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00:00:14What I do know about gold is it's in the ground, but I'm having a hard time getting it out.
00:00:21I have all my money invested in this mine, trying to find gold.
00:00:25We can't pay our bills and it stresses me out.
00:00:30My boy, Nolan, he's real green. He likes to get his hands dirty.
00:00:36All he wants is career, gold mining.
00:00:40Once you see that first glimpse of gold, you kind of already hooked.
00:00:46I'm doing the best I can to try to teach him the ropes, but I'm learning a lot as we
00:00:50go as well.
00:00:51It would be my dream to pass this mine on to Nolan and let him take control of it one
00:00:57day.
00:00:59I sacrificed my day job to come up here, and I'm really excited to start my next journey and try
00:01:04to pursue a gold mining dream.
00:01:07This is the last season we're going to be able to be up here if we can't make it and
00:01:11find gold, and that's going to be a real hardship for my boy.
00:01:14And I don't want to let him down. I'm his dad, so it's pretty hits home.
00:01:28Let's make some gold, guys.
00:01:30Freddie Dodge.
00:01:31There's no guarantees in gold, buddy.
00:01:34And Juan Ibarra.
00:01:36All right, well, let's do it, huh?
00:01:37Have mastered the art of getting gold out of the ground.
00:01:41Look at that.
00:01:42In the most rugged places on Earth.
00:01:45I'm feeling a little sick, Freddie.
00:01:47Now, they rescue struggling miners.
00:01:50Ooh.
00:01:51That's not good.
00:01:52Who've risked it all to be rich.
00:01:55Whoa, whoa, whoa, shut it down.
00:01:56But are about to lose everything.
00:01:59Eyeballs.
00:02:00To revive these failing mines, Freddie and Juan engineer the impossible.
00:02:05Well, I've never heard of an under-sluice before.
00:02:07Deliver some hard truths.
00:02:09This material you're digging now is totally worthless.
00:02:12And track down the gold.
00:02:15That's what dreams are made of right there.
00:02:17But if they don't at least double the miners' gold recovery,
00:02:20they won't take a dime in return.
00:02:23That's 10 times the amount of gold.
00:02:25That's awesome.
00:02:38Thanks for the coffee, bud.
00:02:40No problem, buddy.
00:02:40Sorry I'm not going to be too much help this week.
00:02:43No worries.
00:02:43I'm sitting there looking at it.
00:02:44It's really not that noticeable.
00:02:45That little support thing you've got going on.
00:02:47No, no.
00:02:48You barely see it.
00:02:49Tore my shoulder up pretty bad.
00:02:50So I'm not supposed to lift anything with this hand.
00:02:53Just move it.
00:02:54It's a good thing that Travis and Alex are here to give us a hand.
00:02:56Yeah.
00:02:57I've got one good arm to hug you with, buddy.
00:03:01Freddie and Juan are in Baker County, Oregon,
00:03:05heading for the Mammoth Mine,
00:03:07a 13-acre claim owned by Ryan Merritt.
00:03:11Historically one of the richest hard rock mining areas in the region,
00:03:16the site is six miles outside the mining town of Sumter,
00:03:20famed for producing millions of dollars worth of placer gold annually.
00:03:24In the early 1900s.
00:03:27It's good to be back here.
00:03:29But, you know, this area's been hit pretty hard.
00:03:31A lot of the gold that was around here is in somebody else's bank account now.
00:03:35So what do we know about Ryan, Freddie?
00:03:37He bought this property up here and he said his recovery system,
00:03:40he thinks it's pretty lacking, but we'll see when we get here.
00:03:53How's it going?
00:03:56How's it going?
00:03:59Good.
00:03:59Nice to meet you.
00:04:00What's your name?
00:04:01Nolan.
00:04:01Nice to meet you, Nolan.
00:04:02Good to meet you guys.
00:04:03It's a beautiful spot you guys got out here.
00:04:05How long you been out here?
00:04:06About the last three years we've been actively mining it.
00:04:09Okay.
00:04:10So what's the relation?
00:04:11So this is my boy, Nolan.
00:04:12Okay.
00:04:12Yeah.
00:04:13He really wants to be a gold miner.
00:04:14Sure, if it's profitable and I can make a living out of it.
00:04:18Is that your end goal then, to one day take this over then?
00:04:20Yeah, hopefully upgrade my wash plant so I can run more material and be profitable.
00:04:24Two years ago, 22-year-old Nolan Merritt quit his pressure washing business in central Oregon
00:04:31to join his dad and follow his dream of gold mining.
00:04:36Leaving my day job to come up here and you're basically gambling essentially.
00:04:41I'm not an expert by all means, but I'm hoping to get a future in this industry.
00:04:48But the main problem is we're finding very minimal gold.
00:04:54200 miles from his home, lack of gold is taking its toll.
00:04:59I'm bringing in no money.
00:05:01I've got bills to pay.
00:05:02I mean, it's an expensive world for a 22-year-old to grow up and kind of grew up my
00:05:06whole life
00:05:06being told never to work for free.
00:05:08So now I'm working for free and it's kind of hard to wrap my head around.
00:05:14I'm just going to keep chipping away and hopefully start seeing some color.
00:05:19We actually have a hard rock pit over there.
00:05:21I've heard from all the local people in town that the values of the ore in there were some of
00:05:28the richest around.
00:05:30So it'd be really neat trying to get the trommel to make enough money that we can actually go underground
00:05:35some day.
00:05:35That gets expensive fast.
00:05:37Yeah, that does.
00:05:38Yeah, a whole different animal.
00:05:39So how's your season gone so far then?
00:05:41Oh, we're not doing real hot.
00:05:43I mean, we're roughly getting about a tenth of an ounce a day right now.
00:05:46It's just not covering the cost.
00:05:48Yeah, 150 bucks a day, 190 bucks a day.
00:05:50Yeah, a couple hundred dollars a day isn't doing it for us.
00:05:53Yeah, that's not enough to cover the fuel.
00:05:55Fuel, exactly.
00:05:56The last three years has been the best season.
00:05:59It's been $5,000.
00:06:00That's not good.
00:06:02Realistically, what do you need daily to be able to make this work?
00:06:06About an ounce a day really is what we need.
00:06:08I can see that, yeah.
00:06:09So if you can't make enough gold here, then what are you going to do?
00:06:12You know, if we can't make something happen this year, then it's probably be the last season we mine.
00:06:17It's a dream to me to watch my boy be able to carry on a tradition of mining.
00:06:22It would be a real kick in the gut if, you know, I couldn't watch him carry that on.
00:06:27So it's kind of a legacy thing then?
00:06:28Yeah, building one for sure.
00:06:30Yeah.
00:06:30Well, we're here.
00:06:32Let's watch it run.
00:06:33See if we can help you.
00:06:36The mammoth claim is staked over a number of ancient river channels near Bear Canyon.
00:06:43Although this land has been mined before, Ryan hopes, with modern machinery, he can retrieve the gold they left behind.
00:06:53Four-hour test?
00:06:54Yep.
00:06:56Timer's going.
00:06:57Let's go.
00:07:03First bucket, Juan.
00:07:04First bucket.
00:07:10Hopefully I can haul some good pay here.
00:07:16Nolan drops pay through grizzly bars into an 11-foot hopper, which funnels down into the rotating trommel,
00:07:23where a spray bar washes gold off the rocks to be caught in the 10-foot sluice.
00:07:31Look at that sluice box, Greg.
00:07:33That's not good.
00:07:33That's the worst sluice box I've seen.
00:07:36Yeah, that's a gold-losing sluice box.
00:07:38That's for dang sure.
00:07:39Yeah.
00:07:39It's like it got ran over by an excavator.
00:07:42I'd be embarrassed to take that in for scrap iron.
00:07:46I can see why they're only getting a tenth of an ounce.
00:07:49Let me go look at this box real quick.
00:07:52Right in, Juan aren't going to like that sluice box.
00:07:55Feel that nugget ripple up top, right here.
