Our goal is to hit it hard.
Yee-haw!
On this Gold Rush...
Is that everything we got?
Fred Lewis is confronted by not one...
...but two major setbacks.
Hold on. I'm gonna get Alex to come help.
Holy [bleep]. Things siting in there sideways.
Rick Ness takes matters into his own hands.
Up in the Yukon every second counts.
Hello.
If I don't get our 1,000-ounce goal this year,
I don't see continuing on.
And Parker Schnabel is on track to break records.
Is there wildfires close to your house?
When a disaster strikes...
Can you see the fire from the house?
It's really smoky.
Which way is the wind going?
Towards our house.
Grab what you can and get out of there.
Look at that deep hole of boulders.
Love it.
It's late summer in the mountains above Keno City.
In a matter of weeks, temperatures will plummet
and snow will blanket the area for six months.
I'm always worried we're gonna get froze out of here
before we hit our goal.
And this year that's just really not an option.
If I don't get our 1,000-ounce goal this year,
I just... I don't see continuing on.
This season, Rick's mined 642 ounces.
He now needs a least 70 ounces every week to hit his goal...
but so far he's averaged just over 60.
How is that pay pile looking down there, Mark.
Looking good, buddy.
Hey, boys, we're staying here until we get that 1,000 ounces gold.
Yeah, copy that, bud.
Wash plant Rocky chews through 120 yards of pay dirt per hour.
The plant's got be running flat out 24 hours a day
for the rest of the season.
I've got to hit my target this year.
Honestly, if I don't this is just gonna be my last year.
All right, bud, I'll keep feeding this plant.
To keep up,
Rick needs to run nine truckloads to the plant every hour.
I'm not taking my foot off the gas at all
because, you know, this time of year up in the Yukon
every second counts.
I need everything to work perfectly.
We can't have any until we're frozen out of here.
It's been a trying year, I guess.
If we don't find a sizable amount of gold, I mean,
it could be the same boat as last year.
I don't, I don't really want to think about not going home with a gold bonus.
Everyone here wants to see that 1,000 ounces, me included.
So, to hit our goal we need every hour we can get.
So every hour we're running, we're getting that much closer.
♪ Coming your way Coming your way, oh ♪
-Hey, Carl, you got a copy? Yes, Rick.
Yeah, man, something's going on with the 700.
I need you to come up here and take a look at this thing.
Okay.
is going on here?
Holy [bleep]. Yeah, that roller is piled right up.
damn it!
thing's siting in there sideways.
One of the 700's carry rollers has bent out of alignment...
me.
...and the track is unable to move.
Not quite sure what happened, but it did.
Something might have got in there like a big rock and got jammed in there.
Who knows?
See that one, sitting right there. It's nice and flat,
holding the track up. That's what it's supposed to do, right?
They carry the track along.
See that one's on an angle, right?
Without that roller there, man,
you're gonna be dragging your track on your side frame.
You know we're doing extensive damage, right?
So you got to have it, right?
So we're gonna have to dig those bolts out and, uh,
bolt that roller back in there if it's not too far gone, right?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Dude, it's coming out. Wow.
The reason this broke, the bearings gone, Rick.
sick, you can't be serious.
Each of the 700's tracks
runs on three carry rollers, but one of them has seized.
When it stopped turning the track forced it out of position.
Now Carl must remove and replace the roller
before the 700 can run again.
-No that thing's [bleep]. -Whoa, this is toast.
So here's the problem. We don't have another roller.
that.
Being where we are, it's tough to see who's got a roller.
And if there is going to be one in the Yukon, right?
So...
We're... We're playing the waiting game again now, right?
This thing's sitting until we get a roller.
Yes, sir.
this.
This far north,
a replacement roller could take weeks.
-I sure hope someone has it. -I don't know.
If they'll be coming from somewhere down south
and it will take forever to get 'em.
Find me some rollers.
Go get the 480 down here.
Oh, damn it!
