- 2 days ago
Parker bets on a risky claim and loses a key team member. Tony storms a new cut with a fleet of new mega machines. Rick's skeleton crew pulls off a miracle. Fred heads to Klondike seeking an alliance.
概览与关键事件 :--
• 帕克·施纳贝尔（Parker Schnabel）：押注于一个高风险的新矿区，这导致了早期的运营压力，并造成了一名核心团队成员的流失。
• 托尼·比茨（Tony Beets）：进驻一个新开采区，并投入了一批全新的大型机械设备，以实现其黄金开采目标。
• 里克·内斯（Rick Ness）：在人手极度紧缺的情况下，于采矿季初期创造了一个“奇迹”，成功维持了矿场的运转。
• 弗雷德·刘易斯（Fred Lewis）：前往克朗代克（Klondike）寻求结盟，并着手建立自己的采矿基地。
概览与关键事件 :--
• 帕克·施纳贝尔（Parker Schnabel）：押注于一个高风险的新矿区，这导致了早期的运营压力，并造成了一名核心团队成员的流失。
• 托尼·比茨（Tony Beets）：进驻一个新开采区，并投入了一批全新的大型机械设备，以实现其黄金开采目标。
• 里克·内斯（Rick Ness）：在人手极度紧缺的情况下，于采矿季初期创造了一个“奇迹”，成功维持了矿场的运转。
• 弗雷德·刘易斯（Fred Lewis）：前往克朗代克（Klondike）寻求结盟，并着手建立自己的采矿基地。
Category
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TVTranscript
00:00:06The Yukon River is huge, nearly 2,000 miles long and for six months of the year it's frozen solid.
00:00:23When it starts to crack that's the same.
00:00:30You know it's time to get going.
00:00:35The gold rush starts again.
00:00:43There's a war for ground in the Yukon.
00:00:45All the good ground is tied up.
00:00:48That's why we're digging deeper than ever.
00:00:52We're hunting for ground.
00:00:55As soon as you start getting desperate.
00:00:59People can smell it on you.
00:01:02And that's dangerous.
00:01:04We need ground.
00:01:06We gotta trust something and we gotta trust somebody.
00:01:14I'm 38 years in the game and I've never seen anything like this.
00:01:19I spent a lot of money in the off season.
00:01:22I'm making this my year.
00:01:26Let's crank it up.
00:01:28This ain't like any other season.
00:01:31Right now it looks like we're dead in the water.
00:01:34Sometimes we have to force our way through something.
00:01:37That's just what you're gonna have to do.
00:01:43Out on the Indian River, Parker, Tony, those guys are battling for the last bits of good ground.
00:01:49I seen that coming and I got the hell out of there.
00:01:53I'm doubling down and I'm going for 2,000 ounces.
00:01:57Bigger the better.
00:01:59That looks massive.
00:02:01I've got no crew, but I'm coming out fighting.
00:02:06You got one job. Why can't you do it?
00:02:08Well, that's on you.
00:02:10This is what I've been waiting for. This is next level.
00:02:19For me right now, the mining is more than just gold.
00:02:23Oh yeah!
00:02:26Two Green Berets leading the charge.
00:02:30I'm on a mission to make a better life for my all veteran crew.
00:02:34This is about living the American dream.
00:02:37You guys made it!
00:02:38How's it going?
00:02:39Good, how you been?
00:02:40It's a treasure hunt. Who doesn't love a treasure hunt?
00:02:44Everybody that's looking for grounds competition, right?
00:02:48Finally it's losing gold. This right here is what it's all about.
00:02:52I will not fail again.
00:03:06Many of the kids will be here in a bit, so I'll just tell them what my plan is for
00:03:10this year.
00:03:12Klondike legend Tony Beetz, once a farmer in the Netherlands, now stands at the top of a gold mining dynasty.
00:03:21At an age when most people would retire, Tony's primed to make big moves.
00:03:30Hey guys.
00:03:33Right now, I think that this gold price is off to date. Now is the time to get excited.
00:03:38Before I turn 65, I'm planning on making that my biggest season ever.
00:03:42Make some real money.
00:03:43Oh, I'm never surprised by your plans anymore.
00:03:46So, let's say we just spent $5 million worth on equipment, but we're going to come back here with three
00:03:51times more iron than we're left with.
00:03:53So I wouldn't see a big problem running 9,000 ounces.
00:03:57They think it is well within our f***ing reach.
00:04:00Don't count your chickens till they have to do it.
00:04:02Well, half of them are head still ready, so it would be pretty simple.
00:04:04Yeah.
00:04:05Yeah, piece of cake.
00:04:07We're going to have to hit the ground running.
00:04:09We are definitely going to go flat out for a while.
00:04:12Day shift, night drift?
00:04:13Oh yeah, 24 hours a f***ing day.
00:04:15Gear and the hill?
00:04:16Oh yeah.
00:04:18So let's just go out and let's go do it.
00:04:20For nearly 40 years, Tony snatched up gold rich ground in the Yukon.
00:04:27Now, with gold prices holding at historic highs, he's looking for a monster payday.
