[Shane] We're running out of time.
This is just another problem that we don't need.
[narrator] On this Gold Rush...
This ain't going on there.
[bleep] Now I'm pissed off.
...Parker Schnabel's dream of a record season
grinds to a halt.
[Tyson] Holy [bleep].
Overall, there is gold here,
and it's just a matter of figuring out where.
[narrator] Rick Ness takes to the skies
in a search for new ground.
[Rick] Looking for new ground this late in the season.
It's not ideal. It's a little crazy.
I don't wanna just eke out a living, I wanna hit it big.
I wanna be a huge success.
[Fred] We're gonna keep pushing
until something tells me we can't run anymore.
[narrator] And Fred Lewis faces the toughest test of his season.
This thing is a hunk of junk.
And if it breaks down one more time,
I think we should just go ahead on and call it quits.
Let's put it to a vote. Kendell for the tiebreaker.
Everybody here has put in a hell of a long season,
but we've got good gold prices
and we need gold coming out of the ground.
[narrator] After the latest-ever start to the season,
Parker Schnabel is now just 600 ounces short
of his all-time best gold haul
of 7,400 ounces.
Now is the time to get some money in the bank
and make us more confident
in finding more and better ground.
[narrator] Last season,
Parker started searching for new ground in the Yukon...
Ground is getting scarce
and what's left is not pretty.
[bleep] damn it.
...but drew a blank.
Hopefully, we'll find some ground somewhere.
[narrator] So this season, he headed home to Alaska.
We've got a really good opportunity on a piece of ground.
The guy that owns it wants $3 million for it.
Going to Alaska, I think it's gonna take a lot of exploration.
It's gonna cost a lot of money.
Hopefully, we can, you know, build reserves
and keep the...
Keep the mine operational as long as we can.
[narrator] Last week, in his bid to amass a war chest of gold,
Parker extended his Airstrip Cut by 600 feet.
It's looking good, like, there's a lot of ground in there
that hopefully we can get it all out.
You know, the plants...
They've been through a couple battles this summer,
and they're-- [laughs] Everything on 'em's tired, you know?
So hopefully we can just limp everything through to the finish line
and get them in the healing yard for the winter.
[narrator] To get the extension sluiced
before the winter shuts them down,
Parker's keeping both his wash plants
Big Red and Sluicifer
running pay dirt through the night.
[wash plants rumbling]
[man] [bleep] Shut it down!
[narrator] Parker's most productive wash plant, Sluicifer,
has ground to a halt.
Yeah, I went in the cook shack for breakfast,
and I heard the radio call.
Something about the feeder belt had broke
and the hopper was full.
It's not a good way to wake up in the morning.
Oh, I imagine Sluicifer
will be down for the majority of today.
[narrator] Wash plant boss Tyson Lee is first on scene.
First order of business is,
get as much dirt out of the hopper as possible.
And then start tearing the hopper feeder apart,
and get a new belt on.
Yeah, there aren't many days left in the season and,
you know, with this[bleep] happening,
it definitely doesn't make our lives any easier.
Did you tear right through it, Alec?
Um, I mean, judging by how it's hanging,
I'd imagine it is.
Oh, yeah.
You tore out the belt right in half by the looks of it.
[Alec] It looks like it happened right along, uh,
the vulcanized edge there.
And then the rest of it just gave way
when there was nothing in the middle.
[Shane] It's never good when you have a belt break.
We're running out of time all right.
This is just another problem that we don't need.
Yeah, like, that's probably good.
[narrator] To get to the belt,
they have to remove the 10-ton hopper.
[creaking]
[bleep] That's heavy.
Can you go up?
[motor whirring]
[Brennan] Come on, baby.
You're good.
-[Parker] This looks like fun. -Oh, yeah.
I'm glad we had the new belt.
Get that thing on here.
[narrator] Shane brings in a spare 37-foot belt from the yard,
meaning Sluicifer should be up and running by the end of the day.
[Parker] Oh, this kind of stuff doesn't bother me at all, really.
You know, the conveyors save us a huge amount of,
like, trucking costs and other costs
and this is the price you pay, and I'm fine with that.
All right. You ready for this?
