[rattlesnake rattling]
[Nick] I probably fell in love with gold mining
when I was a kid.
I've always had the dream to have my own mine.
But right now, I'm lucky to break a gram or two a day.
I mean, if I did two grams a day,
I'd be tickled pink.
I absolutely wanna be able to provide for my family.
Come on, Arrow.
There you go. Good girl.
This is, uh, I guess, Casa del Dan,
and got my little dog bed right here.
Box of dog toys
and pretty much everything I need.
I'm the caretaker of the property,
and it really is truly my little
piece of paradise here.
It's something special.
Hopefully, we can keep the place.
[Nick] I mean, everything's on the line.
Literally everything.
Freddy and Juan's help is desperately needed.
[Juan] Let's make some gold, guys.
[narrator] Freddy Dodge...
There's no guarantees in gold, buddy.
[narrator] ...and Juan Ibarra...
All right. Well, let's do it, huh?
[narrator] ...have mastered the art of getting gold
out of the ground...
[Juan] Look at that.
[narrator] ...in the most rugged places on earth.
[Juan] I'm feeling a little sick, Freddy.
[narrator] Now, they rescued struggling miners...
Ooh. That's not good.
[narrator] ...who've risked it all to be rich...
[man] Whoa, whoa, whoa! Shut it down.
[narrator] ...but are about to lose everything.
[man] Eyeballs.
[narrator] To revive these failing mines,
Freddy and Juan engineer the impossible.
[man] Well, I've never heard of a under sluice before.
[narrator] Deliver some hard truths...
This material you're digging now
is totally worthless.
[narrator] ...and track down the gold.
That's what dreams are made of right there.
[narrator] But if they don't at least double
the miner's gold recovery,
they won't take a dime in return.
So it's 10 times the amount of gold.
-Whoo! -That's awesome.
[all laughing]
[Freddy] I don't know which way to go.
They didn't tell me there was gonna be
a fork in the road.
Hmm.
-Let's flip a coin. -Let's do it.
Heads, right.
-Tails, left. -Tails, left. Yeah.
-Heads. -[Freddy] Lady Liberty's up.
[Juan] Yup. Go to the right.
Perfect. Go.
-[laughing] -[Freddy] He steals my coin.
Thanks for the coin, Fred.
[Freddy speaking]
[narrator] 20 miles from the rim
of the Grand Canyon,
Freddy and Juan follow a dusty desert road
to the 180-acre Ballard Mine.
Yeah, there's been a lot of gold come out of this area,
huh, Fred, over the years?
Yeah, my buddy had a mine
about five, ten miles from here, and he did well.
[narrator] Gold was discovered here
during the Civil War,
and was crucial to building
Abraham Lincoln's union war chest.
Since then,
the rich mountain veins of the county
have produced more than 2.5 million ounces of gold
worth $4.5 billion in today's money.
[Nick] Hi, guys.
You made it.
-Hey, guys. How's it doin'? -How you doing?
-How are you doing? -Good, good.
-I'm Juan. -Hey. Good to meet you.
[Danny] Nice. Thanks for being here.
-Who's this killer? -This is Arrow.
That's my guard dog. She's vicious.
Watch your ankles.
-[Juan] She's a cutie. -Thank you.
So, how long have you guys been out here?
Uh, well, I started looking at the property
about three years ago.
The plant's been out a little over a year.
[Freddy] Are you living here at the mine?
No, I live about 70 miles away.
[narrator] Nick staked his savings of $10,000
on a down payment for this land
in prime Arizona gold country.
But the lack of consistent pay
has put his dreams of supporting his family
on the line.
[Nick] I haven't even made this month's payment yet
for this property.
You know, if that forecloses on me,
I could lose everything.
How'd you get involved, Danny?
So, his dad is my oldest brother.
-This is my nephew. -You've known him a while.
-Yeah. -[all laughing]
A while. Forty years now.
And unfortunately, I'd actually thrown my back out
and couldn't walk.
Nick had the property then,
and so that brought me out here.
And I got my back strengthened again,
and I can walk without a cane,
and I was designated the caretaker of the property
and have been out here since.
[Nick] Danny, I used to look up to him big time
when I was young.
That's part of my motivation, too,
is to be able to really fuel
his next part of his journey.
It's kind of a whole new start.
So you got a camp out here or something?
