[Tony speaking]
[Parker] Got a late start but we're gonna hopefully have a good season,
and it's unreal how much gold price is at.
[Rick] I didn't come up here to not hit my goal this year, and we're so close.
[Fred] You know, one thing we learn in the military
is you always shoot through a target.
I feel like until this tells me
without a shadow of a doubt we can't push any further,
we're gonna keep pushing.
[narrator] On this Gold Rush,
at the end of their shortest season ever...
Man, we gotta prove that we can do this.
...Fred Lewis and his crew fight for survival.
If Mother Nature's gonna stop us,
it's gonna take a lot more than this.
-Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! -[man] Kyle!
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] The Beets throw a Hail Mary to hit their goal.
[Tony speaking]
[Rick] That's all she's got.
I don't know if I can hold it.
[narrator] Rick Ness...
[Rick] Whoa.
[narrator] ...makes a final stand for redemption.
Well, I was hoping we'd find some chunky gold,
and, uh, here it is.
Some nice, coarse gold, that is.
-Whoa! Hang on. Stop the feeder. -That one, too?
[narrator] And with gold prices at an all-time high,
Parker goes for broke...
[Parker] We're gonna need some horsepower.
Holy [bleep]!
[man] What the hell's going on? [bleep]
Most we ever got in a year was 7,400.
-[woman] Ooh, so we're pretty close. -Yeah.
[narrator] ...chasing a record-breaking gold total.
140, 170, 200.
[narrator] October...
...two weeks after the Yukon winter
has normally shut the miners down.
Rick Ness is in a race to beat the freeze.
[Rick] There's no disguising it now,
the snow's been coming down for a bit.
We're near the end here.
[narrator] After the pandemic forced him to start six weeks late,
Rick set a goal of 1,000 ounces.
But to hit that and pay his crew a gold bonus,
he still needs to produce another 94 ounces.
[Rick] I ran the numbers,
and if we keep doing what we're doing,
we're gonna be frozen outta here before we get our goal.
We've got a limited amount of time,
and we better be running the best dirt we can find.
The best gold that we got all season
was right next to this creek bed.
It's where we found the big one-and-a-half ounce nugget.
[narrator] Inspired by finding a massive chunk of gold in the lazy bend...
That's a beauty. Like, that's worth some serious money.
...Rick's embarking on a high-risk nugget hunt to get him to his goal.
[Rick] I'm gonna divert the creek next to this lazy bend,
and we're gonna run the creek bed.
There's absolutely no way of cutting corners on this.
As far as the permits and everything goes,
there's some pretty strict guidelines
on how you have to do this.
You don't wanna wreck the environment.
[narrator] The lazy bend has delivered good gold
for the last two weeks,
and the gold's gotten better
as he's gotten closer to the river's edge.
Gambling on the pay getting even richer,
Rick now wants to mine the creek itself.
To reach it, he'll bring in the 700 excavator,
dig a new channel,
and divert the entire river,
exposing a 500-yard section of creek bed pay dirt
that could deliver a massive pay day.
I've got the channel all done, so all that's left is to
pull the plug on this creek diversion.
So it's going really good.
What I'm finishing up is basically just armoring the banks
with some big rock and all that riprap.
What that does is when the water starts flowing through here,
we won't be able to wash the banks away.
Actually leaving rock in the middle of the creek bed to,
building some fish habitat.
There's...there's all kinds of stuff and permits to be able to do this.
This last-ditch effort, for me,
it's all about redemption from last year.
I don't like one bad season,
and I'm not willing to go for two.
It ain't gonna happen again.
And for my crew, it's about a bigger gold bonus.
Now it's just a matter of pride,
and a matter of how much [bleep] gold
those guys are going home with.
All right. Here we go.
The water's coming.
Oh, yeah, I like that.
It's a big moment when you actually finally cut that water through.
It really is because, you know, you can plan for as much as you want,
but you don't really know, you know, what it's gonna look like.
You know, and this might not be the Mississippi River,
um, but there's still a lot of water going through here.
I'm really happy with how it looks.
The old creek bed should dry right up,
and we can start pulling the gold out of it,
and get it for the [bleep] damn launch money.
[Chris] Stuff looks good.
There's tons of big boulders in it.
It looks like the stuff we want.
Well, hopefully, it's the heaviest load of dirt you haul all year, Kruse,
'cause it should have all the gold in it.
It feels really, really heavy in the truck, I'll tell you that much.
There must be a ton of gold in there.
Well, that's when you know you've spent too much time in a rock truck, right?
You can tell the difference through the machine.
[honks]
[Rick] There we go, pal. Get it up to the plant.
[narrator] The creek bed pay in Kruse's truck
could be the difference between failure and success.
There's definitely no secret that last year,
Rick spent a lot of time and a lot of money,
uh, chasing big nuggets on a hunch.
It blew up in his face last year,
and I don't wanna see that happen again this year.
[Rick] Kind of a last-minute Hail Mary here.
Hopefully it pays off.
If not, we might have wasted the little bit of time we have
left till the end of the season.
[cell phone ringing]
[narrator] In Oregon's Elkhorn Mountains,
Fred Lewis' dream of striking it rich
is fading fast.
[cell phone continues ringing]
-[Fred] Well... -[Khara] Who's that?
[Fred] Karl. He left me a voicemail.
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, uh, see ya. Karl.
That [bleep] sucks.
So, Karl's heading our way.
What do you think he's gonna say?
[Fred] I have no idea.
[narrator] Over the last seven weeks,
Fred's combat buddy, Karl Smith,
has invested $35,000
to keep Fred's operation afloat.
Compared to my other investments,
there's a lot of risk here, Fred.
The biggest investment you can make
is not in the gold that we're gonna get
this year, but in the team.
But at the end of the day, this is business,
and I expect to get the full return.
[man] Yo, yo, yo! We got a fire in here!
[Fred] Get to the plant!
[narrator] But after a series of equipment failures...
[Fred] I ain't no mechanic. I don't know what that means.
...the crew called time on their season.
We just gotta move forward and take it as a lesson learned,
and not let it happen again.
[sighs] I don't know, babe.
I'm wondering, if Karl comes here and he sees this,
why aren't we mining?
Yeah, I can see that.
If this is what you think we need to do...
-[Fred] I think it's what we have to do. -All right.
[Fred] I brought Karl on board as an investor.
I don't really have anything to pay him right now, so...
I'm not really sure how that's gonna work out.
But Karl's a good friend.
