Original subtitles

7 down on their look miners, Hunt Kondai Gold, on the edge of the Arctic Circle.

Just saying a gamble anymore, this is now a necessity.

But winter is closing in fast.

And the miners are only halfway to their hundred ounce gold.

We're out of time, we're out of money, and we're out of season.

Now, with just two weeks left in their second season,

the Hoffman crew risks life and limb to run all day and all night.

And the battle weary miners finally hit a pastry that could change everything.

Down at Porcupine Creek, the coat of Fred is on his best gold yet.

But 70 feet down is no place to get an excavator stuck.

Don't try this at home.

And a big nugget, the future of the mine, lies in 17-year-old Parker's hands.

Once again.

With, there's nothing to Smith's credit.

I don't know what'll happen to Big Nugget Mine.

In the Kondai, the Hoffman crew is facing the end of their second mining season.

They're finally running dirt from their second cut.

And to hit their 100 ounce gold, they need it to be their best yet.

The bottom of the two is going to be rich.

So we're going to kick some ass here.

We're not going to fail this.

We're going to get a bunch of gold.

Shut it down.

Todd stops the run to examine the sluice box.

Dude, look at this, Greg. Look.

Look at that.

Look at that.

That's right in here.

Here's a full riffle.

Oh, yeah, heck yeah.

This looks good down in here.

Gold.

One.

Over the last four and a half months, they pulled 47 ounces of gold out of their first dig site.

Cut one.

But they quickly ran out of gold rich dirt.

Hey, man, we're done.

Three weeks ago, they started clearing the frozen mud from a second dig site.

Cut two.

Yeah, replayed.

I push.

It gets me that much closer to sluice thing out of that number two.

They got down to pay gruff and have spent five days running it through the wash plan.

Now is the moment of truth.

Their first full clean out from cut two.

Determines if they leave court's creek with any profit.

We're working on cut two.

This clean out right here.

We not only have a lot of material.

It's good cleaning.

So I'm expecting in a double-digit.

I'll try to cut my estimate and half.

And I'm going at 10 and a half to 12 ounces.

The Huffman crew has to find nearly two and a half ounces.

Every day to hit their 100 ounce, 160,000 dollar gold.

I believe this clean out is going to be really nice.

There it comes.

From five days worth of dirt, they need at least 12 ounces of gold to stay on track.

Guys, I'm a little discouraged with it.

Basically what it turned out to be is 7.34 ounces.

I'm really disappointed 7.5 ounces.

I'm sure we'd have at least 10.

They need to increase their hull by at least an ounce a day.

To go home with any money in their pockets.

Well guys, we have almost quadrupled what we did last year.

But still, I don't know.

We got to get to a hundred for we get out of here.

The weather pushes us.

That's dirt smart.

What's going to take?

Well, I think what we're going to have to do taught is we're going to have to commit to go running.

That machine should not shut down if we're going to continue to run this.

We just got to keep her going and get the good pay.

I don't know if we can pull it off, but if we can, I'd love to just go forward.

Okay, who's that?

Okay.

All right.

To hit a hundred ounces.

Let's go.

The crew has to go from running eight hours a day to running 16 hours a day.

Fire it up.

We have to go for it.

Just go as fast as we possibly can and run as much as we can for as long as we possibly can.

But they've never pushed the wash plant this hard.

Give me more.

Let's go.

Oh, no water.

No water, sir.

Get it down.

And let's.

Dude, we're out of brick and water.

Look at that.

We don't even have any storage.

There isn't any.

It's just not just all mud.

Our water system is not working now.

We're too muddy.

Running longer in the harder drains the holding pond faster.

Without clean water, the wash plant can't run dirt.

And we've got the gold bearing dirt sitting there waiting.

Everything's ready, go.

It's frustrating.

We have gold at our fingertips.

It just we can't get it.

Down in southeast Alaska.

The Kota Fred is digging deeper than anyone ever has at Porcupine Creek.

