Original subtitles

[narrator reading]

Duane, I've only ever seen that

in super massive black holes.

[narrator] On the quest to find out

if there's an ancient treasure beneath their property,

the Ollingers map the underground...

That's a series of caverns and tunnels.

[Chad] That's gotta be a cave.

That circle under the energy zone looks man-made.

...and find evidence that someone could have been utilizing the caverns.

There is a void right here. Look at that.

That may have been a manmade vent for whatever's underground to get--

-[Chad] Just airflow. -Airflow down underneath.

[narrator] Duane and his team attempt to breach the cavern.

Fire in the hole!

[narrator] But once again...

-[man grunts in frustration] -...they encounter a setback.

[Duane] Those trespasser holes got flooded.

This whole thing is super unsafe.

[narrator] But despite the flooding...

[Duane] Well, that's [bleep] up.

...victory is pulled from the jaws of defeat...

[Chad] This is something.

-...with the discovery... -[bleep] Hey, hey!

-...of gold. -Holy [bleep], dude.

Finally get to hold [bleep] gold in my hand.

[narrator] Blind Frog Ranch stretches over 160 acres.

A remote and rugged area in northeastern Utah.

It's a place shrouded in legends of ancient civilizations...

-[Chad] Look at that. -This has to be hundreds of years back.

...and mysterious phenomena.

[Duane] There's some kind of dark force.

[man] We got something really weird here.

I've never seen anything like that.

[narrator] Duane Ollinger has owned Blind Frog Ranch for over a decade,

convinced that the land holds secrets...

[Duane] What the [bleep]?

...and a massive cache of Aztec gold hidden underground.

We're sitting on something huge.

[narrator] Rumored to be worth more than $3 billion.

Your ranch is part of the most famous treasure hunt that's never been solved.

[narrator] But every time he's gotten close...

[man] Look at that.

...the land fights back.

What would eat the head off of it?

-[man 1] Whoo! -[man 2 exclaiming]

-[man 3] It's blinking red. -[man 4] Poison gas.

-[man 5] Let's get out! -[man 6] Go! [bleep] Go!

-[James] What'd you find? -[Chad] No [bleep] way.

Have you seen anything like that?

It's pretty freaking heavy.

From the weight and the way it looks,

I think it's a low-purity gold bar.

This was just an amazing find.

I don't even know where to begin.

When prospectors found gold,

they would go use these smelters

to create gold ingot bars that were pretty crude

so that they could trade elsewhere using them.

In this area, there were individuals

that used ingots for trade.

And we have evidence of that now.

I mean, it's amazing.

Here's [bleep] another one, man. Look at this.

I finally get to hold [bleep] gold in my hand.

I mean, this is all I've wanted to do since we got this property

is hold gold, and now I'm doing it.

So this is... This proves that there's a lot more here.

Let me see it.

This is, uh... This is a big deal that...

You know, I don't show a lot of excitements,

but this is proof there's gold on Blind Frog Ranch.

[James] I'm telling you,

I bet you this is a low-purity gold bar.

[Chad laughing]

You guys got a lucky break by finding those ingots.

There is no doubt.

[narrator] After discovering the ingots,

the team meets back at the miner shack

to figure out where exactly this gold could have come from.

You know, it appears that, that was maybe

somebody's personal stash that was in there, those two gold ingots.

The way the rocks were stacked up.

You know, then you had the carved rock

with the cross on it right above it and everything.

You know, it looks like it could have been, like,

a safety-deposit box for, for someone.

[Duane] Is it Aztec gold?

[James] No, this isn't what Aztec bars look like.

Just outside of Mexico City, in one of the barrios,

a construction worker found a single gold bar.

That bar was actually tracked back to being Aztec treasure.

And these gold bars are on display in Mexico City.

So we know what Aztec bars look like,

and they're nothing like what we found.

Where do... Where do we go from here?

[James] What I'd like to do is to take you

to the Uintah Historical Center,

which is down in Vernal,

because there are several maps.

I'd like to use those maps to see what we can find out about the ranch

a few hundred years ago.

Maybe those old maps can tell us a few things

about who stashed those ingots.

They might even be able to show us a dry entrance into the cavern system.

Sounds like a plan.

Go get it done.

[Chad] So, what are we looking for in particular?

I want us to go through a few maps that I thought were important.

