Original subtitles

[Rob] Last season,

we found an old-timers tunnel in the mountain,

mining an old river channel.

It was really good gold.

This year, we expected

to fully get in that same channel,

continue on, good gold.

It's not there. The channel's not there.

It just dried up overnight.

[Connie] We've scraped, we sacrificed...

If we don't find gold this season,

we're done.

[Rob] We've got issues with the plant

that I don't know how to fix. Rocks plug it up.

I can't do anything about it.

I don't have savings.

Everything that could have been savings

has gone into this.

We are staking our future on this.

There isn't a fallback plan. This is it.

[Connie] We need Freddy and Juan.

[narrator] Freddy Dodge...

I'd rather have gold in the bank

than gold in the mountain.

[narrator] ...and Juan Ibarra...

Not bad for built in the field.

[narrator] ...want to make you rich.

It turns your dream out here into a reality.

[all laughing]

[narrator] In the past five years,

the value of gold has doubled.

[Freddy] There's a $3,000 nugget right there.

[narrator] But rookie miners...

-[man] Whoa, whoa, whoa. -[narrator] ...find it more elusive than ever.

If we don't recover more gold,

then we could lose everything.

[narrator] But there is hope...

Miracles, they do happen.

[narrator] ...to turn desperation into fortune,

Freddy and Juan have one week...

What you just did was genius.

[narrator] ...to deliver a golden payday.

They have a future, and they know what they need to do.

[cell phone ringing]

-[Freddy] Juano. -[Juan] Hey, Fred. How you doing, buddy?

[Fred] Oh, doing all right.

I'm just outside of Virginia City

where we're gonna meet. Where are you at, bud?

I'm actually making a detour.

I'm feeling a little nauseous, dizzy.

Something's not right.

-Oh, no kidding, huh? -Yeah, man.

-I gotta go get a shot. -Well, I'll be thinking about you, buddy.

-Okay. -Love you, buddy.

- Love you too, bud. - alk to you in a bit. Bye.

One thing about Juan is he's one tough son of a gun.

And for him not to...

not to make it, there's something haywire.

But when we say we're coming,

no matter what, we keep our promise.

[narrator] Freddy is en route to the Opie Mine,

where a husband and wife team work their 13-acre claim,

a stone's throw from the legendary Alder Gulch,

one of the most significant placer mining districts in the U.S.

In 1863,

this area produced Montana's largest gold strike

of over a million ounces of gold.

But when the easy pickings were mined out,

prospectors tunneled into the hillside above

in search of gold-rich ancient river channels.

How's it going, guys?

-[Rob] Hey, Freddy. -[Connie] Good. Welcome.

-Rob and Connie, I assume. -Yeah.

-[Freddy] Good to see you. -Oh, it's really good to see you.

-Good to see you. -Good to see you.

[all laughing]

Well, hopefully, uh,

hopefully, we can help you out here.

I know you were expecting Juan and myself,

but Juan's not feeling well right now.

But I hope he gets feeling better.

-[Rob] Yeah, I hope so. -[Freddy] And he can make it.

-So, this is your plant, huh? -Yeah.

[Rob] Yeah. It's, uh--

Boy, I didn't know much when I got it.

My plant does need help.

I'm losing a fair amount of gold.

Various places.

I don't know how to solve it.

We'll watch it running.

-[Rob] Okay. -[Freddy] So, do you have any gold from here?

[Rob] Oh, yeah.

This is kind of the normal gold.

-[Freddy] Okay. -But we get quite a few pickers, too.

-[Freddy] Mm-hmm. -And some bigger nuggets.

[Freddy] That's pretty gold.

-Yeah, we think so. -[Connie laughs]

-It makes a nice wedding ring. -[Freddy] Nice.

How long have you been mining here?

Been actually mining four years.

Once we knew we were gonna gold mine,

everything was gonna go towards that.

Saving what we can,

slowly getting what little equipment we could.

-Piece by piece. -[Rob] Yeah.

-[Connie] On auction is-- -[Rob] Working towards

-to where we could actually mine. -Right.

[narrator] For the past ten years,

construction worker Rob has dreamt of being a miner.

Most of my career was building log homes.

But there is no pension.

2008, you know,

the economy just crashed.

My last job ended and nothing else.