00:04:34To get his $16 million payout, Tony's reopening his Indian River operation, where he hopes to bank 5,000 ounces.
00:04:46Forty miles north, he's counting on his Paradise Hill claims to deliver the other 4,000 ounces of gold.
00:04:54Right now in the Yukon, there's a lot of people looking for ground.
00:04:57At least we're fortunate that we have plenty of it.
00:05:01But there's one massive problem.
00:05:06We still don't have a water license in the Indian River.
00:05:10As long as we get it in the next three, four weeks, that's good.
00:05:14Let's concentrate on the hill, and run as much material as we can, and get as much gold out of
00:05:19here as we can.
00:05:22Mike, Mike, Mike D, copy?
00:05:24Yo, hey, you've got six trucks, get a 950 D11, have them follow you, so nobody gets lost and let's
00:05:31go to the Nugget Cup, then we'll stop stripping down there.
00:05:33Okay. Let's get going.
00:05:35In order to get 9,000 ounces, I mean, we need more equipment and bigger.
00:05:45Okay, three rock trucks behind the excavator, three rock trucks behind the toes, and let's go, go, go.
00:05:55Leading the charge to push the first dirt of the season at Paradise Hill.
00:06:00A brand new massive 850 horsepower D11 dozer that can shift 45 yards of dirt in one push.
00:06:11And a 100-ton 950 excavator, the biggest in the Yukon.
00:06:19Okay, back it up, Mike. Keep her going, Mike.
00:06:22Keep.
00:06:24Okay.
00:06:40Yeah, let's go for it.
00:06:44Rock trucks, D, copy, rock trucks, D, copy.
00:06:46Let's give a .
00:06:49If we're going to do 9,000 ounces, we'd better open up some ground.
00:06:53Okay.
00:06:54The Nugget Cup, that'd be a good, quick cut with some decent pay on the needed.
00:06:59Tony's first target on the hill, an eight-acre cut he discovered 30 years ago, filled with big gold nuggets.
00:07:18We need to move a absolute crap ton of dirt this year. We're going to reach Tony's goal.
00:07:24Gold is high right now, so strike while the iron is hot.
00:07:36That thing pushes a nice load of dirt, you know.
00:07:41I might have to get one more, huh?
00:07:47When Tony discovered the prime piece of land, he didn't have big enough equipment to get down to the pay
00:07:54layer, 80 feet below the surface.
00:07:57Even last year, it would have taken at least three weeks to get to pay.
00:08:03But with his new arsenal, Tony wants it done in just five days.
00:08:13It definitely is nice to have the 950, three and a half scoops to a rock truck, and it's full.
00:08:23At least when I had the kits on the dozers and the excavators, I don't have to be here.
00:08:28With all these years working together, you kind of think together too, you know.
00:08:32As the beats race to transform the family's future, daughter Monica has the biggest role of all.
00:08:41Now Monica is, of course, pregnant, so it'll be kind of nice to have a granddaughter.
00:08:46Minnie's all excited anyway.
00:08:49My father likes to pretend he's not excited, but he is very much excited.
00:08:54Tony can look so scary and intimidating.
00:08:57It'll just melt for dogs and kids.
00:09:03Three generations mining for gold here, that'd be pretty cool.
00:09:08What I'd really like to do is get as much gold out of the ground, get as much money in
00:09:13my pocket as I can.
00:09:15I mean, that would be pretty nice for the future generation.
00:09:19You're getting all mushy in your own day, sir.
00:09:21Oh, I'm getting all mushy, all right.
00:09:22You can always make more money, but you only got one family.
00:09:47Yeah, you know, I'm happy to be back up here, though.
00:09:50It's been brutally cold, but it's just finally starting to warm up.
00:09:54In just eight seasons in the Klondike, Parker Schnabel has gone from an 18-year-old mining prodigy to one
00:10:02of the region's top producers.
00:10:05After clocking record gold totals year after year, now the seasoned 26-year-old is at a crossroads.
00:10:13I don't know where we're going to be mining this year.
00:10:17We're just eating all the reserves faster than ever.
00:10:23Last season, Parker mined a record $14 million in gold.
00:10:28But he chewed through so much ground, he's now running out.
00:10:34And the future of his operation is in jeopardy, forcing him into survival mode.
00:10:41And with gold prices going up, it's a terrible time to be looking for ground.
00:10:45Like, landowners are in complete control right now.
00:10:48And that means doing a lot of hunting because all the good ground's tied up.
00:10:52And that makes, that makes me stressed out.
00:11:01I don't know that a good friend of mine, you know, he's been here before, Liam Ferguson.
00:11:07And Liam's in the area, so I might just see if he'll come over and talk to me a little
00:11:10bit about it.
00:11:12Liam Ferguson drills for gold all over the Klondike and knows just about every landowner out there.
00:11:20Hey man.
00:11:21How's it going?
00:11:21Good, how are you?
00:11:22Not too bad.
00:11:23How's your spring?
00:11:24It's been going good so far.
00:11:26Yeah?
00:11:26Pretty busy.
