[Tater] That's washpit dirt.
2.4 ounces per 100.
[narrator] Todd's final gamble proved a success.
That's pretty nice gold right there.
[narrator] But with 238 ounces to go...
We're gonna need a monster week.
[narrator] ...and temperatures rapidly dropping...
[Todd] The pay dirt's actually starting to freeze up in the morning.
[narrator] ...the Hoffmans need to mine
as much Lost Cut pay as possible.
[Hunter] Mining about 240 yards an hour right now
so that's pretty hot.
[narrator] Can Todd and the crew burn through dirt...
[chuckling]
[Hunter] That's the biggest nugget
we've found since we've been at this mine.
[narrator] Or will they get stuck in the mud?
[Todd] Cub, is your... is your truck starting?
[engine sputtering]
Well, what the [bleep]?
Did you hear that? It just shut off.
-[engine sputtering] -Well, [bleep].
Something's really, really wrong.
[Hunter] The trommel's not spinning.
Looks like my luck's run out on this.
[wind blowing]
[Todd] So, we're running out of time.
It's getting cold. Frost is here.
And, uh, how's that pay coming out of there, Tater?
[Tater] Frozen.
Scratched everything we could find.
[Todd] Okay.
Both plants are running the Lost Cut.
But it's got a lot of water in it,
so the pay dirt's actually starting to freeze up in the mornings.
Once the pay dirt freezes,
there won't be much we can do about it.
It gets hard like concrete.
We're gonna have to work through the night,
and we're already tired,
stretched thin, but...
gonna run the last pay we got.
Yeah.
[Todd] And it might be closing out our season.
Let's be honest.
We just gotta keep digging dirt,
keep pushing the plants as hard as we can
until everything freezes up, then we're done.
All right, guys. Good job, man.
Everybody hang in there.
We're coming down the home stretch.
This is the hardest part, right?
-Yeah. -All right, let's get to work.
You get her?
-Yeah. -Okay.
I got Ron out here with me today
helping me look over the Black Pearl.
-Okay? -Yeah.
[drilling]
-Okay? -Yeah.
[Hunter] Trying to give it a good bill of health,
because I'm gonna try to run it
for 12 hours today,
of the Lost Cut pay.
Everything looks fine.
We're not seeing any leaks.
We're not smelling anything burning up.
Oh, look at that belt.
[Ron] Oh, one slipped over, I see.
Ooh.
[Ron] That'll be a quick fix.
It'll take two seconds.
[Hunter] Luckily it's a quick fix, but this is why,
you know, I'm taking a little bit of extra time
to look everything over.
Cub, hang tight.
We're gonna fix a belt
so just stay... stay put for a second.
[Hudson on radio] Okay.
[Ron] Just take it right off.
The way this plant works is you have the motor,
which has several rubber belts on it that go to a tensioner,
which turn the big sprocket, which turns the chain,
which turns the drum.
So even a little thing like this
can cause a bigger issue, and I'm glad that we caught it.
[Ron] All right.
Just sneak around there without smearing it.
[Hunter] Yeah.
You wanna try roll her?
-Yeah. You ready? -Yeah.
-Oh, you're going that way? -Yeah, on the gutter.
-Yeah. -There you go.
-[Ron] Okay? -Yeah, yeah.
All right, I'm gonna suck her up.
[Hunter] Okay.
Right now we still need 238 more ounces.
The Lost Cut, it's paying about 2.4 ounces per 100
which is really good.
So before it freezes up,
I'm gonna just run this plant till there's no more pay left.
I'm gonna flip this guy on.
[engine starts]
Go ahead and bring the water all the way out.
Full speed on the pump.
I never thought I would say this,
but we still have a chance of beating the Holy Roller.
But at the end of the day we're all on the same team.
All the gold goes into the same pot.
I think every single person on this team
deserves the win.
[birds crying]
[Randy] The old-timers say that
once the sandhill cranes go by,
you got 10 days till you're snowed out.
That's about right.
Last year, once we saw the sandhill cranes,
10 days later
we had two inches of snow on the ground.
Weather at that point starts dropping dramatically.
It doesn't look like it outside,
but at night it's getting real cold.
