12x16 - The $4 Million Question

[bunniefuu]

The only thing we can do is just try to
make as much money as we can and...

and have a good w*r chest
built up. So, you start in Alaska.

[narrator] After securing
new ground in Alaska,

27-year old Parker Schnabel
is heading back to the Yukon

with his season now resting on his
deepest claim ever, Mud Mountain.

You know, this season we put a lot of
our eggs in the Mud Mountain basket

and hopefully there's
tons of gold in there.

[narrator] Parker has gambled
$4 million on the claim

and the team has already spent ten
weeks tripping and prepping the site.

[Parker] Everybody over there, they should
be sluicing in Mud Mountain when I get back.

So, we'll see what
ends up happening.

[Mitch] The strip cut
is done and

we can get Big Red packed up,
moved over to Mud Mountain.

Just one piece at a time here.

[narrator] At Indian River, the moment the
crew's been waiting for is finally here.

Wash plant, Big Red, is ready
to take on Mud Mountain.

[Mitch] And here comes the
trucks, so our timing's real good here.

[narrator] Tests showed Mud
Mountain could hold 8,000 ounces of gold

worth $14 million.

If Parker's new cut delivers,

it could be his
biggest payday ever.

But so far...

What I'm seeing here,
looks like *bleep*.

all the pans
have been poor.

Despite that,
Parker's pushed ahead

determined to mine out
the cut in just one season.

[Mitch] We've moved Big Red
so many times

but this time is different.

We still gotta do a lot
of maintenance on Big Red

once we get it over
to Mud Mountain.

And we want this setup
to be perfect.

It can't just be close. It's
gotta be right on the money

because we're putting the best dirt
we've ever seen through this wash plant.

Now, we're out here today,

well, it's kind of like
a symphony of heavy machinery.

You just gotta have all the
right pieces in the right place.

Otherwise, it's no good.

[Tyson] You know,
down here in the good cut,

we're nearing the bitter end.

[narrator] Four miles away,
at the Promise Land,

plant boss Tyson Lee is down to
the last of the pay in the good cut.

[Tyson] When we fire off
Mud Mountain,

hopefully it frees up
some more people but

you never know until
you're into the thick of it.

[Mitch] We are close.

[narrator] At the air strip,

Mitch's crew load the 50-ton, 21-foot
high shaker deck onto a lowboy.

It looks like it might be a little bit
heavy on the right side of the trailer here

but we won't know till
we get it leveled out.

[narrator] To deliver Big Red
to Mud Mountain,

they'll have to haul it down
an untested new road.

We'll just check the chains, make sure
they're tight and we'll head over there,

get this thing
put back together.

- All right, see you over there.
- Let's do it.

Houdini himself couldn't have made
that wash plant disappear that fast.

Let's get this thing
headed over to Mud Mountain.

[Mitch] We're uh...

heading over to what's supposed to
be the best dirt we've ever put through it.

So, I'm really excited
to see what it looks like.

That plane's really slant.

See how much
that thing is leaning?

Now, this corner up here,
it's going to really want to lean.

[Mitch] Don't stop on any
corners which leans.

That thing's really slant.

[Mitch] He's got his hands
full right now.

Oh.

[Mitch] She's leaning.

[Mitch] Go, Stevie, go. Go, go,
go, go, go, go. Go. Don't stop.

They got it.
They got the big lean there.

We could've gone a little bit
more to your driver's side there.

[man on radio]
We know for next time.

We made it.

And that's gotta be record time.

Everybody k*lled it today.

Good job.

They have so much
maintenance to do on the plant

but, man, this is a big moment
for the company.

Let's, uh, put her together
and see what's in all this dirt.

- Let's do it.
- Let's do it.

[narrator] After failing to
secure a license at Indian river,

King of the Klondike, Tony Beets, is
gunning for a season total of 4500 ounces.

But his success relies on his only
running wash plant Mike's trommel.

[Mike] Tony Beets, do
you copy? Tony Beets?

