[narrator] On this Gold Rush...
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] Tony Beets makes a dramatic discovery...
[Tony] Oh, I'll be damned.
[narrator] ...on his hunt for gold.
There's something hiding over there.
Holy [bleep].
[narrator] Rick Ness hits the jackpot.
People search their whole life
for this type of material.
If anybody wants to go home, they can [bleep] go home.
[narrator] And Parker Schnabel throws his team into a tailspin.
[Parker] Go pack my [bleep] and leave right now, I don't give a [bleep].
I'm [bleep] pissed.
[dramatic music playing]
[machine whirring]
[narrator] This time last year,
Klondike legend Tony Beets was already shutdown by the Yukon winter.
But after a late start due to the pandemic,
he's still over 400 ounces short
of his 3,000 ounce season goal,
and he's not giving up now.
Gents, keep it going in.
[narrator] The trommel's muddy water
runs into ponds to let the silt settle,
by law this sediment must have dropped out of the water
before it's discharged into the creek.
But the ponds have silted up,
and dirty water is now flowing out of the discharge pipe.
Go ahead, Tony. Go ahead.
[Tony speaking]
Righty. I'm on my way.
[narrator] Feeding dirty water into the creek is a violation
that could see Tony's operation shutdown,
and hit with a fine of up to $100,000.
[Monica over speaker] Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Yes, I do.
Why? What's happened?
[Tony speaking]
Great. On it.
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] To increase the pond's capacity,
so the silt has space to settle,
Tony plans to raise the whole mile and a half of dikes
by a massive seven feet.
It'll take over 2.3 million cubic feet of dirt,
enough to fill the Capitol Rotunda, twice over.
[Tony speaking]
What's up? What do you need, chickie?
Hey, I'm gonna be backing these trucks in
you know, it is the end of the season.
Damn near, anyways, so,
the faster we get this done, the better.
'Cause it's just costing nothing but money.
Sounds good. Just give me a holler when you want the D10 to barrel down,
-and I'll make it happen. -[Monica] Aces.
[Kevin] If you let dirty water into the stream, you can be shutdown for good.
So, dike building it is.
[engine whirring]
Gotta build 'em up, build 'em up, build 'em up, build 'em up.
We, uh, now have pretty much everybody
on the dikes, making this project "happening."
Until this is done, we cannot sluice,
so, all hands on deck, all hands on deck.
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] Tony loads rock trucks with old tailings.
[Monica] Keep coming, keep coming.
Hard left.
[narrator] Monica directs the trucks
to dump at one end of the dike,
then Kevin pushes the piles flat and packs them down
with the weight of the D10 dozer.
Do one quick push. Boom. And then we get out of the way.
Repeat.
[dramatic music playing]
[Parker] Overall, it's been a pretty good season.
you know, it's been tough for sure,
but we're finding good gold and we're making money
and that's the important part.
[narrator] Twenty-six-year-old Parker Schnabel,
is on track to break records this year
and expand his gold mining empire.
We've got a lot of options on other grounds
both here in the Klondike and in Alaska.
You know, the biggest factor for making a decision on those
is where we're at money-wise at the end pf the season.
[narrator] With only weeks left in the season,
he's going all out
with both his wash plants running 24/7
in the 26 acre airstrip cut.
[Parker] This season we're just going through area like crazy.
Gold prices are good.
The best way to maximize this season
is to open up an extension on the airstrip cut that we're doing right now.
I don't know how happy the guys are gonna be about this
but we're on a roll
and we should try to keep that going.
-How's it going? -Good, you?
Not too bad.
Yeah, so...
I know it's a little late in the season,
but, we could get another piece opened up
and extend the cut further downstream
another five, 600 feet.
We've got good gold prices and we need gold coming out of the ground.
That's gonna add a couple more weeks of work, man,
like, I don't know if we'll be able to beat the weather doing this.
My only concern is that snow's probably gonna be coming in pretty soon.
You should be able to get something opened up.
To open this ground up is a big challenge for me.
I know it's gonna not be fun this time of year, but,
it's gotta get done.