And we've been punching in about 17-hour days
for six days a week,
and as the weeks go on,
you forget the little things
that you're supposed to do every day.
Everybody has to stay focused.
Nobody can be off their game.
Everything has to stay running.
The weather is approaching us,
the snow is in the mountains.
We need to hit that goal and get out of here.
This town's about to freeze over.
We're both getting gold, really good pay dirt.
Ran probably 6,000 yards between the two of us.
And it's one of those days where you just think,
"Man, this day couldn't be any more perfect."
Hey, guys, so far, things are running smooth.
Oh, yeah.
[Hunter] I grew up doing night shift.
But, I mean, it's not for everybody.
It's hard to see.
But we gotta stay focused on the 1,000-ounce goal.
So we're chugging along.
We all have a common goal, it's to get 1,000 ounces.
So we just wanna speed that up as much as possible.
[Todd] Let's go.
So, our pay dirt's starting to freeze up.
We got a little bit left.
We're just gonna keep grinding.
We're gonna run it till the end
and where we can't run any more.
[Hudson] I wanna get my dad so much gold
on that table that he can barely handle it.
I'm ready to go.
[beep]
[engine sputtering]
Uh-oh.
[engine sputtering]
[bleep]
[Todd] My machine is not starting.
Bunch of things flashed on the computer.
It's definitely something wrong.
[radio beeps]
[Todd] Ron, Ron, Ron, you got a copy?
Yeah, go ahead.
Hey, can you come down here? Uh...
I need you to check out this excavator.
I've never seen it do this.
Yeah, I'll come check it out. Give me a minute.
My problem is, I can't afford to have
even one machine down.
I have just enough machines.
So if one goes down,
then we're gonna lose production.
[beeping]
[engine running]
[engine stops]
Did you just hear that? It just shut off.
-What's going on, Todd? -I don't know.
It's not... it's not something normal.
-All right. -'Cause it's got a bunch of errors.
It's got something... something drastically wrong.
Okay, I'm gonna go ahead
and just pull up some codes real quick here
before we get in too deep.
[engine sputtering]
Well, [bleep].
[Hunter on radio] Hey, guys, are you guys...
Anybody else having any issues?
Cub, you got a copy.
[Hudson on radio] Yeah, go ahead.
[Todd] Cub, is your, uh... is your truck starting?
Well, what the [bleep]?
[on radio] No, it's... it's not.
Okay, guys.
Something... something's really, really wrong.
Just don't touch anything.
I want you guys to just kill it
before something happens to it.
We got other machines, Ron.
We got an issue.
I need to go look at the site glasses...
-Do it. -...on the filter,
and just see what's in there.
This is not normal.
Please.
[sighs] Todd?
This thing's full of water.
Oh, my gosh.
[Ron] The moisture going through these is not good.
It can take out the injection pumps.
It can take the end off the injectors.
It can blow the tops off the pistons.
Even if they do survive, we may end up
running into faults for the next several weeks.
-So... -[groans]
...we need to get on this right away.
-I will. -Get a hold of the guys.
Tell them to stop running anything that's actually running.
Guys, everybody kill your machines.
I want every single machine off now.
Why?
[Todd on radio]
[bleep]
Are you kidding me?
[Todd on radio] Guys, we're shutting down the mine.
Both plants need to shut off now.
[bleep] me.
[Todd on radio] Hit the bypass, hit the bypass.
[Randy on radio] Roger that.
[Hunter] This is the absolute worst time
that this could be happening.
Time down is just us not getting gold.
And, uh, we're in a race against the elements
and against the cold.
So we really can't afford any of this right now.
[Todd on radio] Shut the trommel down.
I'll kill the trommel and run down and get the pump.
[Randy] Generator's off, trommel's down.
When the problem sets in, you realize, "Oh, my gosh,
I'm literally losing my investment."
Welcome to gold mining.
One step forward, sometimes two steps back.
Today was two steps back.
As of right now, we're not getting any gold.
The fueling system has really tight tolerances.
It doesn't take water, it doesn't take dirt.
The moisture going through these is not good.
[narrator] The Hoffmans' entire mine is shut down
after discovering the fuel powering both plants
and all their heavy machinery
is contaminated with water.
Water, when it gets into the machine when it's hot,
take the end right off the injectors,
it goes through the fuel pump, takes up the fuel pump.
