's what we need right now.
[Mitch] All right, we're all good. Start shaker deck.
-[Brennan] Keep you at the bypass? -[Mitch] Yeah.
Hopefully, we could run full tilt here.
Hey, Trey! Crank it up.
[engine running]
[Brennan] Thanks again, Shane. Appreciate it.
Well, now that the plant's back up running smooth,
I'm just going to pop back in the hole here and keep loading trucks.
We've got to stay on schedule and focused
and try and get this cut done, 'cause that's what our goal is.
You got to get some pay dirt.
Let's go!
Not only are the operations not going really well,
and now morale is down.
People want to see gold. They're not seeing gold.
[narrator] In Oregon's Elkhorn Mountains,
Fred Lewis and his crew of combat veterans are struggling.
So far this season,
he's mined just an ounce a quarter of gold.
[Johnny] Getting a little worried.
Halfway through the season now and...
it's really not looking great.
[engine starts]
[narrator] One month ago, Fred opened the liberation cut.
He believed it would save his season,
but it's produced just 0.6 ounces of gold.
That's just a constant, you know, [bleep] battle.
I think the longest runtime we've had is, like, two hours,
but, you know, eventually something breaks down on this mine.
[narrator] They've suffered constant breakdowns
of the wash plant and water supply.
[Johnny] So far, this mine has not been paying out for us.
What are we here for if no gold?
[narrator] Last week, to keep the operation running,
Fred convinced Marine buddy, Carl Smith
to pay his running costs for a share of the gold.
[Fred] It's great that we have an investor,
but that puts us under a lot more pressure.
You know, if we kept going the way we're going, I don't...
I don't have another week.
Maybe two weeks in, we running like this without something coming back in.
[narrator] With everything on the line and now going deeper into debt,
Fred has asked Kendell to call in another favor from his uncle.
Hey! Freddy and Juan are here.
[narrator] Gold recovery expert, Freddy Dodge.
With him is master mechanic and tough fabricator, Juan Ibarra.
-How's it going, guys? -[Freddy] What's going on?
Good to see you, buddy.
-[Freddy] you doing? Fred? -[Fred] Oh, good Fred. How you doing?
So how's everything going so far this year?
-They are not going well. -[Kendell] We're having a rough time.
[Fred] We're not seeing the gold we were thinking we were going to see out of that cut.
Just every time that we get up, start running,
something kicks us right in the teeth.
Pretty much on the brink of failure all the time.
I think we're right now, the whole team's kind of down.
Our morale's a little low.
You know, they see the struggles and they're not seeing gold,
-so it's... -Yeah, yeah.
...hard for us to keep them...
That'll break your spirit easy, you know? Real quick.
It's happening.
Good gold's a motivator, lack of gold is a kick in the teeth.
We're getting kicked in the teeth quite a bit.
[Fred] We can't even get going, let alone stay going.
Well, let's watch it run. Fire it up.
All right. Sounds good.
[narrator] At the start of the season,
Freddy and Juan redesigned Fred's wash plant
and built new sluice runs.
Now they need to find out
why Fred's crew can't keep the plant running.
So you think there's enough time in the rest of the season
to be able to turn this thing around?
I don't know. Fall's coming fast.
The trees are yellowing.
I know that worries me.
[narrator] First stop, the water supply.
This should have a valve and a two inch pump
ready to go at all times. Prime this thing.
This whole operation here doesn't seem very efficient at all.
[Fred] Look at how mudded up this is already.
[Juan] Yeah.
That didn't take long at all.
Looks like the water here, Fred is our biggest issue, huh?
Without fresh water, Juan, looking at this,
they're going to be done in an hour and a half.
Then they're gonna be losing most of the fine gold.
Once your water turns to a milkshake,
-you know as well as I do what happens. -Yeah
it steals that fine gold.
They're sluicing and out of a mud hole.
Actual mud hole.