00:07:59Half the ripples are popped up.
00:08:02None of the ripples are touching.
00:08:03That hold down system is not good at all.
00:08:07I can just imagine what they're thinking of that sluice box right now.
00:08:12I've always had an infatuation with digging in the dirt, and I always wanted to buy a mine,
00:08:18and ended up up here with a realtor showing us around some properties.
00:08:22And they said, this is for sale.
00:08:24And there's rumors that there's really good gold, so we jumped on it.
00:08:29Inspired by stories of huge gold hauls, Ryan subsidized the mine with his construction business.
00:08:35But now, the falling market has changed his luck.
00:08:40I have a construction company in central Oregon.
00:08:43Times are very slow right now as far as construction goes.
00:08:47There's been a lot of hardship.
00:08:49We're not guaranteed anything right now.
00:08:52To be able to pay my bills and get out of debt for the last three years,
00:08:56we decided we were going to hit this mining operation hard.
00:08:59Originally a weekend mine, it's now become his lifeline.
00:09:04This doesn't give me enough money to pay our bills.
00:09:08I have a family counting on me to find gold, especially my boy Nolan.
00:09:13I really want to watch my kid prosper.
00:09:16I want to pass this mine on to Nolan, let him take control of it one day.
00:09:21But we can't find gold.
00:09:23This is a big, big week.
00:09:25Freddy and Lon coming up is going to either make us or break us.
00:09:32We got a problem here.
00:09:37It's just boiling over.
00:09:39No, get that bar.
00:09:40Oh!
00:09:45Not good.
00:09:46We got a rock plug in there, something stuck.
00:09:49It's overflowing water.
00:09:50Looks like it's clogging up our jungle.
00:09:53It's not getting down in there.
00:09:55If the jammed rock isn't dislodged in time,
00:09:58gold could be lost over the side of the hopper.
00:10:01There it goes.
00:10:02There it went.
00:10:04Yeah, you got it.
00:10:11It just took a little bit of slay.
00:10:13Here we go.
00:10:141-0.
00:10:18I was pretty sure we had a cold nugget stuck in there for a minute, but it ended up being
00:10:23a rock.
00:10:24Getting ready to run again.
00:10:26That was a bit scary for me.
00:10:30What I want to do is I want to grab a handful of that material coming off the end of
00:10:33the trommel, pan it and see what's in it.
00:10:35You know, it seems to me that there's a lot of material coming out that should be getting down into
00:10:39the sluice box and getting recovered.
00:10:50Oh, one's got a gold pan in his hand.
00:10:53That makes me nervous.
00:10:56The reality is out of one pan, all that material should have gone into the sluice box to get recovered.
00:11:01I don't see any gold though.
00:11:03I didn't have any gold in the pan, but still, if we're losing that much material, there's a chance we're
00:11:07losing gold.
00:11:09I took a pan out of the tailings coming off the end of the trommel.
00:11:13There was a lot of fine material, but there was no gold.
00:11:15How about off the sluice?
00:11:16I haven't done that yet, but I want to take a pan from the pay.
00:11:19That's right.
00:11:19It doesn't look good to me.
00:11:20Yeah, it doesn't.
00:11:20It doesn't look like anything spectacular.
00:11:24Panning the pay should show gold is going into the wash plant, even if it's being lost out the other
00:11:30end.
00:11:32What are you seeing, Juano?
00:11:33Nothing yet, Fred.
00:11:40Nothing to speak of.
00:11:42That's not good.
00:11:43Let's go look at their pay where they're digging it.
00:11:47With two hours still left on the test, Freddy and Juan need to track down the pay.
00:11:54Nice old boiler.
00:11:56A lot of history here.
00:11:57Oh, yeah.
00:11:59That's where he's getting it from.
00:12:02No wonder they're only getting a tenth of an ounce a day.
00:12:04This is all garbage.
00:12:05It's all tailings.
00:12:06Every bit of it's tailings.
00:12:08Yeah.
00:12:08Let's see what you get in this pan.
00:12:09There'll be nothing in it.
00:12:11This creek's completely mined out.
00:12:15Nothing.
00:12:16Not a speck.
00:12:18Pretty consistent ground.
00:12:19Pretty consistent garbage.
00:12:22Yeah, that's not good, Freddy.
00:12:23What do you think?
00:12:24Should we stop them?
00:12:25I think you shut them down.
00:12:27I think we shut them down.
00:12:27Yeah, it's just burning fuel.
00:12:30Let's just call it.
00:12:46It's not worth running.
00:12:48No, it's mined out.
00:12:48It's weird that they didn't see that.
00:12:51But, you know, they haven't been around like us, you know.
00:12:55In the beaver state of northeast Oregon,
00:12:58Freddy and Juan face a mining nightmare.
00:13:02Well, right now we're in a dilemma.
00:13:03We panned out of their pay pile that they're calling their pay pile,
00:13:06which is actually a garbage pile because it's already been run.
00:13:12This whole creek's been mined out.
00:13:14And they're just digging tailings and running them.
00:13:16So, they're out of business here.
00:13:20Hey, Nolan.
00:13:22Last bucket.
00:13:24What the hell?
00:13:25You gotta shut it down.
00:13:27After just two hours,
00:13:29Freddy and Juan pulled the plug.
00:13:36The reason why we shut you down at two hours instead of going four.
00:13:39Right.
00:13:39Everything here is tailings.
00:13:41It's not virgin.
00:13:42It's been run multiple times.
00:13:44This whole 13 acres, as far as placer goes.
00:13:47Dead.
00:13:48It's dead.
00:13:49Nothing. Yeah.
00:13:50Not even worth it.
00:13:51The hill you own over there.
00:13:52That's all tails.
00:13:54Yeah.
00:13:54On the lower part of it.
00:13:55Everything.
00:13:56Everything here is tailings.
00:13:57It's all been run.
00:13:58And they hit her side to side and upside down.
00:14:01We hate to be the bearer of bad news.
00:14:03Yeah.
00:14:03But the truth is right now it's not worth it.
00:14:05Yeah.
00:14:05We want honesty.
00:14:08Definitely not what we want to hear.
00:14:10Kind of like a kick in the gut.
00:14:12We don't have good ground.
00:14:14Just nothing we can do about it.
00:14:18My father's invested a lot of money and time to come up here and try to get things going for
00:14:22me.
00:14:23And tries to hand it off to me.
00:14:25But if there's nothing to hand off then there's no sense of being up here and wasting my time.
00:14:34What's your thoughts Juan?
00:14:36Well Freddie you know that ground is completely played out.
00:14:39You know and we took pans and not a speck of gold.
00:14:42It was all tailings.
00:14:43Every piece of it.
00:14:44And I think it had been run more than once.
00:14:46That sluice box is probably the worst we've ever seen.
00:14:49It's a disaster that sluice box.
00:14:51The bottom of it's shaped like a banana.
00:14:53You can't hold the ripples down.
00:14:55Even if there was gold there the gold would just shoot right under the rails.
00:14:58Well this is the first sluice box we've ever seen where the riffles are actually just for show.
00:15:01They're not doing anything.
00:15:04Show riffles.
00:15:05Yeah.
00:15:06Yeah.
00:15:06Well all we can do is put our heads together and figure this out.
00:15:10But I think we're in a pretty tough spot here bud.
00:15:12I agree.
00:15:25Morning guys.
00:15:26How's it going?
00:15:28About the flattest spot I could find to weigh in.
00:15:31To get a true read on the ground.
00:15:34Freddie and Juan want to weigh the two hour test clean up.
00:15:38How we looking?
00:15:39Yeah.
00:15:40It's a little light.
00:15:43A little light?
00:15:44I don't think there's much but fly poop in there.
00:15:47That's all pyrite.
00:15:49Yeah.
00:15:49That's a nightmare.
00:15:50Yeah.
00:15:51That is a nightmare for us.
00:15:53Yeah.
00:15:53There's 10 cents worth of gold.
00:15:5520 cents worth of gold.
00:15:56Yeah.