It got desperate pretty quick.

Shortly after that, I saw the first gold rush show.

And, man,

that really spoke to me big time.

Going to look for gold,

taking charge of your own future,

that was the direction.

That's what I wanted to do.

And that's what all my efforts were gonna go towards.

Everything we have is invested in this.

I'm 70 years old now.

And...

the mining is something that I can definitely see

I can do another ten years.

And Connie's with me on that.

That is the dream, for sure.

How much gold did you do last year?

We did 15 ounces last year.

-We were in a channel. -Mm-hmm.

And we were following the old-timers' drift tunnel.

-Mm-hmm. -They knew where the gold was, and so we followed it.

[narrator] The Opie's claim is dotted with signs

of mining tunnels known as drifts.

Old-timers dug into the hillside,

following ancient rivers,

chasing gold-rich pay deep underground.

Things are a little different this year.

So far this season,

we got two and a half ounces, I believe.

[stuttering] It's really dismal.

Yeah.

Sounds like we need to look at your ground, too, huh?

Boy, I'd appreciate it.

What's your goal this year?

[Rob] Well, I need 25 ounces.

That's our goal.

[narrator] With eight weeks before winter could shut them down,

they need another 22.5 ounces to hit their goal.

That'll pay wages anyway.

-Right. -And pay your... pay your bills off.

Yeah. That's how I approach this.

I never was looking to get rich.

I am still working over the winter in construction,

'cause I have to.

But my goal was if I could replace my construction wage,

-that would be retirement to us. -[Freddy] Yeah.

-You know, working retirement. -[Freddy] Yeah.

[Rob] But I just-- I really need the help,

'cause I don't know what else to try.

-[Freddy] Let's do a test run. -[Rob] Sounds good.

[Freddy] Rob and Connie, you can tell they love each other,

you can tell that they're a team.

Their dream is to stay gold mining

and not have to go back to their other jobs.

These guys need to get gold in their pockets,

so for the time being,

they're running what they've got.

Really excited to see what Freddy comes up with.

First bucket.

Stay, Connie.

[narrator] Pay from the Opie's existing cut

is loaded into a feed hopper,

where material travels up a conveyor

and into an 11-nozzle spray deck.

From there, the pay funnels into a 13-foot-long trommel,

where the gold-rich material is washed down into the sluices.

We like to be very independent,

but, um, asking for help,

actually, it feels really good.

We can see some of these rocks, right?

They're still carrying quite a bit of dirt.

[narrator] Freddy inspects the tailings from the spray deck.

[Freddy] So, you know, if there's gold in the ground,

it's in this material, right?

That tells me they're gonna be losing gold.

You can see, like, this rock

that's even going through the trommel.

Like, that material that's stuck to that rock...

may have gold in it.

It's gonna have some.

We want this material right here

that's on my fingers going down the sluice box,

not out the chainage conveyor.

[narrator] Gold is being lost

in both the fine and the coarse tailings.

[Freddy] So, here's another problem.

There's rocks getting stuck in there.

[narrator] Freddy identifies a pinch point

in Rob and Connie's operation.

You see? Connie there,

have to do manual labor.

We need to fix that situation for sure.

[Freddy] This material sticks to that belt.

You can see some of it on there.

[narrator] Fine material sticks to the feed conveyor belt.

This material then spills onto the ground around the plant.

So, if dirt can stick to it, gold can stick to it.

29, 30...

31, 32.

I'm gonna say there's at least 40 colors in the pan.

This is something that will definitely

have to be fixed in some fashion.

[Rob] Having Freddy here,

this is an amazing opportunity.

These guys have put this plant together without ever mining before.

They've done a pretty good job.

But it's still losing gold.

Last bucket!

[narrator] After four hours,

Freddy calls time on the test.

-[Freddy] Let's have a look at the sluice, guys. -[Rob] All righty.

[Freddy] I don't see anything, guys,

but that doesn't mean anything, right?

[Rob] Uh, yeah.

[Freddy] There's only one way to find out,

and that's do a cleanup, I guess, huh?

[Rob] Yeah, sounds good.

-Take care, guys. -Take care.

-All right, see you in the morning. -Bye.

[Rob] Looking forward to hear what Freddy says.

I hate to say, you know, it's our last hope,

but the reality of it is, it is.