[Mike] There is no pay.

[Mike] Okay, sounds like
a plan. Meet you there.

Can you shut it off, please?

[Mike] This stuff was
basically pure liquid mud.

Can't sluice like that.

[narrator] Son, Mike, has run out of
dry pay dirt from the wall cut again.

Tony has been battling
the soggy cut for weeks.

Each time it floods, the gold-rich
white channel pay dirt he's chasing

becomes too wet to run,

forcing Tony to deploy
a fleet of excavators

to find a dry patch
further from the plant.

[Ruby] I have no dry dirt
to load trucks with

which kind of *bleep* sucks.

[Kevin] The weather being
so *bleep*,

we keep having to hop
from cut to cut

- Yeah.
- 'cause you know, one get full of *bleep* water,

we gotta go to another one.

Anyways, the excavators, rattling
back and forth takes *bleep* forever.

So, we could speed that up
a little *bleep* bit.

What's that?

Okay.

Oh, yeah.

[Kevin] Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that should be *bleep* stronger
for anything we're gonna throw on there.

[Kevin] Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I see no reason why
that shouldn't *bleep* work.

Sounds good.

[narrator] Tony built the dolly
to transport a 10-ton trommel

but it's never been used
for a 78-ton excavator.

[narrator] The concept:

Balance the excavator
on the dolly.

Secure the bucket in
a rock truck.

Then haul the excavator with
the truck at up to 15 miles an hour.

More than five times
its normal speed.

Righty-o.

[narrator] Operator, Ruby
Mahoney, brings in the rock truck.

Let's go.

[Tony] No, no, no, no, no.

Oh.

[Tony] No, no, no, no, no.

Oh.

Do I [chuckles] still
have a tailgate?

[metal clangs]

[narrator] At Paradise Hill,

Tony is testing a dolly to haul
excavators around the claim.

[narrator]
If it works,

he'll be able to move the
machines to the pay dirt faster

and keep on the gold.

[narrator] Daughter, Monica,
brings in an older model of rock truck

without a tailgate.

[Monica grunting]

[... laughs]

Doing way better than
I thought she was gonna.

[narrator] Tony puts the dolly
straight to work

hauling excavators around
the cut

where they can start digging dry
white channel pay to feed the trommel.

[Fred] We've gotta find a way to
squeeze some more gold out of this puppy.

And that's just gonna be refining our
operation, learning from our mistakes

and getting better.

[narrator] Special forces
medic, Fred Lewis,

has invested his life's savings into
a new mining operation in the Yukon.

But over half way
through this season,

he's only sluiced for six weeks.

[Fred] We're averaging about
eight to nine ounces a week,

which honestly is nowhere
near our goal.

We need to be pulling
ten ounces a week.

So, in order for us to get
to where we need to be,

to our minimum 100 ounce goal,

we're gonna have to
pick it up somehow.

[Fred] Right now,
we're crawling.

We're gonna transition to a
walk phase soon

but at the end of the season,
we need to be running

and that's just the
name of the game.

That's how gold mining goes.

Can't keep up?
You get left behind.

[Stuart] The pressure that I feel
to make this happen is immense.

[narrator] Infantry scout
sn*per, Stuart McKenzie,

in his second season mining
with Fred is digging out pay.

[Stuart] I've been working for
pretty much 40 days straight.

What keeps me going
for this whole amount of time

is people nowadays are working just to get
by and that's not what I want for my family.

I can't express how much that
this needs to pan out. [chuckles]

No pun intended.

It's been a long *bleep* shift.

[narrator] Fred's son, Christopher
Parker, who trained as a cavalry scout

trucks pay dirt to the...

[Christopher] But, the one thing
that motivates me with all of this

is just *bleep* get money 'cause
without money, we can't do this.

I think morale amongst
everybody is pretty good.

[narrator] Special forces sergeant,
Rick Douglas, feeds the plant.

[Rick] The thrill behind it
is, you work harder and

hopefully it pays off
in the long run.

