Original subtitles

Every season is, you know, a big push to find more gold and mine more ground and

beat last season.

Time is running out for 27 -year -old Parker Schnabel to deliver on the

gamble of his career.

Mud Mountain.

We're still behind.

But the gold from Mud Mountain is picked up and the piece that's left is the

center of the cut.

That's where the best feeling was.

Parker spent $5 million getting down to pay dirt.

And so far, he's only found $3 million in gold.

But his luck could be changing.

The last week, every time we shut down Big Red here, it looked really, really

good in the runs.

There's so much gold in them.

You know, we've got lots going on here at the end of the season.

We've got big red mud mountain. We've got sluice on Ken's ground.

Things are motoring along pretty nice.

Everyone's stretched pretty thin, long hours, long days.

Yeah, I just want to get the rest of this cut done.

With winter right around the corner, Mitch Blaschke has called in

reinforcements. Like office manager.

Nona Loveless.

Yeah, I've been running dozers for quite a few years.

I'm going to do my walk around, check the oil, and if she's good to go, then I

will jump on it.

All is good.

I love the office work, but I like getting out of the office.

I love the machine, but I don't know if I could do it 12 hours a day, seven days

a week. So I got the best of both worlds, don't I?

Killing is not forgiving like natural earth is. It's very soft underneath, so

you just got to take it off, skin it.

It's got to take a little bit off at a time.

Hey, Mick, you got a coffee?

Hey, Taylor here.

I got big time. I don't even know what to say.

I just broke the water line, but the whole system and everything come off.

You can see here, the dozer snagged this, ripped the pipeline right in half.

When this pulled, it ripped everything from the wash plant loose.

Not only did the pipeline get ripped, in half out there it broke the whole

manifold off the wash plant.

This is what supplies.

Water to the plant, up to the pre -wash, hazard bypass.

This is about as bad as it could be right now.

Well, it ripped this pipe clean off.

She gone.

The pipeline from the pump is connected to the plant by a 90 -degree manifold.

Wow, we're just lifting this out to see what we can salvage off of it.

The biggest problem we have here is this 90 is broken.

We've got a few spares here and there, but I'm pretty sure we don't have a

90 kicking around.

We're just going to have to...

Put a flange right on here and bolt this right up to the top.

We can get away with not having the bypass. What that means, though, is when

start this thing up, we're just going to have to turn on the pump and throw dirt

at it.

The 90 -degree manifold that attaches the bypass and the water supply to the

wash plant is broken.

Mitch will have to remove the bypass that regulates the flow of water.

strip the hoses from the manifold, and then reconnect them straight to the

plant.

But there's a chance this fix could cause the plant to plug up with pay

Or worse, flush gold right out of the sluice runs.

This isn't ideal, but it's the end of the season and our walk plant just got

mangled, so we've got to do whatever we can to make it work.

Nice and easy.

There you go. That's what we need. Right there.

Flat back there.

It's like magic. It's all back together again.

Next, Mitch brings in flexible hose to create the bend from the water supply to

the wash plant.

We're going to have to have a piece of 8 -inch lay flat.

to get us from here straight down and over to our water line.

There it is, right there.

Start some hardware.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

It's heavy.

Just push.

Push.

That looks good. That'll work.

There we go.

All right, let's fire it up.

Without a bypass to regulate the water, Mitch is relying on the pump to maintain

the correct water pressure.

There it is.

Here she comes!

Here we go!

The fix took four hours and cost $30 ,000 in lost gold.

But they're finally back to sluicing.

Tailings is kind of a tricky one.

I got butterflies in my tummy just from thinking about what happened now that

I'm here again.

We're just real fortunate we had enough stuff here to pack Big Red back

together. It might not be as good as what it was, but it'll still catch some

gold here. We'll get this thing finished up.

Time to get some more gold.

We're still in September here, you know.

Close to the end, we got snow overnight.

It's just not looking like it wants to give up.

