Original subtitles

Six down on their luck men from the lower 48 states risk everything to find gold on a small claim in southeast Alaska.

Where is the gold?

After four and a half months of mining

Holy cow!

They're finally finding gold.

We got our first real nugget.

That's it.

But it may be too little too late.

We're pretty much up the creek without a paddle.

They've sunk almost $275,000 dollars into the ground, for only $8000 dollars worth of gold.

Quite possibly could lose my house.

With the harsh Alaskan winter banging on the door.

The crew is at their breaking point.

Back up. Just back off with it.

And plummeting temperatures wreak havoc on the mining equipment.

I think it's froze. We've got winter already.

Ooh.

The answer to their prayers could lie at the bottom of a 50 foot hole.

If they can get there before the deep freeze.

We're going right to the bitter end.

It's mid September and winter is coming to the gold fields of Alaska.

What you got Thurb?

The salmon return to spawn before the big freeze.

Nice one Todd.

Nearly out of money, Todd Hoffman and his mining crew hit the river to catch a free meal.

-There's one. -Look at that color on him.

Wow.

But Alaska never gives anything away without a fight.

Oh oh. What you got?

-Trouble. -Huge. Did you see him.

Geez. Yeah.

He's coming pretty quick, like who knows.

He's about a five, 600 pounder.

That's a dangerous situation right there.

Naw. We're not gonna push the issue with him, but if it's me or that bear, that bear's a dead bear.

What the heck. Did I see water spraying up?

Oh. There's another one.

The bears are fattening up on the salmon for the long winter hibernation.

Greg. You want to grab the cooler. Let's get outta here, man. They're working their way down here.

As Alaska braces for winter, most gold mines are closed. The Hoffman's claim is still open.

The crew of six has been digging for gold for over four months.

They can't stop now.

If I don't get gold I'm going back home with nothing.

After endless breakdowns, their home made wash plant is running over 1000 tons of gold bearing dirt every day.

Now we're rocking and rolling.

They're hoping they capture gold in hundreds of buckets of black sand.

This thing weighs a ton. Must be full of gold.

But they're pinning all their hopes on finding the big gold nuggets deep down on the bedrock.

We're only about 20 feet from hitting really good gold.

Now greenhorn miner Todd Hoffman is confident he's closing in on a $15 million dollar fortune.

Right here is where we're trying to get below these big boulders.

See the rock underneath my dad's track?

Then you see a brown line there, okay.

From that brown line down it's all virgin ground.

The crew has been digging on what they think is the site of an ancient waterfall.

As they got deeper and deeper, they found more and more gold in deposits known as pay streaks.

But the take so far is small change in comparison to the big gold the Hoffmans believe is sitting on the bedrock at the bottom of what miners call a glory hole.

The dirt they dig out of the glory hole is taken over to their wash plant in a second hand loader.

This is only a 1973. We're a little bit past our warranty.

The old loader delivers the dirt to the front of the wash plant to be processed for gold.

Then, the loader goes round the back to move the waste rocks pouring out of the other end.

Without that loader bringing material, without hauling away the processed material that we don't need,

Everything will back up and all get overran with material and they'll run out.

To keep the operation running, the 37 year old loader has to work continously.

But it struggles to keep up with the wash plant's mighty hunger.

Jack. Need some material.

After months of hard labor, the old workhorse is finally worn out.

The cab started filling with smoke and I looked over and all my electrical wire is burning.

I hate to see that, that just fried.

Ah...

Every machine we have we need, but this is one of the worst to have a problem with because

It does all the moving of the material.

The old tired equipment cannot keep up with the pace.

If the Hoffmans want the millions in gold they think sits on the bedrock, something's gotta give.

How long until you think we're on bedrock?

I mean how long do you think it's gonna take us to get down there.

-Another week? -I could..No.

No. I don't think it's gonna take that long. 3, 4 days you know, max.

Well the golds getting better. It's obviously down below. But I'm just wondering how far down below.

So, I mean I'm even kinda considering that maybe we just stop running until we touch bedrock.

Maybe we just dig dig dig dig dig, and then just run the material that we hit down below.

There's no benefit to that.

I mean, I'd rather spend the last bit of money we have on only the dirt that's above bedrock.

My goal, and still is, is to give the guys a bunch of gold.

And uh, right now, that's not much.