I feel like we could get the front over there with the mini hoe.
Yeah.
[narrator] Parker's plan,
raise the conveyor and use a mini excavator
to place the belt onto the head roller,
and a second excavator
to pull the opposite end of the belt
until it can slide onto the tail roller.
Let's get it to the right sweet spot
and then it'll usually go on.
Good.
[Shane] Parker's helping us. Look the hell out.
He's gonna grab the belt here
with the hoe and just suck it back that way.
You got lots of room.
Does this look a bit short to you?
Looks really short. Uh...
[Shane] Yeah, this belt is short.
-What? -This belt is short.
-[Parker] I thought that this one said on it "37 feet." -[Shane] Yeah.
So I'm just trying to figure out--
'cause 18 and 18 is 36.
Thirty seven should fit on there.
-It should. -But this isn't 37, then?
No.
Somebody probably cut it 37
and then spliced it.
[Parker] Which takes up two feet.
-This ain't going on there. -[Shane] No.
[bleep]
Now I'm pissed off!
I can see the end is near, but, you know, we're not.
We're just not quite at our 1,000-ounce goal yet.
[narrator] At Duncan Creek,
Rick Ness started mining six weeks late
due to the pandemic
and now is trying to hit a 1,000-ounce goal
in the shortest season ever.
[Rick] Now is not the time to pull out.
Now is the time to just buckle down and hit it hard. And...
We're not walking out of here without hitting our goal this year.
[narrator] Rick is still 175 ounces short,
and winter could shut him down any day.
[Minnie] Nice little plant.
[bleep]
Hey, Rick. Uh, you expecting company today?
Out here? No. What are you talking about?
I think Tony and Minnie Beets just showed up.
Huh. What?
All right, I'll come down. I'll check it out.
[Minnie] It's, uh, slow but efficient.
I wish we could do it this way.
[Rick] How you doing?
Good to see you, Tony.
-Hi, Rick. -Hi, Minnie.
-Long time no see. -Yeah.
So, what brings you guys out today?
[Rick] Yeah.
Well, that's awesome.
Well, we're running 24/7.
Yeah.
I think, uh, operators in the field, I make seven.
I've been out here pretty much every day
operating myself, and, uh...
Yeah. It's just, uh--
Yeah.
Yeah, well, you really should I think.
Well, what do you say?
You wanna run back up to my cook shack, get a cup of coffee?
-Sounds awesome. -Find out why you're really here.
[Rick laughs]
[Rick] I appreciate you guys coming to visit,
but I know how busy you guys are, too.
And I've never heard of you just going around
visiting people. [laughs]
[Tony speaking]
Yeah.
Dude, I'll be honest.
I mean, there's-- there's appealing things about that.
I cut my teeth on that ground with Parker,
and, you know, I...
I think I've got a pretty good handle on how to make money there.
But, let me, uh, let me grab a map. I'll show you something.
You know, things have actually, uh,
things have actually improved quite a bit this year.
Yeah.
-[Minnie] I'm happy to hear that. -Yeah.
Some shallow ground that's paid off
better than anything I did last year.
And there's some real deep cuts here,
and I actually have access to 99 claims.
-That's a lot of ground. -But, uh...
This is still a scary-- kind of a scary area.
Yeah. Yep.
Yep. If you're not smart about it,
you can spend a lot of money for nothing.
Yeah.
That's definitely something to think about, you know?
Like, going back to the Indian, like...
-Yeah, your welcome. Any time. -[Minnie] We appreciate it.
Any time at all.
Next time, you'll have to come for dinner.
[Tony speaking]
[Minnie groans]
[Rick] It actually means a lot to me
that Tony would come all the way out here
and offer me ground on the Indian River.
[narrator] Before Rick makes a decision on Tony's offer,
he has work to do.
Right now, I've got to come up with a solid plan, you know?
A, for how to end this season,
um, but more importantly, for how to start the next season,
if I'm gonna have a future.
So I need to get out. I need to do some scouting.
And I need to see, uh--
I need to find out where I'm going.
[horn honks]
[narrator] While his team pushes
to hit their 1,000-ounce goal,
Rick Ness is looking to the future.