He thinks he's finally at bedrock.

We're about eight feet below where the hoppons reach last year.

Last season, Jack Hoffman dug down to 70 feet searching for a glory hole.

He fought, held millions and gold.

But the season closed him out before he struck in rich.

What the Hoffman's head was not the glory hole.

It was just a hole.

Fred bit the farm on finding the best gold deep in the old Hoffman hole.

This is the deepest stuff we got.

We hope that it's going to be really good.

But getting down to bedrock hasn't been easy.

Fred started out running dirt from a wide area across the claim.

He changed his strategy when he found that gold got better.

The deeper he dug.

Just keep it all digging deeper and never.

It paid off when he hit 50 ounces.

50 points.

With $80,000 in gold, he broke even for the season.

Now, if the bedrock material stays good,

Fred and the Dakota boys could go home with a fortune.

I would really like to know what this material is running.

This will tell me whether it is worthwhile,

continue in this situation.

After two days running, just the gray material from bedrock.

Fred calls for a cleaner.

This is the deepest dirt that we've had.

It could be the best gold ever.

It would be the worst gold ever.

You'd never know until after you ran it.

I'll be damned.

Okay, well, that's a bunch of gold.

All this line right here has got flakes of gold in it.

I'm seeing gold all over the top of the loose box.

We've obviously got into some bigger gold.

I asked what I like to hear.

Yeah, yeah.

That's what I like to hear.

Yeah.

Damn nice.

Look at that.

I had to get you all right there.

My guess?

Five out.

Come on.

Five.

Five.

Yeah.

That's it.

I just see a few flakes here and there.

You are so politely.

I'll give you a pile of them right here.

Look at that.

I've never been able to do this before.

I can scoop them up right now.

And there's no big gold up here.

Look at this.

It isn't saying.

Line ounces.

Might be a little bit in here too.

Oh, nice.

Oh, be careful.

All right.

We're going to do it here.

Fred has 50 ounces of gold in the bank.

Only half way to his 100 ounce gold.

For him to have any chance of hitting $160,000 worth of gold in the last couple of weeks.

He has to get at least seven ounces in this clean out.

Come on, baby.

17 cents.

Good job.

God.

That's more delightful.

We've been getting a couple of days.

A couple of days.

A couple days, right?

Half months took a year to get 15 ounces.

They're 17.

Six cents.

They're having her.

Ha ha ha.

I love it.

Fred has pulled $27,000 of gold from the bedrock dirt in just two days.

At this rate, the last two weeks could net the Dakota boys 120 ounces worth almost

$200,000.

Up it courts Creek.

The Hoffman crew is having trouble with their water supply.

Again.

A month ago, Dave Turin addressed the water shortage by pumping the groundwater seeping into their

first dig site over to their intake pump.

Fire it up.

That clean water that's coming out of our cut over there for pumping into here.

But there still isn't enough water to run for 16 straight hours.

Because cut one is out of pader.

Dave comes up with another way to use the pit.

We're going to flood it and use that for a reservoir for our clean water so we can

slow.

We'll flood the pit up to the pump.

So first thing in the morning will flip this pump on.

What our intake so we got nice clean water so we can run all day tomorrow.

A pump has been keeping the cut dry.

With the pump now switched off groundwater springs should pour in overnight and fill it.

This area half the size of a football field will become a reservoir for clean water

that can be pumped into their intake pump.

It definitely is a love-hate thing with this water.

Sometimes it's your friend.

Sometimes it makes your life miserable.

By the next morning, Dave's plan delivers a reserve.

Awesome.

Of another 160,000 gallons of water.

We solved the problem.

We got clean water to run with.

It should be enough to allow the miners to run dirt from cut to uninterrupted.

Nice clean water.

I like it.

Well, as we get this water supply up, we should be able to run long days.

So that's going to help us get to our goal and close up the season hopefully with a bang.

Start it up.

That's good.