Todd wants to stop running tons of shallower dirt to concentrate all of their resources on digging to the big gold at the bottom of the glory hole.

Come here. Let's have a little meeting with the guys.

They've spent well over a quarter of a million dollars, and have only found 6 ounces of gold worth about $8000 dollars.

They have to find around 190 ounces of gold before anyone gets paid a single cent.

Their decision could be make or break.

Basically, the two options are this.

We keep running this material. We're getting better gold, obviously, But we may run out of money.

And we may break something that we just can't fix. And that will ruin our chances to get down to bedrock.

Or, we stockpile this material with the loader right up here.

And we just support Jack, and just dig dig dig.

I still believe the gold's down there.

We haven't touched it.

I know we're coming to the end of the money, and that means the end of the summer.

So, I'm all for going for it.

Thurb?

No. I think we're chasing fairy tales. I think we should run what we can run.

Back in Oregon, Thurber ran his own sheet metal shop, but the recession closed him down.

Right now I don't have a paycheque so

It's not too hard to figure out I'm in big trouble.

He raided his pension to come mining, and is one mortgage payment away from losing the family home.

We were at the verge of foreclosure a couple different times cause we did get behind.

And the banks don't have any remorse or anything. They just say "That's it, too bad".

That's been really real hard.

Desperately in need of any money he can get, Thurber thinks even the poor quality dirt is worth running.

I know you need money as bad as I do, and you got bills to pay.

Would you rather take a chance and pay 'em off, or just take it, go home and put a ding in it.

Well, you know, a little..is better than nothing.

I kinda agree with Todd though. I say throw the dice. That's what we're here for.

Now there's something I wanted to say. I've got to really like you guys.

Well. I want to see y'all get it.

I wanna see what's there.

-You're with me. -Yes sir.

I just do not want to leave this place unless I know what is at the bottom.

And that's really why we're all here guys.

Cause we're out on an adventure, just like flying to the moon.

I don't want to run out of gas when I feel like we're close, you know.

And this is the beginning of our last push. We're gonna go get this friggen bedrock. Everybody in?

(a chorus of agreement)

It's bedrock or bust. The wash plant is shutdown.

And with the crew supporting him, Jack is immediately encouraged by what he sees in the glory hole.

I've got one of those uh, green boulders right in here right now.

I'll show ya.

That boulder, right...

There. That's what you gotta look for.

But Thurber still thinks they should run the wash plant, instead of risking it all to dig for bedrock.

To me we're, you know, we're chasing a fairy tale.

We don't know if there's a waterfall there. We don't know if there's buckets of gold.

That waterfall could be a hundred feet.

I think we got material that has gold, more than we've had all summer.

Run it.

With everything riding on their decision, Todd travels to Haines airport.

He's flying in some serious muscle.

To actually make it, we needed a little bit of help.

Trust me. We need a master plan. It may be 60 feet deep.

When the miners first came to Alaska

Oh, hey buddy.

Dave Turin helped them get the wash plant up and running.

-Good to see ya. -Good to see you, man.

Put an angle iron on here. Bring another angle iron up.

Come on. Let's get it done you guys.

-Come on. Get going. -Right here.

Dave runs a lucrative rock quarry back in Oregon. If anyone can get them down to the bedrock quickly, it's Dave.

We need to position ourselves so we can go down another 20 feet.

-Another 20? -Maybe.

I think I'm at 35 now. And I think I'd maybe go to 45.

-40, 45 -Another ten feet? Maybe.

With winter fast approaching, and six family's futures hanging in the balance, Dave Turin may just be their last hope.

So when's the snow gonna start to fly.

Tomorrow. Noon.

Up ahead.

Hey.

Tempers flare over the plans to get to the bottom of the glory hole.

What are you trying to make another road out here?

I'm not. I guess you don't understand digging.

Sub freezing temperatures change the game overnight.

Dave. Grab that hose and shake it a little bit.

Got a little frozen hose somewhere.

Yeah.

And with his house on the line

-Come on dude. Don't get all.. -Buzz off.

Thurber snaps.

I'm fuckin told that all of my time was wasted. Happy fuckin shit.

Struggling with outdated machinery, the miners at Porcupine Creek have made a risky decision.

Shut down the wash plant to concentrate on digging to bedrock.

We're at our limits, in every direction.

There's, there's no

hope if we break anything.

They have a small window of opportunity to somehow pull 190 ounces of gold out of the ground to turn a profit.

