[calm music plays]
We've got a lot of sluicing time in so far this season.
The plants are running really well, but it doesn't mean
we can take our foot off the gas.
[narrator] Parker Schnabel's season is at a critical point.
Two-thirds of the way in, he's banked over $23 million,
but he's spending close to a million a week,
and his gold hauls are slipping.
[Parker] We've got Bob in the Bridge Cut.
I'm not worried about it.
That ground's been open a while.
It's plugging away.
We've got Mitch with Roxanne on the Indian River.
He's got a good handle on that.
My main concern is the Golden Mile and what we do in there,
because probably most of the gold that we're going
to find is going to come out of there, but also those pits
cannot be left with pay in them this year.
And it screws the whole mining plan up if that happens.
So, that's my main concern right now.
And I'm probably going to be stepping on Tyson's toes
a little bit, but we just have to stay on top of that.
This season, Parker has foreman Tyson Lee running
three washplants with Bob in the Bridge Cut and Sluicifer
and Big Red in the Golden Mile, churning through a combined
total of 680 yards of paydirt an hour.
We have a major problem.
With the depth of pay,
what's going to happen to us at the end of the season?
And the knock-on effect of what's going to happen to us
next year if we don't get those pits all out,
at least out, right?
We don't have to necessarily get them sluiced,
but the dirt can't be in the hole anymore.
Right.
Because if the dirt's still in the hole, we can't strip
the next bite into those pits.
And then it's just like the knock-on effect of all
of that causes like a huge amount of pain
and suffering and heartache. -[Tyson] Yeah, sure.
It's just where do we put it that we can sluice it once
we start stripping?
[Parker] I think we should start hauling it out.
We have a lot of big waste sites of gravel, right,
that we could just start making pay piles on top of.
How long do we have to get this done, then?
In my mind, we have to get at least half of it out
in the next, like, seven days.
And who do I have to get this done?
[Parker] Your plant crews.
You shut down both Sluicifer and Big Red.
Parker's mined the Golden Mile for four months.
But with winter fast approaching, he's behind
schedule, with over 300,000 yards of pay
still left in the cut.
To get it all out, he's gambling on shutting down
both washplants, which will cost him three quarters
of a million in lost gold each week.
He'll use the plant crews to help haul the remaining pay out
into two massive stockpiles.
Then he can start stripping overburden from a new cut
into the mined-out Golden Mile,
while Tyson's crew races to sluice as much of the pay pile
before winter hits.
I don't know another option, do you?
I get what you're saying by, "We don't have to sluice it this
year," but it sucks doing that because when have we not
sluiced something we've pulled out of a pit?
I know, but when have we had a pit that needed to get
stripped into and we didn't get the pay out of it?
That's a bigger problem.
Right, there's no chance of getting anyone from the Indian
to come up?
If you absolutely have to, you can talk to Mitch
about taking trucks from Ken and Stuart's.
Well, I wish there was another way, but it doesn't seem like
there is, eh? -No, there's not.
I don't really see another option, so I think we're just
going to have to bite the bullet.
Well, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but thank you.
Oh, that really breaks Tyson's heart.
He loves washplants to be washing.
As do I.
But there's not much you can do about this situation.
We were either gonna have a situation like this now
or a much worse situation in the end of the season.
And I really don't like...
[bleep] over our future selves.
Much rather [bleep] the present than the future.
[Tyson] Hey, Amy, you got a copy, Amy?
[Amy] Copy.
[Tyson] Well, that can be your last scoop there.
We're shutting down both plants.
[plant winds down]
You know, these plants pull out
millions of dollars of gold out of the ground.
It's a big gamble shutting down two washplants in the middle
of the season -- we've never done this before.
So we got to focus on getting that pay out of the Golden Mile,
up in massive stockpiles,
so we can fire our washplants back up.
So here we go.
Now we're going to shut her down.
Holy [bleep].
[plant powers down]
You know, I really hope this gamble pays off.
In due time, we'll find out.
[ominous music plays]
Unlike Parker, Klondike kingpin Tony Beets
is running flat out.
He's already hauled in $19 million in gold and is fast
closing in on his 6,500 ounce goal.
[Tony speaking]
Things like to break, consistently.
It's been [bleep] nothing but a headache this year
trying to get [bleep] going.