[narrator] Parker wants to mine another 600 foot cut,
Half as much again as they've mined so far on the airstrip.
It will take 500 truckloads of worthless overburden
to get down to gold rich pay.
This late in the season,
that's a huge extra workload for co-foreman Brennan Ruault in the 700,
and operator JM in the 460.
This is a lot of extra pressure on my shoulders
but, uh, you know, I'm not the boss here,
and he's the one calling the shots on that
and we're just gonna have to get it done.
At the end of the day, I have one job to do,
to just find as much gold as we possibly can.
The plans keep changing around here,
so it's... Like, I can't keep up.
I'm getting tired. We gotta open a lot of ground.
but all I can do is my best.
[narrator] While Brennan and JM strip overburden on the new extension,
Parker checks the section of the airstrip cut
they've already mined.
[Parker] What the [bleep]?
[narrator] Parker's discovered a rookie error.
They've left gold bearing river rock behind.
Howdy.
I shouldn't have to walk your floor.
What's that, buddy?
I though everybody knew how to dig pay
but three are round rock everywhere.
Like I shouldn't have to walk the floor and find like, yards of rock
I've hardly dug any of this.
I don't care.
You're in charge or are you not in charge?
Well, Mitch was in charge.
[Parker] Mitch ain't here.
Yeah, well...
There's quite a bit missed.
Whoever took the last strip in the back.
I don't give a [bleep] who it is, and neither should you,
but it needs to get cleaned up.
I understand that,
but I haven't even dug half this [bleep] pay here,
I've been in the back doing overburden.
I don't know if guys are in a rush to go home or whatever
but if anybody wants to go home, they can [bleep] go home.
Right now. Like, that's not a reason to rush through any cuts or...
or do anything sloppy, or whatever is going on,
we've done this racket for eight years now,
I shouldn't have to walk our floors.
[Brennan] But there's no need to come here and be a [bleep] about it.
[producer speaking]
I'm so [bleep] over this bull [bleep] man.
Go pack my [bleep] and leave right now,
I don't give a [bleep] about any of this [bleep].
[Brennan] I am [bleep] pissed.
[bleep] I'm gonna pack my [bleep] and leave right now.
[narrator] At Indian River,
Co-foreman Brennan Ruault
is reaching a breaking point,
after his boss Parker Schnabel called him out
for leaving pay dirt behind in the cut.
[Brennan] I'm [bleep] over this horse [bleep].
I'm trying to do a million [bleep] things and keep my head in check,
[bleep] blood is boiling, man.
Whoo!
[narrator] When Brennan joined the crew five years ago
he'd never mined gold before.
Can't wait to see the little yellow flakes on the sluice box.
[narrator] Through his hard work, he gained Parker's trust.
[Parker] That's awesome.
[narrator] And worked his way up to the rank of co-foreman.
What I'd really like to do is for your guys to share the role.
I'll definitely step up.
[narrator] But now, the pressure of the end.
of their most grueling season ever,
has pushed him to the brink.
[Brennan] One little [bleep] thing
and then I'm the one that has to take the heat for it.
[Doumitt] Hey, junior. Come here, boy.
[Brennan] I'm just sick of being treated like that.
Like, it's just a nightmare.
-I mean, when is enough enough around here? -[Doumitt] Yeah.
In the ten years that I've been here,
I've noticed that he pushes a little bit more...
at this point,
and sometimes it creates more damage than good.
He forgets that a lot of us are 3,000 miles away from home,
that's the tough part.
It's really hard on everyone to maintain a good morale.
Yeah, we put in a lot of work this year,
being up here late, getting tired.
Just consider the crew,
we've got a good crew,
No, we got a good team, man, a really good team.
-We say it all year long. -[Doumitt] Yeah.
Everybody knows their stuff and gets done.
So, no matter how hard it gets,
come hell or high water, push through.
Yeah, all right.
Why don't we finish on a good note, happy,
then come here and go full tilt in the spring.
What can you say? It happens every year.
-All right, pops. Thanks a lot, appreciate it. -Okay, junior.
-Yeah, you hang in there. -Yeah, you too.