Todd has recruited quarry expert Dave Turin to get Jack down to the gold, before winter cripples the operation.

I'm encouraged. We're gonna get you down there.

We gotta make sure it's safe though Jack. We don't want you tipping that thing over in the middle of that water.

-No no. -What if we want to go another

10, 20 feet down? What do we gotta do?

-You got some work to do. -Okay.

-You gotta get this a little wider. -Yeah.

We got to get more area opened up.

-If you could just get us down another 10 -Another 10 feet or so.

10 umm. I think that's plenty.

Dave gets to work on some quick fixes around the glory hole.

As you go down, the further you go down with the slope, so all you end up with is this tiny little hole at the ottom and you don't have any room to work.

So you gotta start out wider at the top. And then they can dig down.

And get down deeper. But they gotta have a lot wider footprint at the top in order to maneuver down at the bottom.

Dave widens the top of the glory hole to make the sides less steep

When he is done, it'll be easier for Jack to dig, and for the old loader to stockpile material.

Nice to have Dave here. Finally somebody that

really knows what they're doing, you know, besides us idiots.

Hey.

But Jack starts digging a road on the area Dave just widened.

How do we get your dad to quit digging.

Hey dad. Why are you trying to make another road out here?

I'm not. I'm just trying to get rid of some material.

I don't understand your master plan.

I can't go down there with the loader, turn around and load.

You can if you go down here.

I guess that you don't understand digging.

-We had a -Got to a make it work.

We had a plan. Dave laid it out .

You're not getting it. You're doing your own thing.

Jack just got his own plan, Dave. He's just digging, that's

Dad. We brought Dave. We brought Dave in to build us a plan. And you're not doing it.

Get on that hoe, go over here, and sit there.

I got a guy here that's got a plan. Don't you want to listen to him?

What do you think we ought to do, Dave?

-Look. I'm 30 feet down in..

-Why don't you just listen for a second.

What if you took the dozer over here Jack, and just get this.

Ah, get this all leveled out. So you're not dinking around with it.

No one can argue with Dave's expertise, and Jack and Todd agree to disagree.

He just wants to have his..Get up, have his coffee, eat, and go dig something. And I'm Like "No. We got to have a friggen plan here Pop".

Todd doesn't understand digging. Ah, to him it looks like, real easy, you know, you can just go down there and just move stuff.

Dave's been down this road before.

That's the father/son thing. I deal with it all the time with my dad. It's like

We still don't know anything. And we never probably will.

Todd takes over the 400 from Jack to finish the widening, according to Dave's plan.

Hey. Don't tell my dad.

He don't like anybody in here.

They widen out the top of the glory hole to 75,000 square feet, an area larger than a football field.

But Dave is only getting started. He also has a controversial suggestion.

Run the wash plant again.

-Hey. We gotta talk. -Okay.

What are you got going here? M You gotta help me out here. I

-Well. -I'm kind of lost.

-I see you digging a hole. -I know.

-You're not running the wash plant? -I know. It

Why can't you get that material up to the plant.

Well here's the thing. You know, our main goal is to get down to the gold at bedrock.

So basically I said Hey. We'll use the loader to support Jack.

Everybody support Jack with the pumps and everything. And get down to bedrock. Once we get there,

Then we fire up, and we only run the juiciest material that we have.

Here's what I think you oughta do. Cut in a new road.

Get that haul time down and get it closer to the plant and then he can haul it off as fast as Jack can dig it.

And you can run.

The loader has been taking the long way around the glory hole to the wash plant. The route is inefficient.

And tough on the 37 year old machine.

Dave suggests a shortcut that will take the strain off the loader and get dirt processed a lot faster.

I'm gonna push a road right down in here. Gonna make these guys so much more efficient at getting the material out of the ground to the plant.

If the loader can handle the new road, the crew might just be able to run the wash plant and dig for bedrock.

I don't know if it can be done. I'm not saying Dave can't do it. I'm just saying with our junk and our guys if we could run both effectively.

So we'll see what he can come up with, you know. If he can do it, hey, I'm okay to run..

But, I need to accomplish the goal of going down to the bottom of this hole.

It takes Dave the better part of a day, but they finally manage to get the new road cut.

It's gonna save us a bunch of time coming in. We been spending a lot of time just commuting with the loader, moving material over to the plant.