Offered the option of returning to the Indian River,
mining Tony's ground,
he wants to find out if Duncan Creek has more to offer.
[Rick] There's one thing I'm learning about Duncan Creek right now
is that it's very hard to read the ground.
Overall, there is gold here.
Um, and it's just a matter of figuring out where.
So, if I'm gonna be successful here,
I better figure it out quick.
So I'm gonna go up in a helicopter today and see if I can,
maybe from a different view, figure out what's going on.
So this is actually where my claim starts.
-Okay. -Right here.
-Oh, yeah. -And all the way down this valley.
We could just work our way up here.
[narrator] Rick's landowner, Troy Taylor,
has given him access
to more than 9 miles of virgin ground
along Duncan Creek,
notorious for gold-rich hot spots
and dead zones.
[Rick] Yeah, I'm looking for new ground this late in the season.
It's not ideal. It's a little crazy.
But if I can find something, get into it, improve it,
um, then I can come up with a really strong plan for next year.
[Kruse] There's different methods of trying to find gold-rich ground.
I'm not 100% certain that flying over in a helicopter is one of them, but...
What the hell do I know?
[Rick] There's a really sparse spot right there.
-I wonder if that's... -Yeah.
Kind of where the thick trees start.
[pilot] Yeah, I think that's the spot right there.
That's a lazy inside corner of the creek.
It's definitely never been touched.
[narrator] On the inside bend of a creek,
the water flows slower and should deposit more gold.
Last week, Rick found a one and a half ounce nugget
on a lazy bend just like this.
[Rick] Looks like I should be able to get
my 480 in there no problem.
A little bit of work-- but the trucks to get in there,
I think we could...
We could blast a hole in there, get the some pay out of there,
and hopefully prove that ground up for next year.
Yeah, this isn't gonna be easy,
but this is what I'm gonna have to do this year
if I'm gonna have a future here.
[Fred] This season hasn't panned out like we wanted it to.
And the ground's just not been as good as
we needed it to be to pay the bills.
[narrator] In Oregon's Elkhorn Mountains,
Fred Lewis has poured his life savings into a gold mine
and he's now burning through 5 grand a week
of his investor's money.
[Fred] Financially, this has been an absolute disaster.
My biggest concern is the debt
and being able to pay-- pay back Karl
because he's not gonna like it very much.
[narrator] Fred's just opened up new ground.
The Mayor's Cut,
which delivered his best cleanup so far.
And everyone's working flat out
in the hope they can turn their fortunes around.
If we don't get on some good gold real fast,
this could be the end of my gold mining career.
All right, let's go.
[engine starts]
[narrator] Fred's foreman, Senior Airman Kendell Madden,
is tasked with keeping the aging wash plant running.
[Kendell] At this point, we're limping along so [bleep] hard.
You know, we'll just keep going.
Just keep doing it, see how much we can actually get.
We'll see.
It's not looking good, though.
[narrator] After five months seeing precious little gold,
the crew is losing faith.
Infantry Scout Sniper Stuart McKenzie
has left his young family at home in Washington State
in the hope of striking it rich.
[Stuart] We've ripped this place apart
and the gold's just not here.
Morale is actually pretty low right now.
I'm thinking that if we actually had
decent equipment and a decent mine site
that we would be kicking this season's ass.
And, you know, unfortunately for the fact,
it's not that case, you know.
We, uh, inherited a rig pile of [bleep],
and we're trying to polish it.
Hey, Alex. How's it looking up there?
Looking good so far.
[Stuart over radio] We're at 2.5. We're at 2.5 PSI.
It just started dying.
[narrator] The old pumps supplying water to the wash plant
has lost half its working pressure.
Hey, try to shake the [bleep] out of that thing.
See if it'll clear it or something.
All right.
[Kendell] You know, we've been relying on this old pump for forever here,
and it keeps giving us more and more problems.
So, you know, if we have--
If we see things like this,
we got to work on them as fast as we can
to get up and running and try to run some more pay here.
Still 2.5, man.
[bleep]
But with this PSI,
all we're doing is clogging up the sluice.
So, you know, we're just washing gold away.
Oh, come on!
It just dropped again.