00:11:28What's up?
00:11:30We're just about done, like, around our camp.
00:11:33And there's very few pieces of ground left.
00:11:35Well, I drilled some ground for your neighbor last fall.
00:11:38That turned out pretty good.
00:11:39He was looking to lease it out.
00:11:42And what's your opinion of it?
00:11:43It's really good ground, yeah.
00:11:45But we got a very clear, defined channel.
00:11:47The holes ranged from mid-40s up to mid-60s.
00:11:52The neighbor's ground sits a mile east of Parker's airstrip cut.
00:11:58Liam's drill results show a unique pay streak in an ancient riverbed.
00:12:04The tests show five times more gold than other claims on the Indian River.
00:12:10But it's covered in a layer of sticky black glacial overburden, 60 feet thick.
00:12:17Deeper than any Yukon ground Parker's ever mined.
00:12:22It's a lot of dirt to move.
00:12:23Expensive to strip.
00:12:25We haven't mined much ground like that.
00:12:28Yeah, well, I mean, I can at least tell you that the results are real and that we're confident in
00:12:32what we found there.
00:12:33It's up to you to work out a deal that makes sense for you, I guess.
00:12:37It's not going to be a particularly good deal because he is a gold miner and he knows what he's
00:12:42got.
00:12:43Yeah.
00:12:47Can you give me some resource insurance?
00:12:49No.
00:12:53Case of beer, if there's no gold in it.
00:12:55Perfect.
00:12:55Cool it, cool it even.
00:12:57It's a rare chance to mine such a gold rich claim.
00:13:01And Parker's only hope of securing enough ground to keep his operation running.
00:13:07I'm going to go see if we can make something work with him.
00:13:10In this industry, as soon as you start getting desperate, people can, like, smell it on you.
00:13:19Right?
00:13:23Very close to being desperate.
00:13:27He is, you know, not too interested in being involved in TV stuff.
00:13:34And, uh, I definitely won't get anywhere with him if you're with me.
00:13:46I don't know.
00:13:46His camp's just up here, so I'm booting you out here.
00:13:50There's a car behind me that'll pick you up.
00:13:51I think that's your guy.
00:13:52Yeah.
00:13:53Get out.
00:13:55Please.
00:13:56He is.
00:14:11I think that's my fault.
00:14:13I think that's your choice.
00:14:14Right now.
00:14:14We've all been waiting for you to watch some of your friends.
00:14:24I think that's it.
00:14:25We're, I think, not all you.
00:14:26for ground, Parker Schnabel returns from a meeting
00:14:29with a neighboring claim owner.
00:14:32And right now, it's just that it's a seller's market.
00:14:35You know, the price of gold's high.
00:14:37He's offered it to us, not really
00:14:40in the most favorable of terms.
00:14:43You know, I'm usually pretty open about drilling and mining
00:14:48and deals and whatnot, because I don't really care.
00:14:50But he doesn't want much details on TV, so.
00:14:54Parker believes the nine-acre cut could hold 8,000 ounces
00:14:59of gold, a $14 million haul.
00:15:03But to mine the 60-foot-deep cut, Parker
00:15:07will have to drop over $1 million just to get down to pay dirt
00:15:12and find out if the ground's as rich as everyone says.
00:15:17They're willing to gamble and take big risks.
00:15:21We need to keep the company running.
00:15:22Everything else is just stupid details.
00:15:38100 miles east of the Indian River, Rick Ness begins his fourth year
00:15:44running his own mining operation after two rocky seasons.
00:15:50I don't know what else to do right now.
00:15:52I mean, it's just, it's getting out of control.
00:15:54Shut the pump off!
00:15:55Shut the pump off!
00:15:57What did I drag all these guys into?
00:15:59Shutting it down.
00:16:00They're going home.
00:16:01It's as simple as that.
00:16:03Last year, he came back from the brink of disaster.
00:16:06If we hadn't done this this year, I don't know that there would have been another year.
00:16:10This represents you guys' bonuses.
00:16:16Now, he's getting a jump on the season, arriving early to his Duncan Creek claim.
00:16:22Big, strong, handsome dozer.
00:16:25And he's bringing out the big guns.
00:16:28I've dropped a half a million dollars on the biggest dozer money can buy.
00:16:33This dozer is obnoxiously expensive.
00:16:39This thing can push 60 yards at a time.
00:16:42That's three of my 40-ton rock trucks at once.
00:16:46The 200,000-pound, 900-horsepower Komatsu makes quick work of stripping the first section of Rick's Creek Cut.
00:16:55Where we're starting this year, the gold is really good, and all it's going to take is just an hour
00:16:59or two to strip.
00:16:59You know, is the cost worth it?
00:17:01I think we're going to prove that it is.
00:17:02We're going to be able to strip so far ahead so fast, it's almost ridiculous.
00:17:07The bigger, the better.
00:17:10This year's all about going big.
00:17:12I'm going to double what I got last year.
00:17:13We're going for 2,000 ounces.