I got it going,
and I'm still going, and I'm going to keep on going,
but it doesn't mean I can't ask
when the [bleep] is it going to stop?
At the start of the season, Mike made a pitch to his dad
to run his own claim.
You gave Kevin a bunch of help getting him going.
Is there anything you can help us with?
But he spent four months struggling with
a skeleton crew.
[Minnie] Mike really wants to impress his father,
and that's sometimes a little hard.
And last week, when he finally fired up the trommel...
...his plans fell apart...
[Mike speaking]
...in front of his family.
[Tony speaking]
[Mike] Hey, Len.
You gonna show me all the rollers you put in?
[Len] Yes! If you go up here, I can show you.
So I put five rollers in it.
Hopefully, you don't have the same problem than before.
That should stop anything from kicking over.
Let's see how it works.
[Mike] OK, then we'll start it up.
The whole thing, hopefully, will work this time.
[plant powers up]
[rattling heavily]
Over the past six seasons, Paradise Hill has delivered
almost 20,000 ounces of gold,
worth over $70 million.
Now, Mike is ready to run a stockpiled mountain of fabled
white channel pay if he can just keep the trommel turning.
[Colby] All right, here we go.
First bucket going into the trommel.
Late start, but a late start is better than no start.
[Minnie] Hey, Mike, I thought I heard something moving.
One sec.
Colby, stop.
[plant powers down]
The belt's tracking over real bad that way.
-We got to [bleep] adjust it. -OK.
Yeah, we just gotta [bleep] with the belt.
The belt decided to [bleep] off in the wrong direction.
We're resetting the whole [bleep] thing up,
so I'm not surprised it's doing this and that.
There's always something going on, right, to get it right.
We're just going to have to keep adjusting it
until she does start to work.
[Minnie] It's not too big of a job, is it?
[Mike] No.
It's going to change the moment dirt hits it, Len.
It did move over by about an inch or two
by the looks of it.
-Want to give it another try? -Yeah.
-Start it up. -Yep.
OK, let's get this show on the road.
Kind of a sight for sore eyes, ain't it?
[bleep] finally, about time.
[Minnie] It's good to get some money out of here, eh?
[Mike] Yeah, it'll be nice.
Now it's set up, and it should be good for quite a while.
So, I mean, he's proven himself, so it's good for him
to get his own shot, too. Same as Kevin, right?
So far, so good. It's working for now.
I've been having so many one step forward,
two step backs that I'm not getting my hopes up,
I'm not getting excited.
Until I get a week in, I ain't saying [bleep].
It's turning, that's all that really matters right now.
[ominous music plays]
[Rick] This is not where we want to be.
Our gold total is very low.
We're a little less than 500 ounces,
and we're looking for 1,800.
Rick Ness is gambling on turning his season around
on a huge new cut, Valhalla.
But three weeks into the big dig, he's still not hit
paydirt and is burning cash fast.
It's easy to give up out here,
it is, you know, especially when
[bleep]'s going wrong, like we've had.
It's a mental game.
You can say, "I'm going home, this ain't going to work."
Or you can put your head down, work harder and make it work.
We're fighting for our lives.
Sometimes that's where a guy thrives,
and we'll see this year.
It's a lot to take on, but everybody's up for it.
Rick believes Valhalla has 160 feet of overburden that covers
a gold-rich pay layer.
He has already dug halfway down, shifting enough dirt
to fill over half of the Empire State Building.
Rick still has to remove another 80 feet to hit an area
of gold-rich pay the size of a football field,
then sluice it all by the end of the season.
[Rick] I made the decision to extend the cut.
It's a risk, no doubt about that, but with the amount
of time that we've got left in the season and what we've got
to work with, there's really no choice.
There's definitely no guarantee that this is going to work,
but there never is in mining,
so we've just got to suck it up.
Rick has just six crew, and he's thrown everyone
into trucks to help move the mountain of overburden.
From his cook, Heather...
[Heather] Oh, you know, just killing it.
Only two jobs today, kitchen and here.
...to his mechanic, Ryan.
Yeah, I'm in a truck. We're struggling.
Nobody likes a rock truck.
If you like a rock truck, you're a [bleep] liar.
We definitely have been waiting a long time, hauling
overburden just to be able
to get payout, which is kind of a pain in the ass.