-Yeah. -[James] There's maps that date back to the 1700s

that show different trade routes used by civilizations.

-[bleep] -Yeah.

Something that might show us what civilizations

were coming through Blind Frog Ranch.

I had the Historical Centre pull all the maps of the Blind Frog Ranch area.

She has it down here for us.

[Chad] You find anything?

[James] So, there were a few things, you know, we had discussed,

-some of the maps. -[Chad] Right.

[James] This one is...

This is the map of 1858,

which includes the main wagon trails

to see what goes near the ranch.

-[Chad] No way. -[James] That's something.

In the 1800s, the main way of getting through the Uinta Basin

and the Uinta Mountains was through these stagecoach trails.

So miles and miles of these stagecoach roads

were built to important places,

like towns and mines and the railroad.

If there was a gold source in the area,

I believe somebody could have built a wagon trail to it.

-[Chad] So where are we at here? -[James] So...

[Chad] Wow.

Here's where the Bead site would be,

right here, where we were digging.

[device beeping]

[James] And whoa, look at that.

There's a wagon trail going right past the Bead site.

[Chad] Who would be utilizing that?

[James] Let's take a look at this other map.

This one's a geological survey.

What number? 11001.

This was the Ashley National Forest from 1909.

And this does have farm or field on it.

-Oh, yeah. -Down to the east.

-So the ranch would be here. -The ranch would be right around here.

Yeah, those are the battlement ridges surrounding the ranch.

[Chad] And that's the creek that runs south of the ranch.

[James] So I wonder if we compare the spot on the geological map

to the same area on the wagon-trail map.

[narrator] By superimposing the trail map

over the topographical survey map,

Chad and James can trace the geological features

that lie along the wagon trail.

[Chad] Holy [bleep], it's a cave.

I mean, this is great.

Like, on the map it shows the wagon trails coming from Blind Frog Ranch,

and that's by a cave.

That just has to mean that there is an entrance

to a cavern system right around there somewhere.

It's northwest of the ranch.

[narrator] The cave appears to sit right alongside the Keyhole cavern tunnel

identified by the quantum team,

one mile northwest of Blind Frog Ranch.

[Chad] So we gotta check out this cave, right?

-Yup. -Yeah.

[Charlie] This is where we're currently digging, over by the Bead site,

and I just found another hole.

Well, all we can do is warn people that are walking through here.

[narrator] Back at the ranch, while patrolling the area for trespassers,

Charlie has discovered another illegal excavation site.

[Charlie] It's just more trespassers.

And you can see their pick marks.

They're probably coming in at night, when we're not here.

[narrator] Earlier this spring,

Charlie and Chad discovered

the trespassers had set up a camp on public land

overlooking Blind Frog Ranch.

[Chad] They can see the whole ranch from here.

[narrator] And were digging on Duane's property,

close to the energy zone.

[Chad] These guys are digging tunnels to try to find the treasure.

Y'all are trespassing.

This isn't a mining operation,

this is a freaking heist.

[Charlie] Trespassers have dug out here for months.

We just keep finding these holes.

You know, these guys don't care.

They'll just start digging.

[narrator] But this hole is only 100 yards from the Bead site,

where Duane and his team have been focusing their recent excavation.

[Charlie] Every time we start a new dig,

they sneak in here while we're not here,

and then they are basically digging right beside us.

You know, they're taking our information, is what they're doing,

and it pisses me off.

I think they're just looking for another entrance into the underground.

[narrator] With the trespassers encroaching on the Bead site,

Charlie and Duane decide to cover up where they've been digging.

Yeah, Chad and James, uh, they'll be gone for a little while.

I'm kind of worried about these trespassers

because they're just sitting up there, watching us.

We have to be very careful until we can get them the hell out of here.

[Duane] Attaboy.

All right, I'm heading towards you.

[Charlie] You know, we were just digging up the Bead site.

And so we have to cover that up.

Make sure those guys don't get in there

and start digging on that, too.

-[Duane] Unbelievable. -[Charlie] This is [bleep].

[Chad] Here's the Bead site.

[James] Yeah. This is the way.

[narrator] Chad and James are following

the 150-year-old wagon-trail map

to guide them to the location of the cave.

According to the map,

it sits roughly one mile northwest of Blind Frog Ranch

and could be a way into the cavern system.

[James] Now, this is it.