[dramatic music plays]
[Rick] Technically, I shouldn't even be here right now.
Normally, we're gone this time of year.
But thankfully we haven't been frozen out yet,
because, uh, still got a couple hundred ounces to yet,
and I'm more determined this season than ever,
to make sure that we get there.
[narrator] Rick Ness, is mining on borrowed time.
What'd the boss want?
[Rick] Meetings are never good.
[narrator] And still only three-quarters of the way
to hitting his 1,000 ounce season goal.
I just wanted to address the gigantic elephant in the room,
and that is if we don't hit 1,000 ounces this year,
we're not coming back.
It jus is what it is, we're hitting 1,000 ounces,
-right? -Yeah.
[narrator] With his mining career on the line,
Rick knows he needs to make a big move
to hit his target.
The creek cut has been really reliable for us
but I just don't know if that's gonna get us there.
What if the weather closes on us like a trap
and we're not across the finish line yet?
Like, I can't handle that for another year.
We've gotta do something.
I've got a bit of hunch. I really think that
you know, some of out best gold could be around that lazy bend in that river there.
You're gonna look into that lazy bend?
We're not gonna keep doing the creek cut?
I know the creek cut's been reliable,
but is it good enough to get there?
It's time to swing away, man.
Like we gotta go after something bigger.
[narrator] Water flows slower around the inside
or lazy bend of a river.
The slower water allows more gold to settle,
and over thousands of years,
creates a richer deposit than anywhere else on the creek.
We came up here for... for redemption, right?
We're so close.
[bleep] go after it. man.
I'm done playing it safe.
You're the expert here. I'll follow your lead, buddy.
-I'm game. -I'm game.
Let's go, uh, deal with this weather and get after it.
-We'll hurt the dirt. -Let's do it.
Hurt the dirt!
Hopefully, I can get the machine in here without [bleep] burying it.
[narrator] Rick opens up the spot he believes
was once the inside bend in the course of the creek.
I've run the numbers and there's just no way
we're gonna get to a thousand ounces
at the pace we're going.
We need the bang for our buck right now.
So, we gotta go after the best of the best.
[Kruse] I hope this pays off. It just makes me nervous.
When you're taking a chance like that
run the risk of maybe we don't even hit our goals.
Hopefully, his hunch is right.
[Karla] Yeah, it's Rick's call.
But I think there's a time and place
to go fast and take chances, and it's not this year.
It's just not the season for that.
All right. So far so good.
Kruse and Karla and probably everybody here
is not too sure about my hunch here.
But in the case, they're gonna be wrong.
I'm gonna prove 'em wrong this year.
[bleep] you, gravel. Where are you?
Don't have all day.
Come on.
[Rick] Yeah.
Yeah, look at that.
[narrator] Five hours in,
Rick hits the first pay gravels.
Oh, that's good stuff.
It's good stuff.
[Chris over radio] Rick, do you copy? Rick?
[Rick] Yeah, just stay right there, Kruse. Let me get some more.
If I get ten trucks out of here,
that's 200 yards.
That's all I really need.
About two hours to run that through the wash plant.
That should give me a pretty good test to see what I got in here.
[narrator] Rick will run a 200 yard test
to find out if this pay is rich enough
to save his season.
You're all loaded up there, buddy.
All right, here we go. First load of pay dirt.
[Rick] There it goes.
It's, uh, go time.
Here we go, first load.
[Mark] Jammin', killin' it.
Historically, the lazy bend in a river
should be where all the gold is.
Kinda putting all my eggs in this basket.
But I really think it's gonna pay off.
[narrator] After running for two hours...
Just shut her down.
[narrator] ...the crew shuts down to check the sluices.
[wash plant powers down]
[Rick] What do you think?
[Karla] It looks really good.
It looks better than our last cleanup.
[Rick] Yeah, that looks good. I'll take that.
[Mark] Oh, my [bleep].
Look at this, just sitting in the sluice.
[Karla] Holy [bleep].
I can't believe that. Wow, look it. [chuckles]
That's the heaviest nugget I've ever felt.
People search their whole life for this type of material.
[Rick] Pretty big smile on your face.