Here we go.

We're going to run.

We're actually going to be don't cut to huh.

Yeah, we're getting close.

We're going to run.

Now they've doubled their runtime.

They're getting through the pay dirt from cut to twice as fast.

So I got paid her on to all the way up and it actually looks like we're going to get through it in about a week.

So we got to get cut three down or it's over.

Greg have already started clearing the vegetation on a third cut south of cuts one and two,

where Toronto and Quartz Creek meet.

But that's on hold while the crew and machines are feeding the wash plant cut to pay dirt.

We also think we're going to have to search strip and cut three up tonight.

Guys aren't going to like that, but I don't really care.

Todd's plan is to stockpile the pay dirt from cut to by day and clear away the overburden

none cut three by night.

Now we're going to run tonight and Greg and Dave.

Let's get over on three.

See if you can see if you can peel it and get down to some pay dirt.

Try to strip it break through there.

I know that dozers on its last leg.

So through it you can keep it safe and.

And let's see what happens, huh?

Come on, let's go.

Dave and Greg are now faced with the daunting task of operating 175,000 pounds of machinery

in close proximity to each other on slippery ground in the pitch dark.

We're going to have to come over to your right and pick up that side.

We'll just break.

Greg, stock in the mud.

Ten boards.

That soft buck.

That just acts like quick sand.

There's a lost entire machine.

It's a really hard time seeing.

Easy. Easy.

Stop, stop, stop.

We break the doors are were done.

They're all going home.

This is getting ridiculous.

This isn't working. It's too muddy.

Too dark.

I just don't have enough light to see what I'm doing.

But right now it's just a joke.

It's totally frustrating.

Greg, no.

We're done.

I can't do anything.

I can't see.

This is ridiculous.

Sorry, boys. We're going to break something.

At Porcupine Creek, Dakota Fred is digging in the best material he's ever seen.

The rich great dirt from the bottom of their pit,

netted him in astonishing 17 ounces,

worth $27,000 in just two days of running.

More than the Hoffman's got in their entire first season.

Don't break it.

I've got the water running just right,

but I can't stop for very long.

Try to keep up.

But the 80-foot hole is now so steep.

The bottom has narrowed to a small ledge.

And when I come back up with a damn thing back there,

I can't turn around right now.

My ass here is hitting the wall.

Don't get a hole.

It looks like you can back up your life and try to back here.

We'll not back up.

It's having a little problem with turning around

because it's sort of tight.

It's boxed in on him.

He very goes.

The closer the walls get.

He just doesn't have the room to turn his machine all the way around.

In his race to get as much of the gray material as possible.

Fred has boxed himself in over the season

as he dug deeper and deeper into the steep-sided hole.

His operating platform became smaller and smaller,

leaving him no room to turn.

If he tries to dig out the sign,

he risks collapse in the 80-foot walls on himself in the 270.

I would never do that with blue.

There you go, Fred.

Yeah.

This is serious.

This is not f***.

I've got to have full of the back up.

Damn.

That's it.

Damn.

That's it.

That's it.

This is not f***.

I've got to have full of the back up.

Damn.

That's it.

That's it.

That's it.

That's it.

Go.

Go.

Just sit down.

Pull up a little bit.

The 270 is the Dakota Boys only means of getting it paider.

If it's stuck in the pit, there will be no more going.

If you want to die.

I can pay it around one more time to get on top here.

Fred has no choice, but to try and pull himself to save him.

That's it.

There it goes.

The pit they've got is too steep for him to work in any longer.

We're going to have to abandon the real deep material.

We're not going to go back to bottom of the hole.

It's just too boxed in now.

So it took us four months, but the hole's done.

At court's creek.

The Hoffman crew is on an all or nothing pushed to the end.

But running late into the night is worrying doser operator Dave Turin.

Last night it was impossible.

It was getting dangerous.

I didn't have enough light.

Greg was swinging with the hole.