00:17:152,000 ounces worth $3.6 million would move Rick's operation to the next level
00:17:22and prove that his bold decision to get out of the Klondike was the right one.
00:17:29You know, having a dozer, especially a dozer this size, is kind of one of the last pieces of the
00:17:35puzzle to putting, you know, the entire package together.
00:17:37Being a legitimate, mind-boss, makes things pretty real.
00:17:43This season, Rick has also invested in a million-dollar 750 excavator.
00:17:49He needs all the horsepower he can get.
00:17:53After starting his operation with a team of hometown buddies, years of struggling to find gold have left him with
00:18:01just one, Chris Kruse.
00:18:04As good as it feels to be back up here and doing our thing.
00:18:08Being gone for six months, it's never easy.
00:18:13Got married to my fiancé of 10 years, Michelle.
00:18:16Rick married Michelle and I in his backyard.
00:18:19And then we went to a baseball game that night.
00:18:22It's a pretty good day.
00:18:24And I hope everything, you know, plays out the way we hope it's going to this year,
00:18:29because it would make it that much sweeter being gone.
00:18:30It's my wife for six months.
00:18:38Good to see you, buddy.
00:18:40The wash plant's right where we left it.
00:18:42Yeah, it didn't move itself.
00:18:43No, and it's still half beaten to death.
00:18:47She's looking pretty sad.
00:18:51We're going to have to get this thing running, because you know the name of the game.
00:18:55If there ain't gold coming in, it's money going out the door.
00:18:58Not a good business funnel.
00:19:01Well, as usual, we've been plagued with problems.
00:19:03I mean, Carla, she's focusing on other things, man.
00:19:06So she's not coming back this year.
00:19:08That's going to suck.
00:19:09She's got my little buddy around camp.
00:19:11You know, Carl, he's going in for his surgery.
00:19:14And his health, I mean, his health's number one.
00:19:18Without mechanic Carl Rosk or gold room operator Carla Ann, Rick is a miner without a crew.
00:19:26It's tough losing, you know, integral parts of the crew,
00:19:29but we're going to have to figure out a way to do it,
00:19:31because we've got 2,000 ounces to get this year.
00:19:33There's definitely no way I can fill both their shoes.
00:19:36It would be nice to have another set of hands, though, I'll tell you that.
00:19:39And I will have some help for you, I think.
00:19:42So you guys can hit the ground running.
00:19:45Yeah, there's a ton of to do. Let's go, man.
00:19:52On the road up to Duncan Creek, Rick's newest crew member heads towards a fresh start.
00:20:01Here I am on my way back up here to the Yukon.
00:20:05I just knew it was time for a change.
00:20:07Whole new crew, whole new blood, and a whole new way of mining.
00:20:16Mining veteran Brennan Rouault is jumping ship from Parker's claim.
00:20:24Last year was pretty brutal.
00:20:27Parker and I seem to not see eye to eye anymore.
00:20:30It's very draining and stressful.
00:20:32When you're angry half the time, like, that's no way to work, you know?
00:20:37Brennan met Rick on Parker's claim six years ago.
00:20:41When Rick was the foreman and Brennan a greenhorn operator.
00:20:45Nice work today, boss. We did good.
00:20:48Woo!
00:20:51Two seasons ago, he was promoted to co-foreman himself.
00:20:55I guess the big question is if you are game for that.
00:20:58I'll definitely step up.
00:20:59But after a series of run-ins with Parker.
00:21:02I have hardly done any of this.
00:21:04I don't care.
00:21:06You're in charge or are you not in charge?
00:21:08He reached the end of his rope.
00:21:10So over this whole , man.
00:21:14I'll pack my and leave right now.
00:21:15I don't give a about any of this .
00:21:18And right there, I kind of knew.
00:21:20I was like, well, this, I don't think is going to go any farther for me.
00:21:24This year, I just want to run some big gear, move some dirt,
00:21:27and, you know, go back to having a nice, fun summer like it used to be
00:21:30and kill it and hopefully find a ton of gold.
00:21:40Ricky!
00:21:41Coming to see if you need some help in this season.
00:21:44How's it going, buddy?
00:21:46Yeah.
00:21:47Been a few years, eh?
00:21:49No .
00:21:49Man, I'm glad you're here.
00:21:51Yeah, me too.
00:21:51You know, Parker and I just seem to, for some reason,
00:21:55start butting heads a little bit more in the last few years
00:21:57and it's just made it quite tough and draining at the end of the day.
00:22:01Yeah.
00:22:01Well, I certainly know that feeling.
00:22:03Yeah.
00:22:03I know you know.
00:22:05Yeah.
00:22:05So now we're reunited.
00:22:06Yes, sir.
00:22:07I can't wait to get out there and get started
00:22:09and start learning some new ground here, man.
00:22:11Yeah, buddy.
00:22:12It's going to be fun.
00:22:13I'm going to throw my boots on.
00:22:14Why don't you go throw your work clothes on me down there?
00:22:16Sounds good, bud.
00:22:16Thanks.
00:22:21Oh, boy.
00:22:23How's this going, buddy?
00:22:24Brandon.