[Karla] No, you don't even know. You don't even...
This is like... It's what dreams are made of.
-What? -I know.
-[Rick] Holy [bleep]. -[Karla] Yeah.
[Mark] Christmas came early.
[Rick] That's like an ounce right there.
That's a [bleep] beauty. Like, that's worth some serious money.
That's an ounce.
That'd be four grand right there.
As far as I know, that's bigger than anything
Parker or Tony's pulled out of the ground.
[narrator] Rick's move to Keno last season
was all in the hope of finding giant nuggets.
Two years of hard work and determination
have finally paid off.
And if the lazy bend continues to deliver,
his season goal could be in reach.
Wow. I'm really hoping this is gonna be
the biggest cleanup of the year
and if that guy has anything to say about, I think it might be.
The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can get back to sluicing.
[narrator] At Paradise Hill,
Tony Beets has stopped all sluicing of upper cut pay dirt.
We've got water going out of our settling pond.
It was too dirty.
Which, of course, means we got to build up the dikes.
[narrator] Muddy water running from the settling ponds
into the creek has forced a total shutdown
until Kevin and the crew raise the dikes.
I am running the D10 and pushing down
the piles that Monica is directing on the dike.
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] They still need around 500 trucks of material to finish the job.
[Tony speaking]
-[Kevin over radio] Go for Kevin. Go for Kevin. -[Tony speaking]
[Kevin] Can do. I'm actually just on my way.
[Tony chuckles]
[Kevin] And what did we find?
There's something hiding over there.
[Tony speaking]
[Kevin] I'll be down.
I believe what we're looking at...
I'm guessing a steamer.
Like, from a dredge. It's clearly from a [bleep] dredge.
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] From the early 1900s up to 1966,
dredges mined the prime pay dirt on Hunker Creek.
The ground was so rich, that on a good day,
they pulled out today's equivalent
of over a million dollars worth of gold.
For Tony to unearth the remnants of the dredge
is an incredible chance discovery.
-[Tony speaking] -[Kevin] [bleep] yeah.
-[Kevin] What? -[Tony speaking]
-Yeah. -[Tony speaking]
[Kevin] Not till right about now, honestly.
[narrator] Old timers sluicing on the hill
washed down waste material.
Tony's theory,
the dredge that mined along the valley
went round these tailings.
When the dredge was finally abandoned,
the remnants lay on top of ground,
that could still be rich in gold.
If Tony's right,
he could be heading for a mammoth pay day.
[Tony speaking]
-[Kevin] Yeah. -[Tony speaking]
So, the question is, where did the dredge come in?
Where did they say "[bleep] it, too much"?
We won't know till we dig.
But I'm very curious to see what we get out of here.
[narrator] While the rest of the crew races to finish the dikes...
[narrator] ...Tony calls in drilling expert Liam Ferguson.
All right, Tony. Um, we talked about putting four holes in.
Whereabouts do you think is a good spot for them?
-Yep. -[Tony speaking]
Sounds good. We'll come find you when we're done.
[Liam] No problem.
[Liam] All right.
[narrator] Using a vibrating sonic drill
that can reach depths of 1,000 feet,
Liam will take a series of core samples
of the layers of material beneath the surface
to discover if the ground beneath
is virgin and rich in gold.
There's a lot of potential here
for Tony to find some really good ground.
We'll know pretty quick, as soon as we pull the core out,
if it's real virgin ground or not.
All right, so that's our bedrock there. That looks pretty good.
On top of the bedrock, we got, like, nine foot
of, like, a silty river gravel.
That looks like virgin ground to me.
So, based on everything we've seen,
it definitely looks like it could be virgin ground.
Looks to me like the theory of the dredge going around.
the tailings, pile, it all seems to add up.
Now, the next thing to do is just to wash it, find out how much gold in there.
There's still lot of work to do here,
so we got to just put the hammer down to get it done.
[narrator] Parker has put co-foreman Brennan Ruault under the gun
to strip a 600-foot extension to the Airstrip Cut.
After three days, he's still not down to pay dirt.
Parker's got some big pressure on all of us out here
to get this ground ready.