Good morning, guys.

-Good morning, Freddy. -[Connie] Good morning.

[narrator] At the Opie homestead in Montana...

[Freddy] You got your gold ready?

-We got her. -[Freddy] Nice.

[narrator] ...with Juan out of action,

Freddy weighs the results from the four-hour test.

I got a scale here.

You ready, guys?

-[Rob] Yeah. -[Connie] We're ready.

[Freddy] Let's weigh it up.

[narrator] To hit their season goal of 25 ounces,

this result must deliver at least

a quarter of an ounce.

0.17, so not even a quarter of an ounce.

-So... -Yeah.

[Freddy] You know, that's...

300-- about $360 worth of gold.

-So, 90 bucks an hour. -[Rob] Yeah.

-No. -[Freddy] So, that's not enough

-for the equipment you're running out there. -No.

[Freddy] No.

But that's why I'm here, is to try to help you guys, right?

[Rob] Yeah, absolutely.

[Freddy] But I just gotta get some stuff through my head

on what we need to do to your plant and, uh,

you know, looking at your ground.

-We'll help you. -So, yep, I know you guys will.

-[Connie] Okay. -So, I'll leave you guys to it,

and, uh, I'll be back with you later

-and get some stuff figured out. -Yeah, look forward to it.

Well, it's, of course, not what I hoped.

So much less than last year.

We're way behind this year.

-[Connie] It's been devastating. -[Rob] Yeah.

It's gotta improve.

In order to make it, in order to continue...

everything that we have planned for,

is in the balance, literally.

We've just gotta make it happen, somehow or other.

Rob told me he was on a channel that the old-timers mined.

So, he was getting pretty good gold out of what they didn't get.

But then the channel ran out.

One of the big things I'm gonna have to do here,

as well as working on the plant

and getting it tuned up,

is, uh, do some prospecting around

and try to find that channel he was on before.

I know they're losing gold.

And I know I can remedy most of that.

We look at that feeder.

Right now, the opening where that material is dropping onto the conveyor,

it's, uh, causing issues.

What I wanna do is open it up more

to the maximum amount possible.

The screen itself,

I want it to get where it's washing the rocks better.

I wanna hang light rubber

down off of those spray bars

to slow that material down going down the screen

and hold it there for a second.

So, those spray bars can really hit it hard.

They're definitely losing gold on that conveyor.

I did a pan off the ground on it.

And got 40, 50 colors in the pan.

A lot of them.

So, what I wanna do on the end of that conveyor,

I wanna put a wiper there

with spring-loaded that pushes up against the belt,

so when it comes around, it knocks that dirt off

and it goes into the plant, not onto the ground.

[narrator] To reduce manual labor and increase production,

Freddy will adapt the hopper

and enlarge the feed hole

to allow more pay onto the belt.

Fine material sticks to the conveyor,

which spills gold onto the ground.

Freddy will install a spring-loaded wiper

onto the end of the frame.

This will scrub the belt

and keep the fine pay in circulation.

Coarse tailings leave the spray deck

coated in fine material.

Freddy will attach rubber strips

to the spray bars

to slow the rock flow,

allowing them to be washed for longer.

Finally, Freddy will add baffles to the inside of the trommel.

The flicking motion will give each rock

the chance to be cleaned

before the pay is then sent down the sluices.

[Freddy] How's it going, guys?

-[Rob] Hey, Freddy. -Hey, Freddy.

We got a plan, maybe?

-Yeah, I got sort of a plan. -[Rob laughs]

-See if you guys are up for it. -Hey! Good seeing you.

I know from panning that you're losing gold on the feed conveyor.

I took a pan out from under it where the dirt's falling off the belt.

-Oh, right. -And I had 40, 50 colors.

There was a lot of gold.

You're losing gold on your other conveyors, too,

on the rocks that are coming off that,

-'cause the rocks aren't really clean, right? -[Connie] Right.

So, what I wanna do is put a wiper, a belt wiper,

on your feed conveyor,

so that gold's going down your sluice box

-and not on the ground. -All right.

[Freddy] On your screen, what I want to do

is hang rubber off those spray bars,

-like fingers of rubber, like a solid piece across. -[Rob] Okay.

That'll slow those rocks down so they get that longer shower.