00:15:56Right.
00:15:57So there's no use weighing that.
00:15:59I don't think my scale would even weigh it.
00:16:01This will be the first clean up we don't attempt to weigh.
00:16:04Because this scale here.
00:16:05Won't weigh that little.
00:16:07No.
00:16:08But right now you've just got to stop.
00:16:10Okay.
00:16:13I don't know what to do.
00:16:14Yeah.
00:16:14You guys can tell us what we should do.
00:16:19You know this may not be the property that you're going to be on forever.
00:16:21Right.
00:16:22So let's put our heads together.
00:16:23Come up with a game plan.
00:16:25And we'll go from there.
00:16:29Thinking of that doesn't make me feel very good.
00:16:32I feel like I've let my kid down.
00:16:35Back to square one starting over again.
00:16:39Freddie and Juan said that's the worst they've ever seen.
00:16:41Which is definitely not what we wanted to hear.
00:16:43But what we've seen now after doing clean ups.
00:16:46There's nothing here for us.
00:16:47So we got to pursue something different.
00:16:51With one of the worst gold results on mine rescue.
00:16:55They have just four more days to take the Merritt mine.
00:16:59From zero to one ounce.
00:17:01To keep their dream alive.
00:17:03It's a tough one Juan.
00:17:04This may break him from gold mining.
00:17:06I hope not.
00:17:07What are your thoughts?
00:17:08My thoughts?
00:17:08I go prospecting.
00:17:10Really I honestly think that's the best use of your time here.
00:17:13If you can go out and start doing some prospecting.
00:17:15Help him out.
00:17:15That's going to be first and foremost.
00:17:17One of the things we can do on is.
00:17:19You know.
00:17:20Teach Nolan.
00:17:21Give him our experience and our knowledge.
00:17:23For a young guy.
00:17:23Nolan's heart's already set on being a miner.
00:17:26So let's at least give him some of the tools that he's going to need to be able to do
00:17:28that.
00:17:29That's right.
00:17:29We didn't know there was no gold here.
00:17:32No.
00:17:33We kind of walked into a hornet's nest is what we did.
00:17:43First lesson for greenhorn Nolan.
00:17:46Learn how to prospect.
00:17:48So even without seeing your cut up here.
00:17:50I knew it was all halines.
00:17:52Alright.
00:17:52Looking at the tree growth.
00:17:53Everything we're walking on.
00:17:54Everything you see here is being ran.
00:17:57Well how can you tell by the tree growth that it's been mined?
00:18:00Because all the trees in the valley here.
00:18:03Where the placer gold was.
00:18:05They're all younger trees.
00:18:07You know.
00:18:0730, 40 years old.
00:18:08Right.
00:18:08You got old growth up on the hill where they didn't mine the gold.
00:18:11Right.
00:18:11There's probably trees up there that are a hundred years old.
00:18:14Right.
00:18:15But not down in the valley.
00:18:16Yep.
00:18:20So you can see this is where your cut was the other day.
00:18:22Right.
00:18:23Yeah.
00:18:24Why don't you grab the traco.
00:18:25And let's dig a little trench right here.
00:18:27Okay.
00:18:29A trench will expose the geological timeline of the ground.
00:18:33And show if it's been previously mined.
00:18:44You guys thought it was virgin ground.
00:18:46Up here.
00:18:47Right.
00:18:47Right.
00:18:48No.
00:18:48It's not.
00:18:50So if it was virgin material.
00:18:53You'd have layers of material.
00:18:54Right.
00:18:55That have rhyme and reason to them.
00:18:56Your flat rocks would be laying flat from water.
00:18:59Right.
00:18:59Because when they get in water they're going to lay flat.
00:19:01Right.
00:19:01Like my hand.
00:19:02They're not going to lay like that.
00:19:03Right.
00:19:03Right.
00:19:04And it's going to be tight packed.
00:19:05Okay.
00:19:06See our water's running through it.
00:19:07Yeah.
00:19:07If it was tight packed it'd be running on the surface.
00:19:10Okay.
00:19:11And you're going to have different layers from different eras.
00:19:13Right.
00:19:14Right.
00:19:14Stream flowed here.
00:19:15Slow for a while you get a sand layer.
00:19:17Faster.
00:19:18Got more rocks in it.
00:19:19They're just all jumbled up.
00:19:20And you see how easy it's digging.
00:19:21Right.
00:19:22They had hundreds of thousands of years to become a puzzle all locked together.
00:19:27Now the puzzle's just in pieces everywhere and all the gold's taken out of it.
00:19:31But right now this is just pure tailings.
00:19:33Right.
00:19:33And I bet the old timers probably hit it in the 1800's.
00:19:36But somebody else has mined it since then with heavy equipment.
00:19:39Probably the 1980's.
00:19:40Looking at the trees.
00:19:42But what we could do is we could knock this tree down here.
00:19:44Get a chainsaw and look at the rings in it.
00:19:54Perfect, bud.
00:19:55You want to go grab a chainsaw?
00:19:56Yes, sir.
00:20:00See how easy that fell over?
00:20:02Yeah.
00:20:02Because that's loose soil, right?
00:20:03Right.
00:20:06Perfect.
00:20:06Let's bring it out here in the sun and count rings.
00:20:1644.
00:20:1744 years ago.
00:20:18Yep.
00:20:19That was when it was last done.
00:20:21Well, that's when that tree started growing.
00:20:23Probably a few years after they were done mining when it started growing.
00:20:26So, you know, 44 years.
00:20:291979, let's call it.
00:20:30Yeah.
00:20:301980.
00:20:31I was guessing 1980's.
00:20:32Yeah.
00:20:33So right in there.
00:20:33But whoever mined it did a good job.
00:20:35They stripped it pretty clean of gold.
00:20:37Yeah.
00:20:37The only gold they lost was the hardest to catch gold.
00:20:41With their placer mining dead in the water, Freddie explores their only other option on
00:20:47this land, hard rock mining.
00:20:50I've seen a vein over here when I was wandering yesterday.
00:20:53We can look at it.
00:20:54Because that's your only shot here.
00:20:56You want to go up over this way?
00:20:57Okay.
00:21:00Hard rock prospecting involves searching for underground veins rich in deposits of high-grade
00:21:06gold.
00:21:07It's a prosperous but perilous form of mining.
00:21:11With miners digging deep shafts, then punching tunnels into the mountainside to chase the gold-bearing
00:21:18veins.
00:21:21You can tell the old-timers punched into the mountain here, and they didn't do it for their
00:21:25health, right?
00:21:25Right.
00:21:26So they found something on the surface, and then they started in to see if it was going
00:21:30to be good enough gold.
00:21:32Did they mine it out?
00:21:33Or is there a whack of gold still living in there?
00:21:35Yeah.
00:21:36There's only one way to find out.
00:21:37Right.
00:21:37Have a look at it.
00:21:54Don't know, Wano.
00:21:55It's not good.
00:21:56No.
00:21:58They are screwed as far as the placer goes.
00:22:01At Ryan Merritt's mammoth mine.
00:22:03It's in somebody else's bank account now.
00:22:05Mm-hmm.
00:22:06The placer deposit has played out.
00:22:09So Freddie is on the hunt for hard rock.
00:22:12And the flooded shaft might be the answer.
00:22:15So how the old-timers would find the hard rock gold, which can be the richest, they'd
00:22:20start with the placer gold, and they'd pan their way up a creek valley.
00:22:23And then when it ended, they'd back up, and then they'd start looking up the mountain
00:22:27for the hard rock.
00:22:28There's a reason they stopped mining it, though, right?
00:22:30Was that because gold prices went down?
00:22:32Was that because the claim owner passed away?
00:22:34Or maybe they got to a depth with the ore plate out, you know?
00:22:37There could be a lot of factors.
00:22:42To find out more...
00:22:44Well, thanks for driving for me.
00:22:45Oh, not a problem, man.
00:22:47I'm sorry you're hurt.
00:22:48Freddie seeks out some local knowledge in nearby Sumter.