That's the gold fever and
that's the rush from gold.

And no matter what
gets in our way...

We'll be ready.

[narrator] Over by the creek,

*bleep*

[Khara] So many little wonky
parts on this machine.

[narrator] Fred's wife,
Khara, is cleaning concentrate

from the wash plant's past
week with a gold cube

to recover fine gold
and nuggets.

Today I'm supposed to
get this bucket

completely finished
all the way through this cube.

Um...

Hopefully catch some gold in
there but it's getting pretty clogged.

And that's not good.
It's clogging this easy.

It's definitely not working
the way it's supposed to.

[narrator] When a cube gets clogged,
there's nowhere for gold to settle.

And the gold washes back out
into the river.

[Khara] That's not good.

Our whole season rests on this
little, frickin', jinky water pump,

jinky everything,
I, I don't know.

It's just, it doesn't make sense.
There has to be a better way.

It's losing half our gold.

I remember thinking it was
slow last season and we had

not even a fraction of the amount of
pay dirt that we're running this season.

I'm frustrated. I'm just going
to take it. I'm going to turn it off.

I'm going to go talk to Fred.

Because this doesn't work.
There has to be a different solution.

[motor running]

[Khara] Fred!

- [Khara] Can we have a chat?
- [Fred] Of course we can.

- [Khara] That gold cube, it's not going to cut it.
- [Fred sighs]

I'm barely putting anything
in it and it's already clogged.

And it's like, tubes are falling
out, the water pump's not working,

everything else, on top
of the fact it's slow as hell.

- We're not doing that.
- [Fred] The problem is I spent most of our budget

getting the equipment that we need besides
recovery because I figured we'd just

limp through the gold cube
for the rest of the season.

But that's what you do and it doesn't
work. Not everything works that way.

I'm running bare bones right
now. These guys are buying

their own fuel and food, like, I'm
not even providing any of that stuff.

[Khara] See what you can find. Do
the research, see what you can find,

as far as, some sort of better
piece of equipment for me to use.

We'll go with the most cost
effective and we might just have to

bite the b*llet and finance
a little bit more.

- [Fred] It's getting me so nervous.
- [Khara] I know.

I just...
God, it makes me sick.

You might not think it's in the
budget, but we're going to have to

pull it out of somewhere and you're
going to have to figure it out, like,

that's all we can do.

*bleep*

If we could get a good recovery
system, that would boost our productivity,

and it's going to give us
a lot more gold at the end.

[narrator] Fred's headed to Dawson
City on the hunt for a new gold table.

Uh, right now I'm on my way
to see Joel.

Joel's the gentleman that
fabricated our wash plant.

He's created a gold room, based
on a recovery device called the...

It's a very good recovery
system for this type of gold.

Right now, I'm worried about losing
gold and that's what we're doing.

We need to up our game
and our recovery.

It's going to save us an average
of 20 hours every time we clean up.

And we're going to lose
way less gold.

[guitar strums]

Always working, Joel,
how you doing?

Yeah good, Fred, how you doing?

I was hoping I could
get a look at that, uh,

gold recovery system
you said you had.

Yeah, it's just over here. We
can go have a quick look at it

[Fred] Whoa! This is nice.

[narrator] The custom-built gold recovery
system was designed by a local miner

35 years ago.

Vibrating riffles and hydraulics
separate gold from the concentrate.

Man, I'm going to tell you,
this blows my mind,

at how efficient this could be.

[Joel] Yeah, that self-feeding
hopper makes it easy.

You just, you know, put four pails
of dirt in it and, almost, walk away.

[Fred] That is really cool.

It does look pretty expensive.
[chuckles]

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of work
hours in this thing and, you know,

-nice, brand new seed can. Fully, you know...
-Yep.

Lights, heat, and it's, uh, priced
accordingly so, cost figure, at a guess,

- give or take a few.
- Yep.