[narrator] The pressure's too low
to wash the pay dirt down the sluices.
[Kendell] All right, let's shut it off!
[bleep] this thing.
[engine stops]
All right, man. What I think is...
losing suction on here, dude.
-Yeah. -I mean, it's obviously leaking like [bleep].
And if we start firing this thing up and it starts-- It's sucking air, dude.
What the [bleep], guys?
Why aren't we running now?
[Kendell] Fred, the pressure just keeps dropping.
You know, it'll bounce up for a couple of minutes,
and then it just completely drops out.
This thing is a hunk of junk.
Well, if we have to limp through the finish line with this
and flex-seal it to make our season get to the end...
I'll get you some more Flex Seal, bro.
Okay.
Let's just keep pushing until it falls apart.
-Well, do what you can. -Okay.
[narrator] Stuart's only option,
a down and dirty bush fix using silicone sealant.
[Fred] All right, guys, let's get it fired up. Let's get it moving.
-[engine starts] -Let's get the gold!
Water's coming.
Four-zero. You're at 4.0 PSI.
Keep a close eye on that PSI,
let me know if anything changes,
and just try and push it to the limit, buddy.
I do every day.
That water pump has been a pain in our ass over and over again.
[narrator] Master Sergeant Stefan Generally
gave up his job as a security guard to become a gold miner.
And honestly, at this point in the game,
if it breaks down one more time,
I think we should just go ahead on and call it quits.
[Fred] Well, I know the guys' concerns on the pump,
but we're gonna run.
We're gonna get this thing going.
We're gonna get the Colonel fed.
We're gonna get pay dirt down the sluices.
So we're going to keep pushing
until something tells me we can't run anymore.
[narrator] 1,500 miles north in the Klondike...
When, you know, we go to put a belt on
that we have, set spare, and it's the wrong size, like, that rattles me
because there's really no room for those kind of screw ups in this business.
So I'm just gonna head down and talk to Brennan about maybe changing things up.
[narrator] Parker Schnabel's wash plant, Sluicifer,
has been down for over 24 hours with a torn belt.
[Parker] Hey, Brennan!
What I think we're going to do is pull the feeder
and the radial stacker out of Big Red...
Okay.
-And we'll put that on Sluicifer. -Okay.
And we'll pull that hoe-- feeder in this plant
and just push the pay out to a hoe and load it straight into the plant.
[narrator] To get Sluicifer back running as soon as possible,
Parker plans to move the nearby super conveyor to feed Big Red.
At the same time, truck Big Red's working hopper and conveyor
three hundred yards around the cut to Sluicifer.
[Brennan] Well, Parker said that he needs the, uh,
feeder from Big Red over there at Sluicifer
'cause the belt tore in half.
We have no other option, so I'm just coming over here to shut the plant off.
I mean, that's [bleep] that Big Red has to go down because of that
but that's just the way it is.
[motor powers down]
This big [bleep] has to get down there.
[narrator] Parker's super conveyor weighs 100 tons
and is mounted on the back of a 700 excavator.
[Shane] We got it.
[engine rumbling]
Well, now we're sluicing.
[narrator] Over at Sluicifer, Tyson's removing the broken feed conveyor.
[engine hisses]
[Tyson] Holy [bleep].
Piece of [bleep]. I'm stuck.
[engine hisses]
[Tyson] Holy [bleep].
[bleep] piece of [bleep].
I'm stuck.
[narrator] At Indian River,
plans to get Parker's wash plants back up and running
have bottomed out.
Yeah, we just can't catch a break today, you know,
but...
Water lines and [bleep] running under here,
that's why I didn't want to [bleep] gouge a [bleep] hole in the road,
'cause then we'd go through Sluicifer's water line, so...
Come ahead a bit.
Yeah.
Let's go.
This isn't working.
Hey, Tyson, we're probably better to disconnect it.
[narrator] Plan B, disconnect the truck and use the 460 to haul the trailer out.
Wait, let the slack off, we'll disconnect and we'll drag her out.
-Come up here. -[Alec] You wanna go up there?
Yeah.
Whoa.
Let's go.
[Alec] Ya up in the air, bud?
Should I go forward?