00:22:52Right here, isn't it?
00:22:54Yeah, this is it.
00:22:58How's it going, Greg?
00:22:59Hey, Fred.
00:23:00How are you?
00:23:01Appreciate your time.
00:23:02Hey, thank you.
00:23:03Ex-Mayor Greg Lucas has access to the county records, so is the go-to guy for the mining
00:23:10history of the area.
00:23:11Sounds like you probably know more about it than anybody in town.
00:23:14So what information can you help me out with on this mine we're at?
00:23:18It was actually founded through the plastering process about 1872.
00:23:24Okay.
00:23:25They were working their way up the creek.
00:23:27They got to a point where there was no more placer gold, backtracked, and that's where
00:23:32they found the hard rock.
00:23:34Yeah.
00:23:34The original founder was James Riley.
00:23:38He had some partners.
00:23:40They worked the load and got what was easily available.
00:23:45But that mine has had boom and bust over the years.
00:23:49From what I can tell, the plaster's been completely mined out on that property.
00:23:54When was the last time the hard rock was mined on it, do you know?
00:23:56My best guess is the 1930s.
00:24:00Yeah.
00:24:01Before World War II.
00:24:02Yes.
00:24:03There's about 300 feet of tunnel, almost all of them filled up with water.
00:24:08Okay.
00:24:08When I was a kid, it wasn't full of water.
00:24:10Okay.
00:24:11There's at least two shafts and at least two levels.
00:24:15And they discovered another vein that ran about 200 feet, 18 inches into the rock from
00:24:22the main tunnel.
00:24:23So the potential is there.
00:24:25It's just that hard rock's an expensive game.
00:24:28It is.
00:24:28Especially on one that's been full of water for a long time and everything else.
00:24:32Yeah.
00:24:32All we can do is have a look in there.
00:24:34Yeah.
00:24:34See what it looks like.
00:24:35See if it's not caved in or anything.
00:24:37And then maybe try to get that water out of there.
00:24:40Yeah.
00:24:41Well, I sure appreciate your time, sir.
00:24:43You're welcome, Fred.
00:24:43Have a great day.
00:24:44Good luck.
00:24:46That mine shaft is the last chance for this piece of property.
00:24:50From the surface, it's a guessing game what's in there.
00:24:53I want to see underground.
00:25:11Thanks for coming up.
00:25:12My pleasure.
00:25:13Let's go over and...
00:25:14Pretty cool to see this.
00:25:15Well, let's hope we can find something for you.
00:25:18To explore the flooded mine shaft, Freddie calls in some high tech.
00:25:24So this here, we've got our underwater ROV.
00:25:27And on the front, we've got a 4K camera along with a sonar on here as well.
00:25:32We've got six thrusters, two on the top to bring us down, and then four on the side so we
00:25:36can move in any direction.
00:25:38Mountain springs have flooded the shaft on the west of the Merritt's claim, where there's an entrance to an abandoned
00:25:44hard rock mine first excavated in the 1870s.
00:25:48With records suggesting a network of tunnels stretching over 300 feet long and on different levels up to 80 feet
00:25:57deep, if structurally sound, they could be pumped out and explored for highly profitable hard rock mining.
00:26:06I'm excited about getting down in there with the underwater drone and seeing what could be under there, because that
00:26:12could be the future.
00:26:14Find the gold.
00:26:15Here it goes.
00:26:24How deep can you go down?
00:26:25So this unit here will go down to a thousand feet deep.
00:26:31So right now, just trying to find the access, we're able to see that there's rock formation right there.
00:26:38And then as we get closer to the walls, we'll be able to see more.
00:26:44I'm hoping to see at least an entrance or some kind of timbering in there that's going to give us
00:26:48hope to carry on our dream of mining up here still.
00:26:55It's murky.
00:26:56Yep.
00:26:57I was afraid of that, but you never know until you try, right?
00:27:00Absolutely.
00:27:01You may be able to go a little bit deeper here.
00:27:08Looks like we got some, huh?
00:27:10Yeah, looks like we've got something right there.
00:27:12That's pretty cool, huh?
00:27:15Some timbers?
00:27:17Looks like I can see the timbers right there.
00:27:19The timbers form the opening to an old timer's tunnel.
00:27:24We can see the entrance here.
00:27:25We just can't get in there.
00:27:26Just unfortunately can't get in.
00:27:27Yeah, full mud it looks like, huh?
00:27:30It's definitely full of something.
00:27:33Hopefully gold.
00:27:36But you definitely are seeing some evidence of a tunnel.
00:27:40Could be the original mine timbers in there still.
00:27:42We're buttoning right up against it.
00:27:44There's no access.
00:27:45Yeah.
00:27:47Unfortunately, I think it's just paved in.
00:27:50This is not good news.
00:27:53That's a shame.
00:27:54We'll have to get it another direction.
00:27:56The tunnel opening is caved in, meaning it's inaccessible for Ryan.
00:28:04His last hope is flooded out.
00:28:09To pump the water out of the mine shafts underground really is lots of money.
00:28:15Just nothing we can do about it.
00:28:17Got to try different avenues now, I think.
00:28:19The hard rock they've got here, it looks like it's a nightmare.
00:28:22We couldn't get that ROV in the mine shaft because it's evidently caved in.
00:28:27So it's not the end of their dream, at least I hope not.
00:28:40You know, this has been one of our nightmares, right?
00:28:43You know, coming up to a mine site where there's no gold.
00:28:45It's a disaster.
00:28:47They are screwed as far as a placer does.
00:28:50That ground is completely played out.
00:28:52And the hard rock, it's just a nightmare because it's caved in.
00:28:57So we're really going to have to come up with something to help them up.
00:29:20What's your thoughts, Juan?
00:29:21We're here. We need to take advantage of the time we have here.
00:29:24Let's fix the plant.
00:29:25So when he does move to the next spot, he'll have the plant to be able to run that ground.
00:29:31In Northeast Oregon, with no mineable ground left on the merits claim,
00:29:36Freddie and Juan hatch a plan.
00:29:39What I'd like to do on the wash plant, I want to build a straight...
00:29:41A whole new sluice.
00:29:42A whole new sluice.
00:29:42That's garbage.
00:29:43It's completely bowed. It's got problems. So let's build a whole new sluice.
00:29:46Get rid of those riffle systems he's got in there.
00:29:49Get proper riffles in it. And then on top of that, over here on the trauma, he's got a spray
00:29:54bar that comes in and it's just shooting one little spot on the bottom that the material's not even getting
00:29:58hit.
00:29:58So what I'd like to do is build a proper spray bar for it as well.
00:30:01Yeah, I agree. We're here. He asked for our help. He's going to have to move. So we got to
00:30:06get out and find him some better ground.
00:30:07Maybe not on this piece of property, but...
00:30:09It won't be on this property, but they're great guys. And I totally respect what he's trying to do. So
00:30:14as far as cost goes, I don't want to charge him anything.
00:30:17He's already hemorrhaging money.
00:30:18Right now, he's spending a dollar to make a dime.
00:30:21Yeah, he's already got a ton of money tied into this operation.
00:30:23I agree.
00:30:24I think we just do this to help him out. Hopefully, you know, he can keep on his legacy, build
00:30:29his legacy and be able to do what he wants to do.
00:30:33With the hope of Freddy finding new ground to mine, Juan will replace the spray bar with an angled system
00:30:40to better wash paydirt off the rocks and will cut away the existing buckled sluice and replace with a new
00:30:48box and signature riffle system.
00:30:54We came up with a few ideas. The plant, there's a bunch of things that are just completely wrong with
00:30:59it.
00:30:59Fixing the plant up. If you got more ground later, then you got a plant that will catch the gold.
00:31:05That sluice box is just trashed.
00:31:07Absolutely.
00:31:07We're going to throw that away. We're going to build you a whole new one.
00:31:10And we're going to set it up properly to be able to catch nuggets, fine gold, whatever you come into,
00:31:14we'll be able to catch it.
