This got to be a quick fix, Juan.
Nice-looking little plant.
Ho! Hey! Got a rock stuck in it.
The nugget factor up there is the real deal.
Oh, shoot. Now we got that much more to do.
It's kind of like being in prison.
- You're really ugly in person. - Yeah, I know.
Speculate all you want, it don't matter
until you actually weigh it up.
Hopefully, this isn't the one that beats us, Fred.
Thistle. I hate thistle lawn.
Yeah. There's that thistle. Yeah.
I hear that works good as wiping paper if you don't have any toilet paper.
One of the best along with poison ivy and stinging nettles.
Freddy and Juan trek through Montana,
50 miles northwest of Helena in the thin mining district.
They've been called for what they believe will be a quick fix
en route to their next rescue.
Where did you meet these guys again?
I met Bryce and Heidi at one of the tradeshows I went to last year, Fred.
Bryce was telling me he cashed in his entire savings on this mine site.
They bought it a few years back,
and they've got all their equipment.
I wasn't 100% sure how much time we'd have, Fred,
but I told him if we were in the area, we'd stop by.
This has got to be a quick fix, Juan.
Yeah, exactly, Freddy. I'm hoping at least.
One thing for sure.
They've produced a tremendous amount of placer gold out of Montana.
Gold was discovered in Montana in 1864
on the site of the future state capital.
Over a 100 years, old-timers in this area pulled out
5000 ounces of gold worth today, $9 million.
But their primitive mining methods mean
a bounty of gold should still be up for grabs.
This is a gamble one family staked their future life on.
- Freddy, nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you. What's your name?
- Ryker. - Ryker.
- I'm Heidi.
Nice to see you again, Heidi. How you doing, sir?
I'm Ted, a.k.a the Goat.
I'm the goat in the old dirty goat mine.
I'm really glad you guys made it up here.
Machine operator and welder, Bryce Waits.
His wife Heidi, mom Lori and dad Ted, nicknamed Goat,
have been mining at this site for three years.
So when I met you guys last year, you guys were
talking about your operation up here.
Are you planning on this being a full-time gig instead of just a weekend?
Absolutely.
But, um, what do you really think you need?
We're still in the throwing money phase for the most part.
You know, when you get started,
you don't realize all that stuff you need.
My dad used to take me gold panning, and way back when I was a young tyke.
Never really lost the passion.
Finally, I found this placer property and came and checked it out
and did some panning in the creek and showed gold
and bit the bullet and bought the property.
Bryce and I met through mutual friend actually at a brew fest,
so I knew it had to be good.
Both in their mid-30s, Bryce and Heidi
aim to leave their jobs in suburban home.
And he came to me and said, "Do you want to buy a gold mine?"
I said, "Okay." Like, how could I say no to that?
Even with new equipment,
the Waits' mine is running at a loss, jeopardizing their big dream.
This property for us is really our salvation.
We have everything that we could need here.
Our goal is to have a cabin and I want my kids to be kids as long as possible.
And this place allows for that.
For them to be in the dirt, you know, playing in the water,
doing what kids should be doing.
It's really our dream of trying to better ourselves
to make a good life for our kids, for us,
for our family, to all be together
and to be good stewards of the land.
I want my kids to see that hard work can get you anything that you want.
This is the American dream.
If you want a good life, you have to get it yourself, build it yourself.
But we've invested upwards of $250,000.
It really has to pay back now.
We really need to hit at least 50 ounces this season.
So far, we have not hit ten.
A lot of people doubted us when we're like, "We're buying a gold mine."
"Oh, I can't believe it."
And, you know, we'd love to prove them all wrong and say,
"Well, we made a business, you know, we made a life out of this."
What's your gold look like here?
- Is it fine gold or coarse gold or... - Coarse, gold.
All coarse or you got fines mixed in?
- Well, there is fines, but not a lot of it. - Oh, that's pretty stuff.
That's all we've collected.
- That's all you've got so far? - Yeah.
- There's like ten ounces there. - It's beautiful gold.
The Waits have mined just 3.5 ounces each year so far,
but need over ten times that to go full-time.
I know the old timers mined out a small section of the property
and they pulled out $2 million worth of gold.
So the gold here should be pretty good in spots,
but we've had pretty dismal runs.
It gets pretty gnarly up here sometimes, trying to get good gold.