I mean, look at how dirty it is.
When your water is that dirty,
it's grabbing that fine gold, right?
That silt dam right here,
-hits that silt dam and that silt falls. -Yep.
Drops out.
We got the logs to do it.
-Yeah,. -Lay a log across this son of a gun.
-Once you get silt going downhill... -It stays going down.
It wants to come going down.
And it worked great.
I bet we quadrupled the water run time.
Right now, it's a mess.
[Juan] Yeah, it is.
Hey, Brad. Kendell.
They're out of water or it's too muddy.
All right, guys. Let's shut it down!
Shut it down!
-Let's talk for a minute. -Yes, sir.
Hey, misfits can I get you guys all by the loader?
We need to have a meeting.
Nothing's efficient about this.
Kinda like a monkey [bleep] a football.
You got serious water issues as your biggest problem.
You ran 35 minutes and then you silted up.
So we want to put silt dams in.
Well, who's good with a chainsaw?
You're the chainsaw guy?
So what we want to do is, we want to put
a log across this upper pond and put a silt dam on it.
That will help stop that silt as it comes across.
It will get that dam, it will drop out.
So we need tarps.
We need-- But first, we need a log.
Cut to 35 feet.
We'll need a couple of guys to help us string that
two inch line all the way up here to this top pond from the lower pond.
And the silt dam, will not work
when this pond's empty,
I'm going to lay the hose.
I'll help John lay all the hose and everything.
-Get everything straight away. -All right, cool.
He does need some muscle.
Yeah, guys, ask all the questions
you guys have while they're here.
These guys, they're the best at what they do take advantage of it.
To work, guys.
Good. Good. Good.
[narrator] Silty water flows from the sluices into the settling pond.
Instead of settling, the silt is flowing through to the feeder pond,
where it's re circulated to the plant, clogging the riffles,
causing gold to flow out of the sluices.
Freddy's plan.
Build a dam to filter out the silt
and provide clean water for the wash plant.
[Fred Lewis] Today, it kind of feels more like the military for me.
Everybody's got tasks, they're all going to complete their task.
And the operation's gonna get better.
So having Freddy and Juan here is fantastic.
[narrator] The crew start on the silt screen dam.
We got an old tree pile where we cut all of our trees on our hillside.
Stack them all up.
We're grabbing one 35 footer.
We're going to yank her off the hill
and then get her set up down below.
So we have a little silt dam
and help us maintain some cleaner water for longer.
Give us more run time.
[narrator] Kendell's plan, winch the two ton log
down the slope using the side by side.
You want it under or over?
-That's fine. -All right.
All right, here we go.
On in.
-All right. -[Fred] Whoa!
Kendell!
Whoa! Whoa!
[narrator] On Fred Lewis's claim,
gold recovery expert Freddy Dodge calls a halt.
As nephew Kendell attempts to move a two ton tree trunk.
[Fred] That log, if it comes at you,
you can't get away from it, right?
Uh, yeah. Not quickly.
-That's for damn sure. -No, you can't get away from it.
-Yeah. -I mean, end up smashing the machine and you.
-Okay. -All right. Get the track.
-Absolutely. -Right. It's too dangerous, man.
-Good call. -Love you, bud. Don't want you dead.
Thank you.
That wasn't a very good idea. [bleep] comes off there.
He's smashed, dead, hurt, dead, I don't know,
but they need a different piece of equipment for that.
[narrator] Infantry scout sniper, Stuart McKenzie,
brings in the 30-tonne excavator.
[Freddy] Right there, keep coming up.
Now, bring your stick in.
Bring your stick in, crack back. Right there.
Use those foot pedals.
-I am. -'Cause you gotta use two things.
I've seen you grab 'em again.
-Yeah, I know, I won't. -You can't do two things.
Roger that, I get ya.
So come up with your stick.
Be ready, 'cause if your hands are on there
and you have to come down fast,
your hands are already there.