[Chad] Apparently, these wagon trails

haven't been used for over 100 years

so they're, kind of, hard to follow.

But you can see where the vegetation is less

and it's, kind of, packed in.

People definitely used to travel through here.

[James] Careful right here.

[Chad] There's a trail down here.

It keeps heading north.

[James] Yup.

Let's go check it out.

Yeah, we just gotta stick to here.

Yeah.

Does that look like mining tailings to you?

[Chad] Are you [bleep] kidding me?

Holy [bleep]. Look at this cave.

[James] It's a big portal entrance.

Oh, [bleep], goes way in there.

We're gonna need lights for that.

[James] Does that look like mining tailings to you?

[narrator] After following an 1859 wagon trail map from the Bead site to a cave,

Chad and James have found the entrance,

which they believe might connect to the cavern system

underneath Blind Frog Ranch.

Oh, [bleep]. Goes way in there.

We're gonna need lights for that.

So, we'll get some lights, bring that camera.

-Oh, yeah, you see, it goes way in there, man. -[James] Yeah.

There's a vast subterranean tunnel system and cavern system

under Blind Frog Ranch, and it's not just Blind Frog Ranch.

It travels throughout the entire Uinta Mountains, down into the Uinta Basin.

[Chad] Whoa!

Totally is nerve wracking because you don't know, like, the hazards of cave in.

And we don't know if an animal lives in there,

like a cougar or a freaking bear,

so we're just gonna take it real easy

and, uh, see what we can find.

-[James] Oh, yeah. -[Chad] Damn. It goes way back in there.

-[James] Man. Oh, yeah, look at that way back there. -Yeah.

[James] Look down here.

This is all limestone, there's quartz.

[James] It's wet in here, too. Look, it's dripping.

Dripping water.

[Chad] Look at that.

-[James] Look at the nail. -[Chad] Oh, yeah.

[James] It had some type of railing system or something hanging there.

And this was done by hand.

[Chad] Look at these holes here. They were blasted.

-See that? -[James] Oh, yeah.

[Chad] The map didn't say anything about a mine.

But we get in this cave, and you can clearly see signs of hand tools.

And the tunnel has, like, a flat floor.

You can clearly see that this was manmade.

Yeah, we're not even quarter of the way out there.

[James] Oh, wow, this things keeps going on.

-[Chad] Look how farther it goes. -[James] Way back there.

Look at that.

[Chad] Uh-huh.

[James] Oh, what is that?

-[Chad] Oh, it's-- -[James] Check that [bleep] out.

-[Chad] It goes vertical now. -[James exclaiming]

-[Chad] This is a winch system right here. -Yeah.

Nobody pulled it out.

All this time, and it's still here.

[Chad] Wonder why they went down right here, you know?

Did they, like, go underneath this?

It's like why would they go down right here, though?

[James] Maybe there was gold down there.

You have to think about this.

They went horizontally all this way back,

-and then suddenly, right here, vertical for what? -[Chad] Yeah.

They had to have a reason to go down.

[James] They had to be mining, right?

[Chad] Huh.

-Looks like we need a camera to see what's down there. -[James] Yeah.

Let's drop the camera that I put in your backpack.

Yeah. What if they created another shaft directly underneath this?

[Chad] Yeah. We'll be able to see with the camera.

Twist it a little bit, there you go.

[James] Are you on the... Is it touching ground?

[Chad] No, not yet.

It's deeper than I thought, man.

All right, we're at the bottom.

It looks like stone to me.

[James] Turn it a bit.

[Chad] It's still stone.

[narrator] The vertical shaft ends only 20 feet down.

If this had been a mining operation,

it appears to be abandoned.

[Chad] All right.

-[James] We're out of here. -[Chad] Yeah.

[James] This mine is located at the same latitude

as Blind Frog Ranch.

I mean, that winch in the back should be in a museum.

Yet, there it was.

They were clearly mining for gold.

[Chad] So, we went in the cave,

and it was deeper than we ever imagined.

That just reiterates that these stories have to be true.

They say that there's gold mines all around here, and this is one of 'em.

Maybe the ingot we found was mined here.

[James] Dude, this is amazing.

[Chad] So, we just got back from the Historical Centre in, uh, Vernal there,

-and we found this wagon-trail map. -[James] Yeah.

And what was so interesting was, like, one of the wagon trails

went up from the Bead site, north of the ranch, to this cave.