Well, there's only one way to find out if we can help you or not.
- Let's watch you run. - Sure. Absolutely.
- Yeah. - Let's do it.
Heidi and Bryce's wash plant is an all-in-one hopper, feeder and trommel
bought online for $40,000
and modified using Bryce's welding skills.
- It's a nice-looking little plant. - Yeah, it is.
Show us around a little bit.
We bought the wash plant and drove down to Arizona to get it,
but it had never been ran, so it was in good shape,
but we had no idea how it would run,
so Bryce had to do quite a bit of repairs
and maintenance on it just to get it to be functional.
My son is a pretty good fabricator,
so I'm hoping the plant is considered decent.
So yeah, this is the sluices with the new hydraulic riffle.
- You built that sluice yourself, huh? - Yes.
- That's not what it came with? - No, no, no.
Since most of your gold's coarse, you catching
- most of it in the top end, I assume? - Yeah. Yeah.
- You put the screen in there, huh? - Yeah.
Welded pre-screen on the inside
because the rocks were beating the actual screen so much.
Oh, yeah.
So now you're doing a two-day run Saturday and Sunday, right?
What do you pulling out of here for a two-day run, roughly?
It depends because of the nuggets, you know?
We've had as low as five bucks a yard all the way up to 50 bucks a yard.
The last run we did, we were right at ten bucks a yard.
Of the last 30 pans I've done up here,
I haven't found one single speck of gold, if that does you anything.
That shows you that's a real spotty deposit.
Well, the first run, what we're going to do
is we're just going to kind of step back.
We're going to watch everything, just watch what you guys do,
how you do things, watch the plant run,
and we're not going to get involved at all. So...
- Let's do it. - Let's do it.
Fire it up!
That's the hydraulic pump getting warmed up.
Yeah. You got a grub face.
Come on. Let's get some gold.
First bucket coming in.
Heidi and Bryce are wonderful human beings.
They have invested a lot.
If they had success, it'd make this young man very proud.
Bryce feeds a quarter yard of paydirt
into the hopper with each excavator bucket.
The grizzlies clear the largest boulders onto a dedicated conveyor.
The paydirt travels up the feed belt into the trommel
where the spray bars wash gold and fine material down into Bryce's modified sluice.
Hang tight. I got it clogged.
We're all clogged up up here now.
Now I've got to shovel it out.
This is probably one of the most major issues we have.
- That just cost him two buckets. - Yeah.
Stuck again.
Right now he's clogging up roughly every third bucket.
So if he's doing seven yards an hour,
he could be doing ten yards an hour.
It's the same amount of fuel, same amount of everything, right?
To get more gold.
He's losing about a quarter of his run time.
Go round the other side and see what the sluices look like, huh?
Go, feel them. They're not doing anything.
Doesn't feel like they're working.
The middle one isn't clear now when I just felt.
The top ones? They are all blocked.
If Bryce's handcrafted hydraulic riffles clog with pay,
gold could be running off the plant.
Well, Freddy, you know, I think one of his biggest
problems is this hopper right here.
Heidi and I were talking for a few minutes,
and in that little quick conversation we had,
he must have gotten out of the excavator three times to work on this.
And it's plugging even before he's getting up there to shovel it, right?
So nothing's going up that dump and then
those Hungarians are a big problem.
Oh! Hey!
Cut it.
Got a rock stuck in it.
Now it stops spinning.
Might have just finally plugged up.
Right here, there's a rock on that tail wheel.
It's got it pushed up into your hopper.
I run over and hit the shut off on the hydraulic pump.
Otherwise, we'd have tore a belt out for broke something.
So, it's a good thing Bryce is paying attention.
But that's not the first time this has happened.
We had to stop, that way we don't tear the belt
or break something off that's crucial.
Replacing the custom feed belt would take weeks,
leaving the Waits without a working wash plant.
There's a lot of things to do on this little plant.
It's never going to be a race car.
But I tell you what, we can make it a hell of a lot faster.
That was it, last bucket.
Let's take a look at the sluice box.
- Let's see if there's any gold in it. - Absolutely.
I hate to say it, but I'm blind,
- but I'm not seeing any gold in it. - No, sir.
Typically, it is tough to find it.
Right there.
Seeing that nugget that far down there, Juan.
- That's not good, Fred. - It's not good.