00:22:25Crazy boy.
00:22:26What's going on, buddy?
00:22:27How much? Nice to see you.
00:22:28Oh, you look good.
00:22:29Thanks.
00:22:30Wow.
00:22:31You're a big crew.
00:22:32Right?
00:22:33Yeah, huge.
00:22:35I'm excited personally to start getting some gold.
00:22:37So let's get after it, buddy.
00:22:56I've been through some pretty complicated scenarios in the military
00:22:59where my life and my career was at jeopardy every single day.
00:23:04And reality is gold mining is the most difficult thing I've ever done.
00:23:11But I'm not a quitter.
00:23:12I've never quit anything in my life.
00:23:14If we can just find ground, I feel like we can succeed.
00:23:20Special Forces veteran Fred Lewis is on a 1,500-mile journey
00:23:25determined to resurrect his gold mining dream.
00:23:29I've tried to settle in with the civilian lifestyle,
00:23:32but a 9-to-5 job is just not in my DNA.
00:23:36I packed up all my stuff.
00:23:37I'm driving up to the Yukon.
00:23:39I need this freedom.
00:23:40I need the risk.
00:23:41My mission is to find ground.
00:23:44It's the only place I know where there is good gold in the ground for a fact.
00:23:48Because last season I would pretty much categorize as a complete failure.
00:23:52I had a window of opportunity.
00:23:54I took it.
00:23:56In Oregon last year, Fred and his band of combat veterans mined just $12,000 worth of gold.
00:24:06That puts our total at 6.39, which is honestly embarrassing.
00:24:14Now, after striking out prospecting in the lower 48, Fred's driving into the fiercest war for ground in decades,
00:24:23hanging his hopes on a meeting with his only contact in the Yukon.
00:24:31Marker's the only one in this game I know that I can trust wholeheartedly,
00:24:35and he's the only one I know that will give me advice.
00:24:37Maybe he has somebody I can go talk to.
00:24:39Maybe he has ground I don't know about.
00:24:41It's really the only option we have at this point.
00:24:43It's a Hail Mary, but I'd rather throw a Hail Mary than lose the game.
00:25:03Fred Lewis has traveled to the Yukon in a desperate last attempt to find ground to mine this season.
00:25:11Hello?
00:25:12I'm in here.
00:25:14You want a coffee?
00:25:16I'm good, thanks.
00:25:19So how's everything going here, man?
00:25:21It's going good.
00:25:22We just signed the lease on a block of ground that is average depth is like 55 feet of mud.
00:25:30Oh, wow.
00:25:31Yeah.
00:25:32Man, so you just got to go layer by layer on this, huh?
00:25:37So, that's a big project.
00:25:38That is yuck.
00:25:40That leads me to something I was going to ask you about,
00:25:41because the team, we put a lot into this off-season looking for ground,
00:25:45and it's just, there's nothing that was viable.
00:25:48So, this is like my last hoorah to come up here to see if I can find something.
00:25:53Right.
00:25:54And so you're just looking for ground right now, huh?
00:25:57Yeah.
00:25:57I don't necessarily want to ask you for help, but I know you might know.
00:25:59Aren't we all looking for ground?
00:26:01Right.
00:26:03It is a little conflicting for me because, like,
00:26:06there's a very finite number of ounces of gold in the ground,
00:26:12and at a certain point, everybody that's looking for ground is competition, right?
00:26:20Now I'm, like, trying to ask for a favor, but we look for different things, though.
00:26:24We don't need a big piece of property.
00:26:25I think property you would probably not even look at.
00:26:29So, I was kind of hoping you might be able to point me in the right direction.
00:26:35Hmm.
00:26:39And you'll have no problem finding ground.
00:26:42But good ground.
00:26:44That's the difficult part.
00:26:46Right.
00:26:48It's a very hard business, and it's a difficult community to break into.
00:26:54The Yukon will punch you in the face pretty hard if you're not careful.
00:27:03What would you do if you were me?
00:27:06Honestly.
00:27:07I don't know.
00:27:08I was in your shoes, and I met Tony Beetz.
00:27:10Probably go talk to him.
00:27:11You think that would be wise?
00:27:13Just to show up and try and get his number and call him and see if he'll meet with me?
00:27:17You could just show up at Paradise Hill.
00:27:19Yeah?
00:27:21All right.
00:27:23You know, if you're into it and you know what you're getting into, then more power to you.
00:27:30All right, man. I'll get out of your hair. I know you're busier than me, so that's pretty busy.
00:27:36But thanks, dude.
00:27:37Oh, no worries. It's good to see you.
00:27:39Appreciate it.
00:27:39No worries. Let me know if you need anything.
00:27:42Yeah, you know I will.
00:27:46I wasn't expecting much, but I was expecting a lot more than that.
00:28:00Definitely not comfortable right now with what Parker said.
00:28:03It does not lead me to believe this is going to be easy.
00:28:21Don't have time to eat except for at lunch. Don't have time to, like, barely have enough time to drink
00:28:26water.
00:28:29Now we're in kind of a rush mode.