[Todd groans]
Tell me what I can do.
I'm gonna need help to drain all these tanks off.
How long's it gonna take?
You're gonna lose 24 to 48 hours.
I can't lose 48 hours.
There's no... You can't.
-It's not an option. -I can't even lose 24.
It has to be done.
[Todd] Aw, dang it.
[Ron] This is huge.
[Todd] How much more room you got in there?
Not a lot.
[Todd] Okay.
We had about 5,000 gallons of contaminated fuel.
And at $6 a gallon, you're looking at $30,000.
Plus a whole day's running,
and when you only have so many days left,
that's a big deal.
I'm calling in a favor down in Nome.
We gotta get good fuel out here
and get our operation rolling again.
It's almost done.
Bryce is just on the other end,
making sure that we're getting every last drop.
So we just wanna get everything we can.
And then Dakota's gonna come through
and drain the last little bit out with a bucket.
Hey, well, we got what we can.
The stream is getting less.
That's obviously really cloudy.
Not supposed to be like that.
[narrator] Nearly 30 hours into the shutdown,
the gas Todd called in has arrived.
Got a bunch of the equipment drained out.
And it's on to filling them back up.
[Bryce] There we go.
That'll work.
[Todd] So, I'm heading over to see if Ron,
he could actually fire up the very first machine,
and we're gonna see if we're good to go.
Let's, uh... let's get it all up and running.
We'll know right away if there's any problems,
and if there is we'll just get it addressed.
[Todd] Okay, we'll fire it up
and we'll see what happens here.
[Ron] Okay. This one should go. It's, uh...
I just finished bleeding it. We'll see if it goes right away or not.
-Come on. -[honks horn]
[engine sputtering]
[engine running]
-Does it sound good? -It's alive!
Next! [laughs]
How many we got left?
Got one, two... five left.
-Keep it up, man. -We'll get her.
Let me know what you need from me.
Patience.
-Okay. All right. -It just takes time to do it right, okay?
-Thanks, Ron. -Yeah.
Ron's got about five more machines,
but this one just fired up.
You guys heard it, it's perfect.
That's a beautiful sound.
Once he gets these going,
hopefully if everything's running,
we're back in business.
And hopefully we can catch up on what we just lost today.
[narrator] It takes an additional three hours
to refuel the rest of the equipment.
We got fresh fuel, ready to go.
[engine starts]
[Todd] There we go.
Clear the trommel. Clear.
[machine powering up]
[Todd] I lost $30,000 in fuel,
and I've been down at least a day now,
which is probably another $20,000, $30,000.
We are running out of time.
If we do not get these machines back up and running,
we could miss this goal.
Clear!
Bar in the block, bro. Everybody clear.
[bleep] me.
[Todd] We're back in business.
With all the time that we just lost
changing out bad fuel,
Hunter and I need to run as much pay dirt
out of this Lost Cut as we can.
Luckily...
we got all the machines running.
Because, uh, that could have been
really, really, really bad.
We actually dodged a very, very big bullet
on that one. All the machines,
we didn't hurt anything.
You know, these machines are on lease.
It's not like I own these machines.
I can't afford that.
That could have really, really been bad.
Very thankful that, uh,
we're able to come out of that alive.
And away we go, off to a thousand.
Look at that stuff.
Look at that.
Nice! I like it.
[Todd] Right now, the only pay source
that we have left is the Lost Cut.
So we gotta get back on it before it freezes up.
[Hudson speaking]
[Andy] Hopefully we can make it
with the dirt that we have left
till the freeze pushes us out.
Otherwise I don't know what we'll do.
The ground down deep is always frozen.
And soon as you start losing daylight,
the ground's gonna quit thawing out.
So you've got to keep digging
and you've gotta keep de-watering things.
Once it stops thawing, you're done.
You have no more dirt to run.
At some point we're gonna run out of time.
[Hunter] God, I love this wash plant.
I wanna take it home.
I'm running about 240 yards an hour right now,
so that's pretty hot.
[man on radio] This is absolutely, like,
frickin' the Goblin King, dude.
Gold Goblin King.
What it's all about, right here.
The Black Pearl's been doing good.
It's contributing a lot of gold to the team.