We could always have a couple more trucks.
Hey, Ryan.
So what's your thoughts on Rick's plan
for this expansion here?
[Ryan] I think we got an assload of dirt to move.
It's definitely bigger than
the last time we did Vegas Valley.
And I do worry about timing.
If we have one thing go down, something happens to that 750,
there's no way we're going to hit 1,800 ounces.
Yeah, it is true, man.
You know, this is the [bleep].
We need more [bleep] rock truck drivers because being
stuck in this [bleep] rock truck
when I should be working on equipment,
that doesn't make any [bleep] sense.
After his shift, Ryan sits down with his family before
he leaves with them for a short break from the claim.
[Ryan] You want to learn how to drive a rock truck?
-Yeah. -[laughing]
Sold, sold. I'll tell Rick.
We'll get you your paperwork and get you going.
[all chuckling]
You've been gone quite a few months, so it's been pretty
hard back home. -[Ryan] It's still, it's tough.
But obviously we're up here
to make a better life for ourselves.
And, you know, the first two seasons we've hit our goal,
and it's helped us in life.
-[Rachael] Yeah. -So, you know, this one here,
this -- this is going to be a struggle.
So it's kind of a...
I don't know, touch-and-go subject with
how much gold we brought in this year.
We haven't even -- we haven't done [bleep].
Yeah. That's kind of scary.
You know, I guess that's another question to just --
you know, I mean, how do you feel to continue?
You do, like, miss out on everything at home.
-Oh, yeah. -Like, I don't know, just...
everything.
[Ryan] Yep.
[laughing]
-[Ryan] It's tough. -Yeah, I gotta quit crying.
[Ryan] It is, it is tough.
Yeah, I mean, I haven't had a summer in three years.
Yeah, like going to the lake or just like vacations
or just like anything.
Obviously, we rely on the gold bonus to, you know, that's what
we're working for, and I don't know if it's there.
And right now, we're barely cutting the bills, so...
I just wonder, you know, at what point do you just,
like, have to, I don't know, just call it a day -[Ryan] Yeah.
and just be back with us, you know?
-[Ryan] How many relationships last -Yeah.
if they don't see each other for six months, so...
Want Daddy to keep coming back?
-No. -No?
[Ryan over radio] Hey, Rick.
I got [bleep] bothering me.
I just want to talk to you about it.
Down here at Monster Red.
[ominous music plays]
[Rick] What's the scoop?
Honestly, I had a long talk with Rachael.
You know, I've got to think about my future and leaving
them home alone all the time. It's just not easy on them.
You know, that's, uh, I don't know.
[Ryan] I want to be in all different places at once.
It's tough. There's a lot to think about.
I, I, I...
I'll tell you this, like, as far as people goes,
um, you're -- I mean,
lack of a title, I mean, you're my go-to guy out here.
It's always going to be in the back of your mind of,
[bleep], are we going to see a bonus this year?
My family relies on it, and I always want to make sure
there's food on the table,
and that's my number-one concern.
I don't take that lightly, you know what I mean?
I never have. I'm not going to lie.
I mean, we don't finish this, or we don't get
to the bottom of it, or we get to the bottom of it,
there's no gold this year, I don't know how to survive that.
And that's when it starts [bleep] with your head,
especially when you're in a rock truck all day.
Uh...
I think there's a few things that you're gonna have
to ponder about.
Like, [bleep], dude, your cut is double now.
It's a [bleep] cut, man.
You know, this is aggressive.
We're hoping the [bleep] money's in the ground, but, yeah.
We won't really know it until we get down there.
But with the price of gold, doing what it's doing, it does
not take that much gold to make it profitable.
All it takes is one bad season to lose everything.
It's a gamble with the amount of gold we brought in.
I mean, we've all talked,
so everybody's got their concerns.
I'd hate to see this crew change.
[pensive music plays]
I know he's been stressed out. I get worried that
he might just call it quits, leave us right now,
just bail on us in the middle of the season, cause
he's got a business at home, he's got a family at home,
and that's a lot to leave behind.
It's...
[sighs]
[Ryan] All right, let's go.
Now, as Ryan leaves to take his family home,
he has a big decision to make.
[Ryan] It's been a tough week.
You know, I got to think about things at home and think about
the things I'm missing and think about the situations
I put them in.