As long as I can convince him that we did come out here
and create a great team, we're all miners now,
and we can make money doing this,
I'm sure he's gonna be by my side.
Guys, rally on me.
Um...
Look, guys, Karl's coming pretty soon,
and I think that, uh, if we're gonna have a chance at next season,
I don't want Karl to think we're gonna quit.
We gotta prove to Karl that we can do this,
and I think if we stop now, we might fall short.
I think we got one more week in us.
You're joking, right?
[Fred] I wish I was.
Hey, man, I thought we made this team decision
that [bleep], we're packing up.
And we know this weather's coming in.
I don't like it, as much as you guys don't like it,
but we need to look past this season at this point.
We're gonna have to sell that we can mine,
and right now, I don't think we've done that enough.
We need to give him more gold.
Look, man, if you wanna go for one more week...
I'm already here. I'll [bleep] give it to you, but after that...
-...that's it. -Okay.
If you want seven more days, that's gonna...
that's gonna be the end.
There is no re-calling family and telling 'em,
"Sorry. We're gonna go another week."
You're right.
-You're in? -I'm in.
Let's [bleep] do it.
All right, guys. I appreciate you guys having my six.
I know that we've come together as a team and it's showing right now,
because most people would tell the boss to [bleep] off
if they wanted to do something like this, but you guys ready to go mine?
[man] Hell, yeah, man. Let's do it.
-[Fred] All right. Thank you, guys. -[Khara] Let's do it.
A lot, uh, more wintery than I thought it was gonna be.
[man] To say the least.
[Fred] Look, guys, I know this looks bad,
but I think we can push through this little bit of a freeze.
There's still a lot of pay dirt up there,
and hopefully the weather will turn.
[man] How many other people do you think are still mining right now?
I think all the professionals have already packed it up.
[man] Oh, okay.
[man 1] You got your lighter?
[man 2] Yeah.
[laughs]
[bleep]
-Do you got ten thousand lighters? -Yep.
Because we're gonna need 'em.
[grunts softly]
Hey.
Hey, Kendell, just out of curiosity, man,
how's this gonna work with the snow?
[Kendell laughs]
It's not going to work well, to be quite honest,
but, you know, we promised Fred a couple more days.
-We'll... -...give him a couple more days.
...get this water pump going.
If we got everything and everything looks good. Fire it up.
All right, man, let me, uh...
I'll take care of the rest of the sluice.
I'll do lay flats
Okay, perfect.
We're pressing on. We're gonna see if we can get this [bleep]
started in this freezing cold weather.
It might take a miracle at this point.
You know, one thing we learn in the military
is you always shoot through a target.
Right now, our target is to get this plant up
and running, so we can get more pay dirt.
If Mother Nature's gonna stop us,
it's gonna take a lot more than this.
[Kendell] Well, we'll give it our best here.
Never know what the hell's gonna happen.
[bleep] it!
Let's run it.
[engine sputtering]
[Kendell] It's alive!
Keep going, baby.
[man] Well...
try that again.
[engine starting]
Holy [bleep]!
I can't believe that started.
All right. Let's fire it up.
All right, everybody. Winter ain't got [bleep] on us.
Let's get that gold.
[Parker] It's crazy that we're at the end of another season.
Everybody's done really good, you know.
It's the final stretch right now,
and everybody seems to be holding strong,
which is important.
Just worried about the weather.
It's gonna become minus 15 and not warm up.
[narrator] All season, Parker Schnabel has been building a war chest,
to open a new operation in Alaska.
Now, he's just 400 ounces short
of his best-ever gold total.
But winter could shut him down any day.
There's still a bit of pay in that Airstrip Extension piece.
And we have to get it out this year
because we need to strip into there.
If we don't get the pay out, it...
not only do you have less than a good season,
but then it screws up your next season,
so it's a double-edged sword
if we don't get everything out...
and sluiced.
[narrator] On the east side of the cut,
Sluicifer has 20,000 yards of pay dirt still to run.
But on the west, Big Red is about to run out.
[Parker] I think the best thing to do
is gonna be to just shut down Big Red
and dedicate all our resources to Sluicifer.
Shutting down Big Red just lets us focus totally on
keeping Sluicifer going.
-[Tyson] Hey, bud. -[Parker] Howdy.
We've done a lot of sluicing...
-Yeah, we have. -...this summer.
We've washed some rocks.
[Tyson] Yep. Pretty much ready for the final clean-up here.
I guess we'll shut it down
and just live or die by Sluicifer's hand.
Right on, man.
-Thanks, Tyson. -Thanks.
Hey, and I really appreciate you
keeping these [bleep] plants running all summer.
-No worries. -You've done a great job.
[Tyson] Thanks.
Yeah, you know, we figured that we'd shut Big Red down
after it's done the last bit of pay under it,
and we've let Sluicifer do its thing.
Just finish off where it's at.
You know, the weather could take a turn for the worst any day now,
but the call has been made, so that's what we'll do.
Figure out where Shane wants this stuff.
-He's getting everything ready for the snow. -[Parker] Yeah.
[narrator] After running it 24/7 for the last five months,
the crew tear down Big Red...
[man 1] Working with the finest in the Yukon.
[man 2] Oh, yeah.
[narrator] ...and haul it two miles to the yard
to start vital repairs
and make sure it can run again next year.
[man] Big Red worked a lot of hours. Now it needs lots of TLC.
Lots of welding and fabbing.
It takes time. There's lots of stuff that needs doing.
We gotta get these pits cleaned out.
It's not long now. Hopefully we can get through it all.
Yeah.
[loud thud]
[Parker] Whoa!
What was that?
[man] It's a rock.
[narrator] If the trapped rock tears the belt,
Parker will have no way to feed the plant.
Gets a funny bounce, hits the side rails and goes in.
[Parker] We're gonna need some horsepower.
I need a bar, or a hammer or something.
Oh, I might get it.
With Big Red shut down, we gotta make sure
this thing stays running.
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] After five months of sluicing,
Tony Beets has mined 2,600 ounces of gold.
[narrator] To hit his 3,000-ounce goal,
in the last few days of the season,
Tony will have to double down.
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] Tony can't afford to miss his goal a second time.
He's already banked 250 ounces
from the old-timer tailings,
and is now hoping to pull another 50
to get him closer to his season goal.
It just goes to show how you can still find treasures
that these old timers left behind.
We can push hard,
and I can help Tony reach that 3,000-ounce goal.
[Terrance] It's nice to get the shaker deck back up after being down.
