11x22 - Paydirt Playbook: Gold Rush Special

[bunniefuu]

It is show time!

Narrator: On this "Gold Rush"...

- Show me the money!
- Show me the money!

Narrator: ...Over 10 years,
the miners have pulled in

almost $70 million
worth of gold.

We broke the scale! [ Laughs ]

Narrator: Along the way,
some have struck out...

Man #12:
We're all gonna be broke.

Todd:
You are freaking kidding me!

We're on the road
to trouble actually.

Narrator: While others...

Scored massive paydays.

We're washing rocks, baby!

Every gold miner's
looking for stuff like this.

Look at all that good stuff.

- Whoa.
- [ Laughs ]

Narrator: Now we reveal the
secrets to striking it rich.

Shake your moneymaker
right there.

From prospecting...

It's [bleep] garbage,
and it's good stuff.

That's the [bleep] bottom line.

You're all millionaires.
The only thing is you got to

get it out of the ground.

Narrator: ...To running
massive machinery...

Parker: Yeah, baby!

...and gold-catching monsters,

the definitive guide...

Ohh-ooh!

...to gold mining.

- Can get used to that. Whoo!
- [ Laughs ]

Money.

Ooh-aah. There's gold.

Narrator:
For more than 6,500 years,

humans have hunted and mined
this rare and precious metal.

That's a hell of a lot of gold.

Narrator: In all that time,

just 197,000 tons
have been mined.

This gold would only fill
four Olympic swimming pools.

Man #2: Look at that big guy.

With an estimated


still left in the ground,

the race to find it
and bank millions

drives prospectors
to the ends of the earth.

It's gonna be a treasure hunt.
I'm super excited.

Narrator:
Tracking down gold-rich ground

is their first challenge.

I think I found something!

There's some gold right there.

Every gold miner's dream
is to hit a mother lode,

the geological term
for the source of gold.

Finding one could mean billions.

After mining for five years
with mixed results,

Todd Hoffman
swings for the fences,

taking his father, Jack,

and son, hunter,
on a treasure hunt

up the Yukon's
legendary Eldorado creek

in search of the mother lode.

Jack: Guys, this is it.

The history of this creek,
hunter, is that there's

more gold here than any place
else in the Yukon.

Eldorado. It's got a lot of
history. I'll tell you that.

What are those?

Those are stamp-mill
parts right there.

- A drill bit.
- Yeah.

Yeah, that's an old drill bit.

Narrator: In August 1896,

less than three miles down creek,

prospectors found piles
of gold nuggets.

Since their discovery,

miners have pulled out
over 6 million ounces,

making Eldorado one of the
richest claims in the Klondike.

And many believe
there's a lot more to be found.

The Hoffmans meet claim owner

and expert geologist
Peter Tallman.

Look at that hat.

We've been hearing
about this creek

since we were kids.

How much gold do you think
is really left up in this area?

The second-largest nugget
in the Klondike

was recovered just right there.

This particular rock
is coming from bedrock

with a chunk of gold in it.

Are you freakin' kidding me?

The fault is providing a source
for what's in these creeks.

Narrator: Gold is formed
when stars explode.

Four and a half
billion years ago,

the dust of dead stars
combined to form the earth

with gold at its core.

When magma containing this gold

is forced up through faults
in the earth's crust,

it cools and crystallizes
into veins of quartz and gold

known as a mother lode.

Mining this is called
hard-rock mining.

But over time,
streams erode the mother lode,

carrying gold
into the valleys below.

The heavy gold
then sinks through the mud

and gathers on bedrock

in the placer deposits
the Hoffmans are looking for.

There is gold
here in the creeks,

and it's still available
to be mined.

There's a million ounces
in the rocks somewhere.

There's been 20 million
eroded out of the rocks,

so somewhere there's
got to be some of that left.

It's one of the last areas
on the planet

where nobody's been able
to find the bedrock source.

This would be a treasure hunt
of all treasure hunts.

Jack: So this might be
our future right here.

[ Laughter ]

Todd: Hey, you think we can come

to some kind of a deal
on this place?

I'd be open to it.
We'll work something out.

Sounds like a deal, man. Thanks.

Right on.

Narrator: Todd spent six weeks
and thousands of dollars

in search of a monster pay day.

Jack: I don't want just a little
bit of gold. I want crazy gold.

