Original subtitles

Seven minors from the lower 48.

We're out in no frickin' nowhere.

Our running out of time to find the 100 ounces of gold they need

to turn their fortunes around.

This being out here's a gamble.

What's raise the stakes?

In the clandai, gold mines are already shutting down

for the long Arctic winter.

They're getting their ass out of town.

But finally, the huff.

The national bar ain't.

And his 17-year-old Parker Schnabel totals

up $55,000 in gold.

His aster strides.

Putting everything in perspective.

I don't know what I'll do without him.

It depends the bottom of cut one to see if there's any gold left.

No, whatever.

This pan's out, at least we'll have an idea.

Do we keep going or get cracking on cut number two?

We'll see how real good we got.

This one little speck of gold.

It's taken almost four months.

Hey man, we're done.

But cut one is finally out of gold.

Two weeks ago, the crew started stripping ground on a second cut.

But the pressure of getting down to the goal

with their seasons slipping away.

Pushed one crew member over the edge.

How come the dozer ain't running?

I'm starting to feel less hopeful about my chances here.

Greg Remsberg quit.

Leaving the claim to find work back home in Oregon.

Now with cut two still days away from delivering any painter.

The crew is eager to feed whatever they can into their wash plan.

Jack digs up the access ramp to cut one.

We might go get it as much gold out of this one as we can.

Point and go to cut number two.

Todd and Jim run the old access ramp dirt through the wash plan.

Hey Jim, last bucket.

Yeah, we're going to shut down.

Take the look at these ripples.

We think Jim.

Don't see much gold.

Toronto Creek runs into quartz creek on the south end of the Hoffman's claim.

The nugget was pulled from the access ramp on the southern end of cut one.

But the crew has been prepping their second cut further from Toronto Creek.

Todd and Jack scout out Toronto Creek where Todd suspects there's better gold.

They discuss a possible change of plan.

I know there's gold up Toronto.

That gold worked this way out to the mouth right here somewhere in the city.

Right now we're sitting on 40 ounces total.

Half this cut on cut number two is done.

There could be who knows 500 to 1000 ounces right at the mouth here.

Yeah, I know.

We got time for one more cut.

You're going to have to make a decision.

I'm willing to work whatever way it goes.

Toronto Creek just may be richer ground than cut two.

But it'll take weeks to strip.

The crew is a man down and winter could freeze them out before they even reach pay gravel.

Back at the wash plant the crew continues to clean out.

And takes the material from the old ramp to the gold room.

Last one.

Nice little nuggets.

They're clinkers.

See some nice pieces.

Look at that.

There's a nice one.

Four nice chunks.

Dude that's a nugget.

They go clink in the pan.

Look at that.

That was in like about 30 shovel falls.

That's as many nuggets as we've ever found.

I'm extremely pleased with what we're seeing.

We didn't wind up with a lot of material put through.

But it is really good stuff.

They're not going to take long.

That's it.

Not bad for not running much material.

Bye.

Almost seven ounces.

We're three hours running.

That's not bad.

That's pretty freaking good.

Jack's decision to run the ramp dirt they almost left behind has paid off.

Eleven thousand dollars in gold for just three hours of work.

But now the Hoffman's have a season defining call to make.

I'm going to propose something that could be a turning point in our mind.

This section over here.

Okay.

Cut number three.

Let's call it.

When you get two creeks with gold in them.

Yeah.

Converging.

You get a pocket of gold.

We're talking.

Possibly 500 to 1000 ounces on bedrock.

Where the two rivers converge.

I want to knock it out of the park.

I want to try to see what we can do in three.

But the question is this.

We've got time for one.

One cut.

Todd, that's a huge gamble going over there.

Just being out here is a gamble.

Okay.

We're out in the middle of freaking nowhere.

If we're going to go out.

This is raise the stakes.

Take it to the next level.

I know you're like being jack.

You'd rather go out of here like a hero.

What about these guys?

They need to get through the winter.

If we get halfway through that.

And we can't make it.

We're done.

We walk away with.

And that's all we've got.

At least there.

I know we can get these guys some.

Money and they're gone.

A little bread money.

I get it.

We don't need an answer now.

I want you to kind of think about it and think to yourself.