Is he [bleep] angry still?
It isn't the first time he's been [bleep] miserable like that.
There's no need for it, and that's what I'm getting tired of.
JM, you on here?
[Jean-Michel over radio] Yeah, copy.
[Brennan] Hey, buddy. We're gonna have to take a smooth bucket and truck
and go pick rock out of there, wherever it's missed.
[Jean-Michel over radio] Right on.
Sounds like a plan, man.
[narrator] Brennan has tasked JM
with cleaning up the section of the Airstrip Cut,
where Parker found gold left behind.
[Jean-Michel] I mean, I don't mind. I'm here to work.
But it seems like everyday I kinda found some new problem,
a new challenge to deal with.
[narrator] The two wash plants Sluicifer and Big Red
are running a combined 420 yards of Airstrip Cut pay dirt and hour.
Brennan in the D10
strips overburden to open up the new extension.
Now we're in a bit of a bad panic to get as far back as we can.
[groans]
-[Brennan] Howdy. -How are you doing?
[Brennan] Good, you?
I'm all right. Um...
I wanted to explain a little more my little blow up in the cut.
I apologize. Because I shouldn't do it that way
Brennan, since you've shown up here,
like, you've come so far, and you've been doing a great job.
Honestly, you have.
Right.
I know you've got a lot on your plate,
but we still have to make sure
that we are following the basics.
And that's where I'm coming from.
-Okay, yeah. -Does that make sense?
Yeah. Very.
Thank you. Appreciate it.
-No sweat. Thanks, Brennan. -Yeah, no worries.
Appreciate it. Thanks a lot.
[Brennan] I definitely just take it back a little bit with Parker.
I do really respect him coming to apologize
in a sincere way, you know, so I... I'm happy.
I want to get this ground opened up and sluiced.
I wanna try and conquer this season for Parker
and, hopefully, also put some money in the bank for some new ground for us.
We're trying to hurry everything
so we're not behind schedule for once.
[thuds]
[Brennan groans]
[bleep] no.
[dozer revving]
[narrator] Brennan has hit permafrost.
Dirt and gravel frozen solid since the last ice age.
That's the last thing I need, is to break a ripper shaking out.
Explain that one to Parker.
This sand is like [bleep] granite trying to get through it.
I mean, look at how hard this stuff is.
This slows the Cat right down.
Lifting my tracks right off the ground.
Yeah, we on here, JM.
[Jean-Michel over radio] Yeah, go ahead.
Man, this nothing but a [bleep] fight out here in the ten.
I'm trying to rip this frozen gravel.
I don't know how I'm gonna get through this in time.
[Jean-Michel] That's not good news man.
I mean, [bleep].
[Brennan] [bleep] sake, man.
This is gonna take [bleep] forever going at this pace.
[Brennan] This is what slows us down.
This is [bleep] brutal.
[narrator] At Indian River,
Brennan is tasked with extending the cut.
But permafrost is slowing him down so much,
he may never get down to pay dirt
before the end of this season.
[Brennan] It's like ripping ground in here.
I just heard a loud [bleep] snap.
I thought it broke the tooth right off the ripper.
[bleep] that frost.
This [bleep] pisses me off.
[Jean-Michel] Brennan hit permafrost, man.
That's gonna slow him down.
This gravel's just brutal on this poor Cat.
I didn't expect to run into this much of this.
I mean, I have to put 50 rips in it to get down to pay.
It's not gonna be good.
[engine roars]
This thing sounds [bleep] wicked.
[man] Like a kid with a new toy.
[Parker] Oh, yeah.
I never thought we'd have one of these.
[narrator] But over at the yard,
Parker has a surprise in store.
[bleep] sick.
[narrator] A monster D11 dozer ordered for next season
has arrived ahead of time.
And we bought it off craigslist basically, which is pretty funny.
It's got all the goods.
I think this is about a 50 yard blade.
Like, this is chromium carbide overlay.
So it's like, really strong, armored blade.
Where the tens would rip, like, a three-foot rip, this thing will do six.
I don't know much about engines, but it's a [bleep] big engine.