Narrator: But he never did find
Eldorado's mother lode.

How's it look?

This is not what I expected.

There is absolutely
nothing here.

Eldorado is dead.

Narrator: Todd gambled
everything on one spot and lost,

but there is another way.

Old-school digging!
Like, real digging.

Prospect on many different spots

and test for gold
before you dig...

...by panning...
Metal detecting...

[ Beeping ]

[ Chuckles ] That's so crazy.

...or reading the land with
ground-penetrating radar

and aerial mapping.

Miners rely on the clues
these techniques provide

to find the best spot.

Look how this valley opens up
right there. Look right here.

See where it just
fans out right there?

That should be an alluvial fan.

I think our best gold
is right here.

Narrator: And for one man,
there's only one way

to identify
a gold-rich pay streak.

In 2013,


decides to mine in the Yukon
for the first time.

As soon as he arrives,
he gets a lesson in drilling

from his new landlord,
mining legend Tony beets.

Sounds good to me.

We're good to go!

Narrator: Tony's plan...
Drill a series of test holes

through worthless overburden

in search of a pay streak
of gold-rich gravel

that has settled on the bedrock.

How many holes should I drill?

They're looking
for rounded gravel,

which would indicate
an ancient riverbed

where gold would have gathered.

How deep are we at right now?

That's no good.

I would much rather
drill something and find out

that there's no gold
rather than just dig holes

and guess where we're going.

Normally, I would have stripped
this whole thing

and mined it
and found nothing, right?

So now we can move on
and find gold elsewhere.

Starting to look
pretty different.

Hopefully this thing
is on some pay dirt right now.

What does that
sound like to you?

How deep are we at right now?

Right on.

Yeah, baby!

Sounds good to me.

Right on.

- Right there.
- Look at that.

A bunch of little flakes.

Yeah. And I have been
spending a lot of it.

[ Laughter ]

Narrator: Coming up,
getting down to the gold

on the richest cuts
in "gold rush" history.

- Oh, no way, man!
- I don't think anybody

would have guessed there
was much gold in that ground.

Narrator: On this "gold rush,"
we reveal the secrets

to making millions
mining for gold.

Man #3: So, now that you've
got my interest...

Once you've found
where the gold is...

This is gold country.
That's what this is.

...you need to dig down
to the gold-rich pay layer.

Every gold miner's
looking for stuff like this.

We've got river rock,
and then you got bedrock.

Right where those two meet
is where all the gold is.

Narrator: But getting down
to the rich pay layer

is never as easy as it looks.

It's no joke moving
this amount of dirt.

Narrator: "Gold rush's"
most profitable cut?

The last cut.

Over three seasons,
Parker pulled out more than



worth nearly $13 million.

[ Laughter ]

Parker: The last cut is the best
ground that we've ever mined.

Narrator: Rewind to 2017...

[ Tape whirring ]

[ Indistinct shouting ]

...and all that gold

was buried
under millions of tons of dirt

across an area
twice the size of Ellis island.

Parker: All right.
Here's the first push.

This cut that we're opening up,
is, you know,

the last piece of ground that
I intend on mining for Tony.

So we're calling it
"the last cut."

Narrator: To get to
the pay layer 20 feet down,

Parker breaks out a d10 dozer
to strip the virgin ground...

While his crew
brings in excavators

and a fleet of rock trucks

to remove waste overburden
from the cut.

Man #4: Things are starting to
shape up down here pretty good,

though, eh?

Yeah, man. It's looking good.

Narrator: But six feet down...

- [ Thud ]
- [Bleep]

Hear that? That's the sound
of me hitting frozen ground.

...Parker's crew member,
Brennan,

has hit permafrost,

ground that's been frozen solid
for thousands of years.

Hey, Rick, I got
a little problem down here.

You mind coming down,
take a look?

So, like, this whole area
is pretty much frozen?

Yeah. We can see
the ice in it, so...

[Bleep] Frost, man.

Holy [bleep].

You're just gonna have to
scrape up what you can get.

I'm gonna have to
talk to Parker.

Parker: I hate going into a cat
when everything's frozen.

This is a lesson
on how not to mine.

Your only two options
are to let it thaw or to rip it.

Narrator: Parker's plan...
Use d10 dozers

to break the permafrost
into chunks to melt...