-It'll be about 30 k.
-Okay, all right. Well, I like what I've seen,

but, um, my budget's not huge, um, so that
may be something we need to talk about.

I don't know if, maybe, we could
work a deal out on some, kind of,

a royalty or a payment.

I don't know how you work, uh...

[Joel] Yeah, I mean, possibly.
I'm open to it. It would have to...

- be something we'd have to discuss.
- [Fred] Okay.

[narrator] If Fred can land a deal,
he'll need to return to Dawson City

with a trailer to collect
the gold room.

I think the most important thing
now is just to put my head together

on the budget
and then we can go from there.

- Sounds good man.
- Sweet, really appreciate your time.

- Pleasure doing business with you.
- Yeah, I really do too.

[Fred] Hopefully get back
to work.

[Mitch] Now,
the million dollar question.

Is there enough gold in this
ground to make this cut worthwhile?

[narrator] On Indian River, Parker's
foreman, Mitch, and the rest of the crew

are eager to start chewing
through pay dirt at Mud Mountain.

Well, we are ready to, finally, do
this. We got Big Red setup here.

Here we go!

[machine whirring]

This is the first dirt from Mud
Mountain going through Big Red.

[Justin] Yeah, I don't know, if you're
the first-year guy being tasked with

operating Big Red at, uh, with such
high stakes at Mud Mountain here,

it's definitely stressful.

[narrator] Rookie miner,
Justin Fraser,

feeds the plant for the
first time at Mud Mountain.

It's still running and we're making
it work and, uh, so far so good.

We just got to keep it up.

It's super hectic and everybody
is feeling the pressure.

Supposed to be a really
rich cut so, hopefully,

it also lives up to
that expectation.

It's a real good feeling.
It's all hands on deck here.

You just got to act so fast because
Parker's supposed to be back today.

It's been raining lots so, the road
got super slick and gross and pot-holey

It definitely slows you down.

We're going in to Fall and, uh,
conditions are getting pretty brutal.

That, along with Mud Mountain, and
hauling out muddy pay all over the place.

*bleep* sake's, *bleep* mud.

Hey, Mitch, got a copy?

Yeah, man, what's going on?

Running some pretty sloppy
material right now and I'm struggling

trying to get this pay
through the plant.

Yeah, man, I know,
it's nasty down here.

We're getting clogged up,
it's making a mess everywhere.

-Well just hang tight. Give me a minute.
-Copy that, thanks.

[Mitch] Shut it down.

[machine powering down]

[Mitch] Shut it down.

[narrator] On Indian River,
Mud Mountain is fighting back.

And Big Red is shut down.

Following heavy rainfall,
mud is now sloughing down

the 60-foot high walls
of the cut,

making the pay dirt
on the floor, wet.

Parker is due to return any day.

Mitch moves fast to solve the
problem, with operator, Shane Gallup.

We've got to fix the problem of
the mud oozing out into the cut

and I think the only way to fix
this issue is, dig some bedrock,

get the pay off the sides,

- and then we'll make a nice burn.
- Yeah.

We'll catch that mud and
then that way as we're digging

over on that side of it, it's just
going to be nice, clean and dry.

Then this cut'll
actually calm down

- and be a lot easier--
- You can actually move forward

- instead of two steps backwards.
- Yeah.

Exactly

The sooner we get a wall in
here, contain this mud away from

the center of the cut, the
better off we're going to be.

[narrator] To stop mud seeping
into the cut, Mitch and Shane will use

two 480 excavators to shift
the pay from the muddy edges.

Then, build a barrier to protect
the cut from further sloughing.

Hello, Mitch?

[Mitch speaking]

Yeah, roger that.

[Mitch] So, lots of things
stacked against us here.

And when it rains, well,
all that mud makes a mess.

And that's what we're
dealing with right now.

Just trying to get
a handle on it.

- [clunk]
- [Mitch] Ooh.

Yeah, we got a problem here.

- Right now, the bucket should be lowering.
- *bleep*

And it's not.