-[Nick] That's it. -[Danny] That's my domicile right there.
-[Juan] Okay. -[Danny] That's my car V.
[all laughing]
[Freddy] You're staying in your car out here, then?
Yup. Until I can get a little place built there.
[Nick] The plan is to build
-a nice little rock house up there. -[Freddy] Okay.
So for you, this is plan A, B, C, D,
-all the way through on? -[Danny] This is it.
If this fails, I'm in big trouble.
I see that. Can we see some of your gold?
Do you have any of it with you?
[Nick] I sure do.
-[Juan] Oh, there you go. -[Nick] Yeah. It's pretty gold.
[Juan] Real pretty.
So, Nick, realistically,
what do you got to get out of this ground?
What's your goal for the year?
[Nick] Well, I have to cover at least 50 ounces this year.
Make sure the payments are paid,
make sure there's fuel, and, you know, move forward.
How many ounces you do last year?
One.
-One? -[Nick] Yeah.
-[Freddy] You know that's a huge leap. -Yeah.
That's, like, jumping the Grand Canyon
that's over here somewhere.
[Nick] Yeah. Yeah.
[Juan] Well, let's go take a look at the plant, huh?
-Let's do it. -Let's do it.
Nick, you know, he's put his heart and soul
and his money into this operation,
so he doesn't wanna see it fail.
It's his dream. He doesn't wanna lose it.
But it's a tall, tall, tall cliff to climb after.
We know they only got one ounce last year.
So here's the beast, huh?
[Nick] That's the beast.
It was out of my budget to drill wells
or haul water and just...
It's dry, 100%.
[narrator] Unlike most gold mines,
dry plants use no water.
Instead, inside Nick's dry sluice,
an air compressor forces air
to flow up through pay dirt,
blowing away the useless material,
while heavier gold sinks,
getting caught in an air cushion
that traps the gold in backwards riffles.
A dry plant is up to 15% less efficient
than a wash plant,
but allows mining in places with little to no water.
[Juan] So did you build this entirely by yourself, Nick?
[Nick] For the most part.
You'll have to pardon the rudimentary
55-gallon drum.
That's just what I was able to scrounge up.
-[Freddy] Well, let's fire it up. -[Nick] Let's do it.
Juan and myself, we'll just kind of stand back and...
-Take a nap. -[Freddy] ...see what goes on. Yeah.
-[Juan laughs] No. -All right.
We'll watch it for sure.
This is part of what's killing me.
You know, gas is not cheap, diesel's not cheap.
So it's skin of my teeth every time.
[Freddy] Fire it up.
[narrator] Running the plant requires
as much as $850 in fuel per month.
A heavy cost for an already cash-strapped operation.
All right. First bucket.
Timer's started. Four hours.
[narrator] Nick feeds dirt into his hopper,
which travels down to a trommel
made from an old oil barrel.
A drive system made from a motor
and two small tires turns the trommel.
Steel mesh holes allow smaller gold bearing material
to fall into the blow boxes or dry sluices,
where air blows away the dirt and traps the gold.
[Freddy] I know it's a dusty son of a gun.
[Juan] Yeah, my eyes are full.
[Nick] This mine means everything to me.
Everything I've done for the last 12 years
has gone into getting to this point.
So it's been a long haul.
[man] Here we go.
[Nick] I do have big dreams and aspirations.
I would like to build a golden empire, if you will,
have many operations all over the place.
But I realize that's a long way
from where I'm at now.
I lost everything, and I mean everything
in '08, '09.
My daughter, Grace, she's 20 now.
She had to go live with my parents in Florida.
It was very hard on me.
And I really wasn't able to even...
see her grow up after that.
I hit the mountains, dredging.
[narrator] To support his daughter,
Nick turned to solo gold mining.
[Nick] See down in there?
I'm gonna start going into that a little bit more,
underneath them boulders.
Got a lot of gold, a lot of nice big nuggets.
But then, all the places that I'd go
that had water to dredge,
slowly but surely started drying up.
[narrator] In 2018,
Nick met his current wife, Mikey,
and her two sons.
And just six months ago, they had a baby daughter.
[Nick] Got the Ballard family hanging out,
came to visit, bring me some supplies.
[narrator] With five mouths to feed,
Nick decided to go big in 2021
and set up his own mine.