I don't know. There's a lot going on.
Got a lot to think about.
[ominous music plays]
[machine whirring]
[Tyson] So you know, we got Sluicifer and Big Red shut down.
Up in the Golden Mile, we have our sluicing crew
in trucks, in excavators, getting that mass volume of pay
in a stockpile.
Parker Schnabel's crew has shut down both plants to focus
on clearing half the remaining pay
out of the Golden Mile by the end of the week.
But foreman Tyson fears it will take longer and cost even more
in lost gold.
You know, right now, we're stretched so thin
up here at Dominion.
Although we have a lot of resources, we have a lot
of the work up here.
So we need all the help we can get.
Hey, Mitch, you got a copy, Mitch?
Yeah, dude, what's up?
Hey, man, we're gonna need one of your trucks
up here at Dominion.
We got a mountain of pay to move.
Dude, I only have two trucks.
It's gonna leave me with one truck.
I gotta keep a washplant going 24 hours a day.
Foreman Mitch Blaschke
is running one of Parker's remaining
two plants still sluicing.
[Tyson] Yeah, I know it's not ideal, but this comes from the top,
so we got to make it happen here.
[Mitch] Well, if that's what Parker wants, like,
I mean, I can send Sean up there with a truck,
but you guys need to get it done as fast as possible
because this plant's going to run out of dirt here.
[Tyson] Alrighty. Thanks, man.
Unreal, dude, like...
[mimicking Tyson] "Yeah, make it work.
"Oh, you're making it work with hardly anything?
"OK.
We'll see if you can do it with a little less."
Yo, Sean. Hey, man.
[Sean] Yeah, go ahead.
Take that truck up to Dominion.
They got to get a bunch of dirt moved out of the Golden Mile,
and they need everything we got.
So get up there as fast as you can.
Just get it done and rip back here.
Yeah, I'm on my way.
Parker needs all hands on deck at Dominion.
It's not the best thing that we can do down here.
We know we got so much to get through here.
Mitch ain't too happy about it.
The crew is so stretched
that even Parker is helping out
in the Golden Mile, dozing pay into windrows for the rock
trucks to haul to the stockpiles.
So basically, the best hope we have of kind of staying on
target is bringing all the pay out to a big stockpile
as fast as we can.
So there's a lot going on up here right now.
It's kind of all hands on deck.
It's a lot of dirt to move.
Up until the last few weeks,
I thought we'd had 10,000 ounces in the bag,
I thought we'd have it by now.
But it's proving to be a bit elusive.
Sean, in the vital extra rock truck, is only halfway
into the 15 miles of rough mine roads
between the Indian River and Dominion.
[truck bangs, sputters]
What the [bleep] is that?
Truck's not going nowhere.
[bleep]!
[bleep] Man.
[bleep]!
[sighs]
That's not good.
I've been hearing this noise, and I knew it sounded
like a U-joint.
So this is going to take some time.
Hopefully, he can get down here and fix this soon enough.
Taylor, you got a copy? Taylor?
No answer.
[bleep]!
Mitch wasn't too happy about me leaving, and now Parker's not
gonna be too happy about me not making it there.
[drill whirring]
Right now...
it ain't going to be driving [bleep] all.
There's no repairing this end of the driveshaft,
'cause, uh...
the yoke here where the U-joint mounts,
part of it's snapped clean off.
That's toast.
On the road to Dominion, mechanic Taylor Matejka
is under the gun to fix a rock truck
desperately needed to help
Parker's Golden Mile blitz.
I just got back to Dominion.
We do have a boneyard here. We do have a few options.
I think they've all been pretty ransacked, so I'm 50-50
on my level of hope for that.
[suspenseful music plays]
This is where I'm most hopeful.
Um...
This is one from before we ever bought the place.
This is the closest I've ever been to it, but...
[sighs] [bleep]
The drive shaft's obviously been hijacked as well.
That's a bad start.
If we can't find one, we might be in trouble.
Every hour is super important right now for all
of our trucks. It's crazy.
We're running everything 24/7.
So we got one more junkyard here.
It's where things go to die.
It's possible, though. We gotta never say never.
You wanna come along?
OK.
A lot of this stuff is either just junk or taken off
of old machines and [bleep].
I mean like, you got a bunch of coolant pipes here.
