Original subtitles

Todd Hoffman is back.

It's been years, since we've even put

one bucket of dirt through a trommel.

This is a mess.

And he's banked his future

on getting Jason Otteson's troubled mine

to the $1 million mark.

You get me to a million dollars worth of gold this season,

you have a lease.

Whoa! Stop!

But Jason and his crew are only half way there.

That's what they had done in the last four, five months.

We got seven weeks to do the same amount of gold.

I don't know what to do.

Now, they must average 43 ounces each week

to meet their seasonal goal of 600 ounces.

With Alaska's unforgiving winter approaching...

Old Man Winter is gonna slam the door shut pretty quick.

...and shoddy equipment...

Plant's not running, not making money.

...will Todd's return be short lived?

I wanna run this property.

I think I can do a better jo

Mark, you've gotta get that thing done.

So we've been workin for several days here

to get this plant running.

You can't get any gold, if none of your plants are running.

If we can't get the Z-plant running,

we might as well, just pack up and go home right now.

Fixed the riffles, put new springs,

put new spray bars.

That looks good.

Things are looking good in these ...

- Andy, get ready to fire it up! - Okay.

Z-plant is finally ready to go...

when Todd's plan hits another snag...

a broken down fuel truck.

Without a way to transport fuel to the Z-plant,

there's no way of getting it running.

They informed me that the fuel truck

blew the engine, so... we do not have a fuel truck.

Remember the real issue, a lot of these machines,

you can't drive them up to the fuel tank,

you have to take the fuel to them,

so this is an actual big issue.

The engine is blowing on it,

so we're gonna hook it up to this loader

and tow it up and out of the way

so that Randy can fix it.

Maybe come my way just a little bit.

Yeah.

Probably another two, three feet.

You know, if don't get this fuel truck running,

we can't fuel any of the pumps,

we can't fuel the generator for the plant,

we can't fuel the equipment, and...

then we'll be screwed.

This fuel truck is really important.

It's a six-wheel drive fuel truck.

You can drive anywhere on the mine

and not get stuck, so it...

fuels all the plants,

all the excavators out in the cuts and stuff.

It's just another obstacle on this mine.

It's hard to win here. It's just hard to win.

A blown engine on an old truck

is a challenging prospect in the Alaskan wild.

Luckily, this truck has a twin.

This is our other military fuel truck.

It hasn't been started in four years.

Uh, we've been scavenging parts off of it.

I don't even know if it runs,

but, uh, we gotta get this running

now because we do not have a fuel truck.

-So what happened? Black and blue? -Well...

She's no good. She's done, Todd.

Do you think you can get that one running?

I think so.

Okay, how long?

We gotta fuel all these things up. What do you got?

Well, I'm hoping by the end of the night.

- Wow, all right, Todd. Good luck. - All right.

Appreciate it, thanks.

But getting it running is easier said,

given that over the years

many vital parts have been scavenged

for the now broken down truc

We got a lot of work to do ahead of us here.

It is missing a couple of items, like the pump,

PTO shaft.

We gotta get the fire extinguisher

over on this side.

We gotta put it all back together.

In order to get the abandoned fuel truck fully functional,

Randy must transfer parts

from the broken down fuel truck.

To have a Vietnam military fuel truck...

almost impossible.

You're not gonna find any one of those in Nome.

To have two of them with identical parts,

literally, unheard of.

Just like butter.

Whoo!

We don't throw anything away up here in Alaska

'cause you never know when you're gonna need it.

Parts are parts.

We'll take 'em, we don't care where they come from.

Because it's the exact same setup,

I can go ahead and just swap

over the fuel line

to this truck.

One more step closer to being done,

'cause we gotta have a fuel truck.

Bada-bing!

Now I need to get some drag shaft for the fuel pump

This shaft is snapped in half,

so we took that shaft off of that truck

and put it on this truck.

Well, now, we gotta undo all that.

All of these could've been avoided

if they had just checked the oil.

Back at the Z-plant,

Todd knows he needs this victory.

If we're not getting this thing running,

we're dead in the water, we're not making any gold.

Nope.

Come on, baby. Come on.

Let's see if she turns or... if she breaks.