In the mountains above Keno, winter has begun to make its presence felt.

It's a pretty sad sight.

This wash plant should be cranking on gold this time of year, and instead it's

been there covered in snow.

Last week, Rick Ness fired up his second wash plant, Rocky.

and had his best ever gold way.

We can thaw the runs, you know, get the water moving.

As soon as you stop, this happens again, it freezes, and you start to process

over again, and pretty soon it takes longer and longer.

It's not worth your time.

Yesterday was the last time Rocky ran for the year.

We're going to have to focus all of our efforts on Monster Red.

You know, when I decided to go out on my own and go gold mining for myself,

That was a big risk.

There was some people that, you know, they didn't think I'd make it through my

first season.

But, you know, I'm still here. You know, they were wrong.

Now in his third season away from the Klondike, Rick has finally found Keno's

big gold and put down a quarter of a million dollars in deposit to buy his

claims outright.

But with the end of the season looming,

He's still 550 ounces short of his 2 ,000 -ounce target.

Rick's always been a risk -taker, gambler, so to speak.

For me to watch him go through life that way gives me a little bit of anxiety, a

little bit of stress.

I mean, it doesn't always come out good for him. I know he's had struggles in

the past, but for the most part, he's done very well for himself and continues

to. And I am certainly going to always be there for him if I can be.

Like Parker, Rick is battling the deepest ground of his career.

And the deeper he goes, the better the gold.

We're finally getting down to the really good stuff. It's looking a lot better

in this layer that I'm digging now.

Here we are, snowed in.

But we got a hitter, 2 ,000 ounce minimum goal.

I do not want to walk away from here failing, so we can't just pull out of

early because of a little bit of snow.

But you can see the water I'm dealing with because we did finally find the

table. Hey, man, there is a lot of groundwater coming in. I didn't think it

going to be this bad.

Rick, you got a copy?

Yeah, go for it.

Hey, buddy, you mind coming down and taking a look at this water I'm dealing

with? All right, I'll be right down.

Okay, buddy, thanks.

There's a lot of water in here, huh? Yeah.

So, I don't know, like, is it worth me even fooding the calorie now or just

until it's dried up? No, no, it's not.

Now we're going to need to get a pump in here right away if we're going to get

this payout.

After digging in Raleigh Valley for ten weeks,

Rick's crew are 170 feet down, and they've hit the water table,

a layer of water just above the impermeable bedrock.

right where all the gold -rich pay dirt sits.

To drain the cut and dry the pay, they'll install a pump to pull the water

of the pit.

This pump right here don't look like much, but it's exactly what we need to

the water out of the cut.

We can't work underwater, and that's where the good pay that we've been

is.

You know, this would be a hell of a deep hole to fill up with water if we didn't

take care of anything.

Let's get this pump here and we'll keep this water drained out of our cup.

Easy.

Oh.

Oh.

That's the spot where I want to fill up my pump.

It's kind of spooky not knowing what the floor looks like under here.

Especially because it's under water I can't see where the boulders are.

It's up here.

This thing doesn't need to be flat, right?

So, suction line and some lathe flat will be a business.

But I've got to get this water out of here tonight because we need to be

pay out of here in the morning.

After six hours setting the pump, suction line, and discharge hose,

The success of Rick's entire season now depends on a 20 -year -old pump.

It's too late in the season for it not to work.

I really need this pump to prime right away and start doing its job.

If you're late, get it done.

With temperatures expected to plummet any time, Rick's hoping the pump can

the cut before the water freezes.

Well, that's that. We're pumping water by morning time.

Cut should be nice and dry.

Bingo bango.

Just what we needed.

We're pretty much near the end of the season around there. I would really,

really still like the other 4 ,500 ounces. So it'll be successful, I would

100 miles west of Keno, king of the Klondike Tony Beats is still 900 ounces

short of his season goal.

The big freeze is about to hit.

and his son Mike's trommel is producing just 300 ounces a week.