Like, a lot of it is just failed components as well.
But holy [bleep].
Look at this!
Ah-ha-ha-ha!
[bleep] yeah!
This means we've got a bit of work to do,
but we can get that truck going.
So, end of the day today, that thing will be moving dirt.
Taylor's rock truck fix can't come soon enough
for Brennan Ruault, who's also been drafted in
from their Indian River operation.
Up here in the Golden Mile, helping Tyson out.
I'm loading some trucks here.
Just seems to be sucking up every single resource.
I'm sure if he had 100 people here, we'd still don't feel like
there's enough equipment and machinery.
It's just crazy busy.
So, I really need that truck running.
[suspenseful music plays]
[Taylor] We'll get this truck up and running,
hell or high water.
[grunts]
It's a pretty delicate balance,
speed versus meticulousness.
Try to do both.
If you overextend in one, you fail in the other.
All right.
That's her.
Every truck on site, we're needing down
to the Golden Mile, so we need to get this thing
up and running ASAP.
Tyson's going to be super stoked we got this thing going.
[Sean] Hey, Tyson, I'm here now.
I heard you got some pay to be moved.
I thought you were taking the day off, man.
-Didn't think I'd see you today. -Hell yeah, brother.
-We'll get her done, man. -[Tyson] That's awesome.
It's what we need to get this project done.
Tyson now has a shot to get half the payout by Parker's
end of week deadline.
[Tyson] Hopefully we can pull it off.
[Bailey] Come on! Let's get to it!
At the Valhalla Cut, Rick's only mechanic, Ryan,
has left with his family to think through his mining
future, and his remaining five crew are racing to get
down to pay.
Yeah, I'm excited to finally see some gold out of "Vahalla."
This sounds stupid as [bleep], but, uh...
It's "Valhalla."
We're going to get some Valhalla gold here soon, buddy.
[bleep] right.
My life is on the line here, but the amount of dirt that
these guys can move, with not ideal situations and not
the amount of people that's necessary, is surprising.
Like, it's more than surprising.
It's amazing. It's gonna work.
I usually know the gold's gonna be there.
I've started to learn to trust my gut out here, and so far,
it's paying off.
[Chris] Rock trucks sucks today. The roads are rough.
[truck rattles, powers down]
What the [bleep] was that?
That didn't sound good.
[ominous music plays]
-Hey, buddy. -What's up?
I think my drive shaft's [bleep] -- the rear one.
[Kai] Let's take a look.
It's the rear drive shaft.
Yeah, she's [bleep].
[bleep]!
Hello, Rick. Gear, copy.
[Rick] Yeah, go ahead, buddy.
[Chris] Yeah, this truck, it looks like I blew
the rear drive shaft.
She's going to be down for a bit while Kai and I try
and figure this out and see if we got parts.
Are you [bleep] kidding me?
What the [bleep] is going on out there?
Limp this thing into the yard, I guess.
[rattling softly]
I've done this one other time, and it was with Ryan.
I'm glad he showed me how to do it, because
here we are without Ryan.
So, we need to get [bleep] done somehow.
What was the other one, Kai, 17?
-[Kai] No, eight -- 18 ratchet wrench. -Yeah, got that.
[Kai] And a 19 regular wrench.
We just have to pull the driveshaft off,
put the new one on, and it should be ready to rip.
[drill whirring]
Yeah, it really sucks not having Ryan here,
especially when [bleep] like this goes wrong
and we are already down a truck.
[drill whirring]
There we go.
[Chris] It appears to have worked, Kai.
Yeah, It's definitely not what we want to see, a truck down
and only have two working.
You know, I'm here sitting waiting for trucks,
and, you know, three is barely enough and two is definitely
not enough.
We might have to grind this other bolt off.
[revving]
[Chris] You done?
-[Kai] I will be in a sec. -You got your socket?
No, hold on.
-Agh! Nope, that's tightened. -[Chris] Yep.
[whirring] Oh, [bleep], that hurt.
[hissing sharply]
[hissing stops]
I'm just trying to fix this [bleep] rock truck,
and it just seems like today's one of those days
where nothing's [bleep] going right,
especially after I broke a rock truck.
I had a fitting fail on the airline, so then I got
covered in dust and [bleep], but whatever, it is what it is.