Then strip away the thawed
ground to expose the gravels

where the gold is concentrated.

Mitch: First thing I'm gonna do
is throw a rip in it.

We're gonna get some air down in
it, get some sunlight on this,

and hopefully it'll thaw out.

Narrator: The d10's


There you go. You got it.

...is engineered
to tear through concrete.

Mitch: We'll crush
this ground together

and get it done
as quick as possible,

and then the sun can take over
and do what it's got to do.

One step closer to paydirt.
You betcha. [ Laughs ]

Narrator: The deeper the crew
dig through the layers of dirt,

the further back in time
they go.

What is that?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure
it's a tusk.

I've never dug one out before.

Brennan's found
a few small ones.

Narrator: 12,000 years ago,
during the last ice age,

Parker's claim was an open plain
filled with streams...

The perfect habitat...
Come on, baby.

...for woolly mammoths.

Oh, no way, man! [ Laughs ]

That is definitely a tusk.
That is unreal!

Look at that thing.

Can you imagine having
this hanging off your face,

walking around out here?

You know, some people think
that if you find a mammoth task,

there's gonna be
a lot of gold there.

It's extremely dense,
extremely heavy.

You know, much like gold.

So there is a chance
that, you know,

possibly some gold was washed
in there at the same time.

Narrator: 20 feet down,

the crew's still not hit
the prize...

Gold-rich gravels.

We're into the overburden,
but nobody has any idea

how deep it is.

Could be [bleep] 30 feet
of overburden.

We almost done?
'Cause I'm hungry.

Another couple of minutes here.
Let me flatten this off

and back in here.

We'll call it a day.

Hold on.

Just hold on. Ahh.

You know, that kind of feels
a bit different, though.

[ Groans ]

Oh, yeah.

You know, when we start
to see bigger rocks like this...

I think that's what
we're looking for.

And it's thawed, so I think
we might be in business here.

Narrator: The crew's worked
around the clock for eight weeks

to get to this point.

It's time for Parker
to do a test pan for gold.

Parker: Yeah, I mean, a good pan
should have at least 10 colors.

So it's kind of
what we're looking for.

Come look at this.

- [Bleep].
- That's one pan.

What?! [ Chuckles ]

- Dude, look at that chunk.
- 16 colors?

No way. Dude, normally
you can't pan a flake, either,

and there's like 2,000 ounces
in a catch, so...

If you can get that,
it must be really good.

That's awesome.

- And that's big stuff.
- Yeah.

The last cut may not be
the last cut

if it holds out like this.

"Just joking. I'm back!"

[ Laughter ]

Narrator: After spending weeks

and hundreds of thousands
of dollars on fuel

to get to pay...

It is show time!

...it's time to see
how much gold the ground holds.

Load her up
with some dirt, Tyson.

- Whoo!
- [ Laughter ]

- Shaking his first rocks.
- It looks good!

Narrator: To score big in mining
first means finding the gold.

Can't be that complicated.

Narrator: After hitting
a gold-rich pay layer...

Fire it up!
Let's make some gold.

Narrator: ...It's time to
separate the precious metal

from the worthless dirt.

This is the big, beautiful
b*stard that's gonna catch

all the gold for us this year.

A gold wash plant has one goal,

and that's to extract
a little bit of gold

out of hundreds, thousands,
or tons of material.

You need to get
the material fed into it,

it needs to wash the rocks,

and it needs to recover
the gold out them.

Narrator: No piece of equipment
is more important

than a wash plant.

Everything rides on it
sifting out the tiny flakes

of gold scattered
among thousands of tons of dirt.

Some miners use
a rotating screened Trommel.

Others use vibrating screens
in a shaker deck.

Shake your moneymaker
right there.

We're washing rocks, baby!

[ Horn blares ]

Narrator:
The most productive wash plant

in "gold rush" history?

Parker's custom-built
$600,000 shaker

that goes by one name.

Parker: Sluicifer!

There she is!

Doesn't that just look sexy?

Narrator: Parker's secret weapon

can run 250 yards of dirt
an hour

and deliver
$20,000 of gold a day.

[ Chuckles ] This is bitchin'.

I like that it's nice and new.
That's the best part.

Man #5: It's gonna be a shame
to run dirt through it.