00:31:15And the spray bar.
00:31:16Right now, that spray bar you have on the end of it, it's pretty much going into nothing.
00:31:20Freddy wants to really spend some time and go out and do some real prospecting.
00:31:23If you don't have gold in the ground, the plant's no good.
00:31:25Yeah.
00:31:25So I think for the next few days, the biggest push is to be able to go out there and
00:31:28see if Freddy can find some decent ground.
00:31:30Okay.
00:31:32We know this is something that you guys want to really do.
00:31:35And you guys already spent a lot of time out here.
00:31:37And with the gold way we saw, you know, we don't feel right by taking any money.
00:31:41So what we're going to do, we're going to do 100% free.
00:31:43We're going to do it for nothing.
00:31:45Yeah.
00:31:45Wow.
00:31:46Just get it done for you guys.
00:31:47But if you guys are good with that.
00:31:48We are awesome.
00:31:50Yeah.
00:31:50Deal there.
00:31:51Let's get it done.
00:31:52Yeah.
00:31:52Deal.
00:31:53Them willing to make the fixes for free is super, super awesome for my dad even.
00:31:58Because, as you know, we're running out of funds.
00:32:01So, yeah, that's going to be super awesome.
00:32:03The biggest thing is having a plant that we can go run, you know, successfully.
00:32:08Them willing to come up here and volunteer their time and their own hard-earned money to fix up our
00:32:14plant.
00:32:14And I think that's an amazing thing for us.
00:32:18First up, Freddie must find ground in this valley for the merits to mine.
00:32:23You know, this area's been hit pretty hard.
00:32:25But there's still some good gold here.
00:32:27Just got to search for it.
00:32:30What we need to do is put our detective eyes on and go looking around here.
00:32:35Make some phone calls.
00:32:37Now it's turned into more of a treasure hunt.
00:32:41Since 1862, the mountains of Northeast Oregon have witnessed thousands of prospectors searching for gold.
00:32:49By 1913, massive floating dredges raked in over 32,000 ounces of gold, worth over $60 million today.
00:33:01But a patchwork of land ownership in this region has left specific areas less hip than others.
00:33:08So Freddie hopes to track down one of these claims that still may have worth in the ground.
00:33:17So the number one fix that we have to do for them is find them some more ground with gold
00:33:22on it.
00:33:23If not, these guys are done.
00:33:34At the claim, Juan gets stuck into the old sluice with helpers Travis and Alex.
00:33:41That was a rock.
00:33:43You all right, buddy?
00:33:44I'm good.
00:33:44Just my bad knee.
00:33:49You know, it looked bad before when it was on the plant.
00:33:51Now that we got it off, it looks really bad.
00:33:57Seven miles south, Freddie's gold mining contacts might have struck it rich.
00:34:03I just talked with a claim owner, half hour from the mine, with some ground that's got good gold on
00:34:09it that Ryan can lease.
00:34:10So I'm going to see it with Ryan, right?
00:34:12Because good gold is not what they have up there on that 13 acres.
00:34:16It once upon a time probably had good gold, but it's been gone over with a fine-toothed comb.
00:34:20And then some.
00:34:23Downstream from the Mammoth mine is a 70-acre claim that Freddie is taking Ryan to.
00:34:29Its owner is looking for a miner to install a wash plan and mine the ground season by season on
00:34:36a profit-sharing lease.
00:34:39The old-timers hit this.
00:34:43You can see all the tailings here.
00:34:45Right.
00:34:46So there's definitely gold here.
00:34:47Let's hope they didn't get all of it here as well.
00:34:50That's all we can hope for.
00:34:52If there is gold in this ground, Ryan can move his upgraded wash plant here
00:34:58and give the owner a percentage of the gold he finds each season as the leasehold payment.
00:35:07How's it going?
00:35:08Good. How you doing?
00:35:09Doing all right?
00:35:10Yeah. How you doing?
00:35:10Jim Eckstein's found gold on his land and wants someone to mine it for him.
00:35:18That's pretty gold.
00:35:19And you're wanting to lease your ground out?
00:35:21Yeah.
00:35:22That's what we're looking for right there.
00:35:23Well, your property probably was like that before they mined all the gold out of it.
00:35:27How many yards does that come out of?
00:35:29Six tractor buckets.
00:35:30So that's about 600 times better than your gold.
00:35:33Let me show you where this came from, Freddie.
00:35:37You have a beautiful place here, Jim.
00:35:38Oh, thanks.
00:35:39I was digging a hole looking for water for my pasture.
00:35:42Okay.
00:35:42I found gold, huh?
00:35:47So how deep is the bedrock under here, Jim?
00:35:49It's about probably, Freddie, probably another four foot farther down.
00:35:54Okay.
00:35:55So most of this up here probably won't contain much gold.
00:35:59Now we get farther down, you see how we got tight material, right?
00:36:03Yeah, compact.
00:36:04So this is a whole different ballgame compared to what you got.
00:36:08Your deposit, there's no rhyme or reason to it.
00:36:10It's how it got put back by man, not how it was left there by nature.
00:36:14You can tell this was left here by nature and not put there by man.
00:36:18It's compact.
00:36:19It's tight.
00:36:19This is all virgin.
00:36:21Yeah, after looking at this.
00:36:23Completely different.
00:36:23Completely different.
00:36:24Yep.
00:36:24Mine's man-made.
00:36:26Yep.
00:36:27And I'm seeing it now.
00:36:28I wish you'd have known that months and months ago.
00:36:31Yeah.
00:36:32So it would have saved you thousands and thousands of dollars, right?
00:36:35Yeah, absolutely.
00:36:35But if you come over here, if there's good gold here, it's a second chance.
00:36:41Proof's in the pan, right?
00:37:01We've got lots of heavies in it.
00:37:05That can be a good sign or a bad sign.
00:37:07Yeah.
00:37:07Yeah.
00:37:08In Northeast Oregon, Ryan Merritt's gold mining future rests on a pan from the new ground
00:37:15Freddie has found.
00:37:17I've seen a piece of gold there.
00:37:20Look at that.
00:37:22And a couple of them are decent sized too.
00:37:25One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.
00:37:31And there might be more.
00:37:33What's that mean, Freddie?
00:37:34That means mine it.
00:37:35All right.
00:37:37That's more gold in the one pan than we did out of 30 yards at your mine.
00:37:40So, look here.
00:37:42Yeah, I like it.
00:37:42Oh, I'm saying that's a good pan.
00:37:44That's a dang good pan right there.
00:37:45The way the topography is here, there could be a whack of it.
00:37:49Okay.
00:37:50And this one's easier to get to than where you're at.
00:37:52Absolutely.
00:37:54I say...
00:37:54You say mine it, huh?
00:37:55I say this is your future.
00:37:58Seeing that gold in that pan puts a whole new perspective on Ryan's future is what it
00:38:03does.
00:38:04Gives him a spot that he can mine.
00:38:05All I can say is smiles ear to ear.
00:38:08Well, Jim, looks like you got some mineable ground here.
00:38:12Oh, good.
00:38:12We in?
00:38:13Yep.
00:38:14All right.
00:38:14In exchange for a percentage of recovered gold, Ryan has new ground he could lease,
00:38:20and a gold mining future for him and Nolan.
00:38:24That's great news.
00:38:25I mean, that's the best news I've heard all year.
00:38:31Well, let's get to work.
00:38:34Back near the claim, Juan's redesigned a new sluice run.
00:38:38We're going to build him a 100% new sluice box.
00:38:41One thing that's kind of special about it is we're going to put ribs on it.
00:38:43If you look at the sluice box that they have, it's completely twisted.
00:38:46The bottom is not flat.
00:38:48And that's because it has no support.
00:38:50So right here, these are ribs.
00:38:52And these are going to go on the side and on the bottom to reinforce the bottom pan
00:38:55and the sidewall.
00:38:56So that way we'll actually keep the bottom of the box true and flat.
00:39:02I'm going to hand them over to Travis and Alex.