Jack fills up their patched up loader and it manages the new road without a problem.

Now they can dig deep and run dirt at the same time.

Should be pretty pretty awesome stuff.

Just when things are finally running like clockwork.

The Alaskan winter makes it's first appearance at the mine.

Rain's getting a little chunky, isn't it?

We're getting clumps in our, in our rain.

The snow is a game changer. Dave's improvements may be too little too late.

And here it is. It's here. Just couldn't come at a worse time.

Overnight, the temperatures in Porcupine Creek drop below the freezing point, signaling the beginning of the end of the gold mining season.

Without water we can't run. So if it freezes any more than this we're gonna be in trouble. This is just nothing yet.

Just the beginning.

It's gonna get awful cold here.

If we can get to bedrock in time before we get ran out of here by the snow. That's the question. I don't know.

And if it starts freezing up our pond, it's gonna be a nightmare.

This is just a little shot of snow. And it's kind of a warning shot across the bow kinda.

I think waking everybody up. We should start thinking about

How much time we have left.

Quarry expert Dave Turin's new road should allow them to dig and run material through the wash plant at the same time, if the equipment can handle the weather.

As long as we don't slow him down we can run the plant. I say let's run it.

Just don't worry about me. I'm, I'm fine. It's the loader is the most important. Take it easy.

Let's go.

Better just to run. And look in that sluice box and see what we got.

Jack can't, My dad can't be more than 4 or 5 feet from bedrock.

I expect him to hit it within the next 48 hours.

They might not have 48 hours left to find the $275,000 dollars worth of gold they need just to break even.

With the temperature flirting with the freezing point, no one knows how the wash plant will cope.

It's cold in here. My feet are freezing.

Ready.

Are you ready?

Let's wash some rock.

Good to be running.

That whole plan of just stopping to dig down to bedrock didn't seem right.

Jack reaches the deepest he's ever been in the glory hole.

The loader ferries the precious dirt straight up to the wash plant using Dave Turin's new shortcut.

But there's a problem, up at the wash plant.

Hey. The bottom of the back end and that ain't pumping right.

The little jig at the back is clogging up.

Not working right.

Something is stopping the gold bearing black sand from reaching the bucket.

Todd. This isn't even moving. there's no fresh water. I think it's froze.

Exactly what I thought was gonna happen. We got winter already.

It might be October back home, but it's more like December here.

Hey David. Grab that hose and shake it a little bit.

Got a little frozen hose some where. It's somewhere right in here guys.

The duplex jig should be pulsating 160 times a minute to catch fine gold.

Gotta let this run out a little bit.

But there's a freeze in one of the outlet funnels, and one side has completely seized up.

What it's got. It's got a bunch of sand in there and it got frozen together.

Yeah.

I can tell by little chunks coming out.

Ah. There you go.

Todd clears the ice from the jig's outlet funnel.

Is everybody stopped running up there?

I don't know.

But gold rich black sand is being lost. He needs to get the outlet funnel back in place. Fast.

I don't know how I'm gonna get this in there.

You got gloves.

-Hold on. -Just pretend you're jump, jumping in the glory hole.

Did it? Okay. Don't. Just don't mess with it.

Geez.

There. Now it's moving. See it?

Yup.

With the blockage fixed the water can again carry fine gold particles through the system and into the buckets.

Seems to be working pretty good now. So hopefully uh, it stays working you know.

The wash plant is back to running dirt from over 40 feet down in the glory hole.

This is gonna turn to gold there pretty quick. Uh, we're in excellent stuff.

The morning chill gives way to the mid day Alaskan sun. And as the ice thaws, the crew manages to run their entire stockpile of dirt.

After that one, no more.

Jack suspects it's richer than anything they've dug so far. But to find out, they will stop the plant and take a look.

I see gold all through that. With chunks right in here.

When you can see it up here at the top.

More than likely pretty good, so.

Look at this piece down here.

Yeah, you got a picker?

Alright.

I don't know if it's a nose picker or or what. but you know it's a picker.

You pick it out of here, so. I'll pick gold all day long.

The riffles and nugget traps are catching good gold from this new material.

But it's the fine gold they can't see coming out the back f the wash plant that they think will make them rich.

That's where the gold will be, mixed in with the black sand.

Only problem is, we don't have a way of getting the gold out of the black sand.

There's 60 percent of our gold. Of course we never mined before, and we're learning.