[narrator] The D11 is the biggest machine Parker's ever owned.
-Hi, Brennan. -[Brennan] Look at that big thing!
-[Parker] Right? -[Brennan] Holly man! Unreal [laughs]
-Yeah. -Nice work.
[narrator] With 850 horse power,
it's 60% more powerful than Brennan's D10.
At 250,000 pounds, it's almost twice the weight.
And the blade can move double the dirt.
-This thing's [bleep] huge, man. -Yeah.
-[Brennan] Unreal. I get to ride it? -Oh, yeah.
-Sweet. -I figured you could use the help down here.
When you're ripping this, the extra weight really makes a huge difference.
-Yeah, wicked. Thanks, buddy. -Have fun with her.
[Brennan] You bet. This is an immense relief. [laughs]
If this isn't gonna [bleep] move mountains quickly, I don't know what will.
This is the next level. I mean, I'm excited.
I've got to run 11 one time in my life,
and this is time number two where we need it the most,
so I can't wait to get in and fire it up.
[engine roaring]
Ah!
Oh, yeah.
That's the ticket.
[bleep] is this thing sweet.
I mean, look at the chunks I'm blowing out of there compared to the ten.
I can't believe the [bleep] pieces it's pulling apart here.
JM, you're on here, JM.
Buddy, I think we just found the ticket to getting through this frozen ground.
[Jean-Michel] Oh, yeah, I can see it. Look at the size of that dozer, man.
Half the time, half the rips,
means more efficiency and more gold in the box.
A hell of lot faster.
Absolutely beautiful.
We're still quite a ways away from our 1,000 ounce goal.
Um, the gold's been steady, but we've gonna have to make every day count.
[narrator] At Duncan Creek, Rick and his crew start a new shift.
Sluicing the lazy bend pay dirt,
that has already produced a 1.5 ounce nugget.
Yeah, this stuff's far too big.
There's obviously a problem going on here. Far too big.
[narrator] But at the wash plant,
operator Mark Doverspike has discovered a problem.
[Mark] We can't have rocks go down there, 'cause it'll just destroy it.
[narrator] The sluice runs are full of rocks.
So this is the kind of material
we've had come down through our shaker deck now.
That's far too big to be going through our riffle,
so they're gonna be destroyed if we keep that up.
We've got holes in the screen now. The screen deck.
Oh, buddy. This thing is [bleep].
[Mark] This is bad.
There's a big [bleep] hole in the punch plate.
That one spot took all the wear.
[narrator] The hole in the plate is letting big rocks fall through
that could destroy the riffles in the sluice box below.
It's not the same as just blowing out a screen,
I mean, this plant doesn't run screens,
it runs one solid piece of punch plate,
so if we just pop that piece out and replace it...
Only thing we can do is try and cover it up.
[narrator] Rick's wash plant uses a sheet of perforated half inch thick steel
to screen out rocks.
With no time to get a new plate fabricated,
the only option is to patch up the hole,
and try to limp the plant to the end of the season.
Yeah, it's not [bleep] good news this morning.
There's a big old hole in the top deck of our plant,
and it's not the time of the year for that [bleep].
Gotta get the thing welded up quick,
and hopefully get back in action.
Potentially this could mean, you know, inwards of 20 ounces that we lose today.
We're in a race to meet our goal, right?
We gonna make this happen. We gonna make this quick.
[narrator] With mechanic Carl Rosk home
recovering from back surgery,
it's up to Ben Bellai to fix the plant.
We got a big hole up on the top screen,
so I gotta find a chunk of steel here
that I don't have to [bleep] cut, that I can use...
to get this up and running here right away.
That will actually do.
Not too much work to it, so we can get using.
Just gonna get this done here right away,
so I get this plant up and running.
Could be a quick fix.
But it's at the end of the season,
so we're just gonna patch it off for now.
He's gonna do it quick and... quick and dirty,
so hopefully it won't take very long.
See how this is... We have a big hole here.
Hopefully, this patch job will hold.
I can't guarantee it, because everything's all worn thin here.
We'll see if this bush fix is gonna work, hopefully it will.