In your trommel, a lot of those rocks

have material stuck to 'em as well.

So, if there's material stuck to them,

there's gonna be gold stuck to 'em.

So, if we put lifting bars in there,

-it's gonna flip it over, flip it over... -Yeah.

-...flip it over, right? -Yeah.

-I also want to eliminate your job, right? -Mm-hmm.

You sitting there with a bar or a hoe,

happen to clean that feeder out

-where the rocks jam up in there, right? -Yeah.

So, what I wanna do is open that up.

And I figure, it's gonna be

about $1,500 in material.

And then, I'd like to see two ounces

of gold when you get it.

-[Rob] Mm-hmm. -You don't have to do it now, for... for the labor.

That just kind of covers expenses

-is what it does. -Right.

I'm hoping to at least double what you're doing now.

I also wanna find that channel that you know you had decent gold in.

-[Connie] That sounds good. -Yeah.

-It's gonna be a really important thing, okay? -Yeah.

-[Freddy] Deal? -[Rob] Deal.

Thank you, Freddy.

Deal.

[Rob] Freddy's hopeful. And so, that gives me hope.

I'm looking forward to it big time.

Right now, Rob, we'll start on the trommel itself.

[narrator] Freddy's first job,

to modify the Opie's trommel.

We need to take that chute off,

so we can get inside of there and work on those baffles inside.

[Rob] You bet.

Rob and Connie, you're helping me start on these fixes here.

Since Juan's not here, just keep plugging along.

[machinery whirring]

What we're gonna do here is put lifting bars in here.

So, this is gonna roll those rocks

where they're washing each other.

'Cause they're rolling on top, kind of, like,

you use two hands to wash your hands, right?

That's what we're gonna do. We're gonna make these rocks cleaner.

We all need to remove this little hopper here

so that we can get inside the end of the trommel.

So, what I'm gonna do is tap these and then we'll put bolts in 'em.

-You got her? -[Rob] There we go.

The work's underway. That's the exciting part.

We're on our way.

I just need to turn it.

Okay, there we go.

It's too tight to get in this trommel

to weld lifting bars in.

So, we're bolting them in from the outside

with some self-tapping screws.

So, sometimes these self-tappers,

they'll break off going through steel.

So, basically, what I'm doing

is putting some lubricant on there

and just, uh, just cooking spray.

But I do have this in the lunchbox.

-It just keeps them from snapping off. -[spraying]

-Thank you. -Mm-hmm.

-[Freddy] Fairly close? -[Rob] Yeah.

There we go. So, lifting bars are in.

[Rob] I knew some of the problems we were having,

but I didn't know how to fix it.

Now, I think we've got a really good direction.

Working good.

Connie, go ahead and shut it off.

-On to the next project, huh? -[Connie] Yep.

[horn honking]

[narrator] Coming up...

[Freddy] Juano.

[Freddy] Holy cow, there's a sight for sore eyes.

Yeah, I was actually a little nervous that I was having a stroke.

What are we gonna do, Connie?

-[Connie] Yep. -[Freddy] There's rubber.

[narrator] On the Opie Mine, in Montana,

Freddy's next job is to slow the rocks on the spray deck.

We're gonna cut some pieces of it

to go behind your spray bars up there.

-Yeah, I'm looking for that. -So, if you wanna cut this for me...

[narrator] The spray nozzles are not washing the rocks properly.

Freddy will hang rubber-dampening strips

so the coarse tailings will be sprayed for longer.

[Freddy] So, I need a piece, 28" long,

and we're gonna cut two pieces.

And then we're gonna split the bottom.

So what this is going to do,

it's going to slow those rocks down

so they get washed better.

Thank you, Connie. Thank you for the help.

[Connie] Over the last three years, actually,

we've dealt with this problem.

Rob has changed out the type of shaker,

the power of the shaker,

the angle of the shaker,

so many attempts.

He's come to a place now of asking for help,

which I'm very proud of.

[folk music playing]

[Connie] Rob and I met a bit later in life.

One of my very first dates, Rob took me gold mining.

Gold mining initially

was new to me,

but it grew on me.

We're going for it,

and we hope to have success long into our years.

We started out this season.

All of a sudden, we're not finding the gold.

Rob said he wanted to quit,

and it just...

it just broke my heart.