- Yeah, it shouldn't be. - That should have been up at the very top.
Especially, one that size.
If a sluice box works correctly, bigger,
heavier gold nuggets should settle at the very top
and lighter, finer gold near the bottom.
- Well, you guys want to finish cleaning this up? - Sounds good.
And we'll meet you for the weigh in?
- Sounds great. - Yep. We'll weigh it up.
I think he's got multiple problems here, Fred.
That nugget was fairly sizable.
- That should have been caught right on that first riffle. - That's a five gram nugget.
And it worked its way down, what, three feet?
Yeah, it shouldn't be there.
We can make their plant more efficient,
- but we can't put gold in the ground. - Yeah.
Hopefully this isn't the one that beats us, Fred.
Yeah.
- So is this the last of it? - This is the last of it.
Oh, boy. I can't wait to see what we got.
I think I got something in here to show Freddy and Juan
that they're going to be excited about.
In Montana's Lewis Mountains...
Looking good.
Lots of nice little chunks of gold in there.
The nugget factor is real.
Yeah, but sometimes nuggets give you a false hope.
Miners, Heidi and Bryce must pull in
one and a half ounces worth of gold a day
to leave suburban life behind and realize their gold mining dream.
Gold fever is a real thing and I 100% have it
because there's really nothing like pulling
that nugget out of the pan for sure.
I'd love to get out of the daily grind, you know,
dealing with all the people that make your life a living hell.
Come up here and just dig, dig, dig.
And don't have to worry about nothing other than finding gold.
All the gold that you brought out looks good.
- It's beautiful. - Well, let's weigh it up.
There's that big nugget. What do you think it weighs?
- Eight grams. - You already weighed it?
No.
- No, it's not weighed. - It's a game we all play.
- ...30. - Yeah, that's eight grams 0.27. Yeah.
- Well, there's a quarter of an ounce just in that one nugget. - Yeah.
That's pretty amazing. - Here we go.
- 0.62. - It's a good run.
- That's a good run. - Yeah, it's not bad.
0.62 ounces for four hours of running is worth roughly $1100.
Well, I think if we take the nugget out and weigh,
that's more of an accurate representation of what we would average find.
We really rely on the small gold,
but when you find those nuggets, it really does make or break your run.
Without their rare nugget find, the Waits have
just 0.3 ounces, worth around $500.
Heidi and Bryce understand that the gold
is going to be spotty in this valley.
It's chunky gold, very few finds,
so you can dig in one spot and probably get an ounce
and then very little gold from then on out
until you hit another hot spot.
But I want to teach 'em how to get on the right material
so they know what to dig in the future after we leave.
Mine and Juan's worry is that we won't find one next time that big.
Yeah.
- Because that's half your weight almost. - Yeah.
I mean, that nugget is awesome, but it's not always realistic.
Yeah.
Let us go back and talk amongst ourselves.
Try to come up with some ideas and we'll present them to you guys.
Well... Be easy on us. Be easy on us.
What do you think, Juano?
Well, I really think we need to focus on that hopper, Freddy.
- I agree with you. - It's not unrealistic to say that just by fixing up,
we'll increase his gold by 25%.
- That's just plugging solid. - So what do you think over here, Fred?
- I'm thinking maybe we could build a vibrator. - I like it.
I'd really like to put it on the back
because that's where it's getting clogged up.
Be able to knock that material down.
So, if we reinforce that, on this conveyor here,
it's just puking material all the time underneath there.
So if we come in there, we put a piece of slip rubber underneath it going forward
so that material can't back out of there.
But here in the sluice box, he's got those hydraulic riffles.
Spread out too far for one, these holes were plugging up.
Just change the top, let's say.
two feet of these riffles and then leave
the other hydraulics because he built those.
- He's proud of them. - Yeah.
- I don't want to take that away from him. - No, no.
To stop the hopper clogging up.
Freddy and Juan will attach a vibrator.
Adding chain binders connected to the grizzly belt.
The combined kinetic energy will keep the paydirt moving,
allowing Bryce to run more material through the plant.
To prevent rock jams in the feed conveyor,
a custom fit rubber strip will block off the gap between hopper and belt.
Finally, they'll install brand new riffles
to capture each rare nugget in the spotty paydirt.
My worry, though, is half the weight
of that whole cleanup was one nugget.