-Just keep walking with her. -Okay.
[Tyson] Easy.
Remember, there's a culvert in that road.
[Alec] Yeehaw.
[Tyson] Wait, wait.
[Alec] Let's get another chain on it, so we're not flexing the frame.
[narrator] Tyson lifts the stacker clear of the dirt.
[Tyson] That's more like it.
Should be good there, eh?
[Alec] Yeah.
[narrator] After nearly 40 hours downtime,
the replacement feed conveyor can be connected onto Sluicifer.
Whoa.
Belts are on. Fire up the plant.
That's the longest this plant's been down,
other than for a wash plant move.
So it's definitely hurting us.
[narrator] What should have been a simple fix
has shut down Parker's operation for two days
and cost well over $100,000 in lost gold.
Whoo! We're back to sluicing here!
Thank you guys for the last 24 hours.
I know it's been an absolute [bleep] show.
I really do appreciate it.
This would have been a disaster if you guys weren't here.
Doctor Dre!
Thanks a lot for all the help today, buddy.
-Appreciate it. -No worries.
[Parker] Oh, yeah. You know, that's one nice thing about the guys that are here is
if something can get done, they'll get it done.
[engines running]
[motor running]
We're at 2.5. 2.5.
[narrator] In Oregon's Elkhorn Mountains,
Fred Lewis is spending 5 grand a week
in the hope his new cut will produce enough
to break even and send his guys home with gold.
Right now, what we're doing is we're limping through it but we're moving.
We're pushing that pump to the limit right now,
but we're getting pay dirt through the plant,
and everything's going as planned.
We're gonna keep pushing the limits,
keep putting that gold through the plant.
We're at 2.0, man.
We're just throwing mud across the sluice now.
Worthless. Shut that piece of [bleep] down.
Hey, uh, it's came back just now.
It's just going back-- It's fluctuating up and down.
Twenty to forty, twenty to forty.
[Kyle] You know, all the issues that we've had so far this season,
I'm just surprised we haven't called it quits yet.
[Stefan] We're getting to the point where we need to...
I can't say quit while we're ahead,
but quit before we get further behind.
Fred is... He's too stubborn to do that.
So we're gonna keep running.
And hopefully, you know...
Hopefully we could find that, uh...
big-ass nugget. [chuckles]
[engine spluttering]
Holy [bleep], guys,
what the hell is going on with the [bleep] generator, man?
Yo, yo, yo! We got a fire, dude!
Oh, [bleep]!
[motor powers down]
[engine powers down]
[coughing] Oh, [bleep].
[narrator] In Oregon, Fred Lewis' dreams of saving his season
may have just gone up in smoke.
[bleep]
[Kendell] We got some kind of a major oil leak.
That looks like fresh oil to me, yeah.
I am no mechanic. I don't know what that means.
Could be a bad filter.
Could be a popped head gasket.
Could be all kinds of different things.
Well, what do you think we got to do
to get this bad boy fixed and up and running again, man?
This isn't something that is just gonna, like,
fix itself this afternoon, Fred.
I'm not stopping for this.
Um, you guys just go ahead and get back to work,
and I'll figure this [bleep] piece of [bleep] out.
-We'll get it going. -Yeah, let him do it.
Let him figure it out.
You honestly want to keep dumping money into this?
I want to try and fix this thing and get as much dirt as we can.
-Yeah. I don't want to quit. -You're the mind, boss.
If you want us to keep digging,
then I'll keep digging. I'm with you.
And I love persistence. It gets you where you need to be in life.
But there's persistence and there's stubbornness.
Everything is [bleep] breaking down on this mine.
You're dumping-- You're hemorrhaging money right now.
[sighs]
I mean, like, I just want you to know that's how I'm feeling.
I want to keep digging.
All right. That's where I'm going.
-Thanks, brother. -It's all right.
I'll get it. I'll figure it out.
He's always been stubborn, even since, uh,
while we were in the army together, he was stubborn as hell.
Either way, he said to keep digging until we get that word,
so I'll burn his diesel, I'ma go diggin' my hole.
I feel like all of us have been telling you
for about a week now.
We're spending more money trying to get gold
than we're gonna get in gold back to pay for the operation.