Come on, baby.

[clunking]

What that tells me is we have
an issue with our accumulator.

When these go flat, machine can act
really erratic because it doesn't have

a nice, smooth, constant,
uh, pressure.

So, we're going to grab an accumulator
and, uh, swap it out on this thing

and see if it fixes
it's problem here.

[narrator] Mitch's only hope
of drying out the cut,

and getting Big Red running
before Parker returns,

rides on finding a replacement
part in the boneyard.

If this accumulator fixes our
problem, this is going to be great.

But, if it doesn't fix
our problem,

we're going to have to
dive in deeper.

So, what I've got here
is the accumulator

and this helps keep
your hydraulics stabilized.

So, we're going to
spin this guy off here

and, uh, we're going to take
it over to the other machine,

change it out,
to get us back going here.

Surprising the difference that
such a small piece can make.

And something we've learned over
the years, if this isn't right, uh, well

you're going to wish it was.

Here we go.

Really hoping this fixes
all of our problems here.

We will find out.

[machine powering up]

[Mitch] That's more like it!

We got it.

You know, Mud Mountain's
been a struggle from the start

and I am, uh, probably, more mentally
drained than I am physically here,

just trying to keep the train
on the tracks.

And we're done here.

We've taken the bedrock here,
we've built this berm

and the whole length of this,
it's holding all this mud back,

which is working really well.

Out here, the cut,
it's nice and mud free.

So, probably should have been
done a lot sooner.

But better late than never.

[machine powering up]

[Shane] Mitch has that Berm all finished
up which means trucks are hauling up

much drier material here
for us to sluice.

Definitely makes things easier
up here at Big Red.

[Parker] What's happening,
man? [laughs]

Glad you're back.

- [Parker] This looks good.
- [Mitch] We've been busy, man.

[Parker] Looks like that.

[Mitch] Well, we were able to finish
the airstrip while you were away.

So, that's all done.

We got some
Mud Mountain pay dirt

- going through Big Red.
- [Parker] Good.

All right, well, I mean, I'm here, is
there anything I can do to help out?

Well, right now we're supposed to have our
night shift here and we have no operator so,

I was going to run back to camp and
see if they slept in or where they're at.

[Parker] All right, I can
hop in until they show up.

[Mitch] Man, if you can keep the
plant running, that would be awesome.

No worries, um, hope
they didn't pull a runner.

[both laughing]

- Good to see you.
- [Mitch] You too.

[Parker] Here we go.

It feels good to be back, you know,
I need to be making money because

most of our costs this year
are in Mud Mountain

and we're going to find out
if she pays off.

- [Fred] How you been?
- [man 2] Good, man, good.

[narrator] Fred Lewis
has returned to Dawson City

with local operator,
Buzz Legault,

to collect a custom-built
gold room,

which he's agreed to rent
for $10,000.

[Joel] Can open her up
and see what we're looking at.

[Fred] Yeah,
this is that new car smell.

[Fred] Heck yeah,
it's ready to roll.

All right, let's get her done.

[Joel] Sweet,
let's get her done.

[Fred] All right, it's up.

All right, Buzz, if I say stop,
stop immediately please.

[beeping]

[Fred] All right, moving.

Here we go.

[Buzz] Hold it up.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

[Fred] Crossing under
the wires now. You're good.

If you could come
three inches, three inches.

Right there.

Right there.

[machine whirring]

[Fred] That's it.

[Buzz] It's a little a*s heavy.

It's freaking me out too.

That's not good.

*bleep*

This thing weighs so much,
as it pushed down

it's lifting up
our trailer hitch.

[narrator] Fred Lewis is preparing
to transport a three and a half ton,

custom built gold room
to California Creek.

Looking at this trailer hitch,
there's almost no weight on it.

I can lift it with two fingers,
I can lift the entire trailer

so, there's a severe imbalance.

Enough that if we're driving
and this latch decides not to work,

poof, gold room's gone and,
uh, if we lose the gold room

we're not getting it back, so...