Well, that's scary, Freddy.
There's going to be a lot of gold left here.
It's just going to be a bit harder for Bryce and Heidi to find it.
- Let's go talk to them. - Let's see what they say. All right, let's do it.
- Hey, guys. - How's it going?
Gentlemen.
We've been talking a little bit.
We're trying to figure everything out.
We want to build a vibrator for your hopper.
Okay. All right.
Like 25% of your time was wasted trying to shovel that out.
When there is no dirt going to the trommel, there's no pay
going to the sluice box, there's no gold...
No gold in the box. Yeah.
Then another thing, you've got a huge pile of material
right underneath where that hopper is feeding onto that conveyor, right?
What I'd like to do is get down in that feed hopper,
and we'll lay a piece of slip rubber going forward.
So all that material has to go forward then.
It can't find a home falling out on the ground.
Another one of the fixes,
we know you love that new rifle configuration you built.
That first nugget we picked out of the sluice box was three feet down, right?
Sure.
So if that top hydraulic riffle was working, it shouldn't have got there.
Especially that big a piece of gold.
I'm not the biggest fan of hydraulic riffles anyway,
and I don't think Juan is either.
No. Not at all.
But if we do nugget riffles up top
and then you still have your hydraulic riffles below,
- you've got the best of both worlds. - Yeah.
Something you're proud of, you built them.
Sure.
Do you think it's even worth keeping the hydraulic riffles?
Because I feel like if you guys don't find them to be that beneficial,
do you think we'd be better off ditching the whole thing?
- I think so, me personally. - I do, too.
I mean, I appreciate you trying to be sensitive.
Okay. I was walking...
We were walking on eggshells a little bit there
because we wanted to rip them all out.
So, thinking about this on the fly,
let's set that top box up for coarse,
those big nuggets like he had there.
Hmm. Right at the top.
- Medium sized gold and fine gold. - Right there.
Well, we put some numbers together.
You know, it's always kind of the hardest part to do,
but with the fixes we're going to do
is going to get you 25% uptime.
It's definitely going to help. We're looking at about $2,000 in material.
And we'd like an ounce of gold.
That's not going to pay us any wages, but that'll cover our expenses.
- Yeah. - We know you guys are working to make this your future.
- Yes. - So we'll donate our time except our expenses.
I like that.
We can help improve your wash plant.
We can look at the ground, but at the same time...
Yeah, there's got to be gold in the ground, too.
You know, this is the type mine that scares me and Juan
because it's coarse and you've already said, you know,
sometimes it's five dollars a yard and sometimes it's $50 a yard.
So we'd like to look at your cut on the field.
We got a deal.
- Deal, lady? - Absolutely.
- Thanks, guys. - Thanks. We really appreciate you being here.
Thank you very much.
With just 48 hours before they must leave
for their next rescue, Juan gets to work.
You know, it's kind of an awkward spot,
but it's a good thing that I'm really small, so I fit in these tight spots.
Right now, the hopper is not working properly.
Every third or fourth bucket, Bryce has to get in there and knock it all loose.
When we put these bolts in for the vibrator, we got to make sure that
we put a bunch of Loctite in there because it is vibrating.
So it will actually rock the bolts loose.
One more bolt to tighten up and it's done.
There it is.
I want to show you guys something here, kind of what I see.
To determine why their paydirt is so spotty,
Detective Dodge takes Bryce and Heidi to examine their cut.
I stood from the side there and looked at it and this was a picture to me.
This told me a story, that told me a story.
Do me a favor.
Go in there in the wall on that damp and bring me
a handful of that, if you wouldn't mind.
Let's take some of this material right here.
Let's hit it with a rock or something.
Okay. Open your hands up, guys. Squish that together.
Now, the other hand. Squish that together.
- See how sticky that material is? - Yes.
That's glacial till.
It's never been reworked, right?
Okay, this material from that point to there has been reworked.
You can see different things that have happened in it, right?
- Yeah. - See these rocks are laying flat?
Yep.
- This is called shingling, just like a windmill, right? - Okay.
So you can actually tell the direction as creeks flowed in this tight valley.
Freddy has identified the two separate geological processes
that scattered gold around the valley.
First, a glacier plucked nuggets from veins in the mountain,
forcing them down the valley in a massive ice wall.