[Kai] Well, we've taken the truck apart as far as we can take it.
We're just not licensed mechanics.
It's just everything's a mess.
Hey, Rick, you got a copy?
Go for Rick.
Without Ryan, I'm about as far as I can get without,
you know, taking the risk that
I [bleep] something else up on here.
Oh, you're [bleep] kidding me.
That's just [bleep] more bad news
than I don't need right now.
You know, we're so far away from our 1,800 ounce target.
It's a nightmare without Ryan here.
I know that right now.
I knew the chances were good, that, you know,
we'd be [bleep] without a mechanic,
and it's all coming true.
[ominous music plays]
We're in it. We're hitting it hard.
We're going, going, going. So now it's nice.
It's fine. It's good.
The trommel is going through dirt faster than I even thought
it would. It's almost scary.
At Paradise Hill, with the trommel now eating
through the gold-rich white channel pay at over 350 yards
an hour, Mike is digging paydirt in the super pit,
racing to stay ahead.
I guarantee you, my plant alone does what two, three
of those Macons my dad has does.
The trommel goes through it like [bleep] wild.
Hey, Colby, Colby, it's racing here.
There's no water running through the trommel here.
I think we might have to shut it down.
[Colby] What the [bleep]? What the [bleep]?
[trommel powers down]
For [bleep] sakes.
[water gushing]
Yeah, Mike, can you get here as soon as you can?
The line blew off the pump.
Made a big mess here in the lower yard.
Pipe busted off. Still pumping water.
It's a big mess. Almost washed out the pump.
It's a good thing we caught it when we did.
If I can actually start sluicing steady for more
than [bleep] two hours...
I don't drink, but this [bleep] sure is
encouraging the behavior.
Hose just ripped itself off.
It's probably because all the weight from the water
and pressure from up top just created enough pressure to rip
the hose right off.
So now, I'm gonna have to disconnect
this whole [bleep] thing.
I'm gonna have to move a check valve,
reset up this whole [bleep] thing,
and then I'm gonna have to weld a solid steel line.
No more [bleep] around.
I want a solid [bleep] pipe.
Because every [bleep] time something blows off,
it's cost me so much time.
And I am so absolutely sick of [bleep] with this thing.
We got to pick this up.
We're going to lift the check valve.
Pick that thing up. Get that out.
Watch your fingers.
Oh, that might be the problem.
Don't touch nothing yet. Shut it off.
It's on backwards.
The check valve was on backwards.
So here, come here. I'll show you.
The check valve,
by design, is to stop water coming one direction, right?
So...
if it's not like this and it's facing this way,
the check valve don't stop [bleep]
except the pump from pumping.
The trommel is set up 100 feet high on the hill.
To protect the pump below from any water backflow,
they installed a check valve, but it was put on backwards
and the pump's 1,500- gallon-per-minute output built
up enough pressure to blow the plastic pipe off
and crack it.
Mike needs his crew to put the check valve on the correct
way and replace the cracked pipe with a new metal section
to the pump so he can get back sluicing again.
If we can take a pipe like this and you just cut a section
out of it, and then it already has the two ends, right?
-[Keith] Yeah. -Yeah.
Why don't we take this one?
[buzzing]
Going through the process, trying to figure out
the angles, and then once we get it
where we need to be, then we'll get a better picture of it.
There's no real mathematical equation.
You're just doing it by fit and feel, basically.
It just takes time.
[fast-paced music plays]
-Oh, you stupid [bleep]! -[Keith] Here we go.
-I think we got it. -[Colby] OK.
Throw the clamp on.
-I think it's on there. -It on there?
-Yeah. -OK.
[Keith] And breathe.
It's on now. Oh, it'll be amazing!
You know that it's rigid,
that it's going to hold the pressure.
Mike will be happy back sluicing and making money
at the hill, and Tony will probably be happy too,
and one big happy family.
[chuckles]
[Mike] Let's get things started and get sluicing.
Ready?
[plant powers up]
I don't think there's anything left that can break down.
Everything that could break down broke and is now fixed.
So we should be good for the rest
of the season, hopefully.
[Mike] I'm not the biggest fan of not producing gold.
So now I'm just going to sit there
and watch that [bleep] thing spin
to make sure nothing goes wrong.
And we will be nothing but sluicing.