There's no way we should continue to do what we were doing.

It's just too dark.

So I'm going to get a harness over here and see if between the two of us we can come up with a solution to get more light on that doser.

On cut three over there.

You know, I'm running into a lot of mud.

The problem is I got really bad lighting on that.

All I have is two on the front and they shine right on the blade.

So I can't see over the top of the blade.

I need something up high that's like looking down in front.

The only thing we've got around here that's going to have any power source.

Those are like a million candle power.

What if I take a couple of those off and stick up on the top of it?

Yeah.

In the middle of the clundice, parts aren't easy to come by.

Harness is forced to scavenge from his pride and joy.

His truck.

If they can't see, they can't work.

So it affects all of us.

And it's a danger factor too.

I mean, I don't want to see somebody get hurt.

It's worth it to me to sacrifice a couple of lights and keep things going to get some more gold.

The beast lives.

With the new lights on his doser, Dave attacks the new dick side.

I haven't got stuck.

It's a lot better tonight than the last night that we were out here trying to strip the dark.

It had fun.

I got it stuck three times.

I haven't even stuck yet.

So it's a good day.

Dave pushes off the worthless overburden and dumps it into the now useless first cut.

But even with the new lights, it's hard to see the edge of the 30 foot pit.

Careful near that edge, Dave. That's a 30 foot brief all.

It's just a big black dark space.

A little bit dark spot news.

Dave touring is stripping cut three in the middle of the night.

He has almost driven the dozer off the road.

You look like you're going to just flop right over.

That goes down about 30 feet.

You have anything that can bark my edge out here.

I got a couple of fliers.

That's a good idea.

Thanks Todd.

Dave keeps getting close to the cliff edge.

He always scares the heck out of everybody because he's because he's a kind of a dare devil.

So I'm going to put some fliers here.

We're going to mark it a little bit.

So he knows where he can stop.

Dave, I want you to move up here.

Tell me where you want these fliers.

I'll kind of direct you over here.

All right there.

Yeah, right there.

Put a flare there.

Put one about five feet on the left side.

Five feet on the right side.

That way I'll stay between him and then I know where the edge is.

There you go, Dave.

I don't know what he's looking after.

My doser or me.

It is a little bit scary right here though.

I don't want to lose Dave, but I definitely don't want to lose the doser.

Sorry Dave.

There's two more fliers.

All right, thanks Todd.

All right, yeah.

At 2 a.m.

While Dave strips in the pitch darn, the rest of the crew runs dirt through the wash plant, desperate

to up their seasons goal total.

These guys don't want to stop.

They want to work through the night.

They're putting more through here than has ever been put through it.

Faster than has ever happened.

Running the wash plant in the dark is just as dangerous as running the doser.

Jack.

Big rock.

Duck in the feet.

Shoot it down.

That rock was huge.

That's the biggest rock we've ever seen has to go in there tonight.

Jack's stuck a huge rock in here.

He's stuck.

He's got jammed in there.

Thurber tries to free the boulder with a crowbar, but it won't budge.

Running the conveyor for a second could jerk the rock free.

Jay, real shortness.

But it's a dangerous maneuver.

Harness is down at the controls, but he can barely see or hear Thurber from his position.

Duck.

Duck.

How a f**k stop is.

Don't pay attention.

What the f**k you're doing.

That's what's going on.

Regardless of what happened, I couldn't hear you.

You said, on off, on off.

And so that's what I did until you told me not to.

There's no cease for that.

That is this.

If I had it soon, he knew what stopped man.

It popped in there.

He would've busted my legs off.

I'd be a lot shorter if not dead.

The crew shuts down to take a break and check the sluice.

Would you look at that?

Look at this.

Jump right here.

No way.

Is that gold right down?

That's gold?

Good.

Here he is.

This is a great gold in here.

I think we did good.

I think we did good.

I'll tell you what.

We'll run the crap out of it.

We'll do one clean out of it.

We'll see what we can.