00:39:03We're going to get them all cleaned up so we can start putting this box together.
00:39:13When you cut them on a plasma table, you get a little bit of ridge.
00:39:17You just want to flatten them off.
00:39:18That way they're nice and flat and flush.
00:39:20I'm trying to knock off all the big chunks.
00:39:22It's easier for Alex to polish them up.
00:39:25That was the last rib right there.
00:39:26All the ribs are now polished, ready to be welded on.
00:39:33Perfect.
00:39:34All right, guys.
00:39:35We'll flip it.
00:39:37Oh, yeah.
00:39:39It's only heavy.
00:39:45If I fully weld it before the ribs are in, it sometimes has a tendency to move around a little
00:39:49bit.
00:39:49So to keep it stiff from shifting around, we'll put all the ribs in.
00:40:00We got all the ribs in place where they need to go.
00:40:02So we're going to start getting it all welded up and get it flipped around and do the full weld.
00:40:13Juan's having me cut some carpets for the sluice blocks and then some miner's moss.
00:40:18So a little more step closer to getting it installed.
00:40:26When you weld, you get all these BBs here that are stuck to the floor.
00:40:29So I'm just cleaning these up.
00:40:36How's it going, Juan?
00:40:38Oh, we're just about done, Fred.
00:40:39Looks good.
00:40:40It's a stout sluice box there, buddy.
00:40:42Come out pretty good.
00:40:43Yeah.
00:40:43Well, that ground we looked at at Jim's that Ryan can lease looked good.
00:40:48Took one pan of it is all, but there was 12 colors in the pan.
00:40:52And that's what he needs, you know.
00:40:53So if he has other options, you know, he can keep his dream alive.
00:40:56Well, while you're doing this one, we're going to get a dump truck and take a couple loads of that
00:41:00new material at Jim's.
00:41:01Up to the plant.
00:41:02Perfect.
00:41:03See what's in it.
00:41:04That's a great idea.
00:41:05I'll get this finished up and we'll get it up top.
00:41:06Got it.
00:41:07All right, buddy.
00:41:07See you in a bit.
00:41:08See you in a bit.
00:41:09I'm really excited for Nolan and Ryan with that ground and the sluice box set up properly.
00:41:14Catching that fine gold, their dream is still possible now.
00:41:16So I couldn't be happier.
00:41:19There's one final modification to complete the sluice box before it goes to the claim.
00:41:25I'm going to weld these jacks on the side of the sluice box.
00:41:27I got the box at the right angle where we're going to have it.
00:41:30And then that way when I weld these on, I can weld them level.
00:41:32So that way the jack legs coming down there straight.
00:41:35So if you look at it, it's got the angle of the sluice box coming down, but the jack perfectly
00:41:42level.
00:41:43If you put the jacks in wrong, it'll actually want to push or pull the sluice box away from
00:41:48the plant.
00:41:48So this way we actually just lift up the front of the sluice box and we're not putting any
00:41:52unnecessary strain on the pins or on the bolts.
00:41:57It's ready to go.
00:41:58All we got to do is load it up and get it up to the mine site and get it
00:42:01in place.
00:42:13Well, we're digging that material that we've had that looked good.
00:42:17So we'll take some loads up and get it run through the plant and see what kind of gold
00:42:21lives in it.
00:42:23To give Ryan and Nolan a better idea of the profit they could make, the second test run
00:42:29will use pay from the new claim.
00:42:32I'm excited to see it.
00:42:33I'm excited as well, Freddy.
00:42:35I think it might be our future.
00:42:37Yeah.
00:42:38It's on the line.
00:42:42This is a good feeling knowing that we actually got some material with some gold to run.
00:42:48Get that new sluice box on there.
00:42:50Get your spray bar cleaned up and run this material and your future is probably here.
00:42:54Cool.
00:42:55That's what we like to hear.
00:42:59Our probability of catching gold I think just went up 100%.
00:43:02We got a full load.
00:43:04Hopefully there's gold in this.
00:43:14All right.
00:43:15You guys want to get it unstrapped?
00:43:16Okay.
00:43:17Get it all rigged up and let's walk it over and get it put in.
00:43:19Sounds good.
00:43:20All right.
00:43:21To have any chance of catching gold, Juan's thousand pound sluice needs to be fitted onto Ryan and Nolan's existing
00:43:30wash plant.
00:43:31Lift up.
00:43:33Go up just a little bit.
00:43:36There you go.
00:43:38Okay.
00:43:38Go down just a little bit, Nolan.
00:43:43Good fit.
00:43:45Right there.
00:43:47The most important piece of equipment on that site is that sluice box.
00:43:50If that sluice box is not up to par, you're going to lose gold.
00:44:05Sluice box on.
00:44:07And with Ryan trucking paint, Juan hits his final fix.
00:44:14The spray bar is just one nozzle and that nozzle unfortunately is pointing right at the bottom.
00:44:18The material is off to the side.
00:44:20So what we want to do is concentrate that water on the material to be able to wash it properly
00:44:24and get that gold bearing material and gold down into the sluice box.
00:44:31I'm using PVC because I don't really want to put a bunch of weight on it by putting a steel
00:44:34bar.
00:44:35So by putting the PVC, it's going to be a little lighter.
00:44:37We don't have to worry about this breaking or twisting off.
00:44:40We want to try to keep all the holes in line.
00:44:41So what we're going to do is use the measuring tape as a straight edge.
00:44:45What we'll do is we'll try to drill them at an angle.
00:44:47The water is going to shoot that material back and give it more time inside the trommel.
00:45:00Right there, it looks pretty good.
00:45:02I think we should be set.
00:45:10This sluice box will last the rest of your life if you take care of it.
00:45:14Okay.
00:45:15Freddy's going to show me how to lay out a sluice box.
00:45:17It's something I've never done before, so I usually have my dad do all that work.
00:45:21But that's probably why we're not catching gold out of the old sluice box.
00:45:25I want to be up here finding that gold.
00:45:27So it's going to be awesome to hear what he has to say.
00:45:31Here's our carpets, here's our riffles.
00:45:33So I want you to take the green carpet and run it all the way down.
00:45:38Start from the top here?
00:45:40But I'd start from the bottom.
00:45:42Why?
00:45:42Because how do shingles on a roof work?
00:45:46They overlap one another, right?
00:45:47Right.
00:45:48So if you started your shingles at the top, it'd be wrong.
00:45:50Right.
00:45:51Then that one goes.
00:45:52That one right up here.
00:45:53Okay.
00:45:53Then we'll leave it long, right?
00:45:55It doesn't matter.
00:45:56So now let's put some miner's moss up top.
00:45:59What's this miner's moss do?
00:46:01Well, it's got a deeper loop to it.
00:46:03So it'll help hold onto that gold.
00:46:06So we're going to leave a little gap here.
00:46:08For what?
00:46:09Well, it makes a change in the sluice box.
00:46:11Right.
00:46:12Change is good when it comes to gold.
00:46:14So let's put our light expanded in the bottom.
00:46:17That's the smaller stuff here?
00:46:18Yep.
00:46:19So you see how it's bowed?
00:46:20Right.
00:46:21So we want to have where it's bowed in the middle down, right?
00:46:24That way when we put the boards down, it'll pinch it down all the way through.
00:46:28Okay.
00:46:29So this way.
00:46:30Good.
00:46:31Okay, let's grab our heavy expanded and start at the top there, Nolan.
00:46:34Okay.
00:46:35There you go.
00:46:35Perfect.
00:46:36Okay, now let's lay our boards in.
00:46:38Are these a long one?
00:46:39Yeah, grab our long ones.
00:46:42Okay.
00:46:44Yeah, my dad always took care of this part.
00:46:46Well, it's up to you now.
00:46:48Right.
00:46:48Because you're the future.
00:46:49Yeah.
00:46:50So now grab some wedges.
00:46:53Here you go, buddy.
00:46:56We want those riffles tied into that carpet so that gold can't get underneath them.
00:47:00Okay.
00:47:04Don't hit your thumb.