[Nick] Some of the view. And then there's Grace.
-What do you think of it? -I love it.
-[Nick] Yeah? -Yeah. It's a lot of land.
[Nick] Hopefully, we can make it work.
-[Grace] I know you will. -[Nick] Hopefully.
[Grace] It's gonna blow up.
I don't much care for fancy houses
and fancy cars and everything.
It's really the ability to do things,
to do things for my family,
to do things for extended family like Danny.
That... That's my passion
and that's what I wanna be able to do.
It's all looking pretty good.
[narrator] At the end of the plant...
-Look at that. -[Nick] Yeah, I know.
That should all be going into that dry wash sluice.
Yup.
[narrator] ...Juan sees pay dirt that could contain gold
falling off the screen and into the waste pile.
[Juan] He's got a punch plate up there.
So really, all this smaller material
should be going through that punch plate.
It's never having a chance to get
properly sluiced in that box.
[Nick] That's not good.
[narrator] Three hours into the test,
the trommel stops.
[Nick] I just about had it with this dang thing.
[Nick] Get it spinning. It's a little heavy.
Yeah, heavy.
[Nick] I don't know if it's that wheel's getting
too wore out or the other wheel.
I don't know.
[Freddy speaking]
[Juan speaking]
-[Freddy] What do you think? -[Juan] Honestly, I'm a little nervous.
You know, I think there's so much that needs to be done here.
[Freddy] Massive amount of work.
-That's four hours right there. -That is four hours.
Why don't we call it, Freddy?
Probably got blisters all over his hands.
Just shut her down, Nick.
[narrator] In the first test,
Nick and Danny burned through $15 worth of fuel,
running just two yards of pay dirt.
The equivalent of four excavator buckets.
[Freddy] You guys are working your butts off.
Wrap a 3,000-foot rope around it.
-and go for a run. -Yeah.
-[Freddy] Well, yeah. -Yeah. Right?
[Juan] That'd probably be more efficient.
What we wanna do now is, let's clean both boxes.
-We wanna do a gold weigh, see where we're at. -[Nick] Okay.
-[Freddy] We'll go from there. -[Danny] Yup.
[Nick] Good.
[Freddy] Juan and myself ran across, you know,
guys and their plant in need before,
but this one's really needy.
It's more of a manual labor plant
than a motor-powered plant.
We're gonna help them all we can.
But will it be enough?
[Juan] How we doing, guys?
[Freddy] How's it going, guys?
[narrator] On the Ballard claim in northern Arizona...
-[dog barking] -How's killer doing today?
-Oh, killing. -Oh, hey, buddy.
[narrator] ...miners Nick and Danny
prepare for a reality check,
the results of their first test run.
There's not a lot there.
[Juan] No, there really isn't.
[Freddy] No.
It's not showing anything on troy ounces,
let's kick over to grams...
-Grams. -...and see what it does.
[Freddy] Two tenths of a gram.
So that's a hundred and sixtieth of an ounce.
Yeah.
[narrator] Worth just $12.
It's the worst gold weigh
Freddy and Juan have ever seen.
That's a tough one right there.
-Yeah. -Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Right now, you're burning more diesel fuel per hour
than you're getting gold.
-Yeah. No kidding. -Yeah.
Well, let's me and Juan
figure some stuff out here and make a game plan.
[Juan] We'll come back out in the morning
and then we'll give you guys the ideas
of what we got, and go from there.
-[Freddy] All right. -All right.
-Here you go, bud. -Hey, thank you.
-[chuckles] -See you in the morning.
[chuckles]
-Yeah. -Not that great.
-No. -Yeesh.
I'm sure they can help us sort that out, man.
You know,
those guys are over there, I don't want them to hear me.
So I'm gonna talk a bit softer, but...
you know, they're in tough shape here.
That spot he's digging in right now
may not be good enough,
but he's got a lot of land here.
Maybe it has potential.
[narrator] To get to their 50-ounce target,
worth nearly $100,000,
and keep their mine,
the Ballards need almost 13 times this amount of gold.
In a word... "terrible."
I don't think I've ever seen Nick
as disappointed as today when we did that weigh in.
I can feel for him 'cause he's really on the line.
He's got family and the property payments
and everything, so...
Yeah, I could really see him...
Where that hit him really hard.
Man, Freddy, there's just...