When the glacier melted, the mixed gold and other minerals
were left on the valley floor unconcentrated.
Then, as creeks flowed through this glacial debris,
they concentrated the gold in a creek bed,
creating seams of gold rich hotspots.
So this has been reworked by water.
- What's water do in your sluice box? - Concentrates.
Concentrates gold.
That's never been re-concentrated over there.
It's going to have a lot less gold in it.
So let's say this is $50 a yard, and that's $1 a yard.
- Yeah. - You just cut yourself to $25 a yard.
If Bryce and Heidi can identify more ancient creek beds,
they'll get more gold.
In this valley, you're going to have to be a prospector as well as a miner,
and you're going to have to hopscotch around hitting those pockets.
There's going to be a lot of gold the old-timers missed.
It's just going to be a bit harder to find it.
And for your future, cut some trenches across your valley
and find out how much of this virgin material
still lives on this side the old-timers missed.
- Yeah. - But you're going to have to find it.
- Sure. - Don't dig holes.
- Dig trenches. - Dig trenches.
If you dig a trench, it gives you a picture, like a picture on your wall.
- You see the difference now? - Yeah. Oh, yeah.
No, I definitely see it.
Freddy's advice on the cut was absolutely spot on.
And it saves so much struggle and trouble going after the wrong thing.
Having them here is so amazing.
I mean, truly the knowledge they can share with us.
They need to test that muddy material and see how much is in it by itself
but I think they need to run this other material that's been reworked
that's not plugging the plant up.
I believe there's more gold in it.
We spent a half a day now digging around looking at it,
so I've got to get back on working on the plant
or we aren't going to get this stuff fixed in the time we're here.
At the hopper, Juan is strengthening the plant.
We're pitting these brackets, one to the conveyor and one to the hopper,
and that way we could tighten it
and be able to support the conveyor.
Chain binders will add even more vibration to the hopper,
shaking any plugged paydirt through to the plant.
- How's it going, Juano? - It's coming, Fred.
- Gonna work. - Yeah, it'll be fine.
- Yeah. Go ahead and open her up. - Okay.
Rope. Ready.
It's kind of like being in prison.
I told you we were keeping you.
Oh, you don't want me.
So what we're going to do, we're going to put a piece
of slip rubber in here to get that material moving forward.
- So it'll stop falling out the bottom? - Exactly.
In the initial test, a faulty flap in the hopper
let a rock escape, jamming the tail wheel and almost tearing the belt.
The new rubber flap will hang over the gap blocking off the hold
and forcing all the material up the feed belt.
Little trick I learned last year from a miner in the Yukon.
If you wet your blade, you can cut rubber about three times as fast.
- If I hold this down, you want to draw it? - Sure.
What do you mainly doing at the mine site?
My job is to sort of be the person on the outside
being like, "Well, that doesn't make sense." So...
And also trying to be the voice of reason at times.
He gets so focused and I'm like, "Wouldn't that be easier?"
and "Oh, maybe you're right."
So, just depends on what the need is.
- Sometimes I have good ideas. - I bet you do.
It's a pleasure to work with people like Heidi and Bryce
because they aren't scared to get their hands dirty.
They're the kind of people that ask you what you need to get done.
So I grew up... My mom was a single mom.
I didn't get to grow up with a big family.
So to have all these generations on site was really important to me.
- Are you going to help dad someday catch gold? - Yeah.
Can I have a squeeze first?
From Juan and Freddy, we really need their help
to make sure that what we're doing here is successful.
You want me to crawl on the inside of the hopper to put it in?
Sure, and I'll bolt it from the outside.
You know, if I didn't know any better, I think we measured this
and cut it just perfect.
- Like we knew what we were doing, buddy. - There you go.
Gonna hop up there and have a look at it with you.
Yep. Perfect actually.
Well, another day behind the eight ball.
We got a lot of stuff to do and not a lot of time to get it done.
The next morning.
Right now, we don't have a piece long enough, so we'll use these
and I'll weld them together and then cut them to length.
Use what you got.
Freddy and Juan have just a day and a half left
on the mine site, and one more job to do.
What do you want to do with the riffles?
He had six-footer riffles in here.
I think we'll go to five and a half feet.
We'll build a new riffle trays,
but we'll move them down a little bit.
That'll help spread that material out.
- Put a ramp on the front. - I like it.