00:47:05Watch your hands.
00:47:06I can get your hand out of there.
00:47:08Let me show you something here.
00:47:09So you're holding right here, right?
00:47:11If you slip with that hammer, bam, broke thumb.
00:47:13So bang, bang, bang, bang.
00:47:16So just use your hammer to do what you were trying to do with your hand, right?
00:47:20Okay.
00:47:21Drive it in.
00:47:21Right.
00:47:23So if you break your hand, then what?
00:47:26You're out of work, right?
00:47:28Yeah, then you aren't making any gold.
00:47:29No, no gold.
00:47:30So use that tool.
00:47:31Use it properly.
00:47:36There you go.
00:47:37Tap those last four and we're done.
00:47:38That's it.
00:47:43Well, let's make some gold, man.
00:47:44Yes, sir.
00:47:47It was great.
00:47:48Freddie taught me a lot.
00:47:49He even showed me some techniques how to use a hammer.
00:47:51So that was super helpful and stuff I haven't learned before.
00:47:54So hopefully we can get that wash plant running and start washing some gold.
00:48:11Wow.
00:48:12That's an improvement.
00:48:14That thing looks like it'll actually catch some gold now.
00:48:17Yeah.
00:48:17And it's adjustable.
00:48:18So we put the trailer jacks on the end there.
00:48:20So that way, if we need to, we can adjust the pitch up and down.
00:48:22Okay.
00:48:24Five days ago, Freddie and Juan saw a wash plant that ran unempty.
00:48:29But the real kicker, with no gold in the ground, it was game over.
00:48:36Now, the father and son team have hope.
00:48:40On top of that, what we did over here, we put a little spray bar in there for you.
00:48:44It's real simple.
00:48:46Oh, wow.
00:48:46We just used some PVC in there.
00:48:48Yeah.
00:48:48But before you had that little fire nozzle, and it really wasn't washing the material.
00:48:52It was just...
00:48:52No, that looks awesome.
00:48:54God, you guys did great work fast.
00:48:55We didn't do a whole lot to the plant, but the biggest thing we did was try to find you
00:48:59gold.
00:49:00Absolutely.
00:49:00Because no matter what happens to your plant, if there's no gold in the ground, like this piece of property
00:49:05is mined out.
00:49:05Yeah.
00:49:06So the biggest thing that Juan and myself did for you guys, and you were involved in it as well,
00:49:11is tell you, you're done here, and let's go find some gold somewhere else.
00:49:16Absolutely.
00:49:16And it's a hard lesson.
00:49:18And we found it.
00:49:19We went and tested it.
00:49:20We found gold in it.
00:49:21So that pile of pay there that we brought from Jim's is probably your future.
00:49:26So with what Juan's taught you and what I've taught you, you're just going to have to move your plant.
00:49:31Absolutely.
00:49:31Well, we're prepared to do that.
00:49:33Well, there's only one way to find out how much gold's in that dirt, huh Juan?
00:49:36Let's do it.
00:49:37Let's do a test run.
00:49:38All right, let's do it.
00:49:39All right.
00:49:39Let's fire it up.
00:49:42I'm really excited to start running.
00:49:44We got some new pay up here, so I'm hoping we can start washing some gold and make some money.
00:50:121-0.
00:50:14First bucket.
00:50:18At Ryan Merritt's Mammoth Mine.
00:50:21Give her hell, Nolan.
00:50:23Let's make some gold.
00:50:25The second test is underway, running two hours like the first run.
00:50:31It will give Freddie and Juan a chance to see how their fixes have worked and whether the new ground
00:50:37really does have gold in it.
00:50:40Well, this material is downstream quite a few miles from where we're at, right, that we're running right now in
00:50:46the second test.
00:50:47Well, guaranteed, if there is decent gold in there, some of the gold that we're running from five, six miles
00:50:53away came from this property before it was mined out years ago.
00:50:57So, you know, that's pretty cool.
00:51:06This looks like some better pay Dad brought me.
00:51:09You know, it's worked with quite a few father and son operations over the years.
00:51:14These guys get along well.
00:51:16Yeah.
00:51:16They work great together.
00:51:17Yeah, they're a good team.
00:51:19Nolan's a young man, but he's very respectful.
00:51:21He's a good man.
00:51:22Yeah, he's not afraid to work hard.
00:51:24Works hard and he's respectful to his father.
00:51:27Can't ask for much more than that.
00:51:31Straight away, the new spray bar hits the mark.
00:51:36Look at that, Fred.
00:51:39Pretty darn clean.
00:51:40Yep.
00:51:41We can take that.
00:51:43Take that any day of the week, Juan.
00:51:45Yep.
00:51:45That's good.
00:51:47The rocks are getting their hair washed now, not just their feet.
00:51:51Oh, it's going great.
00:51:52The spray bar that they installed, it seems to be washed in the gravel.
00:51:55Awesome.
00:51:57I haven't seen any gold yet, but I know it's in the box.
00:52:00It'll be a good clean-up today.
00:52:06Just a little lean on water.
00:52:09Not enough water in the sluice could reduce the amount of gold the mats can hold.
00:52:15Go down with it a little bit, huh?
00:52:18Let me get on that side real quick.
00:52:23Let's lower.
00:52:24One.
00:52:24One, half.
00:52:25Freddie and Juan dropped the angle of the sluice to increase the speed of water and help the
00:52:30gold get lodged in the mats below.
00:52:33Three.
00:52:33Three.
00:52:35Four.
00:52:35Four.
00:52:37Five.
00:52:38Five.
00:52:41That's better.
00:52:43About right there.
00:52:44Good.
00:52:45Take a look at the box, huh?
00:52:46Yeah.
00:52:48That feels really good, right?
00:52:50Yeah.
00:52:51I like it.
00:52:54You know, it was a little lean on water, so we had to increase the pitch, but it feels really
00:52:58good.
00:52:58Yeah, for the amount of material he's running, it's running just fine.
00:53:01I like it.
00:53:04It could probably pick up the amount of material.
00:53:06We're running less material per hour now than the first run.
00:53:10Yeah.
00:53:11But everything's running good.
00:53:14I can smell the gold in this.
00:53:17It's what I've been waiting for.
00:53:19You know, we weren't able to do a lot here, but what we did is going to make a huge
00:53:23difference.
00:53:24Yeah, it will.
00:53:25You know, that sluice they had in here before was, like I said earlier, was two steps below
00:53:31scrap iron.
00:53:32Yeah.
00:53:33It really was.
00:53:34Effective sluicing area in that entire box was probably only about a foot.
00:53:38I don't think it was even that.
00:53:40Yeah.
00:53:41At least here, they got a full 12 feet of effective sluice box.
00:53:45Sluicing area.
00:53:45Yep.
00:53:46Yep.
00:53:46And multiple changes in it.
00:53:48And this will be a sluice box that they can have for years to come.
00:53:52A hundred times better than it was before.
00:53:55I know the plants are covering gold, but if there's not enough gold in that material we
00:53:59found, that's on me.
00:54:00Because that's what I spent my time here the past days doing.
00:54:04So if there's not enough gold in that dirt, that's my butt.
00:54:09After two hours...
00:54:11Hey, Nolan!
00:54:12One more!
00:54:13That'll be the last bucket!
00:54:15Freddie calls time on the test run.
00:54:28Yeah, there's gold.
00:54:29I see gold there.
00:54:30I see more gold right there in dirty water than you had in that first pan.
00:54:35Oh, come on, Freddie.
00:54:36I'm not .
00:54:36Right there.
00:54:38Yeah, I know.
00:54:38Yeah.
00:54:39Into money now.
00:54:40Well, we'll see.
00:54:41Into some better ground anyway.
00:54:43Look at that.
00:54:49That's a nice lake.
00:54:50That's a nice little flake.
00:54:51So right there, that one piece right there, it's a thousand times the amount of gold you
00:54:57had the first two hour run.
00:54:58Right?
00:54:59That one piece of gold right there.
00:55:00Wow.