We'll lose a little capacity of our deck,
'cause we're gonna have to cover up that first foot of the screen deck,
but at this point it's better than sitting there and doing nothing.
The parts are fixed it doesn't look pretty in any way.
It's not a thing of beauty, but we'll make it work.
Let's fire this [bleep] back up and get going.
-Pretty much ready to fire up. -Yeah, that was quick.
And... if you want it running,
-then just kinda watch-- -Yeah.
...the punch plate, maybe see if it--
-Yeah. Yeah, for sure. -All right. I'll get everything rolling.
Sweet. You get this thing fired up now.
It's a quick, dirty fix on that,
but that's probably the best that we can hope for at this point,
so we're so close to the end of the season, so close to our goal.
[narrator] With only two hours of sluicing lost,
the Ness crew is back in business.
So far, so good.
[narrator] At Paradise Hill, Tony waits for the drill results to find out
if he's discovered a chunk of prime virgin Hunker Creek pay dirt.
Well, we got 'em back at the core set.
Time to wash 'em and see what's in them.
[narrator] Drilling specialist Liam Ferguson gets to work,
analyzing the core samples.
It looks like here you can see the gravels that were washed down.
Little bit of white channel and then right here
is right where we start to get back into mud again.
That's pretty good indication of virgin ground.
There's a good change there's gold here,
but is there enough?
Keep coming. You'll see me in a second.
We're down, at this point about a week or so, that's long enough.
[narrator] At Paradise Hill, after moving 40,000 tons of dirt,
the Beets crew is in the final push
to raise the level of their settling ponds.
Just doing the last couple of pushes for the dike now.
Soon as we get this finished up,
we can fire up the pump, fire up the plant.
Off we go.
Park it.
[Tony speaking]
Kevin. Go for Kevin.
Everybody clear.
[narrator] After losing a week of sluicing,
the Beets are back on the gold.
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] Tony heads to get the drill results
to find out if he's discovered a new strip of Hunker Creek pay dirt
that's never been mined.
-[Tony speaking] -Tony, good to see you again.
Well, no, this one was also pretty interesting.
Right, so these are the four holes we got here.
[Tony speaking]
-For sure. -Right?
Looking at what we got there, that's the first hole we drilled.
The one closest to the center of the valley looks like it's gonna be the best one.
We found you some money.
Yeah, around about an ounce per 100 I think this one will do.
[narrator] The drill results prove Tony's theory.
Under the remnants of the dredge is a strip of prime virgin ground.
At an ounce of gold per 100 yards of dirt,
it could bank Tony $160,000 a day.
[narrator] Rick Ness is ready to find out if his gamble on the lazy bend in the river
has paid off.
This week... I mean, that hole in that top deck,
potentially can be way worse than it was.
We lost a little capacity in the plant,
-but overall, [bleep] we got moving again, right? -Yeah.
-Thanks. Thanks, man. -Well done.
I know you guys weren't all super excited about that lazy corner of that river,
but just so you guys know, it wasn't for nothing.
[man] Holy [bleep]!
-[Rick] Can you believe that? -[man] How much does that weigh?
That one is 1.54 ounces.
[man] Oh, my [bleep]! Wow!
[narrator] As a collectible nugget,
it could be worth more than twice its weight.
-Holy crap, man. -No way!
I've never seen anything like this before in my life. This is, uh--
-Neither have we, really. None of us have seen-- -Yeah.
[Rick] That nugget's cool, but there is more.
-Oh, yeah. That's what I'm talking about, buddy. -That's actually cool.
[narrator] To make the move to the lazy bend worthwhile,
Rick needs to beat the average from the creek cut of 60 ounces a week.
[Rick] Let's see what we've got here.
We got ten, 20, 30...
40, 50, 60...
And we're going over 70... Yes, we are.
Hand it over there, big guy.
Kerplunk.
What we got here? 71.64 ounces.
-Yes. -Yeah, buddy.
-[whooping triumphantly] -[Rick] Uh-huh.
[narrator] Worth around $136,000,
Rick's gamble has paid off.
-It's good week. -It's not bad.
It's pretty great a week, boys.