It's getting ready to sleet tomorrow,
that freezing rain stuff is coming.
I think we'd be better off spending the rest of today
getting things prepared for winter.
Everybody came here for gold.
If we stop right now, everyone, literally everyone, gets nothing.
I know it sucks and it doesn't mean defeat,
and it doesn't mean failure,
it just means that's it for this season.
We get ready for next season.
Come back stronger.
-I hate it. -I know.
Well, let's get-- At least get all the guys over here and put it to a vote.
-I want everybody to have a say in it. -I agree.
All right.
Hey, Misfits.
Can I get everybody to meet over here by the generator, please?
So, Khara and I have been talking for a little bit here.
And Khara thinks it's time to stop. But I want to point out,
if we stop right here, right now, everybody gets nothing.
Zero.
I say we cut and run, quit while we're ahead.
Yeah, I'm out. I'm ready to get this over with.
-Stu? -Uh, yeah. I don't want to, but, yeah, it's time to leave.
-Alex? -It's time.
Kendell for the tiebreaker.
Let's stop the bleeding, man.
Well, I mean, it's tough for me to take.
I'm sure it's equally as tough for you guys to take, too.
It feels a lot like failure, but let's not look at the gold total.
Let's not look at all that.
Let's look at what we've done as a team
and how awesome it is to be able to be in this environment
and to work with people we consider brothers.
We've created that for ourselves.
We just have to find better ground and get on better gold.
And if we can do that, sky's the friggin' limit.
So I say we pack up, get the [bleep] out of Dodge and go drink some whiskey.
You guys good with that?
-I'm down. -How do you like that?
-Cool. -Let's get at 'em, guys.
Sometimes, you gotta know when to hold 'em,
you gotta know when to fold 'em,
gotta know when to walk away,
and you gotta know when to run.
So... we're gonna get the [bleep] out of here.
[Rick] We're going to try to get into one of the spots I spied from the helicopter.
[narrator] In the Yukon,
Rick Ness is faced with a choice that could define his future.
Head back to Tony's steady ground on the Indian River
or gamble on nugget-rich pay dirt here on Duncan Creek.
Rick must decide before the season ends,
so he'll bulk test a patch of ground he spotted from the air.
[Rick] A little steeper than it looks.
[bleep]
Whoa! Whoa!
Oh, that's what I was afraid of.
That's all permafrost. [bleep]
Just about took off.
[narrator] The steel tracks of the 54-ton excavator
are fighting for traction on the frozen bank.
All right.
Seatbelt's going on, I guess.
[exhales] [bleep]
Easy. Easy.
[laughs]
Yeah, buddy. Wash my tracks out real nice.
Oh, yeah. Not so bad at all.
Rick's investigating a piece of ground
two miles from his current creek cut.
On a lazy bend, the slower water flow on the inner edge deposits gold.
Rick believes, over thousands of years,
this should have formed a rich layer of pay dirt.
[Rick] Hoping for a quick smash-and-grab, you know.
Dig a little pick, get Kruse in here, test it.
And, uh, hopefully find my future.
[narrator] If Rick hits his 1,000-ounce goal and wants to return to Duncan Creek,
he'll need thawed ground with guaranteed gold.
All right, so far, so good.
Nice and thawed. Already, starting to see
a little bit of gravel in there, but we're looking for the big old boulders.
[bleep] me. It's going deeper than I thought.
[bleep] you, gravel. Where are you?
Um, I'm starting to see the tops of boulders right down here.
It's a little bit deeper than I thought it would be.
But, uh, that's definitely the stuff we're looking for.
Uh, Kruse, I found the stuff we're looking for.
Why don't you get that rock truck back here,
and let's get some of this stuff trucked to the plant.
[narrator] To avoid Rick's steep descent,
Kruse takes a longer route along the creek.
Did Marlon send you out here looking for a moose den?
[laughs]
I'm out here exploring, buddy. Don't you want to explore with me?
We're trying to find ground for next year.
Oh, uh, you're Dora the Explorer today?
Yes, exactly. Exactly.
Oh, yeah. That's some good-looking pay.
Oh, man.