[ominous music plays]
[dog barking]
What's up, dude? Good to see you.
[Ryan] What's up, brother?
After taking some time off with his family,
mechanic Ryan Kent is back.
Oh, man.
[Ryan] Oh, [bleep].
How'd the week go?
You know, I'm not going to lie.
I'm pretty nervous.
I knew that it would be good for you to go home,
but when you start thinking about things, you know,
at a certain point while you were gone,
because, you know, I overthink everything,
I'm just like, "Man, I think he's probably going to see what
"he's missing, and I'm a bit worried he might just call it
quits and just bail on us."
[Ryan] Yeah, I mean, so if I'm going to be staying, I mean,
it's like, how much longer can we move dirt and not see gold?
And, you know, on top of that, it is a gamble.
What are we at, 400?
Just shy of 500. I'm not going to lie to you.
Most of it's gone.
I rely on that when I go home.
Yeah.
And if we strike out this year,
that's the hard part of telling Rachael, of, "Hey..."
You know, I'd sell everything to give you guys --
you know, make sure that you guys are paid,
because that's... I give a [bleep].
You guys are never gonna walk out of here [bleep] over,
and I'll make sure, no matter what happens,
that'll never happen.
But, you know, I need you to trust me,
and I need you here, obviously.
Right now, we've got less than two weeks, I'd say,
before we have to be sluicing. We're set up to [bleep] roll.
Like, we got the water, we got everything.
Like, we're gonna [bleep] flog that thing.
And you guys all put your faith in me before, and I just need
it one more time, right? -[Ryan] Yeah.
[suspenseful music plays]
It doesn't happen without you,
and that's just a fact, right?
We survived a week without you, but man, we'd never survive
the rest of the season without you, that's a fact.
And I'm not just pumping your tires.
Well, I appreciate that, man. I do.
So...
yeah, you've got me.
-[Rick] [bleep] yeah, buddy. -[Ryan] All right, brother.
[Rick] I got you.
-I've always got you, guys. -Yeah.
We've got everything we need to be successful.
[Ryan] I think so.
Man, it was great having some time off
with my wife and daughter.
It really gets you thinking about things and coming back
here, just wondering our direction, wondering
if I have a future here, wondering what we're doing.
But having the chance to sit and talk to Rick and have him
actually open up to me means a lot.
You know, he's got a game plan. He's got our backs.
He's never going to let us down.
He's going to do everything he can.
So when I came back, I didn't know if I was going to stay.
But after that talk, I think Rick's got me forever.
[Tyson] At the beginning of the week when you said, "50% of that cut
has to be out of there," I thought it was going to be
pretty tough to do, but with the extra truck,
it definitely helped out. So thanks, man.
No worries, yeah.
[Parker] Yeah. Good job.
[Doumitt] So you think you'll be able to grind through that,
that pay pile? -[Tyson] Hopefully.
-It's pretty big. -[Doumitt] Yeah.
It's definitely the biggest pile of pay we've ever put up,
but we've never really done that before.
[Doumitt] It's just that the timing is really bad.
You know, each week our goal numbers are going down and down
and then to shut down two plants like that, it's like...
[Tyson] Yeah.
There's no good way to deal with it.
It's just...
the lesser of two evils.
[Tyson] So there isn't much this week, Doumitt?
[Doumitt] Yeah.
Well, with everything that's going on with the two plants,
you're not going to have a great deal.
I don't even want to be here for this [bleep] gold weigh.
It looks pretty depressing, not going to lie.
-[Parker] Yeah, yeah. -[Tyson chuckles]
[Doumitt] All right, here we go.
First up, the Golden Mile.
Before the shutdown,
it averaged 240 ounces of gold a week.
[Tyson] Is that it?
[Doumitt] That's all that's in the jug, man.
53.65. Two plants.
That's depressing.
-[Doumitt] Yeah. -[Mitch] They got to run to make gold.
Well, Tyson, since you're already up.
[Tyson] Yeah?
In the Bridge Cut, washplant Bob is averaging
156 ounces every week.
100.
129.05.
[Parker] Not great, but not terrible.
Triple digits, can't argue with that, right?
[Tyson] One plant versus two,
pulls off double the amount.
[Doumitt] And then old truckless Roxanne, huh?