Narrator: Parker has
already opened his cut

and stockpiled
a mountain of paydirt.

Now he'll drag Sluicifer
onto a berm 60 feet high,

set up a conveyor
to feed pay into the plant,

and attach a water supply
to wash the rocks,

sending the waste tailings
and muddy water

out into a disused old cut.

- Well, I guess this is it, huh?
- Let's do it.

Don't drop it!

No problem.

The monster wash plant
Rick's maneuvering

weighs 45 tons.

Wheelie time.

Whoo.

Easy! Rick! Rick!

Holy [bleep], bud.

- What?
- It's waving all over the place!

Oh. Gotcha. Sorry.

Parker: Rick's a little
aggressive there, you know?

And this is our first time
moving the thing.

You'd think he'd take it
a little easy.

Easy. Easy, easy, easy.

It is show time!

Hopefully, this thing runs
as good as it looks!

Well, here's
the moment of truth.

Fire it up! Go.

[ Whirring ]

Narrator: Sluicifer runs up to


- You guys ready for some dirt?
- Yeah.

Load her up with
some dirt, Tyson.

Narrator: Down in the cut,

the crew loads paydirt
into a hopper.

A conveyor takes the pay
up to a prewash.

Here, water jets blast

the gold and fine material
off the rocks.

Inside the shaker,

a series of screens
separate out the waste rocks,

allowing fine,
gold-bearing material

to flow down
into the sluice boxes

where the heavier gold

settles between the ripples
and into the mats.

- Whoo!
- [ Laughter ]

- Shaking his first rocks.
- It looks good!

Parker: This is the best wash
plant that I've ever seen.

And it's gonna find us
a lot of [bleep] gold.

Narrator:
To date, Sluicifer has captured

nearly 14,500 ounces of gold,
worth over $20 million.

But even a wash plant
as powerful and efficient

as Sluicifer can only run
with one key ingredient.

Parker:
We can't sluice without water.

Narrator: Water is the lifeblood
of a placer mine.

From panning and monitoring...

Parker: Water's the best way
to thaw things out.

That's full flow!

Narrator:
...To a wash plant's prewash...

Yeah, we got water, bud.

Narrator: ...And sluices...

- [ Laughter ]
- Whoa!

What in the [bleep]?
There's no [bleep] water.

...keeping water
flowing to the plant...

I ain't got no water!

...is critical.

Plants draw water
from intake ponds

filled up
from nearby creeks or rivers.

Losing access to water

is a gold miner's
worst nightmare.

- What's up, dude?
- We're in deep, deep trouble.

What do you mean?
Something broke?

They got our water shut down.

What do you mean
your water's shut down?

Basically, we got served
an injunction by the state.

We can't use those ponds.
We have no water right now.

In Colorado,
when Freddie's intake ponds

were ruled off limits,
he was forced to get creative.

Here's our only option.
Our cut from last year.

Line it and get it
filled with water.

Narrator: Freddie's plan...

Turn an old cut
into a giant holding pond

by lining it with 70,000 square
feet of polyethylene sheets.

He'll then fill it
with 4.5 million gallons

of fresh water
pumped from a nearby river.

- Okay. We good?
- Good.

Loader coming in.

I want to be filling
this pond up tonight.

And go over this way
in front of the excavator.

Well, that's the first piece
of many.

Two, three.

Whew.

We got to figure out a way
to do this a little bit faster.

Narrator: Freddy swaps
manpower for horsepower.

Here goes nothing, guys!

Man #6: This is the last time

you all are gonna see
Freddy dodge.

Oh, [bleep]. [Bleep].

[ Laughter ]

One down!

That's a steep [bleep].

Makes my butthole pucker.

Man #7: Oh, my [bleep]

Narrator: After the liner, next
up, the waterproof plastic.

Okay, Freddy. You're hooked up.

Load it!

That's all right. Keep going!

Got it. Get your foot on it.
Get some rocks on there.

This is the only time
when 300 pounds helps.

We're ready to roll.
All we need's water.

Thurber, go ahead
and fire that pump up.

[ Engine starts ]

Freddy: Water! Water!

[ All cheering ]

- Yeah.
- Hoo!

Fire it up.

[ Engine starts ]

Here it comes, Kev.

We got water coming, Fred.

Freddy: It feels damn good.

That water right there,
that means gold.