So we visited that cavern that was on the map,

and it turns out that it's a mine.

[Charlie] Holy [bleep]. So who was mining that?

[James] I was wondering the same thing

so I did a little research after we left.

I pulled the mining records from the Historical Centre.

Unbelievable.

And it turns out that the Rhoades family had claims

on the entire region.

Few years ago, you know, I went to the, uh, county records department.

That is the people that were filing the notice of location.

[Charlie] Rhoades.

And I found where Gale Rhoades

had mining permits on the north and east part of our ranch.

Exactly. The Rhoades family had mining claims throughout the entire Basin.

[narrator] According to local accounts,

in 1852, a Mormon settler named Thomas Rhoades

was commissioned to salvage gold from the Uinta Mountains

for the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City.

Relying on the help of local Ute and Native Americans,

Rhoades began extracting gold from a secret mine in the Uintas.

According to records in Salt Lake City,

the gold mine was so rich that it helped fund the Mormon empire.

It is known as the Lost Rhoades Mine.

Before his death, Thomas allegedly left behind

a series of clues for his son

that marked the entrances to the mine.

But to date, the location remains hidden.

So we found a secret mine that once was claimed by the Rhoades family.

And they had a claim here on Blind Frog Ranch,

so it had to be a lot of gold they were protecting.

There's gotta be a chance at that wagon trail map

leads to one of the Rhoades' mine entrances.

I mean, there has to be a connection with all of this.

[Duane] You know, I think there's a damn good chance that's what's going on.

Except, how in the hell we gonna find this stuff here?

Hell, they've been looking for this for centuries.

[James] So, I went through some of the old journals

of the people that knew Thomas Rhoades and Caleb Rhoades.

And those people believed that Thomas left clues

to guide Caleb to the mine.

There's texts that mention that mention this ancient eye beam

carved into the back of the cave walls.

Individual's supposed to go to it,

stand with their back to that eye,

look directly out of the cave entrance

and that's supposed to lead to a mine or cave entrance

that goes directly into the Rhoades mine.

What are the things should we be looking out for?

Mormons were very specific

that there's these seven stone monuments

that get progressively larger

as you get towards the cave entrance

that's supposed to have that eye

in the back of it.

These seven stone monuments,

it looks like a dragon's back or a dragon's tail.

That's what we can be looking for

if we're able to get up to this area

and they're really are those caves.

We might find gold at the Rhoades mine

but we may also find another entrance

into the underground cavern system.

I hope you're [bleep] right, man,

'cause if this is true,

this is what we've been waiting on.

[Chad] So we found a secret mine

that once was claimed by the Rhoades family.

I mean, there has to be a connection with all of this.

[Charlie] You know, this all sounds good.

But heading out and looking for the lost Rhoades mine

is gonna take us away from the ranch.

Can we afford that?

[Duane] Well, Charles, boy, there's nothing we can do here now.

You know, it's clear there's water coming out of everywhere.

[narrator] With the energy zone still flooded,

hampering efforts to drill,

the team must consider their next move.

Wait for the waters to recede

or head north on the trail

of the lost Rhoades mine.

I have a suggestion.

There's a place called Mosby Sink

that sits about 3,000 feet above Blind Frog Ranch.

Since it's a sink,

it has an opening that actually feeds water

into the underground cavern system.

I think we should head up there

and see just how much

water is being fed in to the cavern system.

[narrator] A sink is a basin like depression in the Earth

where water collects during seasonal runoff

but has no visible outlet.

Sitting at an elevation of over 9,000 deet

The Mosby Sink is one of the largest in the Uinta mountains

and is connected to the cavern system under Blind Frog Ranch.

So, if water levels are found to be still high

at Mosby Sink,

it's an indication that flooding will continue at the energy zone.

[Chad] Going up the Mosby Sink

will tell us exactly what's going on with the water flow.

It might explain how long our drill sites are gonna be flooded on the ranch.

I'd like to see what the [bleep]'s going on up there.

We go now, we're gonna have to hike it.

[Duane] Well, we got Ryan Skinner coming in today

and I think he can help us out here.

Ryan Skinner?

-Yep. -So, he's familiar with all of this area, yeah?

He's paid his dues around here.

He probably knows the way up to Mosby Sink, too.

That's worth a shot.