So Tony has made a controversial decision.

If we can get a couple of ounces out of that New Zealand plant to help us get to

the end, to help us get to our goal, I'm going to fire it up and I'll run it.

The New Zealand plant is a 100 -yard -per -hour trommel sitting on a

of good pay.

Beside Honka Creek, it could hold the key to Tony's season.

But over the last two years, the Honka Cut has proved a disaster.

There's a change of growth.

From frozen pay.

Shouldn't have this big of rocks in here.

To mechanical failure.

It must be a hole.

to serious flooding.

Whoa! What's that?

Just 17 weeks ago, Tony tried his luck again.

Oh.

But the Kiwi plant's main generator seized.

The engine is... And Tony was once more defeated.

Goddamn. Earth cut.

But he's now rebuilt the motor on the generator, the cutter's dried out, and

Tony is determined to reverse the curse.

I'm going to have another look at the plan, just to see what it takes to get

going, and then off we go.

Whatever it takes to reach our 4 ,500 -ounce goal.

So let's fire the thing up.

My dad wants to get more flusen done before the end here because he wants

gold. And since we can't go to the Indian, this is one of the only other

we can go to at the moment.

So I'm just making sure to start getting stuff ready.

Look at that.

That thing is tough.

That thing's full of dirt. I'm going to pull it up and see how much.

The whole thing's going to have to get fixed.

The screen that protects the water intake is plugged solid.

I just dug out your thing and I pulled out the suction because it was chock

of mud.

Your hose is broken in the suction screen.

Just letting you know that if you want to get this thing started up today, it's

going to be a little bit of work before you get her going.

Chuck full, obviously.

Oh, wow, yeah.

Pretty much.

So all we got to do now is fix this suction and put it back together and

go out of it. So we may as well cut off.

Put a pressure washer on it, clean it out.

Oh, yeah. That way you have the toys, because if we're going to get a couple

more ounces, then this thing is going to run.

Okay?

Woo -hoo!

I say it, but there's one.

A thing that seems to be a dozen other ones.

Okay, let's do it, guys.

Let's get it fixed so we get this thing going.

Because we're not making any money looking at it, is it?

So let's go.

Mike loads the intake holes and the 220 excavator onto the Oshkosh and starts

to haul them to the yard.

Tony has to call in the 520 horsepower D10 Dozer to pull the 20

ton truck and its 36 ton payload to the yard.

The thing is still leaking out.

Oh, it's coming out of my hose.

Something loosened up and let the water out.

But I bet you that's what shut off.

Mike was coming up the hill.

He had low power, so he was going to shift to lower gears.

and he thopped and he died.

A leak in the cooling system caused the engine to overheat, and a safety system

shut it down.

I mean, what's next, right? I mean, the third thing that's trying to destroy our

food plant, imagine that.

So we'll see.

Anyway, that isn't over yet. Maybe there is more to come.

What can you do? We're going to lose a day's solution, which is kind of a pain

in the ass.

All you can do is fix it.

He ain't got much time.

Just another delay trying to get the Kiwi going.

Curse cut strikes again.

I saw what happened at Big Red with the pipeline.

I know Nona's kicking herself pretty good, but we all make mistakes. I know

done it before.

Almost that exact thing.

A mud mountain.

Parker Schnabel is in a race against time to put every ounce of gold through

Red before winter shuts him down.

But right now, he stepped into his D11 dozer to deal with a more pressing

It's a tough balancing act because we're behind on gold and we want to get gold

out of the ground. But if we don't do reclamation, we're just screwing our

future because we won't have a future.

Before the season ends, Parker must reclaim his mind outground to recreate

original habitat of ponds and earth so plants and animals will return.

of a push as we're making for gold here from a long -term view of things

reclamation is way more important there's two ponds right here

that as long as we float the banks in good and have good vegetation around

they're going to be wetlands and they'll have birds and ducks and swans you know

so stabilizing creek beds and water flow is a big part of it and then of course

putting organics over top that Let it regrow.