[inhales and exhales]

We have to make this work.

[Western instrumental music playing]

[Freddy] You want to hold it up

about right there.

[Connie] Right there on both sides?

[Freddy] We can just do one side at a time.

[Freddy] Perfect.

[Connie] I'm proud of this.

This is going to clean the rocks a lot better.

[Western instrumental music playing]

[Freddy] Cutting material here

for that conveyor belt.

[narrator] With the dampeners complete,

Freddy turns his attention

to building a new wiper for the conveyor.

[truck honks]

[Freddy chuckles] Juano.

Holy cow, there's a sight for sore eyes.

How are you doing, buddy?

[Freddy] Good. How are you?

-Pretty good. -You feeling all right?

Oh, doing better.

-Yeah. Yeah. -Doing better?

I ended up having a really bad ear infection

that went viral,

and it caused Bell's palsy.

-Yeah. -Right now, I have no...

no control of any of the muscles

on the side of my face, on the right-hand side.

When I called you the other day, I was actually a little nervous

that I was having a stroke.

-What else do you think? -Yeah. [chuckles]

-I'd never heard of Bell's palsy before. -Yeah. Yeah. Me either.

Well, thank God it wasn't a stroke.

-All right, brother. -Yeah.

[Freddy chuckles] It's so good to see you.

-[Juan] Hey, thank you. [chuckles] -[chuckles]

Really, it's bad Botox is what it is.

-[Freddy] Mmm. -I tried to save a few bucks.

-It wasn't worth it. -[Freddy laughs]

I should have spent the money. [laughing]

I went to your guy. He messed me up.

Well, let's park the truck.

And you want to take me up there

-and show me around? -Yeah.

All right. Sounds good.

[Western instrumental music playing]

[truck beeping]

It's a heck of a relief to know it wasn't a stroke.

It's good to see Juano. That's for darn sure.

It's a little difficult right now

just because of all the issues I have going on with my face.

So it's hard to talk.

But nonetheless, I'm happy to be here,

happy to be able to help.

And hopefully, we can get this rescue done.

[Western instrumental music playing]

[Freddy] And there they are.

Got a surprise for you.

-[Connie] You do? -[Freddy] Yeah.

-Juan. -[Connie] Juan's here!

Oh, my goodness.

-[Juan] How you doing, Rob? Juan. Nice to meet you. -Oh, good to meet you.

-Juan, so glad to meet you. -[Juan] Hello, Connie. Nice to meet you as well.

-I'm a little late, but... -[Connie] You're here.

-[Rob] Well, I really appreciate it. -[Connie] And that's good.

Well, it's great meeting you guys.

What do you want me to jump on?

I can jump on whatever you want.

Well, let's go up and measure for the wiper

-and if you want to burn that out. -Yeah. All right.

[narrator] With time running out on the rescue,

Juan takes on Freddy's plans for the conveyor belt wiper.

-[Freddy] We have angle iron here, right? -[Juan] Mm-hmm.

For that way you've got a pivot point,

and then have the spring up top.

[Juan] Okay. Sounds like a plan.

Let's do it.

[Western instrumental music playing]

[narrator] While Juan tackles the wiper,

Freddy turns his attention to the ground.

What we need to do here

is find out if that channel

that he was getting the good gold out of

still exists.

There's no guarantees on that.

There's no guarantees in gold.

Well, you can see that drift right there.

[narrator] In the Opie's cut,

Freddy inspects a drift tunnel

near the spot Rob lost his river channel.

There's a reason the old timers drifted there

and stopped.

Because they had gold out here,

I'm guessing,

good enough gold to keep working it,

keep working it, keep working it,

and they're like, "Well, let's see how it does

going deeper into the hill."

And as they got deeper into the hill,

they started running out of gold, most likely,

so they stopped.

[tense music playing]

-[soft cracking] -[narrator] Streams carry gold

from veins in the hillside down the valley.

Over thousands of years,

they are buried underground by movements in the earth.

Using hand tools and wooden carts,

prospectors dig drift tunnels

to find and chase these gold-rich channels.

As the old-timers tunnel underground,

they dig test drifts

in the hope they'll find

other ancient channel deposits.

[Freddy] So I'm trying to piece this puzzle together

to try to get a full picture out of it.