I think we should check it out.

[suspenseful music playing]

[narrator] Chad and James head out to Mosby Sink

with the help of local expert Ryan Skinner.

-[James] That's the sink. -[Ryan] Holy [bleep] that's loud.

[James] Yeah, I'm telling you.

[Ryan] My name is Ryan Skinner.

I've written eight books on the subject

of mysteries occurring throughout the basin.

I'd like to say what I bring to the table

is not only my 17 years of research in the region

but also connecting with the locals,

getting their stories from them,

trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

[James] Yeah, this is it.

There's an overlook right here.

I've never seen so much water before.

-That much water flow will suck you in there, huh? -[James] Yeah.

[James] Look at this. Isn't that something?

[Ryan] It's like the [bleep] Goonies in there, man.

[James] Yeah, it's like Goonies, dude.

Splash mountain.

-[laughs] -[James] Yep.

[Ryan] Let's check it out, huh?

[Ryan] Yeah, we could get sucked in.

[James] Yeah. Be real careful.

Once you're in that water, you're not gonna be able to get out.

If you fall in, you're dead.

Seriously, this is usually always dry.

What you're on is not ground.

I'm trying to tell you.

It's just logs that have washed down, yeah.

If there was this much water going down into the cavern system,

the Aztecs must have had a way to dam it or divert it.

[Chad] All right. We'll put this Go-Pro on.

Maybe we can see how far it'll go in there.

Just gotta be super careful not to get sucked in there.

[water gushing]

Holy [bleep]. You all right?

[Ryan] Yeah.

Yeah, we gotta be...

ridiculously careful. We're in the edge.

Cause this whole thing could,

like a mudslide, just fly out of here.

[suspenseful music playing]

Oh, it's sucking hard. I got like 20 foot in there.

I mean, no wonder I was getting pulled in the pond,

'cause there's like a literal suction of water

flowing under there and it could suck you in

and you're gone.

-[Ryan] You got it? -[Chad] Here it is. Here it is.

[James] Be careful, man.

This shows that this is the reason why

we can't go into the pond anymore.

Because it's gotta be destroyed by this amount of volume

and we can't dig at the energy zone or drill

because of this keeps filling up with all this damn water.

All of this water flows under our ranch

and the energy zone.

But at least it tells us that this water problem

is here to stay for a while.

I'm gonna call my dad and let him know

but our best lead, at least for now

is that wagon trail that James and I found.

God, I just had a pine cone stick to my ear.

[all laughing]

[narrator] While Duane and Charlie guard the ranch,

Chad, James and Ryan set out North along the wagon trail.

[exclaims]

[Chad] Yeah, man.

Sweet.

[James] We just wanna keep a North direction.

We can follow the creek the whole way.

[bird squawking]

[Chad] He's waiting for one of us to die.

He could be guarding the cave.

[narrator] Chad, James and Ryan head North along the wagon trail

where they discovered the abandoned mine.

They are searching for a landmark

known as the seven stone pillars,

which Mormons believe

lead to one of the entrances to the fabled Rhoades mine.

[James] Hey, guys, look.

-What is that? -It's a smelter.

-[James] Look at that. -What is a smelter?

The smelter was where they...

-Heat the metal. -...transformed-- Exactly.

They heated -- look at this. It goes all the way back in through here.

Unbelievable.

Yeah. Look at the mortar in there even.

That's unreal.

[narrator] Smelters are furnaces

that have been used for thousands of years

to remove impurities such as iron and copper

from metals like gold and silver.

In Utah,

smelters were often constructed close to gold mines.

So that the gold could be quickly refined

and shaped into ingots for transport.

It's a centralized location.

So they were bringing all that ore that they just mined to here,

processing it.

But this thing is huge.

I mean, this is a big walk-in smelter.

[Chad] This is where they cooked it right in here.

They'd bring the ore here, heat it up,

and make bars from right here.

[James] Right. They used the smelters and the creek

to cool the external surfaces

while they were cooking it.

And it helped them transform the end product into ingots.

Hell, those ingots we found could have been smelted right here.

[Ryan] And then they would just run down to the creek

and kind of wash it off and cool off the heated metal.

[Chad] Yep.

[Ryan] This is crazy how close this is to Blind Frog.

It's crazy to imagine

that we're standing on a location

where they were actually refining gold, silver, who knows what.