We'll leave this place looking really good.

We're not here to just take the money and run.

At the other side of the cut, rookie miner Justin Fraser is still running Mud

Mountain Pay Dirt through Big Red.

We gotta get as much as we can through Big Red here.

If we get this plant turned up anymore, I don't know if it's going to be able to

keep up.

It's the plant. The plant.

Holy.

Get a shut off. Get a shut off.

Kill the water.

We got to set the pump off.

Plant is solid with dirt.

Oh, wow.

Probably got two feet of material in that thing.

Water and pay dirt are funneled through the distribution box, which distributes

the mixture evenly across four sluice runs.

In an effort to up their production,

Justin overloaded the plant, blocking the distribution box, and backing up the

wash plant.

We're going to have to shovel all that out.

That's why all this water's failing out the end.

There's Zach's place right there. What a good boy.

Should I just give you in the rain gear and we can just turn the water on? Yeah,

that would be the best.

At least it's not like fertilizer and you're standing in poo.

You're such a glass hat full kind of guy. That's why I love about you.

Just try and get the hole opened up there.

Should be worse.

Should be a heck of a lot better, too.

I think we'll throw a little bit more water out of here and let's get this

flowing.

Water's moving.

It has to work.

Oh, yeah.

Doesn't look to be pouring out any of our joint.

Oh, yeah. There we go.

Nice job.

Do you feel like you just, like, dug your way out of jail there or what?

Honestly, it reminds me of that time I did.

All righty, then.

We got our water back on.

I'm going to go ahead and flip the switch here, get the shaker deck

We're going to throw some material on Big Red here and see what it wants to

There we go.

The best part about working here is guys that have nothing to do with the plants

or anything like that all come together to make it happen.

I don't know. That's the only reason that we're running right now is because

everyone works together.

I don't know. This place is pretty wicked.

Unbelievable.

This is lame.

At Raleigh Valley, the high -grade pay Rick Ness needs to save his season is

still under six feet of water.

You know, we're finally down to the good pay.

Rick got us a pump, told us that this cot was going to be bone dry.

Got here in the morning, flooded right out again.

And, you know, just one step ahead, ten steps behind, and it's getting really

frustrating.

Rick's six -inch pump was no match for the 6 ,000 gallons of groundwater

bleeding into the cut every minute.

The water didn't really move.

You know, that six -inch just could not keep up for how much volume

of water we have here.

And it's a pile that barely works.

The tailors have... The tailors have...

10 -inch sitting up there. Oh, really?

Yeah, from what I remember. There's nothing wrong with it. It just hasn't

a couple years.

Rick

heads

to the lay -down yard he shares with his landlord, Troy Taylor.

Six -inch pump.

Just did not have enough jam to get the water out of the cut, and I need that

water out of there now.

I mean, there's a nice 10 -inch pump here.

You know, it's got everything we need and more to get that water out of there,

but it ain't mine. It's the tailor's, and I can't get a hold of Troy to see if

can use it.

The phone just keeps going to voicemail, so I don't have another choice. I mean,

we have to get the water out of there.

Screw it. I'm just going to use it.

Let's go.

Troy's pump has a capacity of 8 ,000 gallons a minute, more than triple the

rate of Rick's.

We're going to hopefully have the tenants fired up here within the next,

know, 20 minutes, half hour.

You know, after switching crews this season, I would really like... It's my

first season with Rick. His best season is just a personal goal that I've had

all year.

Just watch yourself.

Perfect. Nailed it.

All that's left is to plumb up the hoses.

Dude, we kind of need to spin this a bit more.

I think that we should leave it right there. Yeah. If everything reaches.

I think dropping down will unhook this for now.

Is there a loop on the side there or something to hook to?

There you go. Nice catch.

No one right now. I don't know how much time we have left, but I do know that

the time we do have left needs to be spent running this good bay.