The way that material gets up on top of the riffle.
As they measure up the sluice box...
I'm just seeing the depth of it.
- It's shot. - That thing's gone?
It's worse when you see it like that.
- 5/8th. - I hope the other side is the same.
- Oh, shoot. It's even worse. - Other side's worse.
Doesn't look worse, but it is.
That's really bad, Freddy.
The metal of the sluice is severely warped,
leaving gaps where the gold can escape out of the bottom.
This is just some old steel you had that was laying around.
- Yeah. - I understand.
You use what you got, especially when you're on a budget.
We can't let that go.
No, this is probably costing you 4 or 5% of your really fine gold.
That's not a good thing.
When you have all that free space underneath your riffles,
inevitably, you're going to get material and water, washing it though.
- Washing underneath? - Underneath it. Yeah.
You know, at the end of the day,
this is kind of your fine gold sluice.
And really, this is not conducive to fine gold recovery at all.
Well, you put all the effort and the last thing you want to do
- is be blowing gold out end. - That's right.
We're better off just building one, Fred.
As wide as this one is, we ain't gonna have time, Juan.
Now that we see it without carpet,
I don't think we can let it be.
I know already we're kind of limited on time, but...
With just 24 hours before they must leave the Waits mine,
Freddy and Juan face building a new sluice from scratch.
Let's fix it. We're going to have to build a new one.
- You can weld, right? - Oh, yeah.
I know we don't have time to do it, but this is important.
Yeah.
I think we'll just shorten this to here.
We're only going to lose an inch and a half of the sluice box.
Well, we got to quit talking about it. Now, we've got to work.
Now we've got that much more to do.
- Yeah. - So let's get to it.
You want to start getting some measurements for me what you want?
- I'll draw it up. - Yeah, please.
Bryce and Heidi, just a great family.
You know, they coming out here trying to make a living.
Freddy and I, we're here, we want to help him as best we can.
We're going to do our best to get 'em fixed
and hopefully, get 'em back on track.
The new sluice box will be two feet wide
and braced along its length with ribs to prevent warps in the steel.
To catch fine gold, Freddy will fit expanded metal
and install a separate riffle tray at the top of the old sluice
for bigger nuggets.
We still got a lot of work ahead of us.
We have to kind of divide and conquer.
As Juan gets started cutting Freddy's design,
Freddy drafts in father and son to tear out the old sluice.
We'd have left it if it wasn't for the bends,
but what we're doing is going to catch you more gold in the future.
- You want to cut that side? - Yeah.
How long you been messing with gold, Goat?
Since the '70s, mostly Northern California.
You guys used to do it together when you were a kid?
- Oh, yeah. - Oh, yeah.
I still got all the old gold that he collected over there in California.
He was conceived at a gold field.
- Pretty sure of it. - That's why it's in my blood.
That's why it's in your blood.
Here you go, Goat. Put her on the back of the truck.
Let's get this done so we can find some gold, we're burning daylight.
Hey, Bryce. What's going on, buddy?
Hey, how's it going over here?
With a whole sluice box to build,
Juan promotes Bryce to welding assistant.
There's some gloves there.
There's actually another hood inside my trailer if you want
- to grab a welding hood. - Okay.
You done much welding? I started welding in high school.
I pretty much have done it ever since.
These ribs, they're going to support the bottom of the sluice box.
- So you saw how your box had a bunch of dips in it? - Right.
We're going gonna put all these reinforced ribs on there
so that way it doesn't have a chance to be able to flex and get bent.
- Go ahead and attack that. - Okay.
That's good. That's goof, that's good.
Let me show you something real quick.
So you fire it off...
If you long arc it like that, gets really, really hot.
A welding arc that is too hot
creates bubbles in the weld, making it weaker.
- So if you want to cool it off, dip it in. - Closer.
The closer you get, the closer you get, the cooler it gets.
It's actually pretty awesome working with Juan,
kind of a dream come true really.
Well, you guys got a beautiful property out here, you know.
I can see why you and your wife and the kids
want to stay out here all the time.
Yeah, I love it up here.
I'm hoping that Freddy and Juan can help us
make a living off the ground, you know, not have to rely on anybody else.
That'd be a dream come true for probably the whole family.
Ryker, Ava, as annoyed as they get at us for being busy all the time,
I think one day they will understand why we do what we do.