[Rob] Sure.

[Freddy] This is no good.

[tense music playing]

There's no rhyme or reason to it, right?

It's giving us a picture, but a bad picture.

It's saying,

"I haven't been reworked in nature's sluice box."

[narrator] The material in Rob's cut has not been

concentrated by flowing water,

and there's no sign of his missing river channel.

[Freddy] I've seen a lot of deposits, right?

But this one,

this one's really tricky to read.

[tense music playing]

So, putting this puzzle together.

[narrator] On the Opie claim in Montana,

Freddy is on the hunt for a lost channel of gold.

When a stream cuts through,

there's not just one channel,

'cause that creek moves over time.

Yeah.

We know it's not right here,

but that doesn't mean it's not 20 feet that way.

-Right. -Another channel,

that they missed.

[Rob] Yeah.

[Freddy] Let's have a look down here.

[narrator] With no sign of Rob's channel,

Freddy turns his attention to a lower section of bedrock.

[Freddy] See how this all smoothed off

-down the face? -Oh, yeah.

[Freddy] That tells me water and material is

pushing rocks, sand,

-everything down, right? -Yeah.

You know, this may be another channel.

[Rob] That would be huge.

There's only one way to find out.

Let's get in the excavator and start digging.

Oh, I'd love to find that channel again.

I'm hopeful. Here, we'll see.

Pretty interesting rock.

[Rob] Yeah, I agree!

[Freddy] That looks good.

Those big boulders, Rob, are a really good find.

[Rob] That looks really good.

Yeah.

[narrator] Large boulders often collect on the bedrock

of river channels.

Acting like riffles in a sluice box,

they trap gold in place.

Oh, boy, that's exciting.

Last year when I was on that channel

that had the really good gold in the bottom,

that's the kind of stuff I was seeing.

And I didn't see that this year up to this point.

[Freddy] We found a channel.

At least I think it's a channel.

Yeah.

[Freddy] But this excites me more

than finding

that old channel that they mined,

'cause this is virgin ground.

-They missed this. -Great. Yeah?

From that hole in the wall over there,

they went right over the top of it,

which is a good thing for you.

Let's run this stuff,

and...

we'll go from there.

[Rob] Okay.

[narrator] The discovery of an unmined river channel

has the potential for a huge payday

and could get Rob and Connie back on the gold.

[Rob] I skipped right over it

'cause the bedrock is higher on both sides of it.

So Freddy identifying is,

yeah, that is a channel there.

Yeah, this is really a good thing.

[Western instrumental music playing]

It's going to be a simple wiper.

[narrator] At the cut trailer,

Juan's wiper takes shape.

[Juan] These are the brackets that are going to mount

onto the conveyor,

and we'll just have a couple springs

that pull up on it,

and that way it'll actually put

constant pressure on that belt.

It can scrape all that material

that has gold off,

and that way we can sluice it.

So these are the side arms for the wiper.

They're gonna pivot on a five-eighths pin.

That way you can adjust it where you need it.

If you need to pull it out, you can pull the pins out

and remove it.

What I did, I cut the rubber out.

I made these holes slotted

so that way we can adjust it where we need to have it.

And that way, as it wears out,

we can adjust it up a little bit

and be able to make better contact with the belt.

[tense music playing]

[Freddy] Let me show you what I'm thinking on here.

[narrator] New pay secured,

Freddy and Rob turn their attention

to the feed hopper.

I'd cut the front out first,

thinking we'd go up four inches

at this angle here.

Then I just cut the edge here...

-Yeah. -...with the grinder...

quarter inch in,

quarter inch in, and cut that out.

[narrator] Freddy's plan,

to relieve the pinch point

and prevent blockages.

[Connie] Okay, you got this.

-I do? Okay. -Yes.

[kisses and giggles]

[Western instrumental music playing]

Well, that line didn't go too bad.

Oh, look at that.

Oh, I thought I was gonna have to really work those corners.

Oh, nice. Okay.

That should solve my rock problem.

See, what'd happen is

I'd get a rock down here

and another one would kind of just sit right on it

back in there,

and then they get jammed,

and then they'd pin in really hard.

Bad enough, we'd get a shutdown

just to get them undone,

'cause then the material behind it would pack up,

and... [blows raspberry]

Big problem.