Operator Matt Thomas brings in the 480 to carry on loading pay,
but the three yard bucket is just half the size of the 700's.
It slows us down loading trucks when we have to use the 480.
And, you know, we've got a limited timeline here.
So any time we've got equipment down
and we can't do what we need to do, it's hurting us.
It takes twice as long to load each truck.
So not enough pay is getting to the plant
to keep it running at full speed.
Hey, Stuart, give me a 20 count every 20 buckets.
We're going to go for 5-0.
We're mining.
In Oregon,
rookie mine boss, Fred Lewis, and his crew of combat veterans
have so far only mined two ounces of gold.
I don't know how much longer we're going to get,
but it's getting cold fast.
The amount of gold we have, my investors are definitely not happy.
Highly disappointing, you know?
I know it's not my fault, but I can't help but feel like it's my fault.
Not enough, not enough gold.
Six weeks ago Fred abandoned the swamp cut...
Holy [bleep].
Oh, [bleep]!
Just not a safe place anymore.
...and opened new ground.
This is the first official bucket load out of Liberation Cut.
Now Fred is banking on it to save his season.
Master Sergeant Stefan Generally digs pay with a 400.
Hopefully this could be like a really good week.
Have us a gold weight that beats the one we had last week.
Cost in operation.
No breakdowns. Knock on wood.
That's the name of the game today.
It's exciting, but it's kind of nerve wracking, you know?
Sergeant Kyle Pletzke loads the plant.
Came out here as a group of injured vets.
And, yeah, here we are.
We're doing everything we can in our power
to try to bring money home, make life good again.
Staff Sergeant Johnny Stanz received two Purple Hearts
for his service in the Marines.
I'm doing everything I can to make sure it's not going to be
water's fault that we can't mine anymore.
It's perfectly fine.
Now, more than ever,
Johnny's new career needs to pay off.
You know, I got a pregnant wife at home.
I mean, money right now is getting thinner and thinner and with a baby on the way,
it's not long before that dries up.
So we really got to find gold.
Come on, baby. I know you can do it.
It's not really looking too damn good.
That don't look like pay it all.
There's no way I ran out of pay already.
Hey, Kendell. This is Stefan. You copy?
Go for Kendell. What's up, buddy?
You know what you're looking at, brah.
It's looking like I ran out of pay.
Um, this dirt I'm pulling up is definitely not pay.
I need you to come take a look just to confirm that for me.
All right, I'll get down to you. -Roger.
Is that it for pay?
I don't like the look of any of this.
You're just on bedrock.
Yeah, that's not looking like pay.
Hey, Fred, we are just about out of pay.
We got nothing else to feed the Colonel.
Ugh, it's not looking good.
No.
It's all just broken bedrock here.
That's all it is.
I was so hoping it would go back further and down further.
-Yeah. -And you just hit wall-on-wall, huh?
That's it. That was probably pushing me up 2 to 3 feet every time I tried to dig.
I mean, honestly, I didn't think it was possible but we basically payed out.
Well, that was fast.
I was going to say I could keep digging
but I think it would be a waste of time.
Oh, yeah. Don't even touch it again.
Yeah.
Yeah we're going to go ahead and shut it down.
So much for Liberation.
Got to do something here because we're screwed at this point.
There's got to be a place on this freaking claim that hasn't been touched yet.
There just has to be.
They didn't dig everywhere.
We're just not hitting the right spot.
See what's available.
This sucks.
This definitely isn't gonna do it.
Find a spot for me to dig, man.
Back to square one, but we'll test, see what's available
and, uh, go from there.
This cut had about a tenth of the amount of pay I thought it was gonna have.
And now it's cashed out.
So we've got to put our heads together.
We've got to attack some other place
'cause right now we are dead in the water until we find another cut.
Hey, Kendell. -Sup?
We gonna figure something out, man.
-I got this old map... -Okay.
On the Elkhorn Claim,
rookie mine boss, Fred Lewis, has run out of pay dirt.
He needs to find new ground fast.