Hate to all this work for nothing.

There.

There.

Come on, baby.

Holy crap!

And we have another fuel truck again.

That's awesome.

Yahtzee!

With the fuel truck finally running,

the Hoffman crew has a glimmer of hope.

Whoo! Beautiful.

Finally, the fuel truck's here.

We got the Calvary here.

-Try to get us some fuel. -Roll it up!

Fuel up the generator.

After days of working in the Z-plant,

the Hoffmans are ready for the moment of truth.

Get ready to run. Okay?

Fire up the generator!

Fire it up!

Clear!

Watch it close. Andy, you'll wanna see what's going on!

Hit the water!

Let's give it a little trickle neck...

-Looking good! This plant's running! -Yeah.

I mean, look at the tails, they're coming out perfectly clean.

Yeah.

The Hoffman's hard work has finally paid off.

And the Z-plant is fully operational again.

How're you doing, guys? I'm happy.

Finally, they can run dirt and get some gold.

Good job.

We know we're way behind where we need to be.

We gotta start running richer pay dirt.

Before we get too far,

and run too much dirt, we're gonna go ahead and keep testing.

Keep using this clean-up room

as our secret weapon.

With only one working wash plant,

running the richest paydirt

is critical to their success

Well, the best we've ever done is an ounce a hundred.

I think we've gotta have at least...

-two ounces a hundred. -Double.

Yeah.

I think it's the only way that we have any hope whatsoever.

Jack and Jim have run a 150 yard test wash

from the current dig site, North Fork.

And the results are in.

What's up?

Thought I better call you. I don't know what's going on.

We have a problem.

You weighing a 150 yards.

-Yeah. -It only got 2.5,

so that's only 1.6 ounces per 100.

That's not good.

We can't keep running that dirt.

Maybe we should move. I don't know what to do.

You know, typically, in this situation

we just start a new cut and find a better paydirt.

A new cut is the process

of removing the organic top layer,

exposing the soil underneat to the heat of the sun

allowing it to thaw,

making it possible to then cut into the earth

until bedrock has reached.

From there, they can identify and harvest paydirt

where gold is settled.

Opening a new cut is a labor intensive task.

It generally happens in early spring

when there's time for the paydirt layer to tha

It's just too late in the season

and the weather's not gonna have the ground thaw,

so we really don't have a choice, but to just stick with it.

Maybe we should give up, move on.

Move around.

That number won't do it.

If we make one false step,

we're not gonna meet our goal.

And you know what? It's already getting cold

and we're running out of time.

Sorry, Andy, throwing away your hard work.

We need paydirt, we need thawed paydirt

and we need it right away.

Nick, how's the box looking?

The box looks perfect.

All is good...

...for now.

My dad and Andy

are out looking for new ground,

so right now, I'm just trying to run

as much through Z-plant as I possibly can.

We're in a race against time and...

And some gold is better than no gold.

You know, I can already feel the weather changing.

It's getting colder every single day.

It's getting darker earlier every night.

And we need every single yard we can get.

Oh, the boss is here.

All right, everybody, shake 'em up. The mine boss is driving through.

Copy.

Todd has made mine owner, Jason Otteson,

aware of this problematic gold yields.

Now, Jason is here to work with the Hoffmans

and protect his investment.

This project is the result of million of dollars.

My money, investors' money

coming together to gamble.

I trust the Hoffmans becaus we have a long friendship,

but I'm motivated to make su that they don't fail.

They might perceive it as micro-managing at times

or that I wanna be too involved,

but we need the gold

and the time is ticking.

I'm a friend of Jason's.

I am,

but he doesn't run gold mine

He's had to go hands-on on this thing,

but at this point, if you're smart,

you'll let us handle it right now.

We're further behind than expected

and the current dig site

is producing less gold than expected.

To me, that means we have to open a new cut

where we know there's better gold.

Early in the season, Jason performed

geological drill testing

that showed extremely promising results,

especially, in an area known as Quartz Creek.

These tests are done by auguring deep holes.

and pulling up paydirt samples.

Gold extracted from the paydirt

allows geologists to provid

an ounces per 100 yard estimate.