Where you find smelters like the ones that we found,

you know there are large mining operations in the area.

[Ryan] You know what this means?

We're on the right track.

[Chad] There has to be an entrance nearby.

-[Chad] Let's look for it. -[James] Yeah. Let's keep going.

[Ryan] Let's check this part out right here.

'Cause I believe there's a few trails over there.

[narrator] After finding the smelters,

the team continues along the wagon trail northward.

They are looking for a landmark known as the seven pillars.

which Thomas Rhoades claimed

marked the direction to one of the entrances

of the fabled Rhoades mine.

[James] Careful right here.

Hey, do you see something on top of that mesa?

[James] See the stack of rocks

It looks like they've been stacked up.

[Ryan] Somebody went through a lot of effort to build that.

[Chad] Are you [bleep] me?

I think we need to check it out, somehow get up there.

[James] It looks like a cairn.

C, a, i, r, n.

-[Chad] What does that mean? -So, it could be a marker,

it could be a monument.

It's hard to say from this far away.

[narrator] Stone piles known as cairns

were used by ancient civilizations

as a way to locate treasure.

Archaeologists estimate that indigenous tribes

built cairns for over 5,000 years

in the Americas.

And believe the practice was later adopted by the Spanish

and Mormon settlers.

I wonder if we could hike up there somehow?

We could just see if that's a marker that leads to another--

-To another marker, yeah. -Just another clue.

[James] Well, if it's marking all this over here,

we definitely need to go and check it out.

Especially, in that lower portion right there.

If Rhoades actually mined here

and there's a smelter right by it,

that means something.

-It's a good possibility. -Let's check it out.

[Ryan] I think if we go around the side over here,

I think we might be able to find an access point to get on top.

Let's do it.

[James] Where was it, Skinner, up here?

[Ryan] Right up here to the, to the right.

Right at the end of the cliff.

There it is. Right over here.

-[James] Yeah. -[Chad] Oh, there it is.

[Ryan] Somebody put some effort into putting that together.

[James] They put time into it.

[Ryan] Those are some heavy boulders, jeez.

[James] Wait a minute.

Look at this! You know what this is?

It's a marker.

The cairn got us up here

but you wouldn't notice that it's pointing.

Cause you couldn't see it from down there.

You had to come up here.

You couldn't see it because of the back wall but look at this.

It's a pointer.

What the hell?

God damn.

This wasn't here yesterday.

These are fresh overnight tracks.

So, I went down to the pond.

I wanted to actually look for the, uh,

the trespassers down there.

When I got down there, I found something even more surprising.

These very large tracks.

It was all fresh.

You know, I called Duane right away,

'cause he really needed to see this.

[Duane] What the heck is that from?

[Charlie] Maybe those trespassers were dragging something out of the pond.

Oh, yeah, yeah. There is no doubt something's going on here.

[Charlie] We've seen evidence of the poachers all over the ranch

but this is something new.

It looks like they were pulling something huge out of the pond.

[Duane] It looks like they had something long

like a log or something.

[Charlie] God damn.

[Duane] Oh, [bleep]

The track just keeps on going.

[Duane] What the [bleep] is this?

[Duane] That's fresh, too.

[Charlie] Yeah. It's real fresh.

Like, overnight fresh.

Right here. Look at this [bleep] Charlie.

Right here. Look here.

Right to the beaver ponds.

[Charlie] What the hell were the trespassers

be doing in the beaver pond?

[Duane] What the [bleep]'s going on now?

[Charlie] I don't know what to make of this.

If this was from the trespassers,

they dragged something out of the pond,

across the road and into the beaver ponds.

This doesn't make any sense to me.

I mean, I've just, I've never seen anything like that.

[Duane] Well, Charlie, let's keep an eye on this deal.

Let's get the [bleep] out of here.

But that is so [bleep] wild.

[machine whirring]

I see big boy's got his recliner going over there.

Want one?

You gotta come out of there to get it.

-No? -[Duane] No.

[Duane] Charlie, it's the right time for me.

These orange slices.

I think when I was four years old,

my momma bought the first bag.

So that's, uh, 66 years

I've been eating orange slices.

And I'm not dead yet, so there's nothing wrong with 'em.

You want me to get up and come over there?

-[Duane] I'm gonna get two. -Put your recliner up, relax.

-We don't want you to overwork. -[Duane] I will.