We need both plants going 24/7.
We can go home in the wintertime with a smile on our face
and a pocketful of cash.
Between the shaker deck and Mike's trommel...
hopefully we can get to our goal.
It doesn't need to go long.
It's just gotta do the final [bleep] stretch.
[Tony speaking]
-Go for Kevin. -[Tony speaking]
[engine stops]
[narrator] The 20-year-old pipe
that supplies the trommel has failed.
[Cody] Go ahead.
[Cody] Okay, I'm already there.
[Cody] Yeah, I know.
It's a bit of a big deal. It's down there on the road,
and it's just been washed completely out.
It's a big [bleep] problem.
[narrator] In just 15 minutes, expert welder Cody
has the patch in place.
[Cody] I think that's it.
-[man] Job well done. -[Cody] Yeah. Sweet.
[narrator] Time to fire up the pump
and get back to mining for gold.
[bleep]
That's quite a leak.
Got another [bleep] leak down here at the pump.
With this piston like this,
it is impossible to run the [bleep] trommel.
And this hole in the pipe...
however many thousand feet of it, is full of water.
We don't have time to let it drain.
So we're just gonna do a hot patch.
Except it's not gonna be a hot patch.
It's gonna be [bleep] wet.
There
Another shot
Let go.
What are we gonna do with that?
The problem is, we've got this little pisser...
and we got [bleep] ...to put the patch on it.
And now it's turned into a little bit of a waterfall.
You can weld with a little bit of wet,
but this is pretty wet.
[narrator] Cody can't weld the pipe
with water pouring out of the hole,
but to drain the half-mile pipeline
and then refill it
would shut them down for the rest of the day.
Kevin, Kevin, Kevin.
-[Kevin on radio] What's up? -How long would it take to drain that line?
[Kevin speaking]
[man] There's Kevin.
[Cody] It'll take a long [bleep] time to drain that, wouldn't it?
No, no. There's that big check valve right before the pump.
Oh. So it won't drain past check, though. Okay.
[narrator] Kevin's valve, uphill from the pump,
can isolate the bottom section of the pipe in just minutes.
[Cody] Now lock her up, and let's see what she does.
Well, that was [bleep] quick.
As soon as that' s drained, Cody can get the trommel going again.
-Give you a call. -Sounds like a plan.
That's done. Flash this pump up.
Kevin, Kevin, Kevin.
[man] Should be good to start her up whenever you want.
Hoping nothing else [bleep] up 'cause if we're gonna reach our 3,000 ounces,
we gotta run some [bleep] yardage.
[Shane] We're near the end of the season,
it's almost done.
Loader down here,
just getting through the sluicing, and, uh,
we can call it a wrap for the end of the season.
It's been a long one.
[narrator] On Indian River, Parker's crew
rush to run the final 20,000 yards of pay
from the Airstrip Extension through Sluicifer,
before freezing temperatures end their season.
Holy [bleep]!
What the hell is going on?
[bleep]
I'll go hit the water.
[bleep]
[Shane] That's all we need now.
I've pretty much had enough of this [bleep].
What the [bleep] is going on here?
[Brennan] Looks like we've cooked the motor.
Oh, man, she's [bleep] hot.
This drive motor's smoked right out.
Oh, [bleep] Here comes Parker, boys.
Oh, man.
-His boss timing is down pat, man. -[man 1] Yeah. Yeah.
[man 2] All right, you're telling him what happened, not me.
[man 1] Oh, [bleep]. Here comes Parker, boys.
[man 2] Oh, man.
-His boss timing is down pat, man. -[man 2] Yeah. Yeah.
[man 3] All right, you're telling him what happened, not me.
[narrator] To make up time from the late start,
Sluicifer has been run to its limits all season.
Now its main electric drive motor
has burned out.
[man] We got a bit of a [bleep] show here.
Was something on fire?
[man] Yeah, that motor lit up on us.
Yeah, don't touch it, it's pretty warm.
[groans]
It won't start?
[man] She's a brick, man.
That's, like, twice the horsepower of Big Red's, isn't it?
Big Red's motor is smaller than this one,
it won't run this plant.
What about just getting Bid Red goin' again, though?
Well, it's already to the yard, I got it ripped half apart.
By the time I get it back together,
well, it's gonna be frozen, so...
We don't have anything in the yard that will work for this.
[Shane] We're done.
That's it. We're not doing this.
What do we have left for pay?
[man] Oh, a good couple of days, man.
Yeah.
[Parker] I don't see us getting this thing running again.
So I'm gonna start working on options, then.
Let's do a clean-up.
Get the gold out of the plant.
If you guys can think of any other options, let me know.
Okay, we'll start tearing it apart.
-All right. All right. Thanks, guys. -[man] Good.
Well, that's a little depressing.
I mean, we only had a couple days left,
and there's some good gold out there.
It's kind of a shame to shut it down.
It'd be nice to get it all sluiced,
'cause we'll be flooded when we come back in the spring.
Hopefully, Parker can find something
and we can get it fixed in time.
It'd be nice to get it to run.
man, if it isn't one thing, it's [bleep] another around here.
Like we just got a few days left to go in the
airstrip extension, fill the water chests
and hopefully get to Alaska.
Now this, I mean sluice season season might be over.
and Parker can [bleep]
pull a miracle out of his hat.
[narrator] Without a wash plant,
they can't finish the cut,
or get the gold they need
for a record-breaking season total.
[Parker] Yeah, with this wash plant going down,
it's a pretty big problem.
My grandpa had an old electric motor
running his... the feeder on our wash plant
at Porcupine at Big Nugget Mine.
And that thing was underneath the feeder,
and it would just be, like, absolutely caked in dirt.
Like, he'd have to dig through a half a yard of dirt
just to see this thing.
And it ran like that for, like, 23 years.
This thing... Those guys keep that so clean and tidy
and no leaks on the motors
or belts or anything like that,
and... [sighs]
I'm beating myself up for it pretty bad because that's [bleep] up.
We either need to find a new motor, which,
that's not a very common thing around here,
or, I don't know, figure something out.
But we can't leave that pay in the pit.
So I better get on the...
Better get on the old blower.
Come on.
[Dozer whining]
There you go. Got your ball, good.
Got our priorities straight.
Well, we definitely only got a limited time left here.
By sluicing this creek bed,
we're gonna get the best of the best.
If we can run it all,
we're gonna hit our goal.
[narrator] Rick Ness is in a last-ditch gamble.