-Gotcha. -They're at where they need to be.
Keep coming towards ya.
Keep coming. Now curl your bucket.
Curl your bucket as the stick's going out.
See what happens, see how balanced we are.
[Stuart] Are we good to go?
[Freddy] Looking good, man.
Only drop it once.
[Fred] Hey, just take it nice and slow and you won't drop it.
You're good, you're good.
Watch out for that rock right there.
Steady.
[Stuart] Oh.
[Freddy] He was nervous.
I would be, too, 'cause he doesn't have
very much time in the machine,
and he's got people's lives in his hands, right,
if he does something weird? So... But he did good.
[Stuart] Next up, what we're gonna do in this process is,
we've gotten a tree off the hill,
brought it down.
Uh, Kyle and Fred are gonna finish de-limbing it
and make sure it's smooth,
'cause we have to put tarps on it, so we don't want it to rip.
[whirring]
Right now, we're getting the final steps here,
we've got the log cleaned also,
so it doesn't pop any of the tarps we're putting over it.
[Kyle] We got Stuart digging out his flat spot,
so we can go lay it across.
As soon as we get 'em in place,
then we can start setting everything up
for the new de-silting system.
that Freddy and Juan are kind of helping us with.
Okay, let's walk it in.
Okay, spin to your right a little.
A little more.
What?
[Kyle] What, have you done that before, Freddy?
-Uh-uh. -[Kyle laughs]
Finito, finale, we're done.
Well, Fred, we'll make you a silk curtain.
We'll unfold this.
Just take it that way.
[narrator] The tarp will force silk to settle...
[Freddy] Hang on right there.
Fold it in half.
...allowing clean water to flow back to the intake pond.
We've got a chain for weight down in the bottom.
It's going to be a little tricky getting it in there.
Somebody may end up on their rear in the mud.
Johnny, cross the log.
[narrator] Staff Sergeant Johnny Stanz
suffered severe brain injuries
when his truck was blown up
by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.
[Johnny] Crossing the log.
[narrator] Ever since,
he's had trouble with his balance.
[Fred] My hand.
Thank you. Thank you kindly, your highness.
Chivalry is not dead.
Chivalry is not dead!
[Freddy] Keep your chain out of the water.
Lower it down.
So put a screw and you're in.
And then take your chain, so it's sunk in the water,
but then screw it to the log,
so we don't lose it under water.
Got it.
[machine whirring]
[Freddy] Touching, Fred?
[Fred] Yes, it's touching.
[Freddy] That's probably close enough, huh?
Well, there it is, Fred.
The sediment just hits that and drops?
Yep. So picture you're a piece of silk, right?
You're coming across your pond, right?
You're floating in the water.
So it's going to do the same thing that sand does.
And then fall,
and keep sinking.
So basically, this is going to allow us to run more.
We're looking at more pay and more gold,
so that's the key.
Ready to fire up, Fred?
I sure am. We've done a lot.
I can't wait to see how it turns out.
Right now, we've got this top pond full.
It's filling up the bottom ponds,
so we're gonna be able to run a lot longer.
Yeah, let's do it, let's fire it up.
[narrator] Now it's time to find out
if clean water means more gold.
Water coming out the other end right now after our sump dam
is way clearer
than it was before, you can almost see through it.
So it's definitely working.
Once again, you guys came through big,
done stuff that's changed the way we're gonna work around here.
We'll get a lot more pay through the kernel because of it.
We're doing the right things.
If the gold's there, we'll catch it.
No matter how much gold is in the ground,
every minute the plant's running,
you're catching it, so run, run, run.
Everything's looking really good,
gotta keep going.
Keep going!
[narrator] At Paradise Hill, king of the Klondike,
Tony Beets,
is running 350 yards of mega cut pay dirt
through his trommel every hour.
Ruby Mahoney clears tailings in the loader.