- This time, you better catch a fish, okay? - Okay.
Ryker, he's definitely a rock hound.
He has shown a lot of interest in geology, gold mining,
everything that we do up here.
- Are you going to be a gold miner like your dad? - Yes.
You already run the excavator, don't you?
I'll get the nuggets that you missed.
Someday the price of gold will catch up with inflation
and it's going to be worth big money.
It's a good thing for my kids to learn.
Nice weld on there, Bryce. Good job, my friend.
You know, working with Bryce has been great, you know. He knows what he's doing.
He knows how to weld.
You know, he's not scared of work. So he's our type of people.
Hey, Bryce, before you keep on welding, why don't you put that on?
Awesome. Thank you.
Bryce earns Juan's biggest compliment.
Usually, before I let anyone wear that, I want to make sure
they know how to weld, and you do, so you can wear it.
- Glad I can be part of the family. - No problem, buddy.
I feel like a professional welder now.
It's time for final preparations.
Juan welds the finishing touches
as father and son dig out paydirt for the test.
You're... you're really ugly in person.
- Yeah, I know. - Yeah.
- How much gas you got in this hog? - I got a full tank.
I think it'll go to LA at 12 miles an hour.
Bryce is one of the hardest working people I've ever known.
It's pretty scary having everything on the line up here.
Right now I'm over here where Freddy told me I should dig.
That way, we can hopefully get a better result.
Look at that rock. Holy moly!
This truck is a year newer than the year I graduated.
I am in much better shape.
There it is.
I hope there's a bunch of gold in there, that's for sure.
Hey, Bryce. I'm gonna be right there.
On a gold mine, when time is tight,
necessity is the mother of invention.
I don't know what the hell Freddy's doing back there.
It's been about ten, 15 minutes on there, so... See what it's like.
Not cold or hot, but it's done enough.
It's not the greatest, but it's better than no lunch at all.
You're good. You're good.
- Coming down with the boom. - Okay.
- Oops. Or the other down. - The other down.
With the final minutes of the rescue ticking down,
Juan's sluice box arrives at the plant.
We'll knock the boards loose and do some layout on it.
You're good.
Are you going to catch us a giant nugget?
Hopefully.
So I'm going to make a whole separate sluice box area.
One riffle tray here, then two sets here.
I want to make this where you can just pull your nugget tray out for testing
without affecting the rest of them.
Absolutely.
Pull this one riffle tray out, pull this one set of carpet,
just look at it and say "We aren't digging there anymore,"
or pull it and say, hopefully, "Dang right!"
So, what are you guys now? You're not miners anymore, right?
- You're prospector miners on this property, right? - Absolutely.
You can help me get this design and we'll get it cut out.
Okay.
Juan has one more job for an aspiring miner.
- Need a hand? You good? - I got it.
All right, bud.
We're going to pull up the table, get some water in here,
so we can start cutting.
Making a sign for the Waits Mine.
What's the name of the mine? - Old Dirty Goat Mine.
Old Dirty Goat Mine.
A tribute to Goat, Ryker's grandpa.
All right. We don't have a whole lot of time, so we'll just cut something
real simple, huh?
How... How big should we make it?
- Pretty big. - So what do you like best about mining, Ryker?
I heard that you're a little bit of a rock hound.
Well, I love finding quartz. All kind of shiny rocks.
Shiny stuff, huh?
Cool.
All right. You ready to cut?
- Mm-hmm. - Here, Ryker, put these on for a little bit.
- Okay. - All right.
Let's get over here and let's hit start on this thing.
All the parameters are set, so hit start when you're ready.
Pretty cool, huh?
Careful. She's still kind of hot.
What do you think your mom and dad are going to think about it?
It's gonna be cool.
Well, you know, the cool thing about it?
Is we both kind of made it together.
Yeah. It's pretty neat, huh?
Well, let's throw some miner's moss on it.
Well, what do you think of this new sluice?
I think it's awesome.
Love it.
I cannot wait to run. I'm excited to see what we did.
Well, there's only one way to find out, huh?
Let's start.
Fire it up!
On their fourth day at the mine, Freddy and Juan
put their quickest ever fix to the test.
Yeah.
Bryce has got about 20 buckets in so far and he hasn't had to stop once for the hopper.
It's running perfectly.
I'm feeling pretty confident about how the plant's running.