Narrator: Coming up...

Man #8: They're just filthy,
dirty with gold.

Looking at a big one.

...the moment
all the hard work pays off.

Holy smokes! Look at that thing!

Narrator: The secrets
to making a fortune...

- Whoo-hoo!
- Yeah!

Narrator: ...From 10 years
of gold mining.

I'm a little bit excited.

In the frozen north,

miners encounter
many types of gold.

Oh-h*-h*! Oh, baby!

Up-mountain,
near the mother lode,

chunky nuggets and pickers.

That'll look good.
On a necklace.

Down valley
in ancient stream beds,

flakes and super-fine
flour gold.

Man #9: Without question, this
is the hardest gold to capture.

Narrator:
To catch all this gold,

wash plants rely
on one vital part.

Man #10: This is our moneymaker.
This is our sluice box.

Narrator: At the top
of the sluice's chute,

angled riffles are designed
to trap large chunks,

while further down,
smaller, expanded metal riffles

should recover the finer gold.

Man #11: A piece of gold
that likes one situation

doesn't like another.

Big red' sluice box. Right here.

Narrator: Setting up sluices
is a fine art,

and if they're not right,

a miner can lose
millions of dollars.

Remember one thing, Todd.
Slick plates can't catch gold.

I'm just blowing my gold
right frickin' down the creek.

Correct.

Narrator: 2013...
Parker is on good pay dirt

but suspects his old wash plant,
little blue,

is losing gold out of the end
of the sluice box.

We want our gold
dropping way up there

in the first three feet.

Narrator: The only time a miner
doesn't want to find gold

is in fine tailings

because that means it's not
being caught in the sluices.

We've got some problems. Gold.

Ah [bleep].

Last thing you want to do
is piss gold out.

The ground around here
has a lot of garnets,

and that's all this,
like, red stuff.

And what it looks like
is happening

is the garnets are
packing these riffles up,

and there's no spot
for the gold to drop.

See that? Garnets.

What do you think
we're doing wrong here?

Narrator: Normal riffles work

because gold is 19 times denser
than water.

It drops and gets trapped

while lighter dirt
washes up and away.

But the garnets are almost
as heavy as the gold

and are clogging up the riffles,
causing gold to wash out.

Tony's plan...
Install hydraulic riffles,

which create vortices
to agitate the garnets,

allowing the heavier gold
to settle on the bottom

while the garnets
collect on top.

Parker: It's the magical cure.

What do you think, man?

I think they should
drop right in.

You know how to set these up?

Can't be too complicated.
Water goes in there

and comes out...
I don't know... everywhere.

These hydraulic riffles
are kind of a gamble.

And to be perfectly honest,

we had something
that was working.

We know it wasn't working 100%,

but now we have something
that... we have no clue.

And I don't like not knowing
what's going on with my money.

Ready for water, boys!

We won't know until
we run some dirt on it,

so let's throw
a few buckets in, huh?

It looks like the hydraulic
riffles are working pretty well,

but we won't really know
until our next clean-out.

Narrator: After a 12-hour shift,
Parker shuts down

to see if the hydraulic riffles
have worked.

You seeing any color in there?

I mean, all the garnets. That's
a [bleep] pile of garnets.

Huh? Yeah.

It's not really clearing them.

Yeah. There's a lot of them.

- It's a nice chunk of gold.
- [ Laughs ]

That's pretty nice.

- Yeah.
- Huh?

Nice gold in the mat.

Let's get this shift
out of here and...

The box looks good. You know?

The viking even had a bit
of a smile on his face.

Narrator: Checking the sluices
is a miner's first chance

to see if they're on the gold.

But until they've pulled
the mats and cleaned the gold,

they won't know if all
the hard work has paid off.

The mats contain all the gold
and fine heavy material.

Next, the miner
must wash out the gold

with more precise equipment.

In their second season mining,

the Hoffmans invested
in a gold table and a jig

and called on gold-recovery
expert Freddy dodge.

We're ready.

Freddy loads concentrate
from the mats

into a mini wash plant
called a duplex jig.

Freddy: Just try to keep
a constant feed

of our materials in our feeder.

We're putting it into a slurry.

Then it's going down
to the screen deck.

Our screen deck's
cleaning our material

and getting
our fine material out.