There's just so many things we gotta do to this plant.
-Yeah. -But right now,
he's spending a dollar to make a dime.
More than a dollar to make a dime.
Let's hope we can do some things for him
and help him dig out of the hole he's in.
Reality's reality.
With the amount of material they can run,
even if we triple it,
it's still gonna be rough.
They'll do better,
you know, but they aren't gonna get rich.
But maybe they can make a living.
How's it going, guys?
-[Juan] Gentleman. -Good. And you?
[Juan] How's that pup doing?
[Danny] She's doing good. Waiting for good or bad news.
[all laughing]
Well, I don't know if it's good or bad,
but we definitely wanna do a few things.
Obviously, the trommel drum is first and foremost.
-That was just terrible. -[Danny] Yeah, yeah.
[Juan] We actually wanna do, like, a drive system on it.
-[Danny] Okay. -[Juan] To be able to actually drive it efficiently.
As far as your recovery system,
you know, right there we probably saw 20% of dirt.
[Freddy] 20, 25% of stuff.
[Juan] Was actually going off the end of it.
[Freddy] We'll add a punch plate,
-vibrating screen on the end. -[Nick] Okay.
[Freddy] You know, it'll allow you to add more
blow boxes on the end of that in the future.
[Juan] Yeah.
Another aspect is your prospecting.
You need better ground, you know,
'cause you're not running a ton of material.
-[Nick] Mmm-hmm. -[Freddy] You know, this gulch
you're playing with right here,
this is the last one I would touch here.
Don't be discouraged 'cause, I mean,
there's been a lot of mining here.
[Juan] Sounds great.
[Freddy] And then, right now,
you're not getting enough gold
to pay for the diesel, and that doesn't cut it.
So we're gonna try to save you money
-and get your efficiency up. -[Nick] Okay.
And I'm no solar expert,
but you've got a lot of solar here.
-Yeah. -That's not a problem out here. [laughs]
[Freddy] So what if we put a solar panel system in,
then the solar will be running your whole plant
without any more gas,
-just the sun. -[Nick] Awesome.
[Juan] This is kind of a first for us,
and to me, that's exciting,
because it's something that hasn't really been done.
[Nick] You might be in luck, 'cause I actually have some solar.
[Juan] You got some panels?
Yeah, I've got solar at my house,
and I've got a little extra.
[Juan] Oh, awesome.
[narrator] In addition to getting the Ballards
on better ground,
Freddy and Juan will attach a 3-foot wide
custom sprocket around the trommel.
A motorized chain will turn the barrel consistently
to increase the amount of pay dirt
going through the plant by 400%.
A new punch plate at the end of the trommel
will be aided by a vibrator
to filter all gold-rich pay dirt
into the dry sluice.
Finally, in a first ever bid
to not just increase recovery
but also decrease costs,
the guys will construct an innovative
solar panel trailer to power Nick's dry plant.
The goal?
To make all of his gold nearly pure profit.
It's beautiful here, and I know you don't wanna lose your property.
So it strikes home.
When I was 16 years old, I lived in my car. Right?
So I've been there, right?
I had nothing.
And nobody ever gave me anything.
[Juan] Mmm-hmm.
[Freddy] And I see the situation you guys are in.
I've been in a similar one.
So, it's even more important, you know, for us...
For me and Juan,
you know, to help you guys out the best we can.
Freddy and I talked about it. We wanna do this %100 free.
That changes my life.
It changes my life.
[Nick chuckling]
-I'm getting in on that. -Oh, bring it in, man.
[Nick] Thanks guys. Man, I really...
You don't even know, like, seriously.
[Juan] No, we got limited time.
-I think we should get to work, huh? -All right.
-Let's go. -All right, guys. Appreciate it.
[Nick] So I'm super excited with their ideas.
I can't express my gratitude enough.
I really can't.
It's just a blessing to have them involved with this experience
and the growth of this operation.
[Freddy] We're gonna build a punch plate screen.
[Danny] All right.
[narrator] Freddy and Danny's morning task
is to tag team the vibrating punch plate.
[Freddy] We're gonna have holes here
that allow that material to go through
into their dry wash sluice.
[Danny] So I just pin her down?
[machine whirring]
[Freddy] Sounds good.
[Nick] This is it.