Can we get down in time?

And do it.

It's this at before the snow flies.

If we can't dry you on board.

It's not going to happen.

Down south.

Just outside the big nugget mine in Alaska.

17 year old mine boss Parker Schnabel receives devastating news.

I talked to my parents and they told me that

that my grandpa's had a heart attack.

That's not a f***ing day.

You know, my grandpa's probably the most important person in my life.

And for something to happen to him, just all of a sudden,

he's pretty tough to take, tough to handle.

At the beginning of the summer, Parker took over the big nugget mine

from his 91 year old grandfather, John.

Thanks, Grandpa.

Parker is a vision that he's going to make thousands of dollars every day

and I hope he's right.

John was supposed to retire, but he's been a constant presence on the mine.

Oh, my grandpa's here.

Now we've got the 18.

Mentoring his 17 year old grandson whenever he could.

I strongly urge you to hook on to the back end with a table.

There you go. That's the right way.

At Partipine Creek in Alaska, the code of Fred has been digging for gold

on the Hoffman's old claim for four months.

That's where the gold is.

The crew is running their DRocker hard and catching gold.

But with only 41 ounces of gold, where it's $66,000.

Fred and his crew have decided to try and hit bedrock before winter closes the mouth.

I spent most of my savings.

I lost my house along the way.

I got it flooded.

We hope this pays off.

I've kind of steak my, I guess we steaked our whole season on the back end.

Hopefully that bedrock material is going to pay a lot better than what the upper material

did.

When Fred took over Porcupine, he rejected the Hoffman's glory whole strategy.

Upting to mine shallower pay dirt across a wider area.

The way Jack dug to get down to deep as possible, totally wrong.

But his Fred dug deep.

He found more gold.

You know now what's really down there?

Did you go deeper?

You get better.

Alright, we're gonna try it.

Fred is now after the deepest gold he hopes is sitting on bedrock.

To get at it, he has to inch the 270 excavator down a dangerous rocky bank.

I don't die first.

70 feet to the bottom of his pit.

This is a dangerous maneuver here.

Don't try this at home.

About a 35-40 degree slope here.

He just slide right down.

Come on, right.

Down.

Alright, let's see what you can do.

Whoa, we're rocking here.

We're heading back up here a little bit.

Oh, no.

Dustin, come down here immediately.

We're in big trouble.

Big trouble.

What'd you do?

Completely lost the track.

Come here right there.

What happened?

Well, I guess a rock grabbed it as some kind and just roll it.

Alright, so check the box up there to make sure you don't have a chain.

I'm gonna get a chain and a shovel and a come along and a few other little things.

But there may be an even bigger problem.

This is very serious.

It could be fatal.

This is the most dangerous spot for this to be happening.

It's up to the big rock right here, so I'm watching that.

Alright, here's what we're going to do.

We've got to move the bucket.

I'm going to try to hit it with the tooth and push it in.

We have an articulating arm, which really helps to put a track back on.

I'm going to move out of the way.

You're touching.

Ooh, that's it.

There you go.

Beautiful.

Do it again.

Oh yeah.

We've dusted it at the controls.

Strike back.

Fred tries to force the track back into its guide pullers.

Pearl off a little.

Strike back.

Move it.

Pull him down.

Pull.

We're on.

Oh, right.

Whoo!

Go.

Go.

This is good.

You know.

Fortunately, we got it fixed.

Right now.

We run it.

Let's see if she likes digging.

With the coat of boys, look.

The opportunity to open up a whole new cut.

Cut number three has big gold in it.

So hopefully maybe we get Greg Remberg back up here.

I just got to talk to Todd.

There's no way I'm going to even attempt the third cut without Greg.

Hey, Todd, you got a minute.

Yeah.

What?

You know, we talked about it.

It's changing from cutting number two to cutting number three, right?

I mean, you and Jack talked about doing cutting number three.

We're a dozer guy down.

I can't do it by myself.

There's no way we can get that done.

Greg Remberg left Quartz Creek fearing failure for a second year in a row.

Dave has to persuade him that the new ground Todd has found.

Could make him rich.

Hey, Greg.

How's it going, man?

Well, I'm doing it all right.

Yeah.

I'm going to go in the right at home.