So I wanna see how much more we can get out of her.
As long as the rock's getting washed
and the sluice boxes are working,
we gotta keep going faster.
Time is of the essence. It's getting colder.
We're getting down to the end of the season.
And I don't think the Black Pearl could be,
I think that it is going to be the saving grace this year.
This thing was built specially
for this weather where we're at.
The Holy Roller's been having a lot of issues.
Like, I see there's a reason why
this wash plant's been around for so long.
So there's a reason why this plant's had
so many yards ran through it,
I guess 'cause it works pretty good.
So being able to get a couple hundred ounces extra
that you wouldn't have gotten is tremendous.
[machinery creaking]
[Hunter] Oh, [bleep].
What the [bleep]?
[bleep]
The trommel's not spinning.
[machinery creaking]
[Hunter] The trommel's not spinning.
Idle down the pump. Filled with water.
[Hunter] I don't know exactly what's going on.
The drum just stopped spinning but the motor's still running,
so that's not good.
I'm smelling, it smells like the clutch.
I think the clutch burned out.
This, this engages the clutch which actually drives the motor.
And you can see right here...
...it wants to go, but it's not biting.
-[radio beeps] -Hey, Ron?
[Ron on radio]
Okay. Thank you.
[bleep]
[engine stops]
-[radio beeps] -Hey, Cub. We just, we're broke down.
-Can you come down here? -[Cub] Yeah.
-What's up? -I don't think this one's good.
No? What's it doing?
The whole drum stopped.
The engine was still running,
-this was still engaged. -[Ron] Okay.
So I tried to re-engage it.
[Ron] Okay, let's see what's coming apart in there.
Quick peek here.
-So there's a twin disc clutch... -Yeah.
...that when we pull on this lever, if you look in here...
-...see this release bearing? -[Hunter] Yep, yep, yep.
It comes over and basically locks the shaft...
-[Hunter] Yeah. -...to the gears.
And there's a ceramic clutch disc in there
that is splined to the flywheel.
So when you push this,
two plates come together
and they grab on to that ceramic disc,
and that connects the engine to the belt.
-So fire it up again. We're gonna have a quick look. -Okay.
-[Ron] Go ahead. -[engine starts]
-You see the ceramic disc is the odd color in there? -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[Ron] It should keep moving right now.
It should be connected to the flywheel.
Flywheel's moving separate from it right now. Shut it off.
So it's not transferring the load.
All right, I got to open it up and see what's coming apart in there.
I'll be right back. Give me a second.
There's issues running new equipment that you've never tested,
but there's also issues running old equipment.
This thing's got a lot of hours on it,
and me and Cub have been pushing the plant really hard,
and this might be God's way of keeping me humble.
Was feeling confident, maybe too confident, in the Black Pearl
and we were doing good.
And we were just picking up the pace,
and our momentum was building,
and I was ready to run the Lost Cut pay.
Now I have a real breakdown.
This is the last thing I needed,
but I'm gonna see what I can do.
I got Ron on it. That guy is the best in the business.
Knock on wood, but looks like my luck's run out on this.
[narrator] While Ron takes the lead in fixing the Black Pearl,
Randy steps up to keep the Holy Roller
chugging through Lost Cut paydirt.
[man on radio]
Well, I noticed is that it shut down. That's about it.
So far, the Pearl's been down for the last hour-and-a-half.
You know, we were two plants
running this morning.
We were all excited,
everything was looking great, and then kaput.
I hope that it's a quick fix because we need that plant running.
It's crucial to our goal.
Uh, not only that, but, you know,
they got a lot of hard work into it.
[Randy] Holy Roller is running like a fine Swiss watch today.
There's no issues.
The only issues so far is the guy feeding the plant.
His brain is about to roll out of his ears.
All right, well, that's all looking good.
[Randy] Looking forward to being done.
I've been in here for a little over 9 hours,
and, uh, eventually I'm gonna have to go to the bathroom.
Eventually.
Let Randy take a break for a minute.
-Thank you. -Yep.
-My eyes have got to be yellow. -[laughs]
Okay, we'll get this thing safed out first.
-You want to open up that belt guard, please? -Got it.
[Ron] Okay. There.
Get this thing loosened up.