He's running pay dirt from the creek bed
he hopes contains enough nuggety gold
to get him to his thousand-ounce season goal,
before winter hits.
We're all just hoping that this creek diversion
has got enough gold in it.
Go home with some money in our pocket.
Diverting this creek,
the sole purpose is get us over our goal.
Fingers crossed. Let there be gold.
[creaking]
[bleep]
Are you serious?
Hey, Rick, Rick, you gotta copy, Rick.
You gotta come down with the hopper feeder here, we got a problem.
[bleep]
The hinge has actually fallen off the back
and the grizzlies are being held on
just by the hydraulics.
It's like a game-over issue.
Holy [bleep]. What happened now?
Holy [bleep].
[bleep]
Well, that's [bleep] now.
We don't have time to fix this.
We'll have to go back to feeding it with the excavator,
and that means we're gonna have to turn it down.
Let's [bleep] dig this thing out,
get it out of here.
[narrator] Rick's chance of hitting a thousand ounces
depends on removing his broken hopper feeder
and getting the last of the creek bed pay through the plant.
I don't think it's gonna want to go down.
And that ramp's not gonna want to go straight back in anymore.
So, rather than add another 15 grand to the bill,
I think we just pull the pins on the [bleep] ramps.
-[man] Yeah. -And just get 'em right out of there.
Well, I was thinking,
if we come up the tele handler,
stick the forks up through that... up through the grizzly
and kinda gently pull it back into its resting position...
So that's not a bad idea Mike.
I'm just going to go get it. Let's see if it works.
It's gonna slow us right down.
We're gonna lose a ton of yardage per hour.
A thousand ounces is kind of looking a little bit grim now.
There goes half our production of yardage through the plant.
The slowed down production now is a huge deal.
I mean...
We're pressed for time, like...
We could be waking up, and there could be a foot of snow on the ground.
This is not something that a bush fix is going to work on it.
Basically we're gonna have to rebuild the hopper itself.
I wish I could say, "Yeah, if Carl was here, it'd would be no big deal.
He'd get us back up and running," but...
Uh, not even our buddy Carl to fix this bad boy.
[narrator] The telehandler's telescopic boom
gives Rick the reach...
[Rick] There you go.
...but the grizzly bars weigh nearly three tons.
[Rick] It's all she's got.
I don't know if I can hold it.
Is it too heavy?
It's [bleep] heavy, man.
[Rick] According to my chart,
I'm still good for about 6,000 pounds.
Hopefully, that's enough.
But it's probably gonna be just, just there.
Careful, buddy...
I don't know what's gonna happen
once all the weight's on the forks here.
Hopefully the ass end stays on the ground.
Otherwise I'm going for a ride.
[bleep] tight, man.
I don't know what it is.
It could be the weight of the grizzly bars right now
that's causing pressure on the pin.
I'm guessin' I might have to
move it around a bit.
I think maybe come down a little bit.
Okay.
[Ben] This is a very scary moment right now.
Because the back hinges are already broken off.
If this side decides to fail,
that telehandler will flip right over.
And Rick will go with it.
[Rick] Let's go.
[creaking]
[Rick] Whoa.
[creaking]
[Rick] Whoa.
There you go.
Beauty.
[bleep] yeah!
Team work!
Yeah!
[narrator] With the pin out,
Rick can finally lower the grizzly bars.
[Rick] This thing's gonna need a lot of work
to be productive for us again.
And it ain't gonna be this year, so...
Now we gotta
yank the [bleep] thing out of here.
[narrator] A steel pipe is welded to the loader bucket
to hitch the hopper feeder.
Hopefully this works.
The plan is to drive the loader over to the hopper feeder
right at the front of fifth wheel hitch.
Well, basically, put this tube right through it,
we'll anchor it underneath and then use the...
a loader as basically a transport truck.
Just back our way down the road
and get this guy out of here to get it fixed.
All right.
Get this [bleep] outta here.
Today sucks.
We're gonna have to slow the plant down...
We're gonna have to go back to loading with an excavator,
but we still have creek bed pay.
[Rick] Try to run it as fast as we can,
before winter comes here
and sends us all home.
We've gotta get the rest of this pay sluice that we have.
[narrator] Parker Schnabel is in trouble.
He needs to run another 10,000 yards of pay.
He has two plants,
but Big Red is in pieces
for a winter refit.
And relentless running
has burned out the motor on Sluicifer.
So one of our neighbors has this old wash plant
sat over here, that one.
[narrator] So he's rented an old 120-yard-an-hour plant,
for the week.
[Parker] It's definitely not anything like our wash plant.
Oh, yeah.
So this is what it's come to?
[Parker] This is where we're at.
Hmm.
[Tyson] Just one screen deck, eh?
[Parker] Huh. It doesn't look bad.
Probably not, like, 200-yard-an-hour plant.
[Tyson] Oh, yeah.
Think it runs?
[Tyson] I don't know. I sure hope so.
[engine starts]
[Oh, yeah.]
Is that what 120 yards an hour looks like?
[laughs]
It runs.
It'll work, Tyson.
It's gonna wash them rocks.
[Tyson] Oh, yeah.
[Parker] Come on, Dozer.
I don't think it's been ran in a little while.
You know, the biggest problem's
gonna be that that thing is a lot less yardage.
And so we just need to get it set up
and going before it's too late.
[narrator] The big freeze is just days away,
and this rented plant runs half as much dirt
as Sluicifer.
Every second counts.
[Tyson] This is pretty desperate measures, man.
[chuckles]
Yeah, just keep an eye on that conveyor, Alec.
[Alec] Ten-four, I'll follow you.
Hey, Alec, how are things looking from your end?
[Alec] Uh, looking pretty sketchy, but I'm hoping they hold in there.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, easy on the side to side stuff there.
[screeching]
-[clattering] -Whoa, shaking everywhere. It's shaking everywhere.
Tyson, stop it!
[laughs]
[bleep]
Got our shoot dragging.
[Tyson] Guess these things are meant for boats
and not for dragging wash plants, eh?
We're almost there. Let's keep dragging her and keep an eye on her and...
-let's get her home. -Yeah.
And we're good.
Oh, [bleep]! Yeah bud!
Whoo!
[narrator] After three hours, the borrowed plant
is finally in position.
It's time to fire up and run the last
of the season's pay dirt.
Hey, Brennan!
Good job.
Well, you think of any names for this thing or what?
[Parker] What do you think of Little Hope?