[Freddy] Got her done, huh?

-[Juan] Yeah. -Well, it looks good, Juan.

[Juan] It's simple. It'll work, though.

Yeah, let me start my welder up here

and get my hood.

[narrator] Juan's conveyor wiper

is ready to be welded in place.

I'd weld it, but I can't see real well, so...

-[Freddy chuckling] Yeah. No. -[Juan chuckles]

[Freddy] I understand, buddy.

[Rob] Having Juan show up,

feeling not 100%...

wow, that shows his heart.

[Connie] He puts everything into it regardless.

He's totally professional

and just a sweetheart.

[Freddy] We'll get an idea roughly where we're at, huh?

[Juan straining] Right there is about where it should be.

[intense music playing]

Just tack that right there.

You want to give me your hood and I'll do it?

[Freddy strains] I think I can get it on.

Did I get it?

-Yeah, you got her. -Okay.

That looks good, Fred.

-Looks good. That's the last of the fixes. -Yeah.

Well, let's clean up our tools and head out, huh?

-[Freddy] Yeah. Tomorrow's a big day. -Yep.

[Freddy] That channel I found, that's pretty exciting.

[Juan] Sounds good.

-[Connie] It's going to be hot. You're welcome. -[Rob] Thank you.

[narrator] In Montana, miners Rob and Connie

share their camp comforts.

[Rob] When...

we first started coming up here

just in the very beginning,

we would come up and we'd camp out

in just a little pup tent, so to speak, on the ground.

It was nice, but, you know,

-we're not young chickens anymore... -It was--

[Rob]...so we took our living situation

to the next level.

Rob would get some materials on sale,

or he would make them himself

out of iron

or scraps of wood that he had left over,

and then I had a kitchen all of a sudden.

He really wanted to eat real food, I guess.

If I was going to eat good,

I better give her a good kitchen

that she's going to like, be in.

[Connie] Yeah.

[Rob] She's frugal.

I'm frugal, make what I can.

And we just turned it into a home away from home.

And now it's just something we really look forward to.

This is the life we want to live.

We want to be out here camping and enjoying nature.

[Western instrumental music playing]

Let's do a test run, huh?

-Let's do it. -Yeah.

[narrator] On the Opie mine in Montana...

Head on down, I'm going to start the water pump.

[narrator] ...the moment of truth for Rob and Connie

has arrived.

[Rob] Having found the channel,

I'm really, really excited.

If all these fixes work out,

it gives us the direction we were hoping for

for the next 10 years.

But until I see it done, I won't know

exactly where we're at.

[Freddy] First bucket, Juan.

Yeah. See how it does.

-[Freddy] That channel I found... -[Juan] Yeah.

...let's hope it's as good as I think it could be.

Okay, yeah.

[narrator] The Opies are running pay

from the newly discovered Virgin River Channel.

[Freddy] It's working perfect.

That wiper's sure working good, Juan.

Yeah.

[narrator] Juan's wiper is scrubbing fine material

off the conveyor belt

and into the spray deck.

[Freddy] It's getting a lot better, Juan!

[Juan] Yeah.

See they pile up in the next one?

-Yeah. -Perfect.

[narrator] And the new dampers on the spray deck

mean more material is being

washed off the coarse tailings.

[Freddy] Every one of these rocks before had

a thin layer of dirt on them.

Yeah, it looks pretty clean now.

Yeah, have a look at that.

-[Juan] That's real clean. -[Freddy] Yeah.

[narrator] Freddy's new baffles

in the Opie's trommel

means more fine material is washed into the sluice box.

-[Freddy] Hey, Connie! -[Connie] Yeah.

[Freddy] Are you feeding it faster than before?

-Speed her up. -Okay, got it.

-It'll handle it. -Okay.

[Freddy] Right now,

at the pace we're running the plat,

it's over double what they were running before.

[narrator] Halfway through the test run,

and the Opie crew are running

nearly 20 yards an hour through their plant.

We haven't had one blockage in the feeder.

You had to get off and do anything?

[Rob] Wow. That is amazing.

I'm stoked.

This is tear-jerker material. It's amazing.

Nothing is getting jammed up at all.

[Freddy] I'm proud of what we've done here.

You know, seeing the amount of material going

through this plant now is pretty exciting.