-Can you hold the wrench? Okay. Got it? -Yeah.
[drilling]
This actually sucks.
I'm losing money. Everybody's losing money.
The Black Pearl's not getting any gold.
You know, break downs are inevitable,
but I'm hoping that when we peel this thing open it's not what we think it is.
-[Ron] Got her? -Yeah.
[Hunter] Hopefully in a hour or two
we're gonna be up and running and sluicing some more dirt.
[Cub] Whatever it is, I'm sure we can find something for it.
I hope so. It's just the time is the issue.
Yeah.
Let's see if it's something simple.
Maybe we'll get lucky here.
[drilling]
Grab onto this shaft on this side, and I'll grab this one...
-Okay. -...and we're gonna pull it straight up.
Oh, oh, it's moving. Okay.
All right, coming straight over my way.
[exhales]
Oh, yeah.
-[Ron] There goes the discs. -Where are we putting this?
Okay, set this right here.
[groaning] Ah, just like that. That's great.
Oh.
The splines have torn right off the ceramic friction.
-Yeah, it's bad. -Yeah.
[Hunter] Any lead we were gaining on the Holy Roller is gone now.
[Ron] Oh.
The splines have torn right off the ceramic friction.
It's eaten into the teeth in the flywheel,
and it looks like it was sitting uneven in here.
The wear is uneven on the flywheel.
[narrator] 238oz short of their 1,000oz goal,
the Black Pearl sits idle with a broken clutch to blame.
[Ron] What does the end of that shaft look like?
[Hunter] I mean, that got hot, cracked.
[Ron] Pressure plate's cracked.
Yeah, you see this here?
The pilot bearing rides on here
and it supports the end of the shaft,
and because it's so loose
the shaft is likely not sitting straight
and squaring the flywheel.
-Oh. -There's a good chance
these teeth were overloaded on one side over the other...
-[Hunter] Turn it back up. -...judging by the wear in the flywheel.
So this is just a matter of high hours and old age.
-Just wore out. -That's not good.
We have the information off that tag on the plate.
Let's get on the horn and see what we can find for parts.
-Does anybody still make this? -Oh, yeah.
-[Hunter] They do? -Yeah, this will be current.
[Ron] There's lots of these around, just not here right now.
-You think there's a lot in Nome? -No.
So there's no way to...
Could we bush fix it, and bypass the clutch, and just have it?
We can do anything.
We would make it permanently engaged.
-The problem is, is it safe? -[Hunter] Yeah.
Because we can't disengage the drive
-when we need to if there is an emergency... -Yeah.
...and what further damage will it do
when it does fail again?
We bush fix this thing and permanently mount that to the flywheel, basically.
We lose all our flex and the give that we have there.
-Yeah. -We could ruin the engine.
Then you don't have anything at all.
I have a real problem with that.
So I'm sure that that will come up as an option, but...
What's the best case scenario?
We get the parts quickly out of Nome
and maybe here within a couple of days.
There's only a few hours for me to get the pieces thrown into it
and back together.
-Just got to get the pieces here. -[Hunter] Yeah.
So you think there's no way around it?
We're down for a couple of days?
Couple of days. I need parts.
I don't have a couple of days.
This completely screws us.
I should let my dad know.
-Did you hear what happened on the radio? -Uh-uh. What happened?
Basically, my clutch went out on the motor on the Black Pearl.
[Todd] Jeez.
[Hunter] Me and Ron pulled it open.
The clutch plate, the pieces that grab the disc,
they got hot, they were cracked.
Everything's sheared off.
What did Ron think? Can we make something?
No.
[sighs] He thinks there's no way for us to do a bush fix on it
without compromising the whole motor.
-Jeez. -Pretty much, the whole thing needs rebuilt...
-...so... -Pretty catastrophic is what I'm hearing.
[Todd] Having watched all the hard work
that Hunter has put into this plant, I'm proud of him.
I want this plant to actually be successful.
To have this kind of issue right now, right at the goal line,
is actually pretty disheartening.
Hopefully they can turn it around and turn it around real quick.
It's just a unique part.
There's not a lot of things that use that particular direct drive clutch in town.
I've already been calling around everywhere.
They don't have anything like that here.