And the only thing standing in our way right now is this water.

We've got this 10 -inch in here.

Hopefully it's got the jam we need to get this thing dried out.

All right, it's done there.

Fire it up!

Whoa -ho!

Yeah, boy!

I love the sound of those old cats.

The pump is powered by a massive 465 -horsepower dozer engine.

Yeah!

You can see the water moving from all the way over there already. See that?

Oh, yeah, you can already see it.

Well, this pump, man, it should work. And if it does, we'll be able to come in

here in the morning and finally start getting this good pay out of here, you

know.

All we've been worried about for the last couple of days is water, and we

to be worried about the gold. So fingers crossed, morning comes, gold's coming

out of here.

Yeah, it did its job.

Sometimes you just need bigger equipment.

It's definitely dried out a good six feet of this pale air, so that's good.

Next step is get the trucks rolling and start bringing paint to the plant.

We don't have much time left, and we've still got a lot of ounces of bank to get

to 2 ,000. So just keep up with this pump, keep hauling this stuff, and we

should get where we need to be.

Far enough the Kiwi hasn't gone with it, let's be honest.

So, slowly but steadily, we'll make it work.

On Paradise Hill, Tony Beats and his crew are fighting to get their Kiwi wash

plant up and running in the cursed Honka Cut.

So far, a plugged screen, a broken intake hose, and a sudden engine failure

stopped them from firing up the plant.

I got a water truck and I was too lazy to get a steam cleaner here so I

do it this way.

Kevin fabricates a new coupler till we attach the screen's cage to the hose.

So we got the new coupler on. That is perfect.

Now we just got to get it back down to the kiwi plant, plug everything

We can finally start sprucing down there.

Down at the cursed hunker coat.

You got this, host? Let's lay it.

It's time to put it all back together and cross their fingers.

Ruby, lift that thing up.

Okay, walk ahead.

Good.

Perfect. Get ready to start fluting, I suppose.

It'll fly right up.

Kaboom!

It won't burn out.

Am I volting either?

Yeah, no juice.

No spark means no power.

So, we're just going to take the battery out momentarily, put a big thing there,

and zoom, zoom, zoom, bang, bang, bang.

Okay. It's awkward. There you

go. Now we can do something.

You're going to turn over.

This cursed pet. Oh, God, this cursed pet. has been nothing but problems.

But now we're up and running, so hopefully the curse cut can give us a

bit of a break.

With the curse of the hunker cut hopefully lifted, Tony now has two wash

sluicing gold -rich pay dirt at a combined 450 yards per hour,

giving him a fighting chance.

of hitting his 4 ,500 ounce season goal.

Hey guys.

Hey guys. How are you guys?

It's obviously getting cold out.

Little girls got warm blankets instead of just the muslin.

You could toughen them up. That's what you got, right? On a sunny day that was

slightly brisk, you're like, doesn't she have a hat? She's going to get cold.

Like, come on, Dad. You can't have it both ways.

I would put it on a clothesline. I was a clothesline kid and see how I turned

out. Well, we're all wondering about tattoos.

How was it this week?

We were on the New Zealand plane for a bit.

So the trommel was running all week while all this other stuff went on?

That thing is nice and dependable, isn't it?

Always was. I love dependable.

Who's going to count? Not me. Not me.

Fate is late.

I think we should do the kiwi first. Kiwi first. Let's go.

Tony Beats is still 900 ounces short of his 4 ,500 ounce season goal.

Let's put it in there, Kevin.

There's some junkies in there. Sounds like some big ones in there.

20, 30, 40, 60.

63 .25.

Not bad, huh?

Nice little hole you found.

Let's see if it all can help towards the total.

Okay, let's do next trommel.

100.

150, 200, 260,

297 .03.

For a total of 360 .28 ounces, worth almost

$650 ,000.

And bringing their season total so far to 3 ,988 ounces.