[James] Finally heading up there.

[narrator] Chad, James and Ryan are following the old wagon trail

that leads North from Blind Frog Ranch.

They are searching for a landmark known as the seven pillars.

Which is said to mark an entrance to the lost Rhoades mine.

[James] This mine is supposedly

how the LDS church became wealthy.

How they were able to bring in three or 4,000 converts a month.

[narrator] So far, they've discovered an old gold smelter.

[James] It's a smelter.

Look at that.

[narrator] As well as a directional cairn,

which pointed northward into the Uinta mountains.

[Ryan] Yeah, this is the spot. We're here.

-[Chad] Okay. -Yeah, we're gonna be shooting for the, uh,

ridgeline right over here.

See the first hill?

That's where the cairn was pointing.

[narrator] The ridgeline is steep and 250 feet high.

Since climbing it might require rappelling,

Chad asks expert John Gillham to guide them.

We have to realize this could be like, some heavy [bleep].

Like, we could find the entrance right here to a [bleep] load of gold.

So it could be really [bleep] close.

We're gonna have to keep our heads about us

and see what we find, then.

All right. Let's start hiking, guys.

-Let's go do it. -Let's do it.

[Ryan] And like, this is the easy part of the hike, too.

Right up here.

Hey, is that marking right there on that tree?

[Ryan] The second one back?

[James] Right all by itself in the middle.

[muttering indistinctly]

[Chad] Uh, I don't know.

Looks like a claw mark in a way but...

[James] Like a claw mark?

-[Chad] Yeah, no signs though. -No?

[Ryan] Let's keep going. The ridge is that way.

Hey, look. Look at this right here.

There's carvings.

That's definitely carvings.

-[James] Oh, yeah. -Oh, is that like initials?

-What is that? S? W. -S.

And then three lines.

What is S.W.?

This is definitely some type of direction.

This, what do you think, Ryan? Added later?

[Ryan] I think that looks like an 'I' to me.

[Chad] Yeah, I see it.

So what if there is something just right there?

-Up here? I mean it's worth... -Yeah.

I mean, does this look cut to you?

I mean, does this look natural?

I mean, look at the tree.

-It already looks-- -Hey, dude, look, too.

[Ryan] Oh.

Cut on top.

it's one of the main markers

that there's something to look at.

That first and then you see this.

Maybe that's where we're going. Yeah.

[narrator] Cut tree-tops is a tracking method

used by indigenous people for centuries.

To locate their lands from a distance

and mark trails to their treasure.

This practice is believed to be handed down

from the Ute American Chief Wahkara

to the Mormons upon their arrival.

[James] We've got a lot of journal entries

from the early Mormon periods in around the 1850s,

where they discussed, Thomas Rhoades cut the top of trees off

to show that there was treasure nearby.

[Chad] Yeah, let's follow the tree markers.

[James] They were chopping 'em off because you could see it from a great distance.

[Chad] So, it could have meant on top here.

Look at this up here.

Jesus, man, if this goes off,

my heart's gonna...

-Wow. -Yeah. That's it.

-Holy [bleep] -Nice!

Look at that. That's beautiful.

Hey, that's the Seven Sisters.

-That's what I was wondering, too! -Look. One...

-If you would call it the Seven Sisters. -...two, three, four,

five, seven.

-There's Seven Sisters. -[Ryan] Is it?

-And the biggest one marks the cave... -Right, right.

...at the very end.

[James] That might be the seven stone monuments.

[narrator] The team believes the stone markers they spotted along the ridge

are the seven pillars,

also called the Seven Dragons or Sisters,

that the Momon journals described as a landmark

to the lost Rhoades mine.

Guys, the tree lead us to here.

Then there's the Seven Dragons right there.

We have all these tunnels here that said in the [bleep] journal

that it's right below there.

We're [bleep] on it.

-We're on it. -This is it.

-Yeah, that's the cave right there. -Everything is lining up.

Let's find that [bleep]

[cheering]

[narrator] On the next episode

of Mystery at Blind Frog Ranch.

Rappel on?

We ride together, we die together.

[bleep] Holy [bleep]

[bleeping]

There's a hole right in there.

This could be the motherload.

Holy crap!

-[bleeping] -You all right?

[Ryan] James, you good?

[Chad] You all right, James?

Well, he fell earlier.