So right now we're [bleep].
So I think our biggest problem is
this place was probably picked over by hand back in the early 1900s'.
Phew!
But I've done some research here, and I found a picture.
Elkhorn Claim was first prospected in 1896
by old time miners traveling south to California.
They established a settlement, named Born.
And in 1898, they appointed their own Mayor.
This is our claim.
Yeah, that's the mayor's house being built right there.
No one's mining under their house.
Certainly not the mayor's house.
So just like you said, we're gonna have to punch
as many holes in this ground as possible
and try and find a piece of virgin ground and go for it.
Okay, yeah, let's... Let's test it.
Fred has abandoned the Swamp Cut and the Liberation Cut,
and he knows other parts of the claim were mined out by the old timers.
Fred believes his best chance of finding virgin ground
is a site underneath where the local mayor's house once stood.
If we get down there deep enough
to find ground that hasn't been disturbed...
That's virgin ground, that's where we need to be.
Just spray paint an "X" real quick,
so that that Stefan knows exactly where Fred wants us to dig.
-Hey, Stu. -Yeah, bud?
-X marks the spot? -X marks the spot.
-Show me something. -Got it.
Hopefully we can find some better pay than what we just found.
So whatever remainder of the season we have,
we can run good pay through it.
He just started digging this test hole and he's already come across a bolder.
I kinda like that.
It's a really good sign this ground hasn't been touched
and that there's probably some gold here.
Yeah, that means I'm hitting some rocks.
Wow!
-At least get us gold. -Let's see what we got.
A lot of gravel.
I am noticing, on the left
it's clearly a tailings pile that's been dug before.
On the right...
it hasn't been dug, so we can chase pay that way up.
If there's enough virgin ground left, it could save the season.
I'm gonna pan it first, see what we got.
We are seeing what our gold content is,
literally right in the place where we're most active in the mine.
Hopefully, we'll see the most amount of gold we've seen so far.
-Find some gold. -Yeah, no pressure at all.
What we're gonna need out of this is have a couple of flakes of gold.
I would say if we get two to four colors out of this pan,
it'll be a freaking good test.
Three colors.
It's better than our Liberation Cut.
Maybe the best that they got to offer here.
We need the best to have the offer
because outside that we're [bleep].
Well, guys, what do you think we just, uh, go for it.
We should get you busy opening up that hole
towards the Swamp Cut downhill.
And just see what we see.
While as I'm digging this, it's starting to look more and more like pay.
I really hope this'll turn our season from not great to pretty dang good.
We're gonna name this the Mayor's Cut
'cause the Mayor's house used to sit on it.
And that's why I think there's still some virgin ground down there.
We gotta move fast, we gotta move quick,
we gotta get this through the plant.
Every year we go to the next best piece of ground we've got,
and we're hitting it hard, and it's not gonna last.
Twenty-six-year-old mine boss Parker Schnabel
is in the last few weeks of his season,
but still has fifty percent of the Airstrip Cut left to mine.
We really need this season to pay off.
Like, gold prices are good, fuel prices are low.
The big thing is just building up some cash,
so that we can buy a piece of ground.
And so that we've got a lot of years of mining ahead of us.
Sluicifer and Big Red are now working in tandem
to bank as much gold as possible for Parker's mining future.
We got two plants side by side, you know,
we gotta fill part of this old war chest up with all this gold here,
so that we can put it towards this new ground that we need.
And get out of here before it's -20,
and we can't run a wash plant.
Bitter end of the season here.
We just wanna try and keep these wash plants running
until we're either out of thawed pay dirt or good enough days to do it.
You never know when you're gonna come out here,
and your wash plants are gonna be froze up.
Co-foreman and chief mechanic Mitch Blaschke
begins his daily checks on the wash plants.
I just got a call from Hailey, Mitch's wife.
And there's some pretty bad wildfires down in Oregon where Mitch lives.
They've got an evacuation order, which doesn't sound like fun.
-Mitch! -Howdy.