[narrator] While 70 miles away,
Juan retrieves spare solar panels
at Nick's compound.
-[Juan] There's the family, huh? -[Nick] Hey, yeah.
[Juan] Let's go meet them.
[Nick] This is Ivory and my wife, Mikey.
[Juan] Mikey, how you doing? I'm Juan.
-[Nick] Juan Ibarra. -Nice to meet you too.
Oh, hello, little one.
-[Nick] That's Ivory. -Hi cutie.
I missed you guys.
Oh, I missed you so much. Yeah.
Nick, he's very caring,
very passionate about what he does.
He definitely sacrifices a lot.
It's definitely hard being here without him
while he mines quite often.
But I'm behind him 100%.
[Nick] This is the entryway.
[narrator] Nick bought this remote barndominium
eight years ago.
Obviously, got a wood burning stove
to keep warm, and AC to keep cool.
You know, pretty much got everything we need.
[narrator] Adding on living quarters bit by bit...
-[Nick] Four walls and a roof, right? -[Juan] Yeah.
-All the essentials are here. -[Nick] Yup.
[narrator] ...the family went fully solar
just over a year ago.
Here's the workhorse,
and that provides power all the time during the day.
The sun is shining, we got all the power we need.
So yeah, without this thing, we were running the generator.
[Juan] Oh, man.
And are these new or are they used?
-[Nick] They're used. -They're used?
[Nick] They're pretty new, though.
[Juan] Well, this is half the battle, finding the panels, so...
-[Nick] Yeah. Awesome. -it's great you got them.
-Yeah. -Well, let's get them loaded up, huh?
There you go.
All right.
[Juan] I don't know about you, Nick, but I'm excited about this.
I'm super excited.
I can't wait.
Go.
Gonna help me with work this morning?
[narrator] With the Ballard mine
not yet producing enough gold...
[Danny] This is basically one of my little ones I make.
If I take them into town, I can make a few bucks.
[narrator] ...Uncle Danny supplements his income
with home-crafted clay tobacco pipes
that he sells for up to $20 each.
[Danny] At the moment, I have to rely on my skills
to basically put gas in my car
and food in my belly and feed my dog.
That is a skull.
And surprise, surprise, people like skulls.
[chuckles]
I would say that, Nick, he's a lot like me
in being a free spirit.
Both Nick and I have gone through some dark times.
And getting out here has been a opportunity
to focus my life again
and really get it going in the right direction.
And if this is lost,
I just don't wanna think about
having to go and start again from there.
And that would be my happy skull.
Hi, Freddy and Juan.
[Juan] There he is.
-See how little Freddy's doing. -Yeah.
-[Juan] Hola. -[Freddy] Hey, hola.
How was was your trip, buddy?
[Juan] Good, buddy. We're back.
[Freddy] You find what you needed?
[Juan] Yeah, we got the rest of the panels that we needed.
They're in the back of the truck,
so I think we're ready to rock and roll.
[narrator] The used panels are a vital component
of the mobile solar trailer,
which could save the Ballards hundreds
in fuel costs a month.
But the 140-mile round trip to retrieve them
has cost half a day.
You know, we've got about five days' worth of work
and about three days to do it, so...
-Yup. Yup. -...we better get to it.
[Nick] Flying by the seat of our pants.
Another day, as usual,
in my neck of the woods, anyway.
[narrator] As Nick stacks the panels,
Juan designs his ambitious new drive system.
Right now, it takes two guys to constantly rotate
that trommel drum.
So, with this, it's gonna be about an 80% increase
just in material going through the plant.
[machine whirring]
[narrator] The design is fed to the cut table,
where a 25,000-degree beam of plasma
cuts a giant 36-inch sprocket out of 3-gauge steel.
This sprocket will then be fixed
onto Nick's cement barrel trommel.
A chain connected to a motor will turn it automatically,
increasing the amount of pay dirt
processed by the plant.
[Juan] Well, there it is.
There's the new sprocket we just cut out.
I'll start working on the base plate
for the motor and the gear box.
Try to get those all knocked out today.
[Freddy] How's it going, Danny?
Good.
[narrator] By the plant,
Freddy checks Danny's progress
on the vibrating punch plate.
So I laid out a grid for Danny
to have him drill holes in here.
So he got all the holes drilled.
And now it's time to put it together
and see what we got.