It's still pretty slow down here.

You know how it is.

Yeah.

We're just kind of in a kind of in a dilemma.

I appeared with Todd through something at me.

And he wants to go across the road.

Go all the way up to Toronto Creek and open a third cut.

But here's the deal, Greg.

I can't do that third cut without you.

I need your help.

That's the last thing I expected to hear this morning.

I think what we'll do is we'll finish the second cut.

Slucet out.

And then while they're slucing you and I can be working on this third cut.

I can't wait for my family.

And I don't know if I can gamble with them in a sense.

Why don't you think about it?

Talk it over with Sandy.

Let me get back to you.

And we know from there.

Okay, man.

All right.

Bye.

We're losing time.

We need him.

And we need him bad.

It's the best thing for him and his family.

Get back up here.

Let's finish what we started.

In Anchorage.

Teenage Minor Parker Schnubble rushes to be with his 91-year-old grandfather,

who has suffered a heart attack.

John Schnubble has just undergone surgery to prevent fable to get up to the minor.

Sometime next week, it'd be the middle or the end of the week.

I don't know.

I'm just wondering if it won't be good for you to stay here for a few more days.

And I just think that that's a lot of travel.

If you've only got one foot and half a heart.

One foot of the grey one.

It's not what I said.

Try to understand Parker that I would like to drill home today.

And that was she would just stay here and let his body kind of deal with everything that's gone on in the last few days.

But I think a big part of my grandpa's well-being is his mental health.

And he's happiest in hands.

So let him go to hands.

John begins the 500 mile journey home.

Oh, full.

The next morning, the reunited Hoffman crew gathers.

Todd now needs every man to pull together to make one last push.

At best.

They have four weeks to make their season profitable.

So Greg, we're glad you're back.

Finish what you started.

You're going to finish it out when you finish strong.

I'm in.

My head's in it.

Good.

We decided to get into this ground and let's get everything that's there.

I really think it's over there and we got a shot with you being here.

Bring it in, guys.

I did it.

We gave it our best shot you guys.

It's a quick perm out for safety today.

We're truly grateful that everybody's here.

We have the teams complete.

And Lord, we ask you to just help us to get a lot of gold.

And we pray this in your name.

Amen.

There, guys.

Let's do it.

Hey.

They even Greg get right to work, clearing the dirt and cut to.

Once they hit pay ground, the crew will run it through the wash plan,

allowing Dave and Greg to move over and start stripping.

Cut three.

Nice to be back in here.

We've got a lot of luck to get out of here.

Still, but we can get her.

Yeah, it's really nice having Greg back.

But I think a lot of life.

So it's really easy to be decayed.

We're going to get this cut number two.

Done.

And we're going to do this in about half time.

After five hours of teamwork, Greg reaches the first level of pay ground.

We got to get pay here and cut to.

It's already starting to show.

Yeah, that's the first scoop.

You know, I'm a topologist, not a geologist.

But by God, it looks like his goal bearing me.

Yeah, man, we've got the second cut.

First couple of the dirt here.

Now, we're making progress.

We're going forward.

But Chris has to make a long trip to the wash plan with every load of cut to pay dirt.

He's burning time and precious diesel.

Dave Turin has a solution.

Gotta get past access to cut number two.

And to quick away, we found a put in a new road.

And bypass the road that's all the way around.

Let's be a lot more efficient.

Instead of the 250 yard journey to cut one with every load.

Dave proposes a short from cut to.

That will be four times faster.

We've got to get across our return water.

We've got to ditch right now.

So we've got to put a culprit in there.

And then the loader will be bringing material from cut number two.

If we spend a little bit of time doing this right,

and this will save us days later on,

that we need those days.

We need every day we can get now.

The new road is complete.

And the crew gets back to work on cut to.

The hop and crew shuts down to see if there's any goal in the cut to pay ground.

That cut to.

That cut to.

That's good stuff.

That's good stuff.

Oh, bad.

Yeah.

No, let me put the top of cut to this.

This is good as we've seen.

Maybe two.

Nice.

This cut to a stick.

Look at this nugget trying to make it way out.

Look at that little guy.

And you want to do a band and cut to Todd.

Fred is 70 feet down in the pit on the hunt for bedrock goal.