[narrator] And takes his season total to 825 ounces.
Just 175 ounces short of his 1,000 ounce gold.
Overall, another really good week. These are cool,
but that right there is what pays the bills and we're on that fine gold, right?
-Oh, yeah. -[Rick] We're on the gold, let's just keep it up.
[man] Yeah.
Yeah, thanks, guy.
Thank you.
-[safe pad beeping] -Well, I'm learning to trust my gut out here,
and, uh, you know, with that lazy bend in the river cleaned it out,
and got good gold and on top of that,
got that bad boy to show for it.
[narrator] At the end of a tense week,
the Schnabel crew gather to weigh up the gold.
-So you made it to the frost? -Mmm-hmm. Yep.
-Parker came down with the D11 to help that situation out. -[Doumitt] Ooh.
-Makes things a lot easier. [laughs] -[Doumitt] Good.
Both plants did really well this week.
You guys did a good job keeping them things running.
Why don't you show us some gold then, see what we got?
[Doumitt] Wanna throw some gold on the scale?
We've moved a lot of dirt to see it.
[narrator] Last week at Big Red, Brennan fell short,
getting less than half rival plant boss Tyson's 209 ounce gold haul.
[Doumitt] Incoming.
-Ooh, that's a big pan. -[Doumitt] Yeah.
-We're staring to use big pans now. -[Tyson] Holy [bleep]!
[narrator] This time, Brennan's determined to beat him.
-Ready? -Yeah.
Sixty. 100. 130, 160.
One-eighty, 220.
-222.15. -[Doumitt] Nice.
Holy [bleep]! [bleep] yeah!
[narrator] Worth over $420,000.
-Good boy. Good boy. -Yeah.
-[Tyson] That's awesome, man. -Sucker, you lost. [laughs]
-[Tyson] That's a nice week. -[Doumitt] Yeah. No kidding.
-You wanna see what Slucifer's doing? -Sweet.
[Brennan] Let's see it.
[narrator] With Slucifer, Tyson has been averaging 171 ounces.
[Doumitt] Brennan might have to help you count.
[laughs]
Forty, 80.
100, 110.
190.
195.85.
Oh, yeah.
[narrator] Worth more than $370,000.
-I gotta see you out there. -Loser.
-[Doumitt] Well done. Well done. -[Parker] 400 ounce week.
-Yeah. -Nothing wrong with a 400 ounce week.
[Doumitt] Four hundred and eighteen ounces.
[narrator] A combined total of $790,000.
[Parker laughs] Holy [bleep]!
[narrator] And bringing their season total to over 6,800 ounces.
Last year was 7,223.
[narrator] Just 400 ounces short of last year's total.
Parker is on track to bank a war chest
to finance new ground for next season.
You know, if you can keep 'em running...
we will have a really good year.
Well, Chris, we hate to, um, weigh and run, but...
-[laughs] Weigh and run. Okay. -We've all got stuff to do.
-Thank you. -You bet.
Thanks, guys. Good work out there.
Outstanding, keep it up.
-See you, Doumitt. -Make us rich.
-Oh, yeah. -All right.
-Are you proud? -[Doumitt] Yeah.
-Have fun cleaning that up. -Yep.
[Brennan] I'm happy.
Everything's starting to come together here towards the end of the season.
As long as the gold keeps coming in
and we're conquering our ground, that's all that matters.
I wanna hit it big, I wanna be a huge success.
[narrator] On the next Gold Rush...
[Rick] Looking for new ground this late in the season it's not ideal.
It's a little crazy.
[narrator] Rick Ness aims for the sky.
That's the spot right there.
It's definitely never been touched.
This is just another problem that we don't need.
-This ain't going on there? -No.
[Parker] [bleep] now I'm pissed off.
[narrator] Parker Schnabel's final push grinds to a halt.
-[crashes] -[Parker] [bleep] piece of [bleep].
We're gonna keep pushing until something tells me we can't run anymore.
[narrator] And Fred Lewis' dream could be over.
This thing is a hunk of junk.
If it breaks down one more time,
I think we should go ahead and call it quits.