With estimates at over 300 ounces per 100 yard

in Quartz Creek.

Starting a new cut here is hard for Jason to resist

Guys, we need to open up a new cut.

So this is how we're gonna do this thing.

I want all the organics

rolled to the top of this cut,

so that we can start moving the frozen muck.

You don't think that's risky?

No. We have to do the whole cut

and get it to the plant.

If you take all

of the organics off the top of that

that material is 60% frozen water.

This late in the season,

there's no way that ground is gonna thaw good enough to mine it.

The only time that you can take the whole cut off

is if we were here in April or May.

- That's when you take... - We don't have the time

to wait on this gold to get it to the plant.

Our cash flow needs that gold now.

That's the only place that we ever drilled resource

right now that's ready to go.

This ground will not thaw in time

with the weather that's happening right now.

I promise you, this late in the year,

that cut will turn into crap.

We shouldn't even be doing a cut right now.

This is not the right time to do this.

Dude, we cannot fight.

It's too late in the season.

I know we're paying the bills, but I'm telling you

I trust this guy.

He's done good cuts.

We've got a lot of gold.

I respect you. I get where you're coming from,

but I can't do something wrong when I know it's wrong.

Here's the deal...

I asked you to come help.

I'm not a professional miner.

I've made this thing work year after year barely.

But I gotta pay the bills.

So if we don't have the gold to the plant

washing as soon as possible,

we're in a bad situation.

What I can guarantee you is that I will get that cut done.

What mother nature allows us

and thawing... that I can't control.

We'll do it your way.

Let's get started.

All right, we're ready?

- Ready. - Do it right Andy.

Let's go.

You know, I don't really believe in this ground.

It's too late this season.

This ground's not gonna thaw

But Todd right now, you know he is not supposed to tell that to Jason right now.

So, I'm just gonna put my game face on, and I'm just gonna go to work.

These are our very first cut in four years.

I love it.

You know what? It feels like mining.

It's starting to spare for the and starts to get real.

Hey, got to copy.

Yeah, go ahead.

How do you feel man? You still got it?

Like riding a bike.

Not a lot of people have felt ice that's thousands of years old.

What are you thinking, Andy? You think this will thaw out?

I don't know, we're late. I don't know, if it will thaw or not.

Kind of doubtful, but we'll give it a try for Jason.

My concern and Andy's concern is, will this ground thaw?

Did we miss the window?

We dealt with permafrost in the Klondike,

and we've learned the hard way that you can't underestimate ice.

We're the only idiots in the Klondike right now,

trying to thaw-repeat it out with the bonfire.

So, Jason knows what's under the ground, with all of his testing.

But it doesn't make any difference,

if the ground is frozen and he can't get it out.

You know, I hope the ground thaws. But if not, we just wasted

a whole bunch of time and money.

It takes a special kind of guy who wanna do this.

It takes patience, ability, skill, balls...

...can you say that?

We got a long way to go.

At Z-plant, Andy's son, Dakota,

loads gold-bearing dirt into the wash plant.

Z-plant can run up to 80 yards of dirt per hour.

When running lower quality pay dirt, quantity becomes more important.

Dirt's pretty wet and heavy.

Nick, go ahead and shut the shaker down,

it just shut-off again.

What's going on?

It just shut-off. I think that material is too heavy.

Holler, Randy, we'll get him down here and then, we'll see what's going on.

Hey! Randy, Randy.

We're just though this belt on the plant here.

We need you down here.

There's no-go beyond through this sludge right now.

So, every second that we're down is just time wasted.

You're not gonna be happy to hear this. What's going on?

You've through on that belt, just--

I think the weight of the material's a little bit overloading it.

All right. Well, will check it out.

Plant's not running, Not making money.

All right, boys. Let me do... Let me get in here.

It's out of the line. We need to pull it back on this, on...

-Lock this side, pull this side back. -Yeah.

The alignment's out. The belt scratches over time.

We're just gonna try to get as much time as we can out of this belt

before we have to replace it, because they're not cheap.

If this doesn't work, and if belt does get thrown off again,

that means that the belt is stretched, and we're gonna have to replace it.

And we only have six weeks left in the season.

Currently, we're just gonna try to get the plant back up and running again.