You know, after everything that's happened last year,
I think all of us really wanted to have
a really good season, kind of, like, a resurrection season.
Morning.
Good.
Sure.
[narrator] This morning, Tony's grandson, Eagan,
son of his daughter, Bianca,
who isn't part of the gold mining business,
is here to learn the ropes.
Yeah.
Okay.
[Eagan] Yeah.
Yeah.
And what they did right, too?
Go for Kevin, go for Kevin.
I am on my way there now.
No, that's [bleep] terrible.
It's not washed at all.
[narrator] The trommel uses water jets
to blast pay dirt off rocks,
sending gold-rich material down to the sluices.
The dirty tailings indicate that the trommel
isn't washing the rocks properly
and is discarding them still covered in gold.
[narrator] They head down the hill to check the pump
that supplies the trommel.
[Tony speaking]
No water.
[Tony speaking]
[Kevin] The valve is sucking so much air,
the pump can't deliver enough water.
[narrator] The valve used to control water supply
from the pond into the system is cracked
and sucking in air,
causing the pressure in the pump to drop.
By the time it gets up to the wash plant,
the water pressure is too low and it can't wash
the gold-rich dirt from the rocks,
so gold is lost in the tailing.
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] To fix it, Tony heads to his boneyard,
the largest in the Klondike to search for a replacement valve.
Yeah.
Come on, Doyle.
Good boy.
Yeah, didn't quite fit. Where will that be? [bleep]
[Kevin] We got this whole boneyard and we can't find a valve.
There's got to be one somewhere in all this crap.
That looks a little nicer.
Nice, heavy duty [bleep] too.
[narrator] Every hour the plant is down.
Tony is losing two and a half thousand dollars in gold.
So right now, the water still a little high.
If you take the valve off now
all that water in the ponds gonna come straight out.
It's gonna make a giant mess.
So we're gonna have to drain the pond first.
[narrator] The leaking valve is set below the water level of the pond.
If the pond is full, when they take it off, nearly half a million gallons of water
will flood the yard. Before he can change the valve,
Kevin must pump enough water out of the pond to bring the level down.
[Kevin Beets] Once the water's down. We're gonna come down,
rip the valve off with a new one in, hook everything back up.
Open up the water.
It's losing again.
But for now, we just gotta wait for it to get low enough.
[narrator] Until then, Tony's whole operation is down.
[Kevin Beets] How much lower is this?
I think so. Yeah.
[narrator] In the Klondike, a cracked valve has shut down
Tony Beet's operation.
To replace the valve, he must drain the pond.
But that could take all day.
And every hour he's losing over two and a half thousand dollars in gold.
[narrator] Impatient to get sluicing
Tony decides to take a gamble, and open the valve while the pond is still full.
[narrator] After an hour draining the pond, the yard is flooded,
but the pressure is low enough to replace the broken valve.
Yeah.
I got four here.
[all laughing]
Which one?
There's a hammer right over here.
Yeah. Let's go.
[narrator] After a day's downtime.
The trommel is back washing paint.
I don't know any better than that.
[dramatic music playing]
It's the last scoop. [bleep] Yeah.
We're done, buddy. Good job.
[narrator] After just five days,
Mitch and Brannan have finished running pay
in the last cut. Two days ahead of Parker's one week deadline.
-Nice work. -Yeah, you two man.
That is a good feeling to have that cut down.
I can't believe how fast we got through it.
What a nice feeling.
We could break big right down,
haul it down to the Airstrip, get it set up in back running.
There's no reason we can't have this wash by running here in a day or so.
Yeah, You bet. Okay.
[narrator] Mitch prepares Big Red for the move.
All these pins out of here and lower this thing down.
Get it on the road.
There's no more gold here, so we got to take it where there's some ground to run.
Here we go.
Alex, get right there.
Get it on the road.
I'm gonna head down to the Airstrip.
Hopefully, Brennan's ready with wash plant 'cause, uh, we're coming.