-Yeah, Little Hope. -[man laughs]
-See if she wants to wash any rock for us. -Yeah.
Let's go fire this old girl up.
[engine sputtering]
[engine starts]
We got water.
What a thing of beauty.
We got water going, so that's the first part,
but looks like a pretty slow-going wash plant.
First scoop.
[narrator] Most screen decks are designed
to vibrate up and down,
but Little Hope uses an oscillating deck
that shakes from side to side.
The last bit of the Airstrip Extension.
It might not be
the ideal wash plant or the ideal scenario,
but it's what we have and it's what we're making work.
It's all just pilin' up at the top.
Are you sure we can't slow this feeder down any more?
This is our feed control.
It's literally set all the way down.
This at its slowest is almost
pushing this wash plant over the edge.
[man] Whoa! Hang on! Stop the feeder.
Kill the feeder?
Both feeders.
That one, too?
Like, just [bleep], like, nothing in it, man.
[narrator] Parker's crew have overfed and blocked Little Hope.
The only way to clear it,
shovel it out by hand.
Hand sluicing counts, right?
[laughs]
I don't think there's anybody left
in the area right now mining.
We are.
[narrator] In Oregon, after four days running
above freezing,
the temperature has again plummeted.
Fred Lewis' investor is on the way
to find out why they shut down.
So Fred's crew has decided to fire back up
and bank as much as they can
before he arrives.
I feel like until this tells me,
without a shadow of a doubt,
we can't push any further,
we're gonna keep pushing.
Well, we got an issue with the ponds being froze over,
but that's what we do.
Find out our problems...
we figure out how to break 'em, fix 'em.
We just keep going.
That's what we do.
We definitely wasn't expecting this much of a freeze.
You know, we're a little bit lower elevation down there,
but as long as Alex can break that pond
right there and get water going to the kernel,
we should be able to still get some pay dirt.
And we still got a little push left in us.
I think the ice has met its match.
All right, here we go.
Oh! Ice, ice, baby.
Yeah!
Just a little bit of ice, nothing we can't destroy.
[Alex] There she goes!
[chuckles]
Fire it up, ready to go.
All right! Send the water! We're ready.
[Stuart] That's not good.
Ugh, [bleep] me.
Hey, Fred, one of the hoses didn't drain.
I think it's solid, it's frozen solid.
I'm en route.
[bleep] Damn it.
That's [bleep]... Yeah.
All right dude, this is probably too big to move by hand.
Let's get Kyle over here in the loader
-and just drag it out. -Yeah, there we go.
Hey, Kyle, I need you to come on down next to the pump
and drag this frozen hose out of the way.
Frozen. [coughs]
[chuckles]
We're just trying to fight the weather right now.
Dangerous as hell. I've gotta back up a really steep grade.
Narrow road, I'm right next to this pond the whole time.
'Cause it's definitely sketchy.
Wrap that sucker around it.
Get the [bleep] out of here,
let's put the new lay flat down,
and keep going.
Fred, watch your feet right there.
Whoa, whoa!
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
Whoa, whoa!
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
Yeah, that's slidin' a lot right there.
-Is he sliding? -Yeah.
It's kind of at a funny angle.
Oh, [bleep].
Yeah.
-Come forward a little bit. -Yeah, come forward straight.
Hold on.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Kyle!
Hold on, buddy.
Oh, man, he's got no traction.
No, man, it's icy as [bleep].
Dude, your bucket actually saved you.
I might have to just kind of crawl up
with the bucket one little bit at a time, you know,
and dig in a little and pull, dig in, and pull.
[bleep]
[man] Go forward.
Push forward.
There you go, there you go.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
Whoa, whoa, whoa!
Hey, Kyle.
-Hey! Hey! -No.
You know to get off this hill, man.
Slide up, slide down, I don't know what's going on.
You're sitting on a sheet of ice right now.
This is gonna get worse and worse here.
Fred, you gotta think. Every minute that we're here,
it's getting colder. Hell, the forecast is almost a foot of snow tomorrow.
-Yeah. -What do you think is gonna happen?
Everything's gonna keep freezing.
Everything's gonna keep breaking.
Kyle just about slid down the hill.
Come on, man.
That's kind of scared the [bleep] out of me.
[Fred] I agree.
I don't think it's safe to push any further at this point.
I don't wanna see something like that again.
Pop smoke, get out, bud.
It's time.
Um, don't think of this as a failure, guys.
We are gonna bring home something that we didn't have before,
and that's this team.
And if we can convince Karl
to invest in us, I think this is just the beginning.
Yeah, well, we plugged it.
-Huh? -We plugged it.
-What do you mean? -It's not spinning.
That end is going like stink and --
Well, it's 'cause all the weight
is right above the belt right now.
Probably 'cause there's too much weight.
[man] Just shut this thing off.
[engine powering down]
[laughs]
Right now I'm thinking one bucket in the hopper,
-six over the edge. -[man laughs]
Maybe at even steeper ratio if it keeps going like this.
It's been a pain in the ass for us to try and get going.
Alec was saying maybe we have to
try and adjust the oscillating deck to go a little faster,
turn the rpm up on it.
Since you know what it's like when you've got a pant that isn't yours and you're renting
You don't want to go have everything cranked to the max of the back
and have something [bleep] up because it's too much.
Um, there's not a whole lot of dirt
that fell into that oscillator.
But it has seemed to be too much weight for it,
and none of the rock has made it down.
You know, we got chunks of bedrock in there,
but, um...
Trying to get a bit of weight out of there right now.
Fire it back up, see if we can get it spinning again.
Add some more water,
and hopefully that'll get the [bleep] down
onto the tailings and out of there.
What a [bleep] pain in the ass.
Yeah. How... how does this sound, Alec??
You can run this thing for three days, I'll go pan for three days?
And we'll see who ends up with more gold.
[laughs]
Want to turn up the rpms a bit, Alec?
-[Alec] On this? -Yeah.
What have we got here?
I don't know. Main?
I don't know what the [bleep] is going on.
Oh. It's not the feeding that's the problem.
[bleep] making it out on the feeder, it's in the screen deck.
It's just not moving.
There's a lot more pressure on that screen deck now.
[narrator] In an attempt to run the last of the pay dirt
before winter hits,
Parker's crew push his new borrowed wash plant to its limit.
But it keeps getting blocked.
How's it going, Parker?
Good, how's our new wash plant?
-[Alec] Fabulous. -How much are we running?
We put four loader buckets in it
in about an hour and a half.
Well, like, what's the problem?