But that's our big challenge right now, so.

Black sand contains the heaviest particles of gold, along with a magnetic material called magnetite.

The miners use magnets in a bucket to try and remove it, but small particles of fine gold get trapped as well.

This, is the problem that I'm dealing with.

See it?

Yeah, and there's gold when I lifted that out.

There's uh, I picked up gold with it.

Sometimes you can actually see it. Looks like hair.

Now that the crew can run the wash plant and dig simultaneously, every passing day generates another 24 buckets of black sand.

Jim Thurber has been hauling the buckets from day one.

Seems like we're spinning our wheels. We got a bunch of black sand. I can't go make a mortgage payment with black sand. I can't take it in the supermarket and buy groceries.

Does me absolutely no good in this stage. and we got uh,

(Exhales heavily)

A crazy amount. We get 24 buckets a day.

I got that much friggen black sand.

I just got 30 more buckets. And it's like I can't keep going and buying buckets. It's $150 dollars every time I buy 'em.

Thurber's desperate to get at the thousands of dollars worth of gold they think is trapped in the buckets.

Can you hang in there. Give us, give us one more day,

I don't know.

Todd needs to get $275,000 dollars worth of gold, to have any profit to share with his crew.

My guys are like, It's like they

They think I've been gold mining my whole life, or something, you know. Like I'm supposed to pull a rabbit out of my hat. I don't know.

But

I mean, 24 buckets of black sand in one day. That's a, that's a lot.

Todd calls in yet another expert from his home state of Oregon with a machine that could solve all their problems.

-Dude. -Eh dude.

You tired or what?

-Are you guys hard to find. -A long drive.

Brian Tolle is an inventor with a passion for gold mining.

He claims his latest invention can remove the magnetic material from Todd's buckets.

Leaving behind nothing but gold and other minerals.

Hey Brian. The last time we ran is right here.

Holy crap.

And you said you can do this in a half hour?

Is this magnetic?

-Is it real magnetic? -Fifty percent of it is.

Fifty? Ninety is better.

The Hoffman crew tried once before to get gold out of the black sand with a wave table.

It's just not worth the powder to blow it to hell.

Despite all their efforts, they couldn't get any gold out of the black sand.

-You cannot pull it off of here. -I know but

It's in production mode. You cannot do this.

I can't talk to you.

With so much at stake, tensions hit a fever pitch.

Because I've been here for 3 months without any fuckin money.

Dude, you wanna go. Go.

And Jimmy Dorsey exited the camp, never to return.

Now, it's Brian Tolle's turn to put himself in the firing line.

There's like, 3 or 4 tons of black sand sitting here.

And I've processed small amounts, you know, as I check claims.

So I'm not exactly sure how much it'll run an hour, or how much he's expecting an hour.

I want to see this machine, Brian.

Ta da.

Wow.

What's that?

So.

There it is.

You're kidding me.

No way. You got it all painted and everything.

Todd and his crew have called in many favors along the way. But none more important than this one. Expectations are high.

It'll work with our material. Probably better than any material.

The Hoffman crew is down to the last days of the gold mining season.

Winter's first snow showers and freezing temperatures threaten to close them down at any moment.

If you quit, you don't get there. So, we're going right to the bitter end.

They are now running rich deeper dirt through the wash plant than they have all season.

Reckon you a whole bar.

Oh wow.

This is our best run yet.

But the guys have not been able to get their hands on the thousands of dollars worth of fine gold they think is trapped in the black sand until now.

Inventor Brian Tolle has brought in a new machine that could make them all rich.

Here you go.

-Hey dad. -Yeah.

I need Jim to come up here. He's been busting his back on those buckets.

-Yeah. He's the only guy not running a piece.

I need him to come up here and uh, and work this black sand with Brian.

Okay. I just want to find out what's going on right here.

Jack's got a sample of dirt from the very bottom of the glory hole.

-This is hot stuff. -Let's go.

Jack doesn't trust the prize material to Brian's prototype machine.

He wants to pan it by hand.

Listen. This bucket here, I don't want it going through that.

This bucket here stays here.

That black sand is what we're interested in.

Okay. Let's go.

Okay. Do not mess with my bucket.

Run this one.

Uh. We're gonna run the good stuff. Jack just told me not to run this bucket, but

I think we're gonna run it.

Is that scattered, or is that too much?

First scoop dude, hey.

Wow. Here goes.