We just got to figure out how
we're going to make sure it's secure.

- He's had an idea.
- [Fred] What you got?

[Buzz speaking]

[Joel] It's a good idea.

[narrator] To balance the container,
Fred and Joel remove the headache rack,

a frame between the cab
and the trailer.

Okay, let it come down.

[Fred] Whoa!

Okay, you're up.

Okay, let me know when to stop.

[Joel] I think we're good, man.

It's definitely got
a tongue weight.

Well, it's up to you guys. Chain it down
and I'll leave you guys to that because--

-[Fred] Yep, you got it. Thanks, Joel.
-No worries.

- Thanks, bud.
- [Joel] We'll be talking soon, eh?

- Yeah, we'll see you soon.
- [Joel] Talk to you later.

[Fred speaking]

Chain, check. Chain, check.
Chain, check. And chain, check.

Check.

If this thing falls off or if
anything it's not because

we didn't put enough
chains on it.

You ready?

- I'm ready.
- All right, let's do this.

- Let's rock this *bleep*.
- I'm gonna pucker the whole time.

[narrator] Fred and Buzz,

must now cross the Yukon River

and drive the finely

calibrated gold room

over 40 miles up
the top of the world highway

to California Creek.

I don't like getting on
this little boat

with this big truck.

Stay steady now.

[Fred Lewis] I'm excited to set
this thing up though, man, because

it's gonna up our recovery
rate by probably 30

or 40 percent.

So the gold room's essential
for our success.

[crashing]

[rumbling]

Oh, no.

Man, this thing has shifted.

We're right here on the edge
if this thing shifts

any more and it comes off

the weight would be balanced
really horribly and this thing could tip.

So it's shifted about that much.

[Buzz] We'll just tighten
this one up

and keep on going, man.

And we're almost there.

That's right.

Tighten this chain to make
sure it's as tight as it can be.

So hopefully, it won't
shift any more 'cause if

it falls off *bleep*.

So now I guess
we're going slower.

[Fred] Buzz, this truck sounds
like a train.

It sounds like
it's about to explode.

I'm nervous, man.

Let's hope it doesn't
bounce off the hitch.

Well, the next part
is that steep downhill.

[narrator] Once off the highway

they have to navigate
a 2.5 mile

dirt trail down to the plain.

You sure it's gonna stay
on that trailer, right?

Oh, it's gonna stay
on the trailer.

- We just--
- Not sure this

trailer's gonna stay
on the track.

[Fred] Ugh.

Holy *bleep*.

[Buzz] *bleep* this road.

[Fred] Thank God, we made it.

[sighs in relief]

[Fred] Made it through
the hardest part.

Ah, whew.

Okay, I'm gonna breathe now.

- Whew.
- Never mind.

[both laughing]

[Fred] You've got ba*ls, man.

But this fantastic.
Yeah, we're gonna get

this thing probably tonight.

I'll get set up on my shift.

It'll be perfect, dude.
I think that

we're not going to
be losing gold for one,

it's gonna break our clean up
time from 22 hours to about 2.

- [Buzz] Yeah.
- So that's huge.

And, uh,

it's on now.

If there's gold here it's going

though this
it's gonna be caught.

- [Buzz] Yeah.
- [clicks tongue]

One more step.

Good job, dude.

[narrator] At Paradise Hill,

Tony Beets is running gold rich

white channel pay

through his only working
wash plant.

[Kevin]
This is Kevin, this is Kevin.

[Tony speaking]

[Kevin] On six.

[Kevin] I don't know they
never told me why it's on six.

[narrator] The feeder is
running 200 yards of pay an hour.

To stay on target

Tony needs at least 350.

[Tony speaking]

Hey, Dad.

[Tony speaking]

[Mike Beets] Um...

Get more pay to the plant.

[Tony speaking]

[Mike] You gotta a bit of a bottleneck
right there when they come up the hill.