-Yeah. -[Doumitt] Let's go.
Finally, Roxanne, which last time delivered just 76 ounces.
Gonna break 100.
123.55.
-That's not bad. -[Doumitt] No.
Not for the ground you're on.
That pay does not look great, just super sandy.
Yeah, no, looking at the dirt, that doesn't look bad.
So, last week was 433.4 ounces.
This week, it's 306.25.
Worth $1,071,000...
the third week in a row Parker's numbers have fallen.
[Doumitt] We've lost a lot of gold.
Of course, you got the two plants shut down.
There's things going on, right?
Our season total, 7,048.55 ounces.
We did break the 7,000 mark.
We just need to cough up another three somewhere.
Somewhere [chuckles].
[Tyson] Is this our worst week of the season?
Pretty close, yeah. Yeah.
It's like our season's going backwards.
[Mitch] Yeah, I don't like the direction we're heading
when each week it's a little bit less, a little bit less. -Yeah.
[Doumitt] And this was a bad jump, over 100 ounces.
-[Mitch] Yeah. -[Parker] All right, well,
we'll get those plants back up and running.
Much better to deal with this now than in September, though.
-Right? -[Doumitt] Yeah.
Yeah, when it gets cold, you don't want to be dealing
with those problems.
Hopefully we can make up for it on the back end.
[Tyson] Yeah, hopefully it's a late fall and a warm fall.
-Yeah. -[Doumitt] All righty.
[Mitch] Next week, a lot of sluicing, hopefully more gold.
-[Parker] Lame. -[Doumitt] Lame?
-Lame. -[Doumitt] Yep.
Crank them up, guys! Crank them up!
Will do. See you Doumitt.
[upbeat music plays]
Gentlemen, gentlemen.
Holy [bleep]! That's a big one.
I've never seen --
That's actually huge.
[Mike] Every [bleep] mat.
[Colby] Use that for a tooth cap.
The trommel has been the bane of my life this year, but she does
do good [bleep] work when she gets the ground.
I've been getting nothing but good big gold nuggies
and a [bleep] ton of little gold.
It's turned out to be quite nice.
After nearly four months of setbacks, Mike's trommel is
finally producing gold.
-Hi. -[Minnie] Hi, guys.
How are you?
[Monica] Fantastic.
So, Mike, I saw the trommel turning when we come
into the yard this morning.
[Mike] Yeah, it's been going for three days, so, yeah.
[Monica] That's exciting.
-Yeah. -When I sit here, or I'm in the office,
I can hear the trommel go. It's kind of nice.
[Tony speaking]
About time.
Yeah, I'm kind of proud of what you've been doing, dude.
Doing my best.
That would be really cool.
[Monica] Let's see Sluice-A-Lot.
[Tony speaking]
Sluice-A-Lot has been mining Indian River's Corner Cut,
where it's averaging 300 ounces a week.
That's 120, 160...
170, 180, 200...
220.48, 220.48.
Well, it seems like you're kind of getting a little
dry spot there, bud.
[Tony speaking]
[Monica] Shall we do Find-A-Lot?
[Minnie] P-p-p-pour.
Find-A-Lot is also mining the Corner Cut,
averaging 250 ounces a week.
[Minnie] 70, 80, 90, 100, 140...
210, 214, 216, 218.76.
That's not bad.
[Tony speaking]
Yep. Ta-da!
Michael, I'm excited.
[Tony speaking]
[Minnie] And that's three days only.
20, 30, 40, 50, 60...
80, 100, 110...
121.56.
Mike's trommel has brought in $425,000 in gold,
bringing the season total
to 5,992 ounces,
just 500 ounces short of Tony's goal.
Yeah.
For three days, that's pretty good.
[Mike] Mm-hmm.
Anyhow.
So now that the trommel's going,
you said there'd be other opportunities?
OK.
[Minnie] We'll see you guys later.
I'm happy for Mike that he's got the trommel going,
because it was pretty frustrating for him.
[Tony] Oh, I'm sure it was.
[Minnie] What are we going to do about his deal?
Because we said he would be able to do his own thing after
he got the plants going.
Leave it with me. I will come up with something.
Sounds good. You should go to work.
I'll go to my own sandbox in the Indian, see you later.
Sounds like a plan. Talk to you later.
[Tony] Yep.