-You need to call your wife. She got an evacuation order. -Okay.
-Go deal with it. -All right, thanks, man.
Damn it.
Hi. Oh, man.
What's up, babe? Can you see the fire from the house?
It's really smoky.
Evacuating all the way up to...
To where?
They're evacuating my cousin's house
that lived by Firwood School.
-Oh, gotcha.
I know, I know.
So which way is the wind going?
The wind is blowing towards our house.
All right, babe. Grab what you can and get out of there.
-Okay. -Be safe.
-Love you. -Okay, love you, bye.
It's not good. It's close and it's out of control.
And there's not enough people or help to get it under control.
It's tough, I mean, what do you do?
-What's the verdict? -Came out of nowhere, dude.
-Got a big wind storm, 15 fires burning.
2020, and it's eh?
Oh, yeah. There's one that's like two miles from my house.
Puts life in perspective, can't be home to help.
I don't know what I can do to...
At this point, I don't even... I don't know.
I'll figure out what I'm doing here,
but I'll come down and let you know either ways.
-Okay, sounds good, man. -All right.
-Hope the best for ya. -Thanks.
-Hey, Parker, you got a minute? -Yeah.
There's some really bad wildfires down there,
and they're getting close to us.
-Your house? -Yeah.
I mean, if I get down there in time, but I gotta try.
It's just outside the next town.
Holy Cow. -So...
My wife's down there
trying to pack up everything she can in the back her car.
You need to go because it's just...
Yeah, when it comes to your home
being threatened by some fires,
it's obviously a lot more important
than whatever we've got going on here.
I don't want you to even consider not going
after the conversation we've had. Yeah.
I would expect anybody here to do no differently.
-Appreciate it. Thanks, man. -Thanks, Mitch.
You're making the right decision, buddy.
Now Mitch has a four-day drive ahead
to reach his home in Sandy, Oregon.
Give me a hug, brother.
-Take care and drive safe, buddy. -Yeah, will do.
-Will miss ya. See you later. -Thanks, man.
Yeah.
Not good, boys. Not good.
At Duncan Creek
the Ness crew has been running at half capacity
for over 24 hours.
This definitely sucks.
Without our 700, man, we're running way behind with our 480, right?
So, it can't keep up to the plant right now.
They should be running nine trucks of pay an hour.
With the 480 loading them, they can only run four and a half.
I don't know how much longer we're gonna be able to run.
We're on a fine line between running and not running here.
I don't know. It's a bit of a nail biter.
Rick is on the hunt for a replacement roller.
I found that carry roller for the 700, and I ordered it,
but it's gonna be over a week before that thing gets here.
And I can't have a 700 down that long. I mean, that's my main machine.
Up in the Yukon every second counts. So I made some phone calls.
Somebody in Dawson has got a used one
that I can use for now to get me going.
If it saves me a day, that's what I'm gonna do.
He's come to the man with the biggest boneyard in the Klondike.
Hello.
How are you? -Good, how are you doing?
-Long time no see. I know.
-You wanna come see Tony? -Yeah.
-He's in? -He's in, he's hiding in his office.
-He's actually kind of looking busy...
Good. How are you doing, Tony?
Good to see you.
Oh. It's not too bad.
It's much better than last year.
Well, like we talked about, I had that roller pile up on my 700.
-And that's my main machine.
I found one, of course,
but I don't know what kind of luck you guys are having.
But if they say it's gonna take a week to ship here, it's been taking two.
Getting parts with COVID, it's taking twice as long now.
I mean, there's places where they don't fly from anymore,
and you have to truck it out. So, takes a lot longer.
Well, I'll tell you what, once that other roller comes in,
instead of me bringing it here, why don't you come out and visit?
I would like to do that.
Yeah? Awesome.
Awesome, awesome.
-Bye, love. -All right, thanks again.
It's right here. -Oh, perfect.
Ready for you.
-All right, thanks again. -You're very welcome.
Rick now has a six-hour-drive to Duncan Creek
to get his operation back up to full strength.