[narrator] Rick's found thawed ground,
but he won't know if he's got a future at Duncan Creek
until he runs it through the wash plant.
Well, why don't you get that on up to the plant?
I'll be waiting here for you. Good luck.
We get about ten truckloads up to the plant and run it, test it, figure it out.
We've sluiced an ungodly amount of material.
[narrator] After working together for seven years,
Parker and Chris Doumitt reflect on their toughest season yet.
I think we're at close to 800,000 yards.
Did you ever think you'd move this much dirt?
[belches] No.
The problem is you get all this gold like this
and there's your fuel and wages and royalties and everything else.
But we need this part,
so we can go hunting for some new ground.
Yeah. No kidding. We're working on it.
You just need to go fetch some more dirt, young man.
[Khara] Hey, babe.
Whoa, look at that. Fire's started and everything.
-We've got a little bowl. -Yeah.
Things changed pretty quickly.
[narrator] As the snow reaches Oregon's Elkhorn Mountains,
Fred Lewis and his crew assemble
for their final gold weigh of the season.
You know, guys, I kind of felt like I had to push a lot this week.
And I know you guys probably thought I was kind of dumb for pushing.
I appreciate you guys having my back and following my stubbornness.
But we got a little more gold,
so thank you.
And sorry.
All right, guys, final gold weigh.
You want to see what you got?
[all] Yeah.
We do.
[Fred] Here we go, that's it.
Point six-six of an ounce.
All right, so that brings our season total of 4.22.
[narrator] Worth just over $8,000.
All right, guys, 4 ounces is really a [bleep] season.
Wow.
But we're investing in this team,
and I think we have to look at that long-term.
We just got to move forward and take it
as a lesson learned and not let it happen again.
'Cause we're better than this.
[Kendell] That's-- 4 ounces
does not show how much effort we've put in here.
-No. -That's for damn sure.
It feels like we should be millionaires
with the amount of stuff that we went through.
-You're not lying. -It really does.
You're not lying.
[all chuckle]
You know, even though we fell short of our goal,
I'm, uh, you know,
I put another skill set in my tool bag.
Um, I got to spend, you know,
all this time with, you know, a bunch of my brothers.
That is one thing I'll never be disappointed in,
and I'll never regret doing it.
[Khara] What really sucks is everybody's going to go home broke.
It's not a good feeling to send these guys
home with nothing in their pockets, like...
I wish that there was some way I had some extra reserves.
I could pay 'em out of my pocket.
I would if I could.
[Fred] 4 ounces for the season is a complete embarrassment.
I'll tell you one thing, I am not looking forward
to having that conversation with Karl
when he asks what our goal total is.
-Well... -[Khara] What is it?
Karl. He left me a voice mail.
[on voice message] Hey, Fred. It's Karl.
We haven't caught up in a few weeks,
and I'm definitely very interested to find out more
about the shutdown. I plan on coming out in a few days.
So, see ya.
[Fred] That [bleep] sucks.
So, Karl's heading our way.
How would you feel if you had to tell a freaking brother
you just lost all his money.
I understand that. Nobody wants to have
those difficult conversations, but they still have to take place.
It's really frustrating to know that there's a pile of pay
sitting up there that we couldn't finish
and a bunch of pay dirt in the ground that we couldn't pull out.
[sighs] I don't know, babe.
I'm wondering if maybe we called it too early.
[narrator] In the Yukon, with an offer on the table
of returning to the reliable gold of Tony Beets'
Indian River ground,
Rick Ness has gone out to see if he can do better on new ground
at Duncan Creek.
[Rick] Oh, yeah.
Well, here we go.
-[Karla Ann] What? -What is that?
That's, uh, what we got out of the test.
That's a lot of gold, actually for...
-Ten truckloads? -Ten truckloads.
-Yeah, it's 200 yards. -200 yards, yeah.
So, you know, two hours of running.
I'm just trying to find good ground for us to go in the future, right?
-[man] Yeah. -And, uh, if this test turns out right,
I think that's pretty good indication.
Oh, yeah, there's that, too.
But we'll get to that.
-[Kruse] I knew there was-- -Honestly, this is more important right now.