Everything that I'm hearing about in town is all too big.
It's, like, a 13 inch.
We have a 10 inch fiberglass disc in there,
and it's, like, a really unique piece, and they don't have that size.
-And that piece... -What's this thing,
what's this, like,
it can't be worth more than a few hundred bucks.
What if we order it? What are we looking at?
I'm waiting to hear back.
It has to come from the manufacturer
which is in, like, Wisconsin or something like that.
-And so... -Wow.
-I don't... -Dude, I am so sorry.
I'm sorry for everybody
because that thing's cranking out gold.
-We're both cranking out gold. -This week is... Yeah.
-Yeah. -Mmm-hmm.
This is the most gold we've been getting with it.
We're losing 30, $40,000 a day on a $300 part.
We only have so much time left.
I want to keep trying.
I just, I don't know.
You need to get that part.
Fly it in, whatever you got to do.
You get that plant running quick,
or we're not gonna hit 1,000oz, I'll guarantee you that,
now that you guys are cooking.
Got it.
[Todd] The cool part about having two plants,
I'm at least still heading towards a goal,
but I don't know if we're gonna reach it without his plant.
He's got to figure something out.
All right, let me know what I can do.
[man on radio]
What happened to the Black Pearl?
[man 2 on radio]
[man on radio]
[man 2 on radio]
[man on radio]
We're pretty, uh, down bad.
Well, let's pull the box.
We had two good days on it.
I ran 400 yards this morning,
so either way it should be good.
Well, let's do it.
We were just starting to pick up speed.
We've been getting the best gold...
...that we've got from the Lost Cut.
And I was pushing for 100oz this week.
We've got to take this loss on the chin.
Do you notice the difference between this
and the stuff we were running before?
Yeah, this is more porous.
[Hunter] Today would have been another maybe 20oz
which is almost $35,000.
It's hard to take this loss, you know?
We'll get this thing all cleaned up
and get the plant ready for when we're able to run it again.
-Are you gonna pull this out with me, Sparky? -Yeah.
-We'll pull. -You find one?
Yeah, I just found me another nugget.
[Sparky] Yeah, there's more nuggets down here.
Hunter, look at this.
Sick.
Look at that.
-Are you kidding me? -What? What did he just find?
-Little nugget. -Look at that one.
[laughs smugly]
See, that's the biggest nugget we've found since we've been at this mine.
That's insane.
That's the stuff the Holy Roller can't catch because these are too small.
-[Cub chuckles] -You just found that right in there?
-Yeah. It was, like, right here, yeah. -Right at the top?
[Sparky] A bigger wash plant, bigger gold, baby.
Well, it's a little sign we need to...
-[Cub] Keep going. -...we need to keep going, man.
[Sparky] Yeah.
There's positives and there's negatives,
and this isn't our first breakdown,
and it's not gonna be our last, so...
...we'll just keep moving forward.
-[Jack] You made it. -[Hunter] Hello.
A little extra.
Yeah.
My grandpa loves gold more than anybody,
so first person I thought of to show this nugget to is him.
Let's see what it looks like, huh?
We're gonna have to see what he thinks about it.
I'll take a bunch of those.
-Yeah. -Whoo.
My grandpa's kind of the reason why I'm up here mining.
His love of gold mining is magic.
These are all nice.
[Hunter] I just love the guy.
[Hunter] Look at that.
[Jack] Wow. That's the biggest nugget we've seen.
[Hunter] I'm liking what I'm seeing.
We've found the biggest nugget that we've found all season.
-You know what it looks like? -Mmm.
Looks like a guy sitting there, panning gold.
-[Hunter] Yeah, yeah. -Huh?
-That's pretty cool. -Yeah, huge, man.
[Jack] That's pretty cool.
[Hunter] We'll see what the cleanup looks like.
[cellphone ringing]
[Kenzie on phone] Hi!
-[Georgia babbles] -How's it going?
She's six months old today.
-[babbles] -[Cub chuckling] God dang.
I knew it was gonna be hard,
but one of the main things is me missing out on my family.
She wants [chuckling] it?
I just don't know if it's worth it...
...to be up here and miss my family,
and I come back and my baby's twice as old.
I've never seen her eat food before.
I'm kind of at the point where I just want to finish the season.