Bingo.
It's always good to see Tony and Minnie,
and it's good to have friends in the Yukon.
Kyle's gonna be waiting on that roller.
But the reality is all that's done has cost me money.
So, if we're gonna hit our 1,000-ounce goal, it's time to get serious.
-Hey, Carl. -Yeah, buddy.
Let me show you what I got.
♪ Hero, hero of the day
-You like that? -I'm happy.
Yeah, let's get this in, and let's get some gold, eh, Ben?
Yeah, buddy.
This smaller 480 is loading pay
at half the rate of the 700.
Carl must install replacement roller
to get the plant back to full speed.
Let's flop it up.
The good thing about Tony is, Tony has got all kinds of spare parts.
Can't complain, man. He's getting us going, so we owe him big time.
Yeah, fire it up. Give me a spin.
Yeah, spin her!
Back the other way!
Looking good, guys. We're in business.
-Let her down there, buddy. -Coming down.
I like that. I like that.
Number one-o. Yeah, we're back to full speed.
I tell you, it sure is nice having the 700 back, isn't it, Krusey?
This is it. go time.
We can start to getting the pay up to the plant.
Yee-haw! Ride 'em cowboy!
At his Elkhorn Claim,
Fred Lewis is counting on a new cut of virgin ground
to save his season.
We're all in on this right now.
We're opening up what we're calling the Mayor's Cut.
We got both the excavator's out.
So, Stefan right now pulling off overburden, stockpiling pay.
I'm seeing there's a really good color in the dirt.
A lot of round river rocks.
No bedrock, which is a good thing.
It's starting to look pretty good over there.
We're getting a decent amount of pay.
And while they do that, I'll make sure
absolutely everything involved in irrigation is good to go.
It's usually a two-man job, but sometimes you gotta improvise.
Fred's found some virgin ground.
So, I'm gonna try and dig it out as fast as I can.
See if we can test, see if there's any good pay there.
Let's just kick this mine's ass.
How in the [bleep]?
Where are you?
What the [bleep]?
-Hey! -I freaking slipped on this rock.
Give me your hand.
His knee does not feel stable right now.
Ow, ow, ow!
Up on your back, buddy. Ready, one, two, three.
Hold on, I'm gonna get Alex to come help.
Hey, Alex, Johnny's got a pretty bad hurt leg.
Can you help carry?
Step down here, man.
We're gonna help you up the hill, okay?
Can you get under his arms?
Pull me.
Don't pull hard.
Scoot his back up to that cab. -Here you go.
-Sit comfy. You guys are good here?
I'm just gonna take him back to camp.
That's the same one. That's the same ACL he got replaced.
-You feel anything pop?
You couldn't just take me in that...
All right, guys. Thank you.
You all right? Be safe, bud.
We're all combat disabled. We've all got issues,
but as of now right now, we have one less person on the team.
We just got to figure out where do we go from here.
All right, we're ready to roll. Let's do this.
Fred Lewis is battling to save his season.
Marine Johnny Stanz is down with a knee injury
after a fall on the mine site.
Well, Johnny got hurt. I really hope he's okay.
But we gotta do everything we can
to get all the pay we can out of the Mayor's Cut.
I spent a lot of years in airborne units,
and for the most part when you blow out that knee, you're pretty much done.
So, we'll see.
Till then we'll just keep on going. That's what we do.
Keep on going.
What's up, Johnny? How you doing?
It's still freaking sucks.
Mind if I check it? -Yeah.
-Oh, jeez. Darn! -Oh, yeah, yeah.
You got a lot of inflammation on this side, too.
But I do think you've done some damage on it.
Gosh dang it.
I gotta be here to freaking help out. I can't let the team down.
I just think being out here working is gonna put you at a higher risk.
The right decision to make here is to get you home.
This sucks, man.
I know it sucks, but I think
that the only answer right now is for you to go home and recover.
It's on me, it's my decision, and I don't want you to get hurt.