[narrator] Four hours later, Mitch sets off on the three mile journey
to the Airstrip Cut.
I'm glad we don't have to go too far here.
You watch that thing in the mirror. That's rocking side to side.
Come on, little girl. Nice and easy.
Oh. We're in the trees. Pretty good over there.
Well, here we are.
Nice and easy.
Keep going. Keep going.
Keep coming.
Left. some more left.
Watch yourself.
Hold there.
Ready?
Seven degrees.
[bleep] Are we good?
That is perfect.
That looks great. You look at how the sugar tax leveled up.
Sluice surrounds right where we want him.
[bleep] It's coming together nicely.
Whoo. Good job.
[narrator] With Big Red,
finally on its pad at the Airstrip, Parker heads to the Last Cut with his crew
to look back on four years mining over twelve thousand ounces of gold.
Well, I don't know whether to be happy or sad that we got through it already.
I mean, I'm proud.
Can't complain about cleanups either.
They seem to already know.
I still can complain about any cleanup.
-Yeah, Yeah. [laughing] -You never know.
[all laughing]
This is one of the biggest cuts you guys have made, isn't it?
There's a lot of rocks came out of there.
If you put everything you removed back except for what we wanted,
what we took out of here would fit in a bucket.
Yep.
[narrator] They've moved over three million yards of dirt,
enough to fill the Dallas Cowboys Stadium
to get a four gallon bucket of gold worth over $20 million.
With the final twenty five thousand yards they clear this week,
this could be Parker's biggest gold producing cut ever.
Everybody did a good job with it, you know.
I didn't hear any horror stories.
It was like two years ago when sluicifer caught on fire.
We're like, okay we're done. We're out of here.
Then we ended up coming back following year.
I think the funniest thing was you bringing the wash plant in backwards
That I'm gonna never forget. [bleep]
[all laughing]
I'm just happy we got it all done.
For the most part, it did go pretty [bleep] smooth.
I think he did good.
We've got some pretty good numbers of gold out of the thing.
You're cleanups were just consistently good over and over again.
Even when you hit that sand spot.
You know, when you thought things were gonna drop off, you pushed right through it.
You guys did a heck of a job here, that's for sure.
Well, I tell you what, I feel old after this one...
...after the Airstrip.
Fred, This doesn't look good to me.
I don't like hearing that.
[narrator] In Oregon, gold guru, Freddy Dodge is on a mission to save rookie
mine boss Fred Lewis's operation.
After he clean the water supply,
wash plant Colonel Nugget has been running nonstop.
Now, Freddie he's focused on the most important thing of all.
Pay dirt.
So this is your pay?
Yeah, we've been pulling off this pay, but so full of rock, it's hard to move.
I'm having a hard time thinking it's not getting diluted with the topsoil.
-It seems like it's just... -If this is pay, it doesn't look like very good pay to me.
Not in this situation, not an alluvial deposits.
It looks more like slip.
It's come off the hill with maybe some glacier boulders mixed in.
It is what it looks like to me.
[narrator] Master Sergeant Stefan Generally has been digging this pay
from the Liberation Cut for four weeks.
You know, we need to find gold, because right now we're just
I mean, he's hemorrhaging money to keep this operation going.
All I know is I'm just about to the end of my rope.
Something needs to change.
-Stefan. -Yo.
It's first time I came up to really look at the cut.
I'm not liking the look of the dirt I see.
Well, all this right here is all over burden.
From what I pulled off before and I dropped it there.
Don't mess with that side hill anymore.
That's all garbage.
That's all... mainly slip that slipped off this hill.
It hasn't been reworked. River gravels from what I see.
-Okay. -But look for those rounded river gravels.
-Oh. We've got a lot of... -No, this is just dirt.
It's got a few rounded rocks in it.
-This is... -Well, yeah, that's overburdened.