00:28:32We are doing a big push right now to at least expose the cuts, get them all ready to go.
00:28:37That'll allow myself and Tony to focus out on the Indian.
00:28:40As the Beats family wait on a water license for their Indian River claims,
00:28:45it's all hands on deck to strip the nugget cut at Paradise Hill in record time.
00:28:54Now Ruby and I hope everybody's going to have to work extra hard to make sure that we get the
00:29:019,000 ounces.
00:29:03Tony beats for you. Go big or go home, right?
00:29:06Balls to the walls all the time.
00:29:08With Tony's new D11 dozer and 950 excavator, they've removed 80 feet of overburden in just four days, revealing a
00:29:19massive 40-foot wall of pay dirt.
00:29:23We've hit gravel and hay in the back.
00:29:29Yippee-ki-yay.
00:29:34Monica's school friend Ruby Mahoney pulls down the pay dirt to load it into rock trucks.
00:29:43You know, it's crunch time, we have to get this dirt moved.
00:29:53Holy , this stuff is solid.
00:30:14I'm just wasting time here, I cannot get through this.
00:30:18This is just not working.
00:30:23Tony, do you copy? Tony, do you copy?
00:30:25Go ahead.
00:30:27This wall is completely solid.
00:30:28You are out of down still.
00:30:30Can you please come and talk to me?
00:30:32Stay there, I'll be right back.
00:30:37Looks like there's no rock trucks running.
00:30:39Cost serious money.
00:30:42Cannot have all the trucks and everybody sitting there and having a good time and not moving any dirt.
00:30:47That's not how it works.
00:30:53What do you got, Ruby?
00:30:55This wall is completely frozen.
00:30:57It's too frozen, huh?
00:30:59Yeah, she's solid.
00:31:00I can see that.
00:31:02We'll put that D11 in there and then we'll just rip the out.
00:31:05To rip through the frozen section, Tony plans to take his brand new $2.7 million D11 dozer to the
00:31:15top of the pay dirt cliff.
00:31:17He'll then go right to the edge of the 40-foot drop and use the 10-ton ripper shank to
00:31:23break up the frozen layer so the excavator can get to the pay dirt beneath.
00:31:34The D11 has arrived.
00:31:57Well let's see.
00:31:59The wall freezes in.
00:32:01Oh, sometimes five, sometimes 10 feet thick.
00:32:04Right now, this one is in my way.
00:32:07You get high enough, sink the ripper in, pull the whole cliff down.
00:32:13The sooner we get the sluicing, the happier everybody else.
00:32:17Instead of spending money, you're going to be making some money.
00:32:19We have to force our way through something,
00:32:22and then that's just what you're going to have to do.
00:32:25This way, this way, this way.
00:32:27Tony maneuvers the 120-ton machine right to the very cusp of the 40-foot drop.
00:32:35Care the f*** out.
00:32:37Ready to roll?
00:33:08As Tony busts through the permafrost,
00:33:11Ruby removes the pay dirt beneath.
00:33:22I'll rip that f***ing nop out, get the rock trucks back in there,
00:33:26and get rid of this dirt.
00:33:30See what happens when I do it myself.
00:33:33Tony has pay dirt ready to run a full month earlier than last year.
00:33:38A vital head start on his mammoth 9,000-ounce goal.
00:33:44You think that kid will be as goofy as the mother's?
00:33:48Huh?
00:33:50I can say a f***.
00:33:53You're a chicken, Kevin.
00:33:55You want to say that again?
00:33:57No.
00:34:12I'm finally almost to the clean.
00:34:16Parker Schnabel's foreman, Mitch Blaschke,
00:34:19arrives at Scribner Creek for a milestone season.
00:34:23You know, I can't believe that this year is my 10th year of mining.
00:34:30You know, when I started this,
00:34:31I was just a young guy coming up here trying to figure it out
00:34:34and wanting to work on stuff,
00:34:36and, you know, now I'm helping run Parker's mine site.
00:34:41Mitch first came to the Klondike
00:34:43as a fresh-faced mechanic for Todd Huffman
00:34:46with no gold mining experience.
00:34:48For the last seven years, he's worked for Parker.
00:34:52He's going to be coming right through here.
00:34:54He's going to watch yourselves.
00:34:55Rising up the ranks to become his most trusted wingman.
00:34:58Woo!
00:35:01But now he's without his co-foreman, Brennan Ruo.
00:35:06He's my go-to guy.
00:35:08I mean, we're bro-men, you know.
00:35:09We do all this together,
00:35:10and we work so well with one another,
00:35:14try and find another guy like that.
00:35:17It just doesn't come around that often.
00:35:20It is what it is, you know.
00:35:22I'm back here,
00:35:23and just going to have to try and make the best of it.
00:35:25Here we are.
00:35:27Oh, I see he's got a golf cart.
00:35:29What's happening?
00:35:30What's that?
00:35:31Now, see, I might go for a ride with you and Matt.
00:35:33How you been, man?
00:35:34Good, how are you?
00:35:35Not too bad.
00:35:36Good to see you.
00:35:37Dude.