Well actually, see, you get a little bonus look.

Let's go and we'll see.

Gold. See how the gold's laying down through there.

The Porcupine Creek black sand contains small particles of gold along with other minerals and a magnetic metal compound called magnetite.

The separator has a belt with a magnet inside it. As the black sand falls through the water magnetite is pulled towards the belt.

The gold and non magnetic material, falls straight down into one bucket, and the worthless magnetite is separated out into another.

Takes care of the black sand for ya.

Here's your magnetite buddy. No gold in it.

That's awesome.

There's your gold side.

So what we're gonna do is just take this magnet.

Run it down through here. Find out how good of a job we did.

Okay.

Clean.

So, you just got rid of one of your, your biggest enemies in here.

-Holding. -Try pan this down a little bit.

The remaining material contains more gold than they have ever seen in their pans.

-How many scoops was that? -Two.

Two scoops. Whatever we're running is no joke. Lookit that.

So no magnetic properties in it.?

Nope.

You cannot argue with success.

-That's the way. -Hats off to you brother.

-Thank you sir. -Yeah.

It's what it's all about.

With the Alaskan winter bearing down, the crew needs to run as much deep material as fast as they can.

But the glory hole now is so deep, it's filling up with ground water as soon as Jack stops digging.

From now on, they will have to work 24/7 to keep the glory hole drained.

The newest member of the crew, Chris Doumitt, draws the short straw.

For what I'm going through, I certainly hope it is worth it. Jack got down into some really really fine material.

That's aboutt he only reason I been doing this. If it was any thing like it's been the last

couple months I probably wouldn't go through this.

The hole is now 250 by 300 feet across and as deep as a five story building.

Over 150 gallons of water flood into it every minute.

It takes about seven and a half hours

to pump it down

as dry as we can get it.

It's no easy task. Water has to first be fed from an auxiliary pump into the main pump,

And now we'll get this one priming.

Be kinda nice if there was uh, somebody on another pump cause I'm open and closing valves and turning things on and off.

Chris mans his post all night in case a pump fails.

Things look different in the dark, you know.

One false step could land him in 25 feet of freezing water.

Those banks are steep.

I don't need to hurt myself out here tonight is what I'm saying. Cause nobody's gonna come check on me.

Up ahead.

Todd breaks devastating news to Thurber.

-Christ, I don't know what to tell ya. -Fuckin bullshit.

Come on dude. Don't get Get off !

Back up. Just back off a little bit.

It's first light in Porcupine Creek Alaska. For now, The gold miners have been spared any more snow.

In a race against time, Chris manned the glory hole pumps all night to give Jack a fighting chance to hit bedrock and get to the gold.

Yeah. It's a hole. That's for sure.

Yeah. Chris worked all night, keeping the pumps going. So, Yeah. I'm real proud of him. Cause now I can see it.

I didn't realize I'd gotten down that far.

Hopefully I can catch bedrock.

It's critical that we do that,

So I can pay all these guys uh.

The Hoffmans have spent nearly $275,000 dollars to get this far.

With the glory hole the deepest and driest it's ever been, now is their best chance of finding enough gold to get paid.

We're gonna hit bedrock today.

If we don't hit bedrock today I'm gonna be pissed off. So, I want it. I want it bad.

Come on. We're gonna let it run.

With all this material. We gotta get it out of here. We gotta run it and it's really good stuff.

The black sand coming out of the wash plant is getting richer by the day.

Thurber has been hauling buckets of it for months, hoping the gold trapped inside will save his house from foreclosure.

It'll wear on ya. I'm done. But you gotta keep going.

Got responsibilities you know. I could throw in the towel and just say Guys, I'm physically shot.

But I can't. I gotta keep going.

It's down to Brian Tolle to get gold out of the hundreds of buckets stockpiled on their dig down to bedrock.

If the older bucket loads are as rich as the material coming out now, they could be looking at two and a half million dollars worth of gold.

But if the old material is not rich in gold, they will have spent almost 5 months battling the Alaskan elements for nothing.

They're all over there looking nice and pretty all lined up but what the frig. I gotta get the gold out of there.

The magnetic separator proved the deepest dirt is rich in gold.

If there's gold in the buckets they've stockpiled, the separator will find it.

It doesn't look very rich to me but

There is gold that you can barely see. We'll find out.

But the black sand from the last few months is from much shallower dirt.