-Yeah. So I haven't... -You start getting a lot of round rocks,
just radio, me, I'll come over and check it out.
So... so picture a stream bed, right?
-We're all the rocks around. -Tumble and tumble.
That's exactly right. So, look for that.
What I would do is probably back up here
about fifteen feet and punch a hole deep as you can.
The gold on the Elkhorn Claim was washed down from the mother lode by two rivers.
[narrator] Heavy gold sits at the bottom with the big river rocks
rounded by years of water erosion.
We need to make some money. We need to find some gold.
About ten feet down, now.
Let's see if I can...
Here we go.
Take a look at this stuff here. See what it looks like?
That looks pretty damn good. Move on.
I've seen a lot of [bleep] ground stones.
Now I think I need to take a look at this.
I'm seeing a lot of this.
A lot of rounded stones in here.
Hey, Fred. Where you at, bro?
What you got?
This is pretty much down there about,
I don't know, maybe ten, twelve feet stuck in the wall.
I was looking at the bucket as I brought it in.
And I'm like, number of rounded rocks versus cracked the bedrock.
This is rounded rock.
That's what I thought.
I like it.
You know, the only way we're going to find out is to run some of it, right?
Right. This is our best shot right now.
I'd say every ounce of this dirt,
-everything below three feet, -Directly to the Colonel.
Colonel's hungry man. Sound feeder.
Let's do it. Let's get to work.
-Good job Stefan. -Cool.
Got enough pace. We'll just give it a go and see what happens.
I just feel like we're on the brink of failure
-all the time, every day. -My fingers are crossed,
but pretty much make or break If this doesn't produce,
I don't know how this is gonna pan out.
[narrator] When the miners close out a cut, they always reclaim the land.
Putting it back to how it was before they worked it.
You know, it's just kind of weird.
You look at all this and, you know, you get used
to driving out in the same spot, seeing Big red set up here and, uh, yeah
it's going to be a little bit different, driving by it every day and not stopping.
But, you know, all these old cuts, they'll end up flooding out
over the winner and be nice ponds.
Wildlife really likes it.
And... you know, in a hundred years, nobody will ever even know we were here.
Three generations of Beets gather for the weekly gold weigh.
It's nice to have you fix that valve up those tailings look a lot cleaner.
I mean, yes, you know, we got it back together.
It seems we're working pretty good,
You know, Kevin. If he can't be handsome, he might as well be handy.
[all laughing]
[narrator] To reach his three thousand ounce season goal,
Tony needs a hundred ninety five ounces every week.
What you got? Three, four.
Ten.
Twenty.
-Thirty. -Forty,
-Fifty. -Five.
-Sixty. -Five,
-Seventy. -Four.
-Eighty. -[chuckles] Ninety,
-One hundred. One ten. -Twenty.
One forty.
One fifty.
-Good. -One sixty.
Seventy.
-One eighty one... -Point seven six.
[narrator] Taking their season total to two thousand and nine ounces
worth over three point six million dollars,
but still short of their weekly target.
To hit his goal, Tony now needs to run 24/7 with no delays.
No. Then you have to swim in it.
Well, guys, I don't know what the gold weigh is going to be, but,
these guys were able to run a full day.
Fred Lewis's crew gathers for a gold haul they hope will turn the season around,
Thanks to Freddie and Juan, they have clean water,
a working wash plant and better pay.
It's been a hard season for you guys already.
I'm just hoping, with what we've done.
You guys will be able to finish the season strong and run.
At least get some gold.
-Yeah, it was a good run. -A hell of a lot longer.
Yeah, that's for sure.
We're not looking to make bricks, but it will be nice
to put a little something in the pockets.
A little something for the effort, huh?
Hoping it's a good way.
Even if there's not a lot of gold, the only way you're going to get
what is here is run, run, run.
-Here we go. -Here we go.
[narrator] So far, in four weeks,
the liberation cut has only produced zero point six ounces.
Now, let's see what you got.