Man, it just keeps plugging up
with the big boulders that make it to the grizzly bars,
they're just sitting in the top deck.
And then they're just not moving anywhere.
But they just sit on the deck?
Yeah, they sit on the deck,
and then they plug up,
and rock just jams in behind it,
and it doesn't move down the deck.
Like, we've had some good runs with her,
like, we've had a good 30, 45 seconds
before it starts pluggin' up.
Okay, let's try just pickin' the flat end up
and give the deck some slope.
[Tyson] Right on.
[narrator] Parker's plan, use an excavator
and wooden blocks to tilt the shaker deck downwards,
to roll any large rocks off the deck
and on to the tailings conveyor.
[creaking]
[Parker] Keep going.
I'm done, Brennan.
Here, I'll shove that.
[chuckles]
[Parker] Now maybe it'll do 30 yards an hour.
[bleep], man. You're pumping through it.
[laughs]
Holy [bleep].
He's jumpin' in, [bleep] get ready.
Get water goin'.
Parker's in the loader.
Are you having [bleep] fun?
Yeah. [laughs]
I turned the feeder rate up.
Holy [bleep], man! [laughs]
Sounds like somebody wants to shovel.
Is it... is it doing better?
Yeah, I'd say.
Should we crank her up?
No, this is good.
I mean, it's not the fastest thing in the world,
but it's getting rocks washed.
-[man] Yeah. -Yeah, it's hard to believe
we made it to this point,
after everything went down, belts tearing, feeders...
-Yeah. -Nonstop torture for two weeks.
If only we had, like, way more ground to sluice, right?
[man] Oh, this thing can handle it, man.
[laughing]
[narrator] Overnight, Paradise Hill
has had six inches of snow,
and it's still falling.
Tony's run 50,000 yards
through the trommel this week,
and 15,000 yards of tailings
through the shaker deck.
But he has no way of knowing
if he's run enough pay to hit his 3,000-ounce goal.
[Minnie] Good. How are you?
[Minnie] You gonna pull the plug?
[Tony speaking]
You think you're gonna have 400-plus ounces?
[Kevin] Go for Kevin.
[Tony speaking]
-[Kevin] Here I go. -[engine powering down]
[Tony speaking]
That's it. Tony is shutting us down.
And I'm so happy to be done. [chuckling]
Mother Nature shut us down.
There's no fighting that.
Not even Tony Beets can fight that.
Well, there's definitely yellow in there.
Hopefully there's enough of it.
Pan all that on the trommel
The mats are cold and stiff and it sucks.
But... final clean up, so can't be all that bad.
Ooh.
She pretty much ran all season, right, Monica?
Yeah, she ran pretty solid,
except for every time I watched it breaking down.
Yeah, that's true.
We had a hole in the pipes,
we had to redo the punch plate 'cause that was all worn out,
the distributor, ...the gear box got [bleep] up
We had rocks through the trommel...
But... I mean... It's still the work horse
of this whole mining operation,
'cause it's really the only thing that's worked all [bleep] day long.
'Cause I didn't. Whoop.
Everything's good. Mats are out.
[bleep] hopefully back ready for next year.
That's that for the trommel. Good night.
-[Ruby] Hey, hey. -[Minnie] Hi, guys.
[narrator] Since mid-May,
the Beets family has run three quarters of a million yards of pay dirt
through their wash plants
in a bid to hit their 3,000-ounce target.
That last clean-up, when we pulled all the mats Kevin.
it was quite nice-looking.
Yeah, actually. It was pretty yellow throughout.
To get to that 3,000-ounce goal,
we need about 404 ounces.
[narrator] The Uppercut needs to deliver.
Ready to weigh up the trommel now?
20.
40, 80.
100, 110.
160.
200.
260, 290.
300.
321, 330.
340, 350.
351.36.
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] Worth $660,000.
[Kevin] Okay.
[narrator] To hit their season goal,
Tony's old-timer tailings need to produce
at least 53 ounces.
10, 20, 30.
40, 50.
60.
70.
80.
83.1.
So, Mom, what's our season total?
3,030.26.
[all cheering]
-[Monica] Wait. -[Tony speaks]
3030 is better than 2020.
[all laughing]
[narrator] The Beets have mined $5.6 million
worth of gold this season.
Oh.
[narrator] Fired up by hitting his target,
Tony is thinking way bigger for next season.
[Tony speaking]
Wanna have a little side bet here, buddy?
If I win, I get a new truck, red one.
If you win, you'll get three SUVs.
Sure.
9,000, not an ounce less.
[Monica] Started? No, no, no. We're closing up.
[bleep] That doesn't look like that wants to run at all.
[narrator] 110 miles east,
winter has also hit hard,
but Rick Ness still has a pile of pay from the creek bed,
and he hasn't yet hit his 1,000-ounce goal.
She looks a little bit frosty.
Yeah. Well, that's why I came out here.
Really, I hate to break it to her,
-but she got to go one more time. -[laughs]
You want to do this one more day, huh?
[bleep] yeah.
Why do you think we're out there
scraping that [bleep] out of the creek bottom?
This is the [bleep] I dread every year.
And these temperatures under these conditions,
nobody's gonna be happy about doing this.
Not gonna be just as easy as turning it on
like every other morning.
It's gonna be [bleep] process
'cause this thing's gonna be frozen up solid.
So, what do you say, one last time?
[Karla] You don't think it's gonna hinder us, if things are frozen?
Nothing really likes the cold, right?
I mean, everything is taking longer and longer to start.
The wash plant's kind of hurting.
Usually, when you're running at these temperatures, on equipment,
it [bleep] starts breaking,
and it gets costly.
I don't know if you noticed,
but there's a pile of pay back there.
We didn't divert the creek, scrape all that up
just to leave it in a pile here for the winter.
As far as I'm concerned, we're still here, we can still run material.
And you're right. Like, if we don't thaw this thing out right,
there's no use running it, so we're gonna have to spend the time.
I've been here for five months. What's one more day?
We're so close to our goal.
This one more day could push us over the edge.
[Rick] If that becomes a trend, of us not hitting our goal,
then I... I don't want to do this.
Like, I probably won't be able to do this.
So, you guys have been with me since the start.
One more day, let's see what we can get out of it.
If it's there, it's there.
We'll hit our goal, we'll go home happy.
We're all in. We're here till the end.
-[man 1] Let's run it. -[man 2] Yeah.
[Rick] Well, I think we're gonna need some fire.