When the magnetic residue is removed, there's very little gold.

The news is devastating.

Aw. Could mean there's nothing in any of our buckets. At least not enough to make it worth the crap.

That's real fine material right there.

So it's showing that the separator isn't letting it float away and you're losing it. You're capturing it in here. But

How much you got out there to start with, that's hard to say now.

The crew was sure their 4 month stockpile of black sand was money in the bank, but that's not the case.

If it's in there it's so friggen fine I can't see it.

But that doesn't mean anything. I got, you know. I wear glasses.

Brian checks bucket after bucket of the older material.

But the story remains the same.

That's the amount of gold that I got out of one 5 gallon bucket.

That's about $2 dollars worth of gold.

Your buckets cost you 5 bucks apiece. You got more money in your buckets than in your gold.

-Ooh. -I'm sorry. -That's not good.

Yeah. Now I am sorry.

Dude, Thurber, Thurber's gonna cry.

With just 2 dollars worth of gold flake in each bucket, Thurber spent the season earning the crew a paltry $240 dollars.

Hey Thurb.

Yeah.

We got about two bucks, Brian Brian found only about $2 dollars worth of blac of gold in that whole bucket of black sand.

One whole bucket.

So what I been doing for the last few months is a bunch of bullshit.

Yeah, it looks, yeah.

-I don't know. -Fucking bullshit.

I don't know what to tell you.

Fucking bullshit.

-Hey dude. Don't get -GET OFF.

We'll talk ab.. I don't want to talk about it now.

How did he take it?

How do you think he friggen took it.

Back up. Just back off a little bit.

I fucking been told that all of my time was wasted.

Ah fuck. Fuck it.

The gold miners at Porcupine Creek are facing the end of the season.

They were convinced that they had thousands of dollars worth of fine gold in their black sand buckets.

But the buckets have turned out to be worth more than their contents.

To make any money at all, the crew has just days to find forty times more gold than they have in almost five months.

For some, it is a desperate time.

It's a lot about survival. I mean...

We all came up here cause of work, at home, isn't there.

(sniffles)

You know anyone that says uh, gold mining is easy, hasn't done it that's for sure.

For some of the crew there is still hope.

Over at the glory hole, Jack's pulling out boulders the size of refrigerators. A sign that bedrock could be close.

There's this big boulder down here and it wasn't brought in by a river. It's totally brought in by a glacier.

And Schnabel and a lot of these guys have, find gold stacked underneath these big large boulders that are right down on the bottom so

We have one here. I don't know if my dad can even get it out but it's big.

There it is.

Dig it.

John Schnabel at the Big Nugget mine across the creek, told the Hoffmans he found $100,000 dollars worth of gold under under a boulder like this.

Look at that. Look at the color of that rock.

A find of that size could save their operation.

You're getting close to something.

That big rock, whatever is under it, oughta be pretty good with gold.

The sediment surrounding the big boulder was undisturbed for thousands of years and could be packed full of gold.

Where's Chris putting this? It should be first to run.

This is the hottest stuff we've had yet.

Hey. That material that Jack's pulling out of the hole right now. It's the hottest stuff yet.

-We're getting close. -We're getting really close.

So. Just take all that good material straight to the plant.

-Got it. -Alright man.

After almost 5 months of struggle, the guys run the best dirt yet through the wash plant.

Everything looks pretty good.

For a bunch of home made crap.

For Thurber, there is a glimmer of hope that he could still save his house from foreclosure.

Really looking forward to this. This is the deepest we've gone. The gold's been getting better and better all the way down.

I can't wait to see how this turns out. It should be our best.

They run for 6 hours, then shutdown to test the dirt they found beneath the boulder.

Look at all this gold right through here guys.

-Look at that chunk. -Ah. That's looking really friggen good.

You know when you can shake your pan.

And here's the gold in it.

That's just uh

That's the richest music you can hear right there.

All signs indicate the Hoffman crew is closer than ever to bedrock., and gold that can make them rich, and wipe out $275,000 worth of debt.

If winter doesn't freeze them out first.

It means there's a chance, you know, and that's, that's basically what we want, you know.

I mean, the average dude out there in America. He's not trying to go out and slay the dragon. He just wants to,

Subs by Jack T

wants to know that we still live in a place where there's freedom.

And there, and there still is a chance.

You know, there's a chance for us to go out and do something like this.