00:35:37How are you doing?
00:35:39Good.
00:35:39I'm sure you heard about Brennan.
00:35:40I talked to him just a couple weeks ago there,
00:35:44said that he wasn't going to be here this year.
00:35:46I'm just pissed off that he didn't tell me until March.
00:35:49You know?
00:35:53I mean, we've been working hard to get this system running good.
00:35:57Man, you take a guy like that out of the mix.
00:35:59It's a pisser, but it's all right.
00:36:01We'll be fine.
00:36:02Yeah, we'll still figure it out.
00:36:04See what we can do.
00:36:05I mean, what's the game plan for the season?
00:36:08We picked up a new block of ground.
00:36:10Go Tuesday, we had their first meeting.
00:36:13And on Saturday, we signed the deal.
00:36:15Oh, wow.
00:36:16How deep is it?
00:36:18Average is about 50.
00:36:22Hopefully it's got a lot at the bottom.
00:36:23Just want to make sure we don't it up.
00:36:25Well, I guess, yeah, I'll go get settled in.
00:36:28You can show me your big project here.
00:36:29I'll figure out a game plan.
00:36:31For sure.
00:36:31I'm glad you're back.
00:36:33I hope you're glad to be here because we have a lot of work to do.
00:36:36If I didn't want to be here, I wouldn't be here, right?
00:36:39That's usually...
00:36:40Whenever I say that, that usually means I don't want to be there, but I don't want to answer the
00:36:45question.
00:36:50And, you know, we definitely need some new dirt here, but it sounds like it's pretty deep.
00:36:54So I'm pretty interested to go take a look at that, see what we got going on there,
00:36:59and just see what we're going to have to do to make this season work.
00:37:01And, you know, without Brennan here, it's definitely not going to be easy.
00:37:13As the lone foreman, it's on Mitch to figure out how to tackle the new cut.
00:37:25What's happening there, young man?
00:37:27How's it going, Mitch?
00:37:28Oh, not too bad.
00:37:29Well, I see you guys found this place.
00:37:30Yeah.
00:37:31Tyson Lee, last year's rookie plant boss, and gold room expert Chris Dumit, join Mitch at the new ground.
00:37:40So what we got here is this section of ground through these claims here.
00:37:44This stuff, with the way it's drilling, if the math is right, might be 10 ounces an hour with just
00:37:49one wash plant.
00:37:50Seriously?
00:37:51Yeah.
00:37:51So we're talking like 8,000 ounces possibly then?
00:37:55The only problem is 60 feet deep.
00:37:58Oh, jeez.
00:37:59I mean, I've been doing it for 10 years now up here, and we've never gone this deep.
00:38:03We're looking at a million square feet of mud to move.
00:38:05So we're going to have to mine this a lot differently than we've done anything else.
00:38:07We've never had to tackle a project like this.
00:38:11So once we do get it opened up, we're going to gut shoot this thing right through here.
00:38:16We're going to take just the best, because when you're going 60 feet deep, you can't hit marginal ground.
00:38:21This is going to look like a crater.
00:38:22This is going to look like a Grand Canyon by the time we're done.
00:38:25To get down to the pay layer, Parker's crew normally strips around 10 feet of overburden with dozers and excavators.
00:38:35Mitch will have to dig a narrow canyon to follow the course of the ancient riverbed and its deposits of
00:38:41gold.
00:38:43He'll open a small section first to find out if the ground is flush with gold.
00:38:50He wants to do it in just 30 days.
00:38:54Yeah.
00:38:55Should we name it Mud Mountain?
00:38:57That works, because like I say, you're going to have a mountain range by the time we're done.
00:39:00It's going to be tough.
00:39:02There's no part of this that's going to be easy.
00:39:03Not to mention that, you know, we don't have, you know, we don't have Brennan here.
00:39:07We don't have, you know, a lot of people that have a lot of experience with moving material like this.
00:39:11I mean, if we have issues with any of the machinery in this, we're going to end up a couple
00:39:14hundred grand into this cut real quick.
00:39:17Yeah.
00:39:17Let's hope it pays out.
00:39:18I'm going to get back to the yard, because we've got a ton of gear in the yard that needs
00:39:22work.
00:39:22Because the last thing we want is breaking down out here.
00:39:25All right, let's do it, boys.
00:39:26No plan.
00:39:28To dig out the first section, Mitch taps rising crew member, Tyson Lee.
00:39:34How's everyone doing this morning?
00:39:36Good.
00:39:37Never been better.
00:39:38That's good.
00:39:39Parker was saying that he wants this cut opened up by June 1st when we started it.
00:39:43So that gives us 30 days.
00:39:45Just be careful.
00:39:46The roads are slick, and we just got to try and move as much mud as we can and try
00:39:50and keep the trucks from getting stuck.
00:39:51Drive safely fast.
00:39:53Yeah, exactly.
00:39:54Okay.
00:39:55Awesome.
00:39:56Let's get to work.
00:39:58Tyson and his crew are up against the toughest dirt-moving operation in Parker's mining history.