-Should we light 'em up? -Light 'em up.
[man] This is just a part of the process and the first step.
There's a lot of room for error here
in all kinds of different ways.
But Rick is right. We came up here to meet our goal.
This diversion better pay off.
If we don't thaw this plant out properly.
there's really no use of even running it.
The [bleep] water line's got ice in 'em.
We get one shot at this.
Take the time to do it right, fire this thing up
I came up here to get a thousand ounces of gold this year.
And... we're gonna do whatever the [bleep] it takes to get there.
It's not easy doing this right now,
especially in these temperatures.
It'll all be worth it if we can get this thing running,
and run that pay through the plant here,
and go home with some money in our pocket.
Little more?
It's fine. Any more, and we're gonna burn it.
Oh, boy.
[narrator] Rick fires up the pump.
[engine starts]
[sputters]
-Or not. -[laughing]
[engine starts]
Yeah, baby.
Here comes the water.
Tastes like victory.
It's good.
Well, the hard part's over.
The water's moving, let's fire this thing up and run the dirt through it.
-Let's do this. -Sounds good.
[bleep]
[narrator] Rick is counting on the last 100 yards of creek bed pay dirt
to get him to his goal.
It's all or nothing this morning here.
We've got snow, everything's frozen.
We're so close to the end here.
[Rick] Not willing to leave here until we run it all.
I want to know how much gold is in there this year.
We're just gonna keep on going till we're done.
[Ben] It's not easy with this cold weather right now.
We're just hoping this thing pays off.
This new Rick that I'm a big fan of,
all about getting [bleep] done.
He's sticking it out, and I'll stick it out with him.
I mean, this is pretty much it, Karla.
We're just about ready to clean up for the season.
I hope this works out.
I kind of put my balls out there on this one.
I mean, after last year, like,
this has to work out.
Well, it looks like that's the last bucket right there, so...
-[Karla] Sweet. -[Rick] ...fingers crossed.
[Kendell] Well, I'm glad we're wrapping it up now.
A lot of these guys have never even been around equipment before,
so to make them into a team,
where everyone can work together,
well, that's mission accomplished here, for sure.
So, as much as everyone would hope
that we would have more gold,
uh, when it comes down to it,
we got a group of guys
who are willing to go to battle for one another,
and that's pretty invaluable.
Kendell
-Well... -There it is, man.
-That's it. -End of the season.
-Yeah. -Ready to get this [bleep] done?
Yeah, dude. I'm ready.
Whoo!
I mean, look at this place.
-We've flipped this entire side upside down... -Yeah.
-...shook her out like a grade school bully. -Yeah.
Came up here and picked him up
-shook out all the gold coins. -Yeah.
That's it. That's the last of our extra time here.
-You've been great to work with, dude. -Yeah, likewise.
-And... -Likewise.
-I just hope we'll be able to keep doing this. -I know.
All right.
Well, dude...
grab these things and... we're done, dude.
-It's insane. -It's the end of the elk horn.
Yeah, that's kinda crazy.
[narrator] In Oregon, freezing temperatures
have forced Fred Lewis to call time on his season
after just four days running.
My major focus here was to give these guys a new purpose.
You know, a lot of them are coming out of the military,
they're in that awkward transition,
trying to figure things out,
and I think that was a freaking success this season.
[narrator] After sinking $40,000 into Fred's operation
eight weeks ago,
investor Karl Smith is back for the final reckoning.
[Khara] Hey, man.
-[Karl] Hey, Khara. How are you? -[Khara] Good.
Long time no see.
[Fred] It's kind of time to face the music here with Karl,
'cause I've got to convince him, after losing all his money,
that we're good enough to invest in another season.
If not, we're done.
All right, guys, this is the last gold weigh of the season.
Well, shoot, man. Let's see what we've got.
Some big chunks.
1.93 ounces.
That's our best clean-up yet this season.
We got lucky.
That puts our total at 6.39,
which is, honestly, embarrassing.
[narrator] In their rookie season,
Fred's crew have mined just $12,000 worth of gold,
not even enough to cover their fuel.
[Fred] But we've coped with every single obstacle thrown at us,
and we've kicked it right in the face,
and we pulled what we could out of this ground.
I don't think anybody could have done any better.
What do you guys think?
Is that your statement?
Yeah. Yeah, that is beyond true.
-Yeah. -[man] Nobody would get
any more gold out of that ground.
[Fred] We didn't lose any of it.
If there was eight ounces in that ground,
it'd be in that pan right there.
Just never were able to hit that spot
that had the right gold in it.
You didn't find that pay dirt?
This is called spending dirt.
If we can't get more gold out of this ground...
that means this is the end.
Fred, what would you say to me if you were in my shoes?
I don't know what I would tell you if I was you.
That's a tough decision.
[exhales]
I mean, we're brothers, so I don't know. I don't know.
[stammers] From a business standpoint, this is kind of risky,
and this is kind of a [bleep] show season.
But, um, if you're willing to go for another year,
I know, with as much as we've learned,
we can get you that money back.
The way I see it, I've got, uh, two options,
walk away, or we can double down,
and you guys can go find some good ground...
and we can make back my money.
[clears throat] Why don't we do this?
You guys go find the ground, and we'll talk.
Are you saying that you're still interested in investing?
'Cause this team is one hell of a team.
I mean, I look around, and I see
one damn good group of guys.
So I want you guys to prove to me that the ground is good,
and I'll invest more money.
We'll start on that right now. [grunts]
This team has really impressed me
despite the low amount of gold.
-[man 1] Whoo! -[man 2] Let's do it.
[Karl] If I walk away now, I'll lose everything.
The only way for me to make more money
is to put my faith in Fred,
and tell him to go find a better claim and find that pay dirt.
[Fred] You know, we came out here, we learned a lot.
The next season, we're gonna hit
the ground running.
We're gonna pay back all this debt,
and we're gonna get to the point
where we're actually gonna be putting gold in our pockets.
[all] Let's get that gold!
[indistinct chatter]
[man] Oh. He lives.
[narrator] Mechanic Carl has returned to the Yukon
after four weeks away for back surgery,
just in time to see if Rick has hit his 1,000-ounce goal.
Oh, back in time for the gold bonus.
-[Carl] How you doing, man? -I don't blame ya.
-[Carl] Good to see you. -I'm all right.
I'm glad I'm here. I'm glad to get to see this, Rick, so...
[Rick] Yeah. We're glad you came back, buddy.
-You deserve to be here. -[Carl] Yeah.