Narrator: The fine material
flows into the jig

and onto a pulsating bed
of steel shot on a fine screen.

Only the heaviest material,

black sand and fine gold,
falls through.

It's a simple process
that works extremely well.

What is that going
right through the bottom?

Is that gold coming
through here, Fred?

Yeah, you can see
some gold in there.

Oh. Sweet.

Here's our fine gold.

So, now we've got
a majority of our heavies

and our gold.

You can see the gold in it.

This is, uh,
fan-damn-tastic, you know?

Todd: Let's get
the table rolling, huh?

Freddy: See what's
in your fine stuff, Todd.

Jack: Yeah.
This is the big-time.

Narrator: The final step...

Feed the super
concentrated material

onto the oscillating gold table.

Freddy: These grooves are
catching our material

so I'll be able
to cut the gold right out of it

and we'll get rid
of the rest of them.

Is that it, dad?

That's it.
That's the first chunk.

It came down, dropped down
and went back up here.

It's coming down.

There we go.

There it goes,
it's in the bucket.

Hey, guys,
let's see what you did.

There we go, Todd.
See how much gold you've got.

- 4 ounces.
- Yee-haw!

Good lord. [ Laughs ]

Narrator: Having cleaned up,

all that's left
is to weigh the gold...

Man #13: Wow.

[ All cheering ]

...and turn it
into cold hard cash.

Narrator:
Once a cut is mined out,

gold miners are required by law

to restore the land
to its natural state.

Rick: You've got to dig up
a lot of ground to get gold,

but that doesn't mean we got
to leave it, you know, a mess.

Parker: I feel proud
of what we've done here.

It's an area that we've mined
and reclaimed.

We spent a lot of time
building a whole new creek bed

and putting infrastructures
and...

And building the banks right
and all the slopes right,

and it's a complicated thing.

And it looks good.

Not only does it look good,
but it's good habitat, too.

You know, we've done a good job

of putting things
the way they should be.

You're welcome, otters!

They love it here.

Narrator: For miners,
the gold weigh is everything.

Man #14: Are we rich beyond
our wildest dream?

Narrator: The moment months
of backbreaking work pay off.

- 120.
- Oh!

Rick:
Hundred and... what the [bleep]

We broke the scale!

- Yeah!
- That's what we need!

Man #15: Look at that.

[ Laughter ] Yeah.

Jack: 1,000, 1,644.



Parker: We're perfectionists,

and every year
we get a little more perfect.

Narrator: To turn impure gold
dust into legal tender

involves one final process.

In his second season,
Parker Schnabel

goes to specialist Don Kinsey
to smelt his first-ever bar

of pure gold bullion.

Don puts a mixture of gold
and flux

into a heat-resistant crucible.

This is soda ash,

and the other material
I'll add is borax,

which is a soap.

So once again,
you're cleaning the gold.

Don transfers the gold
and flux mixture,

then puts it in a furnace that
he heats to over 2,500 degrees.

I never, never watched gold
being melted or poured

or any of
that kind of stuff before.

Narrator: The soda ash
and borax, known as flux,

react with the impurities in the
inert gold to form waste slag.

Don: Stay calm, nobody panic.

As the gold cools,

a dark crust forms
on the surface.

Okay, here we go.

This slag contains iron
and a trace of silver.

All season, we work to
get that, and it's pretty cool.

Narrator: Parker has since
become an expert smelter

in his own right.

Chris: Don't spill it.

Parker: Oh, my table's leaning.

Thanks, Chris.

I'm here to help you, Parker.

Each bar weighs 100 ounces.

In 2015, one was worth $110,000.

But five years later,
rising gold prices

mean it's worth $60,000 more.

Oh, geez.

I'll sit home alone at night
and cry and clean gold bars.

Clean gold bars.

Yeah, what a horrible thing
for you to do,

sit home alone on a Friday night

polishing your bars, huh?

And crying.

Don't forget the crying.

To get to a gold bar

from virgin ground

takes ingenuity, hard graft,

and a little luck.

For a bunch of idiots,
we did pretty good.

Can you imagine once we figure
out what we're doing?

And if you're up
for the challenge...

There's gold
from here to eternity!

Narrator: ...You, too... Ding!

...can end up
with millions in gold.

[ All cheering ]

Jack: You're all millionaires.

The only thing is you got
to get it out of the ground.