Ah, the hopman's for digging basically in the same material I am.

Except just not quite as deep that's all.

The hopman's crew spent all of their first mining season trying,

but failing to reach bedrock.

I think I'm about three or four feet below with the hopman's

leg here.

And the deepest spots I got out there.

Damn.

Oh.

Jack was here.

He'd be jealous.

He'd be wanting to pay down there today.

Just like me.

It's great.

Maybe figure out how to do that little scratchy voice.

No, that's not good.

I hope your goal is ripping off that stuff.

So don't spell a drop of it.

What I'm told is that it's possible to have an ounce every yard of dirt

instead of an ounce every hundred yards at dirt when you hit bedrock.

Hope that this stuff holds a lot of gold.

But it would be nice if there was a lot of gold in there.

Forty miles south in Haines, Alaska.

John Schnabel arrives back from Anchorage just days after his heart attack.

John may be back on his feet, but he's ninety-one and getting over his third heart attack.

I won't let him at the mine for about two weeks at least.

I think that's the best thing to do.

It's just telling the takes two weeks off.

Back up in the clondike.

The Hoffman crew is running paid dirt from their second cut.

Now Todd's ready to put his ambitious plan into action.

So the second cut, that's the sure thing to sure round.

But I want to go ahead and take that other cut here.

Because that big nugget we got came out of that Toronto pre.

So I really think that for more gold down on a base of Toronto,

there is up there.

We're ready to go.

Dave and Greg move over from Cutto to start stripping their third cut.

Just off Toronto Creek.

Almost immediately.

Dave is reminded just how hard it is to get down to clondike gold.

Oh man, it's right back to the same goo.

But once but firmer frosted in another nasty stop.

Well, here we are back into mud again.

What we're trying to do is strip it pretty much the wrong time.

Yeah, that's what happens when you start to cut and relay you got firmer frost that melts

turns to mud so it makes it really difficult.

That's ice.

See how it can't get any traction.

Hang up on that ring so go that way and curl up a little bit.

We're going to be lucky and we don't lose one of these pieces out here.

I'll pile a dirt right out of cut number three about 25 feet from the creek.

So I would really like to see the gold but I'm skeptical.

I like to find a big ol' nugget.

Oh, look at that.

There's probably 30 pieces.

I like these, I don't mind me and raw because we get a lot of color.

That's actually pretty nice stuff and it's coming from not very deep.

There you go.

What the?

Told ya.

Right?

It's not supposed to be here.

I told you so.

I told you so.

I'm telling ya.

It's in there.

That's the view of this any pan we've ever seen.

That's a lot of pieces of gold.

Baby cut three holds the answer to this whole season.

At Porcupine Creek, Fred has been digging bedrock paper for two days.

Dustin has been running it through the wash plan.

He shuts down to find out what the bedrock material holds.

What's the plan, Fred?

I'm going to do a full clean out and then concentrate and pan it out.

The Dakota boys clean the slew spots.

They're going to get a little bit better return today.

Then we'll normally get, but right now we're going to go over to a clean up.

See if we can hit that magic 50 ounces.

50 ounces is Fred's break even point of weight all this gold ever.

I've waited separately occasionally, but yeah, I don't know if this is going to work or not.

Since May, we've been trying to get the 50 ounces.

If we get 50 ounces, we'll break even.

There's 10.

20, 30.

We're going to have to hope we're going to have this.

Make it come on.

There's 40.

Bedrock gold could push them over 50 ounces.

Come on and into profit.

46.

47.

Come on now.

Come on.

There's 49 on the money.

All right.

50.7.

Yeah.

Now that's close.

Have me waited for it.

Go.

There's a lot of work, but it's a...

You have finally start realizing, hey, we're doing something right.

From now on, every ounce of gold they can pull out of Porcupine Creek before the winter

freezes them out.

His money in their pocket.

We still got time to make a little bit more.

We're going to start working on our second 50.

I'm Crystal Doyle executive producer of Gold Rush.

This time on the Gold Rush after show.

Have you ever seen your grandfather cry?

I think that he just expected not to see those people again.

And I think that he was just going to write off into the sunset in his mind.

Watch the Gold Rush after show at discovery.com slash Gold Rush after show.