All right, man.

Nice run, you guys.

Let's go hit the sack.

In 2010, 33 Chilean gold miners were trapped underground for 69 days.

19 days longer than anyone else in history.

The miners were stuck under 2,000 feet of rock.

All survived your deal.

And were rescued in a televised event that had a global audience of over a billion people.

In Alaska, Parker Schnabel has just finished another day of high school.

And is heading to his other full-time job.

Running the big nugget mine.

I think this is great.

Big challenge to juggle school and in the mine.

It's going to be pretty tough.

The only way I don't burn myself out in this first week.

And then have a month to go being miserable is to just take everything head on and

go after him.

Two weeks ago, Parker handed the mine back to grandfather John and returned to school.

Running a gold mine for three months to sit in a classroom.

But just days later, 91-year-old John had a heart attack followed by life-saving surgery,

placing the future of the mine back in Parker's hands.

I suppose to just go to school, but I've just been thrown right back into it.

Parker's attempts at finding new gold-rich dirt at the big nugget mine have failed.

Veteran John believes that the ground on top of Smith Creek's

heel is the key to the mine's survival.

From his hospital bed, my grandpa said to do whatever it took to find out what was up

at Smith Creek this fall.

I don't know what we'll do if there's nothing Smith Creek.

I don't know what'll happen to Big nugget mine if.

Let's be a final thing.

To save the mine, Parker and his team have to shift thousands of tons of

worthless dirt in rocks in the hope of hitting a gold-rich pastry.

The plan is to kind of slope this down off the hill, right?

So what we'll do is knock this hill out.

Take that slope at this slope all the way on down to the back.

I think it'll work just fine.

We're all pulling for John to get back here, of course.

This is his life.

At the end of the day, John Shnavel makes a surprise visit his

first since his heart attack.

John hasn't seen the progress Parker has made on Smith Creek heel.

You've got that four-wheeler without any help?

Yeah.

Pick me up, I want to see Smith Creek.

My goodness.

I never dreamed you would ever be this wide out of here.

I'm impressed.

I really thought this little canyon wouldn't be more than maybe fifty foot wide

as a best.

My goodness.

So hundred and fifty wide out.

You know, Smith Creek.

It's kind of an all or nothing deal for the whole mine.

Yeah.

I mean, it might be something that's just not worth it.

I think you're close to finding out what you got here.

It's very encouraging.

So head back down the hill, I've seen it all.

All right.

Well, I sure appreciate you taking me up here, Parker.

I can't help but feel this is going to be a well-rewarding experience.

Man, you've poured a lot of material.

Oh, no, I'm all right.

It would kill me if you never found out what was up here.

Because we've both wondered for a long time.

My mission is to make sure he does find out before anything happens to him.

Across the creek, the Dakota boys are panning the last of the gold-rich dirt

that Fred had to abandon when his excavator got stuck at the bottom of their hole.

We got to get back down to bedrock.

God, that deep gray material around the top of that bedrock.

That's some good stuff.

I'll say, dig, dig, dig.

Get back down there.

Just go for it.

We're going to get back down there and take that spot out.

It's just has to happen.

Fred comes up with a new plan of attack for the pit.

He will come at it from the only safe side.

But this will involve moving a massive amount of earth.

What we're going to have to do is go back and expand the coal back about a 40 by 40 area.

The way we're going to get to it.

We're going to build a roadway.

We're going to go around the back of the cabin.

And let's peel a little of this off here.

Fred uses his 270 excavator to build a new access road around to the far side of the pit.

And almost like the other state out here now.

The road allows Dustin and Paul to join Fred on the northern edge of the pit.

Hey, let's say we get it down as far as those two big rocks down there.

I'll say, start processing it from there on.

From this side of the hole, Fred plans to strip away layers of dirt to open up the pit.

This will allow him to build a new safer road back down to the gold rich painter at the bottom.