Hopefully.

Oh! It didn't move.

- Wait, that's still way off. - Yeah.

Oh! I don't like those noises. No, I don't either.

She's way off.

Damn it!

Plant's down. I'm trying to find out what's going on.

Ah, That sucks!

This is not the time we want to be sitting here... fixing things.

Oh! You have any water issues?

'Cause normally when you get a clump like that, it's a little less water.

It's just like, solid clay today.

- Oh, you're gonna have to run it slower. - Yeah.

Hey, Randy. What's going on?

They've run in a lot of clay. So, its loading up the motor.

The motor is slightly out of the line.

-And I think, the belt's stretched a little bit. -Hmm.

But I think they're gonna have to run slower today, because of this clay material.

It's just sitting in one spot, up there. It's not even clearing up.

All right. And I don't like it.

Randy is thinking like a mechanic right now.

I'm thinking like someone who has a personal stake in the mine.

We can't afford to slow down.

My goal right now is to make sure this plant is never down.

And here it is, it's down.

-Wait, that's still way off. -Yeah.

-Oh! I don't like those noises. -No, I don't either.

Ah, that sucks!

Damn it!

My goal right now is to make sure this plant is never down.

And here it is, it's down.

Tighten that corner off, Mike. Or, away. I'm sorry!

-Did that move, Mike? -Yes, sir.

We're trying to take this motor. We're gonna anchor this side...

and swing the motor around to other bolts, parallel on the same line.

If they're not parallel, it'll keep throwing the belt.

When plants are down, it's bad. And this time of the year it's even worse.

So, we're not making money, it affects everybody here, including me and my family.

You know, Jason. You know how he is.

You haven't done yet?

This didn't come forward. We need this to come forward.

I'm gonna get out of here and get a check on other stuff.

It's hard for me to see this down.

She's loose.

Come on! Come on!

Tighten it up.

It should bring the motor around and take in the belt.

All right, Rando!

Okay. It looks like we're good to go.

So, we'll let these guys get back to work.

We want to run close to eighty to a hundred yards per hour.

And they, probably have to be around 70 to 60 yards an hour,

just to keep the plant together.

Not where we want to be, but at least we're gonna continue to run.

We can fire up the plant, get things working again.

You know, you should never run your equipment into the ground.

- Jason, he wants more? - -He wants even more.

I think it's a wrong time to be doing the cut.

It's too late.

I don't think it's gonna thaw right.

Three chilly days afte removing the organic layer from Jason's new cut,

Todd and Andy assessed the state of the pay.

I mean, it wants to thaw.

You can see the crack and the water is running out of it, but...

That's just rainwater running off the surface.

We just don't have any heat.

We need heat.

If I understand why he wants this ground,

it's three and a half ounces a hundred yards.

That's rich!

It's just a wrong time.

We've done this the wrong way.

I knew it was the wrong way, when we started this.

-Yeah. -And how we just wasted precious time.

Yeah.

He brought us here for our expertise.

He's gotta start listening to us at some point.

We can't just keep doing things that we know are wrong.

We better think up a plan-B.

We have to find some more dirt.

Something that's thawed this late in the year.

That's got gold in it.

There's got to be some other thawed ground around here.

Now, we gotta do it our way, I guess. We have no other choice.

We gonna have to go search for some pay.

Let's go.

The cut that Jason wan to pursue won't thaw in time

Todd and Andy spend the following day, seeking thawed ground.

That's what we need.

I've come up to the end of the creek,

in that south-facing slope to the sun's hitting...

peel back the vegetation, and look what I found.

All thawed gravel.

The cut that failed to thaw, is on a section of Quartz Creek

that runs north to south.

Andy has spotted an area neighboring Dahl Creek, with a broad slope

that faces much more sun over the course of a long Alaska day,

allowing a ground of thaw and make for easier access to pay dirt.

Everywhere that I poked on this hill, is thawed.

There's a mile of it.

We just gotta make sure it's got gold in it.

- Look right there. Got a small tailing. - Yeah.

Tailings are there. Tailings there.

Tailings down there.

Tailings are the refus material of rock and gravel that is been washed for gold

It indicates, the past miner believe there was gold in this spot.