We're getting pretty close.

I mean, that's quite a bit more than we've been getting.

We're getting to the bottom of our cuts.

Don't count it until... No, no. Dry it, weigh it, and then we'll talk.

Right. Somehow we'll get there to our totals, right?

I'll just keep going until we do. You have fun with that.

We will be in Mexico.

Check the people I wanted to see.

How's she doing, Ricky?

Not too bad.

That's heavy.

You think it's heavier than last week? It feels like it. Oh, boy.

Rick Ness lost two days sluicing while he battled a flooded cut.

With the big freeze threatening to shut him down any day, he needs Raleigh

Valley to deliver.

You know, we had a few setbacks this week. If there wasn't so much damn water

down there, you know, that six -inch pump would have...

But able to handle it, we would have been a little farther ahead than we are.

But that 10 -inch pump like that certainly got the power to do it. Yeah.

But unfortunately, that came with a price tag.

I talked to Troy.

It turns out they didn't have a problem with it as long as I bought it.

Ooh.

Yeah, $40 ,000 for a pump. Ouch. We needed it, so at least it was right on

Yeah, and it kept us going and keeping our cut dry. Yep. It's the price you

I guess, you know.

By the weight of this, I think it's starting to pay off. I love that.

Let's weigh it up. This jar's already got 100 ounces in it.

I can't wait.

All right, here we go.

To hit his 2 ,000 -ounce season goal, Rick still needs a massive 550

ounces.

So we got 10, 20, 30, 50.

70, 80, 90, and yeah, over 100.

Wow. 106 .9.

Oh, my God.

Nice. So 106 plus 100, that's 206.

Worth $370 ,000.

Wow. That's awesome.

Amazing. Rick is 300 ounces shy of his season goal.

But if he can keep Monster Red running, he's still in with a shot at victory.

Even though we were down for days, the team pulled it off.

This is great. I mean, 206 ounces.

That's awesome. If we just keep going deeper, that's just going to get better.

That's the next challenge, right? Yeah. Hopefully that's a pan full of nuggets

at the bottom.

I can't wait for that. Oh, man.

Hey Mitchell, does it feel a whole lot better in here than it does outside?

It's starting to get a little chilly out there. Maybe you're colder than the

beer. Felt good coming in here though, that's still running. Oh yeah, yeah.

Duman's burning as much fuel as a D11.

To beat last season's goal total, Parker Schnabel needs the final weeks of his

season to go off without a hitch.

I hear Nona hooked the waterline. I was gone for...

Just long enough for it to go bad, you know? It's a good thing the pipe broke

when it did.

That's all I'll say. Oh, yeah.

The pipe took the brunt of the punishment.

If it didn't break there... The next step was the sluice runs being, like,

crumpled up and drug out into the fine tailings. Yeah, that was what would

probably have happened next, like... Put gold in it.

With the season nearly over, Parker's closing in on Lushy as total of 7

,504 ounces.

To stay on track, he needs his wash plants to bring in 420 ounces of gold

week.

First up, slucifer, which has been running pay from the ugly cut.

Here we go. 10, 20, 40, 60,

80, 100, 115

.4. So it's ugly and bad.

Our hopes now, anyway, mine is that we at least get Mud Mountain paid for and

not take a loss.

Parker has invested over $5 million in Mud Mountain.

He still needs 900 ounces just to break even.

Keep her coming. 50, 100, 150, 200,

250. Keep going.

300, 320, 340,

368 .45.

Still over 500 ounces short of what he needs before he even starts to

turn a profit.

So for the week, you guys, we got 483 .85 ounces.

That puts us at 71 .41 .7.

About 360 short of last season.

Given the way our season has gone.

Unless there's a miracle in Mud Mountain, we can safely say that we are

quantity mining operation, not quality.

the quality.

We will mine tons of shallow ground, and if we go broke, then we covered lots of

area. I totally agree.

We didn't go broke in one stupid hole.