[Tony speaking]

[Mike] Maybe put
another road in?

[Tony speaking]

Well you have a hillside
right next to it.

You can make a road right down
on that side.

So they can come up that one,

dump, and then drive
right down the other one.

They don't have to do
no hard turns.

Faster the trucks get here

the faster they can put
the breaker down.

[Mike] Sounds like a plan.

If I, uh, fix
this bottleneck here

this will solve our problem with
a trucks not being able to pass.

[narrator] A bottleneck
in the road is slowing down

Tony's trucks.

Preventing them from
delivering pay to the plant quickly.

And forcing the crew

to run the plant

at a slower speed.

Mike's solution?

A new road

and a one way system.

[Mike] So by making two roads

one where they always go up and
one where they always go down.

Should have a nice road
and settle the bottleneck.

So hopefully that'll help

get more and more pay
to the plant so we can

start sluicing
at a proper speed.

[Kevin Beets] Beautiful.

The more we turn up the feeder
the more yardage

we're gonna run through
the trommel.

And that at the end of the day

equals more gold in the box.

So let's turn
the *bleep* plant up.

There we go up to a *bleep* ten.

[Tony speaking]

[Mitch Blaschke]
What do you think, Chris?

[narrator] On Indian River,

Mitch has shut down Big Red

after its first week running

at Mud Mountain.

[Mitch] We got a little bit
of gold here.

- [Mitch] Real chunky.
- [Chris Doumitt] Did you?

That's looking pretty good, man.

[Mitch] It's doing its job.

There is some gold in it.

[Chris] I'd say we clean it,
see what we got.

[Mitch] Yeah, for sure.

- Let's get her washed in and we'll fire it back up.
- Yep.

- All righty, sounds like a plan, man.
- Good.

- This is it.
- [Khara Lewis] Oh, this looks pretty good.

- Right?
- This is better when I thought that

we're gonna get
some janky rickety thing.

- Come on, babe.
- [Khara] Babe, it's you.

[narrator]
At California Creek,

Fred shows Khara
their new gold room.

The system
that will save them time

and increase
their gold recovery.

So I just dump it in there.

- Yep.
- Full on.

Full on dump her.

[narrator] Concentrate from
the plant is fed into the hopper.

A vibrating screen that
separates out waste material.

Then the concentrate flows
over hydraulic riffles

with a pulsating base.

Which traps the gold.

Now literally all you do,

stand here,
turn on the centrifuge,

watch those red bars.

All right, so that's
pretty much it.

So you got it?

Why don't you go ahead and run
the rest of that material.

Yeah.

Steady feed.

Do what you were taught
and you're good to go.

Run the rest of that.

All right.

Love you.

Love you.

I'm really excited
about the new machine.

I think Fred did
an awesome job getting it.

This is definitely
what we needed.

It's an entire shift I'm
gonna save every single day.

I couldn't be
more thrilled about it.

All right, guys.
This is a big week.

We had Khara in the gold room
this week.

So we'll probably have
a little bit

more gold than last time.

It looks good.

Looks really good.

You guys ready for some weights?

- [man 1] Oh yeah.
- [man 2] Yeah.

[narrator] To reach
his season goal of 100 ounces,

Fred needs 10 ounces a week.

One,

two, three,

four,

five,

six,

seven,

eight,

nine,

ten,

- [man] Oh.
- Eleven.



[all cheering]

- All right.
- Holy *bleep*

[all chuckling]

[narrator] Worth over $20,000

almost double

their entire season total
last year.

[Fred] Khar, I saw
a nuggie in there.

[man] Yeah, that's, that...

- [Khara] Yeah. I heard it.
- [man] That cool clunk that hit there.

[Khara] Like right off the bat.

[Fred] Oh yeah. Look at that.

It's 11.48.

So we're getting there.

We're getting there. [laughs]

We're getting gold
consistently now.

We're dialing in our operation.

We're getting more efficient
as a team.