Man, that's really tough. Johnny is one of best friends.
And I started this mining season
to get everybody to learn a new purpose, and to get better.
And I feel like Johnny coming out here and getting hurt...
I kinda feel a little responsible for it, but...
It really just sucks for the team.
Like, sucks, dude.
Freaking Fred took my choice away, though.
And I have to pack up to get ready to go home.
While Johnny packs up,
the rest of the crew runs the first pay from the Mayor's Cut.
All right, dude, super easy.
Stuart McKenzie takes over for Johnny at the pump.
So I think what we're gonna do with the irrigation position...
-Yeah. -...is we're just gonna have to share it.
-But you're not here permanently. -I know.
You're just gonna have to cover while we figure things out.
No, I get it.
All right, guys. This one's for Johnny. It's time to get to gold.
My goal for this morning.
Just to dig my ass off.
Dig, feed, find gold.
That's what we need to do.
Run, run, run.
Stuart, you ready down there?
Let's go. -All right, brother. Fire it up.
First time firing up the pump and it's not starting on me.
Whoo!
Good job, Stuart.
PSI is at 38. 3-8.
Water's going. It's what we do.
Fire it up.
It's our first run on the Mayor's Cut.
We're still running the plant.
We're still feeding the Colonel.
And we're still catching gold.
Brennan, hey, hey.
Yeah, go ahead.
It's gonna be a fight to the end this year.
I'm new. I don't know what to do.
At the Indian River,
Parker Schnabel is a man down.
Mitch had to go home 'cause
there's fire near his place in Oregon.
So right now I'm just having to take care of Sluicifer,
and Brennan's with Big Red.
I really hope we can pull it together this year
and that losing Mitch doesn't cost us the season.
Come on.
No answer.
Mitch Blaschke is on his way home
to his wife and baby
after wildfires forced them to evacuate
and take shelter with his parents 20 miles away.
I'm almost to my parent's house.
Just gonna check on Hailey and Mia.
Been a ton of smoke on the drive down here,
and, you know, I haven't heard any status
or update on our house.
Definitely makes me think twice on, you know, if mining in the Yukons...
Am I making the right choice?
I don't know. I just don't even know what to think.
It was 2,200 miles. I finally made it. I'm glad I'm here.
-Hey, baby. Hi. Hi.
-Hi. -Oh, you've gotten big.
-Well, I hear you got dogs.
-Yeah, yeah. -Yeah?
We're safe. We're safe.
Thank God you're all right. Yeah?
-Can I see her? -Yeah.
Hey, chickie. Remember me?
Huh? You don't know what to think.
Oh, you want your mom back.
Well, you've been spending a lot of time with her.
That's okay.
I'm so glad you made it out of there. -Me, too.
-Hey, daddy's home.
What all happened? Like...
I just, I just grabbed some stuff and...
Yeah, well...
-Grabbed her.
-I didn't mean... -Grabbed her and the dogs
and also reports of looters,
and people holding people at gunpoint,
and I don't really feel comfortable going back with her.
Just stay here.
I'm gonna go home to see if there is a home.
But I'm just glad you guys are all right.
-Hey.
-Hey, it'll be okay. Yeah. -Just call me whenever you...
The fires have now passed,
but Mitch doesn't know
if they destroyed the family home.
This definitely isn't looking good here.
I mean, stuff still smoking.
And the closer I get towards the house,
it seems like the worse it gets.
And you look at all this tree here, it's cooked.
I mean, look at this place here, this guy's stuff, I mean,
burnt down the front.
Stuff burnt down the back,
still smoldering over there on the side.
That was a church right there.
And the only thing left standing is the chimney.
Yeah, this definitely is not looking good.
Crossing my fingers here and hoping for the best, but...
There she is and it's still standing.
Oh, man.
I think everything's looking good,
ducks are there, too.
I feel very thankful that it's all still here, so...
Uh... Gotta let Hailey know.
Hello. -Hey, baby.
-Hi. How's it going? -Hey, it's good. I got down here.