All right, Kenzie, bye. Love you.
Love you too.
-Bye! -[Cub] Bye.
Make that your last bucket right there, all right?
-[radio beeps] -10-4.
She's all in.
There's a picker right here in the box.
What do you think?
[Dakota] A lot of chunky stuff.
-Nice. -A lot of chunky stuff.
So we got a little over a couple of 100oz
to get to 1,000, and the season's winding down,
but we're gonna pull this box and, uh, hopefully should be good.
We got a few days on it now, and, um, getting close.
-[Randy] Looks pretty good. -Yeah, it does.
[Dakota] It's down the riffles.
[Randy] We've only got a little bit left to go
and then we can get out of here.
I'm ready for it.
We know time is short before weather and the winter kicks in,
and this all freezes up, and it tells us to go home,
but we want to hit that 1,000 before that happens.
We want to go home with our pockets full.
Hoping that it's a hot cleanup.
[narrator] As time runs short, the team will need at least 119oz of gold this week
to keep their 1,000oz goal within reach.
Guys, I want to thank you for switching over
to the Lost Cut.
It's a big gamble.
We needed to do something
to make sure that we got to 1,000oz.
Hopefully it pays off.
We've ran as much Lost Cut as we could with both plants.
At 2.4oz per 100, it's pretty rich stuff.
I'm pretty excited to actually see what this cleanup's gonna do.
We're gonna need a monster week
-to actually take us over the hump. -Yeah.
It was starting to look better before we broke down.
It was the best that I've seen.
The box looked really good for how many yards we put through.
So I don't really want to think about...
...how much gold we could have got this week,
but hopefully, you know, your guys' cleanup makes up for it.
Good. Well, we'll find out here.
-[man] Holding it with two fingers. -Welcome, gentlemen.
-I'm just gonna do this for you guys, all right? -All right.
-Just so you can figure this out. -Oh, come on,
have some confidence.
-No. -Uh, not much for this week, buddy.
I'll take the little pan this week.
You know, I'm proud of you guys.
Without your effort, we had zero chance of ever making it to 1,000.
You're great guys.
And I'm proud to be with you guys.
-Stop. -[all chuckle]
Okay, Dad.
All right, I'm going to let the Black Pearl go first.
Thurber, give us the pour.
Thank you, Jack.
Five.
10.
13, 15, 16.
18, 19.
[Jim] 20.
I mean, obviously I don't want to think about how good it would have been,
but either way, that's over 30 grand...
-...you know? -Pretty good.
Three kids and a wash plant
-that's been sitting on the coast for seven years. -I like it.
-[Jim] That's not bad. -[Hunter] So...
I love it.
[Jack] All right.
Well...
Call it out.
All right. Come on, now.
Five, 10, 15.
20, 25.
40.
50.
60.
Uh, I want 70. 70.
One, two.
Got. 80.
80.40.
-[man] Whoo! -[man 2] Yeah.
-[all applauding] -[man] Awesome.
Dude, we got it. That's almost 140 grand, guys.
-[man] Nice. -[Todd] Awesome, man. Good work, everybody.
We had, what, a 170, $175,000 week.
Yep.
[Todd] Where we at, Thurb?
[Jim] Well, last week we were at 762.
We needed average, between the two plants, 119.
We got a total of 100 for an 862.
-862. -862.
[narrator] The Holy Roller weighs in with 80oz of gold,
while the Black Pearl brings in only 20,
for a combined total of 100oz.
After this week,
the Hoffmans have a total of 862oz,
leaving them 138oz short of their 1,000oz season goal.
That's within striking distance,
but, guys, you got to get that Black Pearl running.
You know, my worst nightmare is now our reality.
We lost the Black Pearl
and probably what would be our best week of the whole season.
So I'm gonna do what I can.
I'm gonna call around, and try to get her fired up next week,
and just keep going.
Both those plants have got to run six strong days,
and I mean 12, 13, 14 hours each one.
There's no guarantees on this weather.
We've just got to stay focused.
If Hunter can't get the Black Pearl running again
there's a very good chance that we are gonna fall short of the 1,000.
He's got to figure something out.
-Let's see what happens. -[Hunter] All right.
All right, good job, guys.
Let's kill it.