[Western instrumental music playing]

Hey, Connie, last bucket!

Woo. [chuckles]

That was amazing!

[chuckles]

The plant ran really well,

so let's keep our fingers crossed

and go look in the sluice, huh?

Have a look at this, guys.

-[Connie] No way. -[Freddie] How much is buried in there?

-Juano. -[Rob] No way.

-[Freddy] Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, look at that. -[Connie laughing]

-[Freddy] Look at that nugget. -[Rob] There we go.

We've never seen that before.

[Connie] Oh, look.

[Freddy] There's another nugget.

-[Freddy] Juano. -[Juan] Little nugget in there?

[Connie] Oh, it's pretty.

-[chuckles] -[Rob] Good grief.

[Freddy] I'm excited, guys.

And I'm more excited [chuckling] than you are.

[Rob and Connie laughing]

[Freddy] Well, clean it up, guys.

[Juan] Yeah, we'll head out.

We'll see you guys in the morning.

[Connie laughing]

This is amazing.

This is so good.

[Rob] I'm... I'm kind of in shock.

What does that mean?

Well, we'll find out. This is incredible.

[Western instrumental music playing]

[Freddy] Let's see what it did.

-Well, hello. Ooh, that looks good. -[Rob] Hey, Juan.

-Ooh, that looks good. -[Connie chuckles]

[Juan] That's exciting.

[narrator] In order to hit their goal

of 25 ounces in eight weeks,

this test needs to produce

at least a quarter of an ounce.

-Well, let's weigh it up, huh? -[Juan] Let's do it.

[Freddy] We did.17 in the first test.

[clinking]

Well, we just went over your first weigh.

-There it is right there. -The first test.

-I'm like, "How much is left in there to go?" -Holy moly.

[Rob] Look it. That's crazy.

-[Juan] Half an ounce. -[Rob] No way. That's half an ounce.

-Half an ounce right there. -[Freddy] A little over half an ounce, yep.

Put the rest in.

[Connie] Do it, do it.

[Juan] Three-quarters of an ounce.

Over three-quarters of an ounce.

-Wow. -[Freddy] 1.221.

That's awesome.

-Yeah, that's pretty good. -Yeah.

Proud of that.

[narrator] Over four times what they need

to reach their goal.

Ounces, not grains.

-[all laughing] -Ounces.

[Freddy] Now there's $2,900 worth of gold in that pan.

[Freddy laughing]

[Rob] Guys, [chuckling] I don't know.

This is incredible.

I never dreamed

that was possible.

[Freddy] It's been an absolute pleasure working with you guys.

-Straight back at you. -Yeah.

-Freddy... -Yeah.

-Juan. -Good working with you.

-[Connie chuckles] -[Rob] Thank you.

Hey, you're welcome. Thank you so much.

[Rob] I'm blown away.

It's so far beyond what I hoped,

you know, even when I was hoping really big.

I'm so excited to get in there

and start digging some more of this channel up.

We did this. We dug it.

It's on our ground.

We processed it.

It's real.

It's amazing.

It is truly our future.

And a lot of dreams

and a lot of hard work have come to fruition.

Thanks for not letting me quit.

Without you, I would have.

You realize that, right?

-I do. -Thank you.

A 700% increase, that's more than I could have hoped for.

That's more than I could have dreamed for.

They had very little light at the end of the tunnel

when I got here.

Now they got a bright light at the end of the tunnel,

and they just got to keep following it upstream.

And their future could be set now.

I couldn't be happier.

-Hi, Freddy and Juan. -Hey, guys.

We wanted to give you an update

on what's been happening since you left.

The fixes have been working really well.

All those fixes together

have contributed to gold in the sluice box,

which we actually can see now.

-I don't believe this. -[Connie chuckling]

[Rob] Look [chuckling] at those nuggets

in this nose mat.

[Connie chuckling]

[Rob] It is beyond what we expected

and what we hoped for.

[Connie] Freddy and Juan, we really want to thank you.

[Rob] 'Cause of the tools you guys have given us

to succeed,

we are totally confident going forward,

and we're excited.

We're going to take the step,

and we're going to become full-time miners.

Construction will be something that I can leave behind,

and we are so grateful for that.

-Thank you again, guys. -Thank you.