Everything's fine. The house is here, ducks are here.
-Everything looks good. -Oh, thank goodness.
I'll just, I'll get Mia together and the dogs
and we can head down there.
-All right. -Okay. I'll see you soon.
-Okay. I love you. Bye. -I love you, too. Bye.
Nice little shed. You're fired.
We're taking it out. We're getting down to that virgin ground.
I don't care what's in the way.
At the Elkhorn Claim,
to expend his cut,
Fred wants to move a shed without damaging it.
Gonna test your precision.
We wanna save this roof.
-We could use it if you don't destroy it.
Uh, yeah, I guess.
All right, here we go.
All right.
Get my bucket up underneath there.
Nice and slow.
Not that way.
Trying to get it behind those trees.
Either I'm gonna get it down in one piece
and it will be cool.
Or I'm not gonna get it down in one piece,
and it'll be real cool.
-It's down! It's a fixer upper.
In Oregon, the worst of the wildfires are over.
Mitch Blaschke is back home with his family.
You know, I got to say I was definitely looking forward to getting home.
I didn't think I'd be getting here this soon.
Now I'm going from, you know, working on dozers
and wash plants to making bottles here.
Got it. Here.
Hi, Mitch. -How's going, Parker?
-Good. How are you? -Uh, doing better now, man.
It looks like you're in your house.
Yeah, in the house. It's still standing.
We got really lucky, man.
It got really close to us.
Unfortunately, some people did lose their houses down here.
Um, it was, It was a bad deal.
But I'm in our place down here now.
I think, you know, everything's good and safe.
I mean, I was planning on trying to head back up.
Whether you come back this fall or next spring,
you've always got a spot here.
-All right, buddy. -All right.
-Let me go how things go. -All right, talk to you later.
-Have a good night. See you. -Bye.
You know, it's just really nice to talk to Parker
and know that, you know, he stands behind my decision,
and, you know, that I've got a good place up there
and, you know, I might not make it back this season,
but I'll certainly be back in the future.
So, uh, I'm just glad to hear that,
you know, he understands why I had to come home and stands behind it.
What's up, guys?
Oh, just talking about stuff we probably shouldn't be talking about.
At Duncan Creek,
Rick and his crew get ready to weigh their gold for the week.
We got 700 this week, huh?
Oh, it never ends, dude. Oh, I love that thing.
I'll tell you. I mean, that's, it's good machine,
but when it goes down, it hurts.
-It is the work horse. -But we did keep sluicing.
Um, just not at the rate we would have been at, right?
I don't like going in reverse, buddy.
But, uh, luckily, you came through that roller.
Yeah, really. I gotta thank Tony for that roller, right?
-Yeah, we owe Tony one. That's for sure. -Yeah.
-So, um, I think we just weigh it up. Yeah, buddy.
To make his 1,000-ounce goal,
Rick now needs to bring in at least 70 ounces every week.
All right, we got five.
We got ten, 20, 30,
40, 50...
We got 51.55.
Worth almost $100,000,
but short of what he needs to stay on track.
I'm not gonna lie. That seems a little light.
I think it's better than last week,
but, um, I think that we... I think we can do better.
-Yeah, buddy. -I'm not too worried yet.
It's kind of two weeks worth of problems that we've had, right?
But 700 is back in action. The ground's good. We know it is.
All we need is a few clean good weeks,
and we're gonna smash our 1,000-ounce goal.
yeah. yeah.
-We got to move on. -Yeah, exactly.
There's grounds out there. All we gotta do is go get it.
-Right. Let's go get it. -Let's go get it.
-Well, let's go get dinner. Right. -Tomorrow we will.
Redemption, boys.
It's nice to get help from friends.
It's pretty cool, uh, you know.
Rick's a good guy, and when you're a good guy,
other good people are willing to help you out in a pinch,
so saved us some time and money.
At the Elkhorn Claim,
the Lewis crew gathers
to weigh the last gold from the Liberation Cut,
and the first 100 yards of their new cut.