I feel the material is running through the plant better.
We're going to make that huge dream a reality.
I'm here for the long term.
There's enough ground for me to mine up here for the rest
of my life and probably most of my kid's life.
That's a good problem.
Yeah.
In the first test, Bryce had to jump
out of his excavator and unclog the hopper multiple times.
Now, the vibrator and chain binders prevent clogs,
allowing Bryce to load three times the amount of paydirt into the plant.
Before, a gap between the hopper and feed belt
let rocks fall into the belt's tail wheel regularly shutting down the plant.
A simple rubber flap now stops the rocks and the breakdowns.
And finally, the hydraulic riffles that clogged up with pay
letting gold escape have been replaced
with expanded metal and dedicated prospector's sluice
for quickly testing paydirt on the spotty ground.
They're running good. The sluice is running great.
The feeder's working because we put that vibrator on it.
So he hasn't had to get out of that machine and unplug it once.
That's a scary one, because he even says the nugget effect here.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yep.
- Four hours in... - Well, Juano, last bucket.
Let's see what's in the pan, Fred.
You know, at the end of the day, the scale doesn't lie.
Get some water.
What do you think, Juano?
The prospector's sluice should give them
an idea of the quality of the paydirt.
It's hard to say, Fred, but I don't see anything that's popping out.
I see why you can do 40 pans and not find a color looking at that, you know?
I can see some gold right there.
- Here? - Yeah.
I see a pile of gold right there I think.
- There's a nugget. - A nugget right there.
Right at the first riffle.
- It wasn't three feet down, huh? - Right where it belongs.
- There's quarter of an ounce there or more... - Yeah, we got it.
...just in that one pan.
When I first saw that pan, I was pretty happy with what I saw.
Speculate all you want, it don't matter until you actually weigh it up.
For the Waits family, it's the moment of truth.
- Ooh. - This is what we got, guys.
- Well, we know the plant's running more efficient. - Yeah.
0.31.
- Not good, Fred. - No.
...31 ounces worth roughly $600, half the first gold weigh.
- No big nuggets like that last time. - No.
The nugget factor up here is a real deal.
We know the sluice is doing good because we tested it down the sluice.
There's no gold carrying down to speak of. So...
No, everything was working great.
Well, we were hoping to fill a pan with gold, but keep prospecting
because that's what you're going to have to do here.
Yeah.
- You know, like we talked prospector miners. - Absolutely.
We're set up for it now.
This is the first time I've been bit in the ass like this.
They found that big nugget on the first clean up.
We didn't find a big nugget on the second one,
but it's going to be spotty just like this.
The material the old-timers missed,
it's probably got good gold in it.
But there's another silver lining.
- Oh! - Holy cow.
- Nice. Awesome. - Cool.
Came out good, huh, Ryker?
Well, guys, do us a favor.
Keep us informed on what happens
because now your plant's set up to prospect.
You know that second gold weight isn't what we wanted. Honestly, that's gold mining.
You know, especially with ground like this,
sometimes you're going to hit it, and sometimes you don't.
Really want to know how they keep on doing
because they're part of our family now.
We want to make sure that the improvements that we made to their plant,
you know, really help them out.
You know, this is kind of a fluke.
You know, the ground wasn't what it should have been,
- and that's how it is up here, so... - Right.
But you're going to come into some stuff that, it's going to be amazing
- and we want to know about it. - Yeah.
- Absolutely. - Yeah.
Thanks for all your help, guys.
- Thanks for everything, guys. - Yeah. It was really amazing.
Well, Juan?
Oh, man, Freddy, that was a little disappointing, honestly.
- Well, I guess on to the next... - Let's do it.
- ...bunch of miners, huh? - Let's go.
Hey, Freddy. Hey, Juan. How's it going?
We just want to give you guys a quick update.
We've been taking the trommel around and using that,
you know, top riffle or nugget riffle to kind of prospects
some ground and see what we can find
and we've got a surprise for you.
We pulled out 0.91 ounce
in just one four-hour run.
Um, things are doing good.
And that's almost a 40% increase from when you guys were here helping
and it was in the same amount of time and a lot less work.
Um, we just want to thank you guys both for everything.
Things are running awesome and we couldn't have done it without you guys.
And we really appreciate you and your crew coming
to help us and hang out with us and you're welcome any time.