The old-timers ran here. They knew it was here.

- They didn't have any equipment. - No.

They had to stick with the thawed stuff.

-Yep. -Where's all the tailings?

It's outside.

If they moved all this by hand but no equipment, it had to be rich.

-I'd say, we run it. -Run it!

I'll get trucks up here, get the excavator and we'll load it,

and get that cleaned up to Jack and Thurber.

one day.

- One day... - Just one day.

-Okay. -You're a genius.

You might have just saved the day, Andy.

-I hope so. Saved all our bacon. -No kidding!

We have to get the gold, the best way we ca fastest way we can.

So, I'm not gonna tell Jason just yet, that we're pursuing a cut on the southern slope.

If that looks like it's gonna pay off, then we'll go ahead and let Jason know.

But, you know, it's... It's for the betterment of the mind.

Andy quickly gets the team working on the southern slope.

They have to act fast before mine owner, Jason Otteson realizes that

Todd has changed the plan.

Todd has given them one day to excavate and run at leas 200 cubic yards of dirt

and get it to Jack and Jim for testing.

This pay dirt we got, supposed to pour it there,

we could take to the plant right now.

Southern slope.

You going to go.

The thing about this is though, there's no drill holes in here.

So we have no idea if it goes, three ounces of hundred or it goes to nothing.

Only way we know is if we get it through the plant.

Andy's sent in us some pay from the southern slope.

I'm hoping, we shut down at the end of the day

with a box full of gold.

We know, there's gold in it.

Not the best way to gold-mine.

But our options, we don't have very many of them.

The Hoffmans have embarked on a new strategy to mine-pay

from the southern slope of Doll Creek.

And are gathering dirt to test for its value.

Meanwhile, bush mechanic, Randy Hubler is dealing with a backlog of repairs,

but is soon interrupted.

Shaker deck is... is 'Off' again.

We have a shredded belt.

Okay, I'll bring a belt down.

Broken belt.

Well, let's see if these fit.

This is it, the whole day.

Chasing your tail, breaking , all day.

Yeah, we lost a belt on the plant, the Z-plant.

Uh, we've had that... belt issues today with that plant.

Uh, here we go again.

It's an all-day event.

It can't finish one thing today,

because there is always something else breaking, while it's happening.

The equipment here, the reason why it's in such bad shape is, you know, Jason...

the repairs that were done, were done very cheaply.

And when you compromise your equipment for money...

in your pocket, or gold in your pocket, you're really cutting your throat.

And you have nothing. And that's literally what he has, he has nothing

that runs like it's supposed to.

He's tearing for you.

Belt pieces, everywhere.

Ah, let's see if I can get this on.

He overloaded the hopper...

And it just shredded the belt.

That'll get 'em going for now.

- Hey, you guys, you got any shovels? - Uh, down here, I think so.

'Cause that big, old clump of materials sitting up there...

- That's never going to go away. - Uh-huh. Yeah.

So, we might need to shovel it...

spread it out a little bit.

All right.

Go ahead and turn the water on.

I'll turn the shaker deck on.

Everything looking all right there, uh, Nick?

All look good.

Okay.

The plant is back up, now, Randy has to report back to mine owner Jason.

That was fast, Randy

They had, the screens were completely plugged with dirt.

And all the way up to the hopper.

Gonna have to run slower today.

Unfortunately, that's just the way it is.

I like Randy, he's good at what he does,

but our priorities are not the same.

We have a season we have to finish, we've a lot against us.

When we have time, we can do the maintenance that needs to be done.

Next year, we'll have different equipment,

we'll have a time to do it right.

And, maybe it'll be fixed and won't have any problems.

- We got it. - Right.

- I'm gonna pray about that. - -All right.

If you keep band aiding things

and skipping your proper maintenance,

uh, eventually the Band-aid's are gonna start falling off.

You can't just pray over it and make it work again.

Jason's deferred maintenance has caught up with him, and now he's paying the price.

I wanna see what that weighs.

Jason wants to run Quartz Creek dirt,

we've made a pivot, where actually

we're running a test on the southern slope,

before we actually change direction,

we wanna make sure we got the right gold per

hundred yards of dirt, so

the golden guys are actually our secret weapon.