[narrator] Freddy's punch plate
will efficiently filter pay dirt into the dry sluice
and increase the amount of gold in the box
designed with expansion in mind.
[Freddy] This is strictly custom
for your wash plant right here.
It's unique.
All you gotta do is start drilling holes in it.
-Okay. -Right?
And then you can put another dry wash
sluice right underneath there, right?
[Danny] Right.
[narrator] The length of the plate will allow Nick
to add further dry sluices in the future,
increasing the capacity of the plant.
-You see what I'm doing here? -[Danny] I do.
Do that on the other side if you would, sir.
[drill machine whirring]
[Freddy] Could you hand me one of those springs, bud?
[Danny] You got it.
[Freddy] This wind isn't helping us any, Danny,
-that's for dang sure. -[Danny] No, sir.
It's been pretty gusty all day.
I'm really worried about welding right now
because any stray spark could start a fire.
Let's just hope the wind slows down.
[narrator] Back in the cut truck,
Juan puts the finishing touches
on the drive motor for the trommel.
I'm gonna get it wired up, test it,
make sure our rotation's the way we need it
and then we'll get it down to the plant and get it welded on.
[machine whirring]
There it is.
[narrator] But with two and a half days left in the rescue...
Hey, Juan, I'm coming up to the cut trailer to see ya.
We've got a pretty big problem here.
[narrator] ...Freddy bears bad news.
[Freddy speaking]
-Oh man, it's bad out there. -Yeah.
This whole trailer's shaking all over the dang place.
[Freddy] There's a red flag warning.
[Juan] Are you kidding me?
[Freddy] We cannot strike an arc.
[narrator] A red flag warning is put into effect
when humidity is low and winds are high
to prevent devastating wildfires.
It makes fires of any kind prohibited,
including welding sparks.
The build must come to a standstill.
[Freddy] The way the wind's blowing right now,
it probably gusts 60, 70 miles an hour.
But we're not gonna be the guy that catches
this valley on fire.
That's for damn sure.
[Nick] Some doubt, you know,
if we're gonna get it done in time.
I want to be a very good provider for my family.
I've got too much into this.
Every single thing I have,
every ounce of my being is invested into this project.
I've got to make it work.
How's it going, Nick?
Good. And you?
Fine, except the wind.
Yeah, it's picked up today, huh?
-Yeah, it's picking up. -Yeah.
[narrator] At Nick Ballard's dry mine in Arizona,
a red flag warning is in place for a second day.
But the welding delay opens opportunity
for another urgent need on the mine site.
We cannot finish the plant right now.
So, for the moment,
we're gonna go do some prospecting,
see what we can find.
-Well, let's go look around. -Sounds good.
-I'd like to see these draws. -Yeah.
I'll follow you.
[narrator] Each of Nick's gullies or draws
was once a stream,
slowly carving gold for mother lodes
in nearby mountains
and depositing it onto the rocky beds.
The top of this one you're working here.
Just by the look of the rock,
you can see this hasn't been concentrated
-a whole lot, right? -[Nick] Yeah.
When you mine, you usually wanna start at the bottom.
-[Nick] For sure. -[Freddy] Nature's sluice box.
You know, you get that water going through there
and it's concentrating that gold.
[Nick] Yeah. Yeah.
I have found some stacks from some old-timers,
you know, down below in this gulch.
[narrator] 19th-century miners in Arizona
often redirected streams
to create powerful natural sluices.
But they also used bellows
to pump air into rudimentary dry sluices,
using the exact same principles
that Nick uses in his blow boxes.
[Freddy] So we got three creeks confluence down there, right?
So if you start where your best gold is,
get that money in your pocket...
And then work out, yeah.
-And then work your way out. -Yeah.
-[Nick] Yup. -[Freddy] Right?
-See what you find. -[Nick] Mmm-hmm.
Freddy just took me a little scouting mission,
looking over the ground.
And, I mean, I'm at the top of a hill.
Then the farther down you get,
the more of that concentration you will get.
There's a plan here for down the line,
and it's much appreciated.
The wind slowed down a little bit,
so that's helpful.
The red flag warning isn't in effect right now,
but I bet it will be this afternoon.
[narrator] With less than 24 hours left in the rescue...
Well, we're gonna try to get everything done
that we said we were gonna get done.
We just gotta keep going.