So I got kind of mixed feelings about this week.
We got the Mayor's Cut opened up.
I see a lot of possibilities there, but we've also got Johnny.
His injuries kind of dampened it a little bit, but I don't know.
I don't know what else to say. I'm sad because of it.
I'm sad, too. Sadly.
He's making the right move.
-But you can leave your snacks. -Yeah.
-They're in the cabin.
You guys ready to see some gold? See what we got this week?
Hell, yeah!
So far this season, Fred has mined
just 1.97 ounces of gold.
0.77, guys. That's our best cleanup yet.
Worth just $1,400,
barely enough to cover their fuel.
What? 2.74 for the season, guys.
Still ain't [bleep].
This gives me a little bit of hope
that he is gonna freaking get out there and get a lot more.
It just sucks that you're not gonna be here for the end.
You know, to see it through.
Biggest thing I wanna say is don't get discouraged.
This is just another obstacle.
You've already pounded through ten million times
more difficult than this. And we got your back.
I appreciate it.
I really appreciate, uh, Fred inviting me on this little trip.
Every new adventure in life has a place,
and this one has a, has a high place in my heart.
-It was an awesome time.
-Looks like that's your ride, bud.
It's a little earlier than I thought,
-but, oh, well. -You wanna use my shoulder?
If he can prove to me that he's healed, we'll definitely take him back.
But right now the priority is to get him healed.
Everybody will line up for the hugs.
-I'm gonna miss you. -Take care of yourself, okay?
It's unfortunate that he's gone, but the team has to pick it up,
and we're gonna have to fill in that gap and get on the gold
'cause if we can't get that plant running and put serious pay for the plant,
none of us are going home with anything.
Bye, Johnny.
Hey, how's you guys going?
-Not bad, how are you? -Good.
Parker and his crew gather for the weekly gold weigh.
Just really that Mitch has to leave.
Yeah, I know, right?
What a natural disaster going on at home there, eh?
I tell you, I've never seen Mitch look so stressed out ever
since I've been here.
Yeah. -He was pretty scared
of losing everything he's worked so hard for.
Well, I guess Hailey and the baby are fine.
Yeah, which is the most important part.
Anyways, he needed to go.
It was... it was the right thing.
So how'd the week go, Doumitt?
You know, you guys really did good.
Both plants from the same cut.
Yeah, they were both pretty much running the same pay, hey, Brennan.
-Yeah. -With the trucks on.
Yeah, they were, weren't they?
Oh, yeah. I read off to see him back piece of the cut there.
With Mitch gone, Tyson Lee on Sluicifer
and Brennan Ruault on Big Red went head to head.
Well, why don't you bust them out and show us
-'cause that was a terrifying week. -All right.
First up, Sluicifer.
Ten, 30, 50.
80, 100,
120, 140, 150,
161 even.
Worth $305,000...
-161? -Right on the nose.
Nice and steady.
It's not bad at all.
Yeah, it's consistent.
And here's Big Red.
100, 120, 150...
-161.2.
Just point two ounces more
than Tyson's haul with Sluicifer.
That's how much more gold he got than you.
-There you go. What is the chances of that? -Huh?
-I guess the gold's consistent in that cut. -Seriously.
-That gives us a weekly total of 322.2 ounces.
So our season total now is 6,090.6 ounces.
Worth $11.2 million
and nearly 35% above this time last year,
despite the late start.
Been a pretty week for us here.
We had to lose Mitch, but I mean, it's totally understandable.
And look at that. The plants pretty much tied each other
in gold. When the hell does that ever happen?
On the next Gold Rush...
Tony Beets' hopes for a 3,000-ounce season...
Whoa, whoa, whoa! -...are washed away.
Rick Ness receives devastating news.
Just got a message from my doctor
that I have a big tumor on my spine.
Holy [bleep].
We're all in on this right now.
And Fred Lewis fights his biggest battle yet.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
-Holy crap. -Oh!