So I think our gold count's

gonna keep going up.

- [Fred] All right, guys.
- [Khara] We should put this back in there.

You came, you saw gold,
now get back to work.

Good job team.

[Mike] Yep.

After we cleared up
that bottleneck

Mike pointed out.

Get the trucks *bleep* zoom,
zoom, zoom, zooming.

[Tony speaking]

Yep.

[Monica Beets] And then
you noticed

that the excavators
take too long to go from

crack to cut to cut to crack.

Oh, we've got to charge

the dolly out.

Yeah.

- That's fun.
- [Kevin] That was fun.

How about we weigh
all that gold up

because I want to see
what you did.

[narrator] To reach
his season goal

of 4,500 ounces.

Tony needs

290 ounces a week.

The King of the Klondike

is hoping the white channel

pay hot streak continues.

[Kevin] Let's,
let's do this thing.

















[narrator] Worth over $560,000

it's their highest weekly
total so far this season.

*bleep* yeah.

[Tony speaking]

[Monica] Maybe we can reach
our season

- total yet.
- [man laughing]

Yeah.

[Monica] Yay.

- What up, what up?
- [laughing]

- [Chris] Hey, Mitch.
- Howdy.

- [Parker Schnabel] Hey, man.
- [Chris] How's it going?

Welcome back, young man.

[narrator] At Scribner Creek,

it's time to

find out if Mud Mountain

has finally delivered.

But first,

the final gold from the good
cut on the promised land.

[Chris] You've been on
sluicing for all week then.

- [Tyson Lee] Yes, sir.
- [Chris] This is it.

T-bird, you ready?

Here we go, last of the good cut

hopefully, it paid off.





- [Chris] Oh, yeah.
- 260. Yeah, keep her coming.







Very nice.

[narrator] Worth $570,000.

I should leave again.

[all laughing]

It's a good run.

[Chris] That's a really
good run, yeah,

[narrator] Next up,

the first Mud Mountain gold.

[Mitch] You look at all
the troubles we've had

to get to this point, I mean,

all the hours we put
on the dozers.

Everything it took
to get all that mud moved.

We got Big Red over there
set up.

Finally got some pay gravels
through it.

Was there any gold in it?

[Chris] Well, here you go
want to count it?

Yeah, what do we got here?

[narrator] Parker is hoping

that Mud Mountain will deliver


Five times, what he usually

gets from his other
Indian River cuts.

[Mitch] All right.



-60,
-It wasn't very full.

I don't like your angle
that you're already at.

- [Mitch] Uh-oh.
- [Tyson] Yeah.

[Mitch] 100,







[narrator] Worth almost

$300,000.

Well that's not bad actually
considering how much bull*bleep* we ran.

[Mitch] Yeah, I mean that's over



But, I mean,
is it five times better?

We won't know
until we get into the heart

of it a little bit.

I mean, for an initial run?

Not bad if we didn't have
to move 60 feet

of mud, it'd be great.

- [Mitch] You know, but...
- It's not a bad first clean up then.

[Mitch] So hopefully next week
it's a little bit better.

Yeah.

Let's hope so.

But actually we had



- That's not bad at all.
- No.

[Chris] And for our
season total now it's 4,251.

So we're getting there,
obviously,

behind last season, but

let's not worry
about last season.

Let's worry
about this season, and...

Yeah.

just get what we can get.

That's a lot of gold
we're gonna have to find

- in a short period of time.
- [Chris] Yeah.

Well, it should be
at the mountain.

According to jewelry reports,
there should be a ton of gold in there.

Literally, a ton.

- [man laughing]
- [Mitch] Yeah?

We're all retiring after

- this cut.
- [Mitch laughing] Yeah.

All right, well...

[Chris] Okay.

We'll do it all again.

Well done, man.

T-Dog?

Go have some dinner.

- What's up, Dozer?
- Oh, yeah.

Thanks Doumitt.
See you, Parker.

- See you guys.
- [Tyson] Later.