[narrator] ...Freddy and Juan capitalize on the short wind break
to finish their punch plate and drive system builds.
But the clock is ticking
to construct a solar-paneled trailer
before the red flag shuts them down again.
Get loaded up, head over to the plant,
get the ring on there.
We're gonna put the drive system on,
get this trommel rolling.
[Freddy] Ready to put this on, Danny?
[Danny] Let's do it.
[narrator] Freddy plans to install a vibrator
underneath the punch plate that will shake the dirt
and evenly classify it into the sluices.
[Freddy] You go to that side, bud.
So, push hard?
Or fairly hard.
[drill machine whirring]
[Freddy] So we'll turn it on and we'll see.
Fire in the hole.
[drill machine whirring]
[Danny] There we go.
[laughs]
It's loud, but that's what we're after right there, buddy.
Right on.
[narrator] One fix down,
eight hours to go till nightfall.
Right now, we gotta get this little project done
and get onto the next one.
[narrator] Juan races to fit the drive system
that will turn the trommel, saving miner Danny's back
and increasing the amount of pay dirt
through the plant.
Give that a shot.
Let's see what that looks like.
-Up here. -Thank you.
I'm having to cut that new sprocket in half
so I can get it around the drum,
and I'm gonna weld it in place.
Once it's welded in place,
I'm gonna build off of it,
put our new gear box, our new motor,
and assembly there,
so that way, we can actually turn the trommel drum.
[narrator] As the wind picks up,
Freddy takes on the final
and most critical build at the Ballard mine.
[Freddy] Juan's putting the drive system
on the plant right now,
and I'm just getting started on this solar trailer.
This is my first adventure with
anything over a solar panel about that big, right?
You know, but that's how you learn.
If you don't strive to learn new things,
you never jump ahead.
[narrator] Freddy will repurpose an old trailer,
adding a steel framework for solar panels.
The panels will then run the plant,
eliminating Nick's expensive fuel costs
and boosting gold profits.
[Freddy] The wind's a nightmare, but it is what it is.
We'll just fight through it.
Oh [bleep]
The wind's blowing so hard, it's moving my steel sideways.
Right now, our major concern is
if it's blowing angle iron and steel around like it is,
trying to put these solar panels in place
in this wind may be impossible.
This [bleep] wind.
[Juan] Let's get out of here and give Freddy a hand.
[narrator] The third fix still not done,
it's all hands on deck to complete Freddy and Juan's
first-of-its-kind solar trailer.
Nick, let's bring a panel over.
Hey, Danny, you wanna hop up inside of there?
You got it.
We're gonna pick you this end up in the wind.
Okay.
[drill buzzing]
Yeah, these solar generators sure come in handy for,
you know, not having to put as much fuel in the generator.
So, looking forward to that.
Maybe I'll survive just yet.
[narrator] Each solar panel
will deliver up to 400 watts of electricity
into the 125-pound batteries.
[Freddy] Ouch. [bleep] wind.
[narrator] Which will in turn power the plant.
Look at that.
-Oh. [laughs] -That's fancy.
[Juan] It's part of our new green initiative.
[Nick] Hopefully it works, huh?
[Juan] Ah, I'm hoping so.
[both laugh]
[Juan] Get it down to the plant
and get it running.
[Freddy] Stop the wind, please.
[Nick] It's flippin' hot out here in the desert.
[narrator] 114 degree heat makes mining unbearable,
but it has its advantages.
[Freddy] We've got a solar-powered hot plate
as long as the sun's out.
It doesn't work real well in the winter.
Cheap hamburger.
I give it about 10 minutes and it'll be toasty.
Done. It's hot. Cheese is melted.
Time for lunch.
Well, it's not the best lunch, but it's lunch.
-Keep coming. -[Juan] Go.
Chock the wheels there.
Home sweet home.
[narrator] At the Ballard mine in Arizona,
trailer in place, it's the moment of truth.
[Juan] All right, watch out, guys.
Trommel's gonna start up.
-[Freddy] Yeah. -[Juan] That's pretty sweet.
So far, everything looks good.
Batteries are holding up.
Hopefully, it'll last the whole test.
-That's pretty impressive. -[Freddy] Yeah.
For our first attempt at solar,
-I'm pretty happy with it. -I am, too.