[narrator] Ground on the Indian River
typically pays one ounce per 100 yards.
If his 200-yard bulk test is better than that,
Rick's future lies at Duncan Creek.
[Rick] Here we go.
What did we get?
Two, three, holy [bleep].
4.14.
Nice.
That's-- Yeah, I see your--
I see your head working, Kruse.
-Yeah. -That's over 2 ounces per 100 yards.
Yeah.
-That's awesome. Those are good numbers. -Yeah, that's it right there.
Those are good [bleep] numbers.
Honestly, that's... We can make serious money.
An ounce per 100 is-- You're happy.
Like, you could make money at that. 2 ounces per 100,
now you're just laughing.
So this is great news for our future,
but we also have to think about now.
So why don't we add the rest of what we got this week to it.
[narrator] To return to Duncan Creek,
Rick still needs 170 ounces of gold
to hit his 1,000-ounce goal.
But his average so far has been 60.
[Rick] Oh, yeah, this is going to be a good one. 50, 60, 70...
Oh, are we going over 80?
80.66.
-[all whooping] -80.66.
-There it is. -That's awesome.
Just keep going up.
Yeah.
[narrator] Worth $153,000.
[Rick] No, this is awesome.
Our gold weighs keep going up and up. But we still can't,
you know, sit on our hands. If we're gonna hit our 1,000-ounce goal,
we still have just about 100 ounces to go to get there.
And not a whole lot of time, so...
-[Karla Ann] That's a lot of work. -[Kruse] We'll get there, bud.
Good morning.
How are you guys doing?
-Good, good, you? -Good. How's it going?
[narrator] At Scribner Creek,
Parker's crew assembles for their weekly gold weigh.
Well, Shane, with all the tools you have on that truck,
I'm surprised you don't have a belt stretcher.
[all chuckling]
[Shane] How did the gold look after this week of
[bleep] ups and breakdowns?
Not as impressive as last week,
let's put it that way.
Or the week before, or the week before,
or the week before and before.
But, I can show you the results.
We can weigh 'em up.
-This is Red, you want to count it up? -[man] Yes, sir.
[narrator] So far this season,
Big Red's averaged over 200 ounces per week.
10, 20, 30, 50, 90...
You want to finish it off?
'Cause that's embarrassing.
103.70.
[narrator] Worth $197,000.
-[Doumitt] Well, this is Sluicifer. -[Alec] All right.
Let's see what we got.
[Doumitt] I'll try to make it slow, so it sounds like a lot.
...30, 50...
65.75.
[narrator] Way below Sluicifer's average
of 225 ounces.
-[Doumitt] 65.7... -[men chattering]
This is by far our worst week...
[man] I'll say.
-For a total of 169,000 ounces. -[bleep]
[narrator] This week's haul takes Parker's season total
to just under $13 million,
but still 430 ounces short of his best-ever season total.
If we want to have a good season,
we-- you got to keep those plants running.
-[man] Yeah. -[Parker] Unfortunately.
[chuckling]
If there was-- if there was a better way,
we would be doing it. But, Alec and Shane,
I just really want to thank you guys.
[Shane] Oh, no problem. We're just here...
-Thanks, Parker. -...helping out.
[Parker] I know. And that's what's great about it,
is you guys don't have the attitude of,
you know, saving the day,
but you guys do continue to, non-stop. And I appreciate it.
Cheers to you guys.
-[man] Yeah. -[man 2] To our mechanics, right?
Thanks, guys.
[Shane] No problem.
I'll drink to that.
Cheers.
[narrator] Next time on theGold Rush season finale...
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] The tide turns on Tony Beets.
[Fred] After losing all his money, I've got to convince Karl
that we're good enough to invest in in another season.
If not, we're done.
[narrator] Fred Lewis' mining future hangs in the balance.
Fred, what would you say to me if you were in my shoes?
[man] I don't know if I can hold it.
[narrator] Rick Ness changes the course of his season.
I was hoping we'd find some chunky gold.
And here it is.
-What the hell's going on? -[bleep]
[narrator] And Parker closes in on his best season ever.
It'll work, Tyson.
It's gonna wash them rocks.
Our record is 7,400, and for this season, we have...