00:55:00That's actually weighable.
00:55:02Yeah.
00:55:02Yeah, I can weigh that.
00:55:05Pack, pack, pack, pack.
00:55:07With gold?
00:55:07Yeah.
00:55:08Nice.
00:55:09Yeah.
00:55:10Wow.
00:55:10That's a good one.
00:55:11So this is going to be a fine clean up.
00:55:12Nice.
00:55:14From our first test run, it wasn't looking good.
00:55:16So I'm glad we found gold.
00:55:18So I'm excited about that.
00:55:20I think we found the silver lining, you know, at the end of the tunnel.
00:55:24In our case, the gold lining.
00:55:34Well, Freddie's a little hurt right now, so I had to bring a little extra muscle with
00:55:38me.
00:55:39Hey, Juanito.
00:55:40Can you grab my gloves?
00:55:41No problem, Dad.
00:55:46All right.
00:55:47I need my welding hood, please.
00:55:55What's taking so long, bud?
00:55:59Thank you, sir.
00:56:00It's on the top shelf.
00:56:01It's on the top shelf?
00:56:02It's a good thing you're taller than Uncle Freddy.
00:56:05I'm going to go walk with Uncle Freddy because he pays better.
00:56:08What?
00:56:14How's it going, Juanito?
00:56:16Can I walk with you again?
00:56:18Can you work with me again?
00:56:19Well, you sure can.
00:56:23Let me pay you for yesterday.
00:56:24Come on, let's go to work.
00:56:45Have you panned much, Nolan?
00:56:47No, not much.
00:56:49Keen to see an early indication on the run, Freddie has one last master class
00:56:54for Nolan.
00:56:56So I know it's a round pan.
00:56:58Right.
00:56:58But I'm going to call that the corner of the pan.
00:57:00Right?
00:57:01We want that gold right in the corner of that pan.
00:57:08Oh, I've seen gold.
00:57:11What this pan's telling me is you guys need to move.
00:57:14Look at that, guys.
00:57:16Holy .
00:57:17Holy cow.
00:57:19Right on, Nolan.
00:57:21Look at that.
00:57:21And that's a quarter of one pan.
00:57:24Wow.
00:57:25Holy .
00:57:26That's what we're looking for.
00:57:28That's more than I expected.
00:57:28That's it?
00:57:29I'm going to pass out.
00:57:30Thank you to you, Freddie.
00:57:31Come on.
00:57:32Look at that.
00:57:33Wow.
00:57:34That's fun.
00:57:36Yeah.
00:57:36I mean, that's fun.
00:57:37That's the stuff dreams are made of right there.
00:57:40Wow.
00:57:40Just gone from going broke fast to making a living is what you've done.
00:57:44Absolutely.
00:57:47Oh, man.
00:57:48I mean, I've never seen very much gold, really, physically in my life.
00:57:52So unbelievable.
00:57:53I'm itching to go get some more right now.
00:57:56That's just unreal.
00:57:58It's awesome.
00:58:00When I put that little bit of gravel that was in the mat in the pan and panned it, I
00:58:04couldn't
00:58:05have been happier.
00:58:05It looked good.
00:58:06So basically, get it cleaned up now.
00:58:09Get it on the scale.
00:58:10Because one thing for sure, the scale doesn't lie.
00:58:25How's it going, guys?
00:58:26Good.
00:58:27How are you guys today?
00:58:28Good.
00:58:29It's time to see if this father and son have a gold mining future.
00:58:35Well, we got some stuff.
00:58:37That's about a thousand times more than before, huh?
00:58:39Yeah.
00:58:40Or a hundred thousand times more than the first run.
00:58:42Yeah.
00:58:44Ryan and Nolan need one ounce a day to turn a profit.
00:58:47But after a disastrous first clean up.
00:58:50There's no use laying that.
00:58:52I don't think my scale even went.
00:58:54Finding new ground was key.
00:58:58Well, let's see.
00:58:59All right.
00:59:07You know .14?
00:59:08Look at that.
00:59:09Woo!
00:59:10That's amazing.
00:59:12That's awesome.
00:59:12What do you think, Nolan?
00:59:13Yeah.
00:59:14Yeah, I like that.
00:59:14These guys appreciate it.
00:59:15Yeah, thank you.
00:59:16You're welcome.
00:59:17You guys are amazing.
00:59:18The result of the second two hour run is equivalent to three quarters of an ounce of gold per day.
00:59:25But they need an ounce in their pocket to turn a profit and have to give Jim a percentage of
00:59:32recovered gold as part of the lease deal.
00:59:35Which means they need at least one and a half ounces of gold a day to have a future.
00:59:42But if you double your production, what's that a day?
00:59:44Ounce and a half.
00:59:44Yeah.
00:59:45Ounce and a half a day, right?
00:59:46Yep.
00:59:46Thing is, you were feeding it super slow.
00:59:49You could still run a ton more material through the box.
00:59:51Yeah.
00:59:51The box can handle more.
00:59:52Right.
00:59:52So you could have doubled your production, right?
00:59:54If not more.
00:59:55Yeah.
00:59:55You can actually get to the point where, you know, you're making an ounce and a half a day.
01:00:00That's above and beyond what we would need to, you know, stay profitable and keep mining too.
01:00:05That's all.
01:00:06Yeah.
01:00:06I'm really excited for Nolan and Ryan because that second gold way is where they need to be.
01:00:10Really the big win here is their dream of having a father-son operation is still alive and it's possible
01:00:16now.
01:00:16So I'm extremely happy.
01:00:18It's really exciting for Nolan and I to be able to work together.
01:00:21You know, he was thinking, you know, going home with his tail between his legs.
01:00:25I was thinking the same thing, thinking I was going to let him down.
01:00:28So seeing this last gold way, that just brings a smile to everyone's face.
01:00:33After seeing that first gold way, I wasn't very happy.
01:00:36I was just wondering if I was wasting my time coming over here and trying to pursue a gold mine
01:00:41dream.
01:00:41But we found gold.
01:00:43So, you know what?
01:00:44I think we've got a future here.
01:00:48We're scared to death.
01:00:49We're like, what are we going to do?
01:00:51There's no gold here.
01:00:52Right.
01:00:53We just went to fix a gold mine where there's no gold left.
01:00:56Absolutely.
01:00:56We're screwed.
01:00:58Hold on.
01:00:59Yeah.
01:01:00Really, that's the best possible outcome we could have thought of.
01:01:03Yeah, I think so.
01:01:04All right.
01:01:04Pleasure.
01:01:06Gentlemen.
01:01:07Thanks.
01:01:07Ready?
01:01:09Thanks a lot, Ryan.
01:01:10Take it easy, buddy.
01:01:10Don't forget your gold.
01:01:16It's been a fairly difficult week.
01:01:18You know, my shoulder hurts.
01:01:20Then the biggest thing, though, beyond that was getting here and finding that there was no gold left on the
01:01:24property.
01:01:24So it makes your mood go downhill fast.
01:01:29But if we wouldn't have came in here, they'd have been out of business pretty quick.
01:01:33So now they can mine some ground that's got good gold on it.
01:01:36So their future's bright.
01:01:38You know, just run, run, run.
01:01:40Put gold in your pocket.
01:01:49Hey, Freddie and Juan.
01:01:50We've got a chance to mine, you know, a little bit more of that pay dirt from Jim.
01:01:54We're doubling our production now.
01:01:56So, you know, we're getting up to an ounce and a half a day now.
01:02:00Oh, yeah.
01:02:00The gold's in there.
01:02:02That sluice box was built so well, it might last my whole life.
01:02:06Without your guys' help, we would be dead the water.
01:02:09But, you know, you showing us some new ground and fixing up our plant and stuff, it's been really a
01:02:14blessing to us.
01:02:16Hopefully we have a future to work together and, you know, there's nothing better than having a family, someone that
01:02:21you can trust.
01:02:23Thanks, Freddie and Juan.
01:02:25You guys are awesome.
01:02:26You're welcome.
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