[Juan] Oh, four hour test. Here we go, huh?
[Freddy] First bucket.
[laughs]
That is awesome.
It's back saver, huh?
[Danny] Oh, mate, you don't even know.
Yeah. Look at that.
[narrator] Instead of Danny and Nick
hand turning the heavy barrel trommel,
Juan's solar powered giant sprocket and chain motor
allows nearly four times the amount of pay dirt
to run through the plant.
Way better.
[Juan] This is perfect.
It's like 6.7,
almost 7 revolutions per minute.
I'm very happy.
My back's happy and Arrow is happy.
[Nick] This is now the third hopper.
I don't even think we're into an hour yet.
So, it's already running way better.
You see it on this sluice right here on the end?
The material coming off of it
is a lot cleaner than it was before.
[Freddy] Yeah.
[narrator] Freddy's new punch plate
ensures gold-bearing pay dirt gets into the sluices,
as well as adding more real estate
for dry sluices in the future.
Drive's running good, punch plate's running good,
and the solar trailer's running everything.
[Juan] Yeah. The solar system, this may be a game-changer
for out here in the desert.
We did good.
[Danny] Oh, man. Yeah.
[Nick] Last bucket.
Hopefully, there's lots of gold in it.
Shut her down, Nick!
What do you think, guys?
Yeah.
Way better.
[Juan] What do you guys say?
If you guys wanna get this cleaned up,
then we'll meet back up and see what that gold weigh is, huh?
-[Danny] Yeah. Sounds good. -[Nick] Sounds good.
[Freddy] Well, let's get it on the scale.
-[Juan] Let's do it. -[Nick] That's good.
Yeah. Yeah.
-You got it? -I got it, bud.
-All right, bud. -Short legs.
[laughs]
I was gonna make a comment,
but I didn't wanna say nothing, Fred.
Well, guys, moment of truth.
Seven-tenths of a gram.
So roughly at 40th an ounce.
So, we did what, two-tenths last time of a gram?
And now it's right at seven-tenths.
[narrator] Nick has nearly quadrupled his recovery,
while the solar panel system
has reduced his costs to almost zero,
allowing him to earn thousands a season
from his operation.
That's a really good increase, guys.
-I really appreciate it. -[Juan] And having a trommel
that turns without manual labor.
-That trommel that turns... -[Juan laughs]
-...is a game changer for me. -[Juan] And then on top of that,
-that solar trailer... -...at the very least.
[Juan] ...is pretty awesome, right?
And if you had a wind turbine up here,
you could run Las Vegas.
[all laughing]
Well, if gold mining fails I'll go into power generation.
-There you go. -[all laughing]
Yup.
[narrator] But to stand a chance at his 50 ounce,
$95,000 season target and keep his mine,
he must move the plant to richer ground.
All baloney aside.
[Nick] I would move downstream.
[Juan] It doesn't matter how efficient,
how tricked out this plant's gonna be.
If our ground that we're running is $5 a yard,
it's gonna be a lot better down below.
But honestly, guys, it's been a pleasure.
We had a great time out here working with you, guys.
-Come out anytime. -[Juan] Guys.
-Thanks again, Freddy. -Thank you, guys.
-Yeah. Thanks again. -Thanks, Freddy.
-Sure, sincerely. -Yup. Thank you.
So, Nick and Danny get the plant down
where the gold should be,
and start looking around.
Who knows?
You know, they may do really well down there.
That's my hope.
Well, let's get on the road, huh?
-I'll follow you, buddy. -Okay.
All right.
[Nick] That definitely breathes some more life
into my motivations,
and it's not the end of the road anymore.
I've got a little bit more wind in my sail,
and I look forward to the future.
Well, Freddy, Juan, since you've been gone,
I've moved the plant.
I'm on quite a bit better ground.
At least double
what I was getting up at that other spot.
Here's some of the chunkies that I've gotten recently.
[Danny] And I'm gonna build a little house.
This is my dry storage that I'm making.
That's gonna be my little herb garden and everything.
And that's my view.
[Nick] The solar trailer's just been a dream.
I actually haven't even brought the generator out here.
So, I hope things continue to progress
because I've got some giant news.
Mikey and I are expecting another baby.
I learned a quote long time ago
that if you shoot for the moon,
even if you miss, you'll land with the stars.
So, I'll keep doing it.