That's for sure.
You know, after last year, we had to try to be more conscientious about money
and being smart, right?
We made it happen this year in a big way.
-[Carl] Yeah. -With the time we had, holy [bleep].
Yeah. It's been awesome having you down there every day.
Leading by example is the way to do it,
and you figured it out this year, bud.
Well, that was kind of the decision I made this year, right?
Like, I... A desk is not where I belong.
I sure drove a long way to see what we've got for gold here, buddy.
So what you got?
[narrator] Rick risked everything
on opening a new cut in the creek bed
in the hope that it would deliver enough nuggets
to hit his goal and give his crew a gold bonus.
Part of the reason we diverted the creek was, uh,
you know, we found that monster gold nugget there.
So I was hoping we would find some chunky gold,
and, uh, here it is.
-You know, we got some nice, coarse gold out of there. -[man laughs]
[bleep] Oh, yeah.
[bleep]
-Holy [bleep]. -[man] That's cool.
That's unreal.
I want to see that fine gold.
I know that's the stuff that adds up.
[laughs]
[narrator] Rick's just 90 ounces short of his goal.
[Rick] It just kind of keeps going.
-[man] What? -It just kind of keeps going.
[Rick] And then, the scale goes to "E".
Holy crap.
[bleep] yeah, buddy.
[Rick] It's actually too much for our scale, but I already weighed it.
And I tell you guys that last week we did 178 ounces.
Yes!
-[narrator] Rick's biggest-ever gold weigh... -Whoo!
...is twice what he needed.
His hunch that the creek bed contained gold nuggets
has paid out big time.
So we're at just over 1,080 ounces.
[narrator] A year ago, Rick was on the brink of failure.
But this season, he's led his crew
to bank gold worth just over $2 million.
Completely different season this year, man.
It's good to see some gold on the table.
It feels good to share this with my friends.
You guys are the ones that stuck through it last year,
and you came back, right?
And now, you're gonna benefit from it.
We need some more out here.
[Karla] It's never-ending.
[Rick] This represents you guys' bonuses.
-[Carl] Unreal. -[all laughing]
That speaks to all of your characters.
And I can't thank you enough for coming back.
If we hadn't done this this year...
I don't know that there would have been another year.
And you guys made it happen, and I appreciate it.
Started this season with my friends and ended it with my friends.
Appreciate it.
-Cheers. -Cheers.
[narrator] When Rick diverted the creek,
he wasn't just thinking about the nuggets,
he also had to consider the environment.
[Rick] It's clear already. Look at that.
I think it looks... I think it looks really good.
I know that I can take good pictures of this
and send it to the government,
and I know that they're gonna love how it looks.
You know, these things are touchy
because you gotta do 'em right.
I put all this stuff in here.
Like, you see those groups of rock right there in the middle?
I've put in a fish habitat.
I've got a deep hole on the other side of it, right?
So that's where fish can kind of just hang out,
and, you know, not in the current.
I like to think about, like, fish hanging out right there
and just being like, "Oh, this is a pretty sweet spot,"
and I'm like, "You're welcome, fish."
[laughing]
[man] Get into that thing. Point right at it.
[coughing]
Oh, yeah. Big money.
[man 1] Hit the brakes really hard.
[Parker] I told him I was gonna launch him into the lake.
Parker, Parker, are you ready to get this show on the road?
Have you got some gold, Chris?
I've got a lot of gold.
No, for the last week of the season,
it worked out really good, you guys.
It was pretty impressive.
You know, we had... You pulled up that third plant.
Oh, yeah. Did it make all the difference?
It... It made a difference.
[laughter]
So, anyway, I got the scale up on the porch
if you wanna see how we did this year.
[narrator] After five months of grueling work,
it's time for Parker's final gold weigh of the season.
[Chris] This is what you're looking for right there.
-[woman] Holy... -[man] Oh, wow.
Wait, Chris, where were we at right before these numbers?
[Chris] Okay, so right now,
we're at 6,988 ounces.
So, we've had a hell of a good season.
-[Chris] A hell of a season. -Yeah.
[narrator] But Parker's crew is hoping to set a new record.
[Chris] The most we ever got in a year
-was 7,400. -[woman] Ooh.
-So we're pretty close. -Yeah.
[narrator] To top his best season ever,
Parker needs his three plants this week
to deliver just over 400 ounces.
[Chris] We're gonna weigh up Sluicifer first.
Tyson. Here we go.
-[Tyson] 20, 40. -[Parker] The pan's about to fall off the scale.
[Tyson] 60, 80.
100.
140, 170.
200.
225.95.
-Yeah. -[laughing]
[Chris] Good job, you guys.
Brennan. This is Red.
40, 60, 80.
112.65.
[Chris] So, it was a good run, you guys.
-You both did well. -[Brennan] Yeah.
I wish Rick was here to enjoy this.
-[Chris] Yeah, no kidding. -[Brennan] He was a big part of that.
-But we also have one more plant to go, right? -Right.
The real killer.
He's about to pull a [bleep] five-gallon pail out of there right now.
All right. So here we go. This is Little Hope.
[narrator] To hit that record,
Little Hope needs to deliver just 73 ounces.
[Shane] 20, 30, 40, 50, 60.
100, 128.
150.
178.3.
Oh, yeah!
[Chris] You guys, you just broke another record.
-Whoo! -Whoo!
[Chris] The record is 7,400,
and for this season, we have 7,504.9 ounces.
-[man] Nailed it. -Cheers, guys.
[woman] Best year ever!
Free beer on Parker.
[laughter]
[narrator] In a year where the pandemic
could have stopped his season,
Parker and his crew have mined 7,500 ounces,
more gold than ever before.
Worth almost $14 million.
Topping their previous record by $4 million.
[Chris] Now, Parker's got a job.
He actually has to do something.
-He... -[laughter]
He's gotta find us new ground.
I'm really thankful that we didn't
drag that virus in the camp,
'cause [bleep], I had nightmares about that.
And one of the nice things about having a good season
when the gold prices are good is it gives us options.
There's a block of ground for sale in Alaska right now that I'm really interested in.
But I, you know, love what we've got going on here,
and don't wanna sideline that at all.
So...
in terms of, you know, what's next,
to everybody here that's here now,
your spot's open next year.
And I hope that you're all here.
And, um...
And here's to many more.
Cheers, guys.
[all cheering]
-[man] Let's go home. -[all laughing]
And a big one for Parker.
[all cheering]
Thanks.