Looks pretty good, you wanna see what it is?

Hopefully, it's at least two ounces per hundred.

and, uh, we can make the switch.

Southern slope, Dahl Creek, two hundred yards.

What have we got?

-Three, four... -4.9.

4.9, that's over two ounces a hundred!

-2.4 ounces a hundred, boys. -That's good.

- That's really good! - That's phenomenal!

It's the best ground we've ever been on.

I am totally hyped on this stuff.

This is the kind of gold that we saw when we

first assessed the mine.

- Look at the ripples! - -Hot!

Full of gold.

We knew this ground w rich and getting these results right now,

it makes this whole gamble worth it.

You know what? The resources

drilled at Quartz Creek,

I know Jason wants to be there,

it's the wrong time of the year.

This is thawed paydirt,

and it's 2.45,

that's pretty sweet.

Best ground we've ever mined.

Yeah, it is.

-We're on the right track. -Yeah, okay.

- Okay. - Thanks, guys.

A gamble paid off,

we found thawed paydirt,

and it just so happens,

to be the best paydirt

that we've ever seen at 2.4 ounces per hundred.

Now, I just gotta go tell Jason that I went rogue.

How you doing?

I'm good, you?

-Good. -So, how's the cut at Quartz Creek doing?

It's what I wanted to talk to you about.

We're not going to get Quartz.

This ground will not thaw in time,

with the weather that's happening right now,

I need you on board, we have to pivot quick.

Todd.

I don't think that's a smart move,

I mean, everything else is speculative.

That's the only place that we have a drilled resource right now

that's ready to go.

Let me just cut to the chase, I've already bailed on it.

- God. - I'm working on Dahl Creek right now.

- What part? - Southern slope.

Are they tests on that? I mean are we just going to go...

chase unicorns and rainbows now?

2.4 ounces a hundred, we just did a test.

- It's thawed. - How deep?

It's not very deep.

I'm already stacking it up.

I don't like you going rogue on this stuff.

Jason brought me in for a reason,

he couldn't do it on his own.

We've tried Jason's cut and it didn't work.

So, basically, if he doesn' start doing things our way,

we're not gonna make it.

We're not gonna get the gold.

You brought me in, I'm going to help you do this.

But, I need you to get on board on this.

You get gold in a box, probably in the next 72 hours.

We'll know soon enough if you're right.

But I'm not happy about this.

I know you're not happy about it.

You're gonna thank me for it.

Could you run up to that Z-plant

and grab that core part and few chains for me?

Hey, there, buddy.

Where's your shirt?

I know, but let's get you dressed.

Let's get you MSHA-approved, man.

I love seeing guys like Sparky,

you know couple of years ago, he was putting up bouncy houses.

Why does Mike not have a shirt on?

I have no idea.

He says it's really warm today.

I love seeing guys that have the world beat 'em up.

And, they come mine with us,

and it's the best time of their life.

Doesn't feel warm to me.1 -No.

All right.

At the end of the day these guys encourage me.

I think I'm encouraging the

but they encourage me.

He thinks it's 90 degrees outside.

So, Matt and I are headed

up to the Z-plant to change the carpets really quick.

I'm hoping to see lots of gold.

I think it's gonna give us all a spark, you know?

All right, getting all the material off out of the corners.

Make sure we're not

dropping anything, 'cause we want this all to go to the wash.

So, we ran this plant,

for a little over a thousand yards.

Thousand cubic yards of material.

This is what we have left and we're gonna run through the wash plant,

to separate what's left here from the gold.

A sluice box works by using rushing water,

and several layers to collect gold.

Starting with the riffles,

a series of metal barriers that separate rock and dirt from gold.

But also direct the heavier material downward,

into the Miner's Moss.

Mesh carpets, made of woven vinyl fibers.

These mats trap gold nuggets gold flakes and fine gold particles,

and prevent those materials from flowing out of the box

Let's get these pulled out of here.

This is the good stuff.

Right through here, see, that's a band of gold.

It-- It still has some dirt on it so it's hard to see sometimes.

This gold always wants to sit at the bottom.