Fred and his crew have to move an incredible 20,000 yards of dirt enough to fill more than 100 swimming pools.

So my mind right now getting it dirt out of here and getting down a bottom of the hole.

Just keep digging down, Fred and down to the answer.

David, David.

After three long days, the team finally reaches the bottom of the pit.

By the end of the teeth, right there is wearing a gray material star right there.

Success!

Once again, Fred is digging the gold rich gray painter that gave them an epic 17 ounce cleanup worth 27,000 dollars.

Dustin waste no time getting the bedrock dirt over to the de-rock.

The decotables are on the gold.

But with the season rapidly drawing to a close, it's going to be an all-out sprint to turn any kind of a prop.

In the clondike, the Huffen crew has been running 16-hour days in a race to the finish line.

We're all tired, we've been up late and we get up early and we're just tired.

With just days of mining left this season and with only 55 ounces of gold, the crew is eager to find out if doubling their running time is going to pay off.

I'm going to skip this my last skip, I'm going to shut everything down.

That's it, we're cleaning it up.

You can shut all this off.

Hey, how are we doing up top above the ripples?

Every second, the wash plan is shut down, the crew loses gold.

Todd wants to be back up and running as soon as possible.

You got to do this side, this side, and then...

Now I can get the last one.

You got a few little nuggets here in there.

Yeah, those are good.

Thank you.

Take them all good, man.

First one, first two.

As night falls, Jack works alone to extract every last speck of gold from the cleanup.

Meanwhile, the rest of the crew continues battling the cold and the dark to feed Peter into the wash plan.

Hey, Todd and the rest of you guys, I'm going to meet you by the fire.

I have a final towel here for you.

Okay, we'll shut her down and we'll be over there in a minute.

All right, Jack, I'll be right there.

Press.

I don't have super high hopes on this cleanup because all this stuff and it's starting in the water issues,

but I'm guessing five ounces seven.

Three.

I was hoping to see at least ten.

What do you think, Dave?

I think we'll get eight ounces tonight.

There's got to be four or five in there.

Well, find out.

First Jack.

Here it comes.

Ah, geez.

After four days of running dirt, day and night.

This cleanup has to produce over 10 ounces of gold.

If the crew is to have any chance of getting to their goal of 100 ounces for the season.

We're getting hot.

Yeah, right.

Give it to a straight.

How many?

How do we do?

What do you think?

Give us double digits.

Press is going to turn.

You or anyone I know?

Yeah, we want to know.

Yeah, two hours ago.

15 ounces.

No way.

Finally.

Finally.

You're a little beggar.

Oh, yeah.

That's all right.

That's all right.

That's all right.

That's all right.

That's all right.

That's all right.

There you go.

There you go.

Well, in the fricked.

How did you get 15 ounces out of that?

That's the best one ever.

Oh, that one.

Oh, that one.

Yeah, that one.

Oh, geez.

15 ounces, guys.

Whoo.

Okay.

Last year, there's time.

We're at 14.

6.

We have a total of 70.

0.

Yeah.

Every ounce it goes from now on.

It just goes very straight in your pocket.

You know, we're away fast.

What we need to take care of stuff.

And it's just extra.

Yeah.

70 ounces is worth about $110,000.

Their running costs are now covered.

After two seasons of trial and tribulation,

the Hoffman crew is finally in the black.

They are now profitable gold miners.

That's going to start to pay off from your out.

So anything we get is going to be a bonus.

And like that makes anybody happy.

A hundred ounces is within our reach, guys.

Let's not let the weather beat us to the goal.

You know, let's frickin' beat it.

This afternoon, we're sitting there, I was wondering.

Are we going to make it?

Can we make it?

No, I think we can.

I'm Crystal Doyle, executive producer of Gold Rush.

This time on the Gold Rush after show.

I eat when I get nervous.

Maybe you should have less food up there.

No, I'm down 20 pounds.

I mean, I'm not going to fit into, like, your designer jeans.

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