There's a quarter of an ounce.
-There you go. Half ounce. -Half ounce.
Nearly three quarters of an ounce.
[all cheering]
That's over half what you've done.
Yeah, the entire season up until this point.
-In one day. -In one day.
Point seven four is really good, I think,
compared to what we found the entire offseason.
Dude, is this from one day?
-Yeah. -Yeah.
[narrator] Thanks to Freddy and Juan.
They've got more gold in just one day, than the whole of the last month.
But their total is still less than two ounces.
And this is a starting point, I think with the stuff they've done here,
showing us so we could improve on our operation.
Now you could run, run, run.
And that's what you're gonna have to do.
At this rate, they could get over thirty five ounces by the end of the season.
We're turning a corner.
I want to [bleep] tell more, but I'm ecstatic that we're improving.
A little bit of hope in a lot of hard work goes a long way, boys.
You're on your way, though for sure.
[All] That's great. Let's go.
[chatting]
You're welcome. Lucky man.
Thank you.
Well, I don't know if there's going to be enough gold in the ground here,
but at least they're running now and they'll find out.
You know, I can't thank him and Juan enough for helping us so much.
And now it's time to get some gold.
I am stoked now to keep going with this season.
Still not a ton of gold, Fred. But you know what?
-It's a start. -It's a better and swift kick in the ass.
[laughs] That's for sure.
Well, at least they ran a full day.
They haven't done that before.
No three quarters of an ounces is not that huge of a cleanup.
But honestly, it's a start.
Hopefully, with these repairs, we'll be able to keep on run and get more gold.
Ready Juan?
Yep. Let's go, buddy.
Let's go to work, man. Go get some gold.
[narrator] Parker's crew gathers to find out if the new Airstrip Cut will pay out
and weigh the final gold from the Last Cut.
That doesn't look too bad.
Twenty, forty, sixty, hundred, hundred thirty,
hundred thirty eight point six five.
[narrator] Worth over two hundred sixty thousand dollars.
Well, I guess having a down day for the bearing and then
prepping up for the move. I guess it's okay.
I mean say it's acceptable.
Yeah, we'll take.
-I'll take it. That's sure. -Better than nothing.
Next up, the new Airstrip Cut.
Yes, Lucifer has been running good.
Hey, haven't really been any issues
and was good potential in that ground.
It's looking pretty good. You want to see?
Yeah. Let's see it.
-All set, Doumitt? -All shot.
You see what the cleanup play?
Ten.
Twenty, forty, eighty, a hundred.
One hundred thirty.
Hundred and forty four point two five.
-That's not bad. -No.
For first clean up. Historically bad.
[narrator] Almost $275000 dollars
from their first week in the new Airstrip Cut,
taking their season total to 5450 ounces,
worth almost $10 million.
If the Airstrip cut stays like that, we could have a record year.
Well, let's hope so, 'cause Big Red's gonna be coming down pretty shortly.
Yeah.
Yeah, once we get both plants, tandem like that, that'll be sweet.
Yeah, and thank you guys
for dealing with the amount of jumping around we're doing.
I just I really appreciate it.
No worries.
And Shane, thanks for keeping this stuff rolling.
-No worries. -Much appreciated.
It's all good.
Come on, Mich, over here, buddy.
All right. Thanks, guys.
See you guys later.
Gold's good, and that's all that matters.
And the best thing is both plant through nearest trip cut right across from each other,
and it's pretty cool to plant side by side everybody there to help out when needed.
On the nextGold Rush...
During the plants down, it's never good man.
Rick Ness battles to keep his wash plant running.
Shut the pump off! Shut the pump off!
Tony Beets is on the hunt for more land.
The risk of getting the trees through your windows is they won't come through the cab.
Now you got to have your eyes open.
And Parker Schnabel doubles down on new ground
Here we go. Yeah.
So cut's gonna be underwater.
Get out of the way.