All right, here, let's get this wrapped up so we don't drop it.

So...

Actually, I've never washed carpets before,

but I've seen Matt do it many times.

Once mats are pulled, they must be thoroughly washed

to remove all the gold.

And every bit of mud and dirt remaining

is scooped into buckets and into a trough.

It operates on a real level of trust.

'Cause just a little bit, something that could easily fit in your pocket,

could be worth five, 10, even $20,000.

You know, in the state of Alaska,

it's actually legal, if you catch somebody

poking around in your sluice box, it's legal to shoot 'em.

That's why I gotta keep an eye out on Matt.

All right, so just in that one, tiny little scoop I took,

you see the gold in here,

and there's probably more in here,

'cause I didn't get it washed out completely,

but a tiny little scoop

that I put in here had that much gold in it.

We'll send it to Jack and Thurber.

Let them sort it out.

It better have some gold in it.

Let's go.

This is Jack and Jim's first wash

since the Hoffmans took ove mining operations,

and a critical test of productivity to see if they're on track

for their 300 ounce gold.

Money.

Okay.

- What do you think, man? Start it up? - Let's go.

One and a half turns on the jig,

it takes time going up here.

First shovel.

Great.

Spent four years

for some people, it doesn't seem like a long time,

but to me it's been an eternity.

I did not think

I was going to get to mine again in my lifetime.

And, I don't think they min in Heaven,

so I'm going to do my best.

- Okay. - -Look at that.

There we go.

It's not easy at all, gold mining.

-Those are huge. -Ooh, all right.

But it's more fun when you're seeing the amount of gold.

-Hmm. Those might break the gems. -Look at this one.

Yeah.

That's why we're here.

Several hours later the gold wash is nearly complete.

Soon, they'll have a full picture of the gold they've pulled from the grou

in their first full week of mining.

Todd and the others await Ja and Jim's results.

Dude, Z-plant, Nick, Decoder...

It's running a little rough, but it's running. We're having some troubles with the belt.

Um, little troubles with the shaker deck, but,

everything is getting worked out.

It's just that plant's worn so thin,

that it's collapsing on itself, so every time,

these guys have to put the screens in, it's harder. It's getting more narrow.

- It's not square is it, anymore? - No.

I mean, it's pretty much just welding on top of welding at this point.

It's a ticking time-bomb.

Hopefully, Sparky can keep that thing running,

as long as we can, gotta get the yardage.

You know, what do we need, 43 a week?

If we can hold that, we're good. All right?

So, the math is pretty simple, we need 43 ounces

per week to hit that 300 ounce goal.

This is a big test for us, you know we moved

our whole operation to the southern slope of Dahl Creek,

and then we're going to run the first pay,

do a test on it. Ihope it's good.

Here it is. First cleanup.

This is the first of the southern slope dirt.

It's been a long time.

Yeah, it has, a real long time.

Pour it out, Thurber, let's see what we got.

There's five, 10, 12, 15,

16, 17, 18, 19...

24, 25, 26, 27, 28,

29, 30.3.

Little short.

But not a bad start.

Falling 13 ounces short of the weekly goal,

puts Todd and his team furth under the gun.

To make their benchmark of one million dollars,

they'll now have to average 45 ounces per week over the six remaining weeks.

If Alaska's deep freeze waits that long.

We need 43, but 30 ain't bad.

The good news is that the southern slope looks really promising.

What are we at, Thurber, per hundred yards?

-2.4. -Dude, 2.4 ounces per hundred yard,

we've never even seen that.

The bad news is that we're behind,

and the equipment is a disaster,

and we just cannot get the yardage through.

We're not running enough dirt.

That's probably the biggest frustration that we have.

Best ground we've ever been on,

and we're struggling to get dirt from the plants.

That's what I'm worried about right now.

Even hearing how good the gold is a hundred,

kinda hurts.

-Big trommel. -Yeah, we got to get the big trommel going.

Basically, if we don't get that big trommel running,

we're not going to hit the gold. We got to run more paydirt.

It's a yardage game, boys.

You know, I know that these guys have been working hard.

We're kinda like a savior to 'em.

You know, we're gonna help 'em out.

And be successful.