00:40:04When the melting snow mixes with the thawing fine glacial silt, it creates a toxic combination, a slippery surface riddled
00:40:15with quicksand-like holes.
00:40:19We're going to have three excavators swinging, five rock trucks, four cats ripping and pushing day and night.
00:40:26Short on crew, Parker pitches in.
00:40:28It's definitely going to be a difficult block of ground to mine.
00:40:32You know, some of the more deep ground that's on the Indian River, it does have some high royalty.
00:40:37For sure, it's going to be a challenge.
00:40:40I wouldn't be moving 60 feet of mud if I thought there wasn't a hell of a lot of gold
00:40:43down here.
00:40:59It's only the second time I've been in a helicopter without a parachute jumping out.
00:41:03If it happens, just flop your arms on the way down.
00:41:06They say it helps.
00:41:08Greenhorn miner Fred Lewis is hitching a ride with Klondike legend Tony Beetz in search of a claim to mine.
00:41:18You see that whole area down there?
00:41:20There's all been dreads and mined.
00:41:23Everything is staked and owned.
00:41:25And what isn't is probably not worthwhile having.
00:41:27Last year, the Indian River produced over $30 million worth of gold.
00:41:34High gold prices now make leasing good ground almost impossible.
00:41:40You'd come up here, you'd think there's so much, like, hard-to-reach spots.
00:41:44But I'm seeing houses up in these little valleys where people have already come up.
00:41:47They wandered around there a hundred years ago.
00:41:49They didn't miss my thread.
00:41:51Makes me wonder how much work's going to have to go into finding something that I can actually mine this
00:41:56season.
00:41:57Well, you have to find somebody with ground that he wants to lease.
00:42:02It's not easy.
00:42:03Best thing you can do is go further out, away from here.
00:42:07So, if you look all the way over there, there's a guy that owns some ground, Paul Phillips at Click
00:42:12Creek.
00:42:14You should go and track him down.
00:42:16He may have something for you.
00:42:18It's all about how much money you got, too, right?
00:42:21Yeah, and I don't have a lot.
00:42:22I like a challenge, though.
00:42:24Well, you're going to have one.
00:42:33Lessons cost money.
00:42:34Good ones cost lots.
00:42:35It sounds like you had that one last year.
00:42:37Yeah.
00:42:38And what really only counts is what do you bring home at the end of the season in your pocket
00:42:44clean.
00:42:44Right.
00:42:44You know.
00:42:45If you had a small group here, how would you hit it?
00:42:48I think I would see a doctor first.
00:42:51Yeah.
00:42:51Well, after the doctor.
00:42:52After the doctor.
00:42:53Well, it is a high-risk game, Fred.
00:42:57My advice is a lot of people are full of shit and full of promises.
00:43:01That doesn't mean it's going to be there.
00:43:03Okay.
00:43:03See what that guy, Paul Phillips, has for you in Click Creek.
00:43:06He'd be your best bet.
00:43:08I definitely want to look at it.
00:43:10All right.
00:43:11Well, I'll get out of your hair.
00:43:13Appreciate it, Tony.
00:43:16Let the guy try it.
00:43:17Give him a chance.
00:43:18There's nothing wrong with giving a person a chance.
00:43:20But not everybody succeeds.
00:43:24Is he going to cut it as a gold miner?
00:43:25Well, time will tell.
00:43:27Fred finally has a lead for a landowner who may lease him ground.
00:43:31But it's 45 miles east of the gold-rich Indian River.
00:43:36I'm going to go and talk to Paul Phillips and see what he has to offer.
00:43:41You know, people may think that I don't know what I'm doing or that I'm over my head here.
00:43:45You know what?
00:43:46I am over my head.
00:43:48Went up against a lot of odds in my life.
00:43:50You know, just becoming a Green Beret, the attrition rate is over 90%.
00:43:55So at this point, I'm all in for gold mining.
00:43:59And I don't see anything that's going to stop me.
00:44:17This thing's ready to go.
00:44:18It's turnkey.
00:44:19At the stripped creek cut, Rick brings Cruzee and new crew member Brennan up to speed.
00:44:26Well, we're going for 2,000 ounces this year, so we're going to have to seriously up our game.
00:44:30I mean, the goal that we got out of this creek bed last year was good.
00:44:32It got us to our goal.
00:44:34So that was where we found that one-and-a-half-ounce nugget at the very end.
00:44:37So that's crazy.
00:44:40From what we left last year in the creek cut, I figured we got 600, 700 ounces to get started
00:44:44sluicing with,
00:44:44and that's just money in the bank.
00:44:45That gets us the money we need to start stripping these deeper cuts.
00:44:48It's early in the season, but we've really got to get moving.
00:44:51So the wash plant's where we left it last year.
00:44:53It's got to get moved over here.
00:44:54That distribution box you've been working on, we've got to slam that thing on.
00:44:57And we're ahead of the game from last year, so.
00:44:59We are?
00:44:59Yeah, exactly.
00:45:01I basically, I want to be sluicing by the end of the day.
00:45:03It's kind of a time crunch thing.
00:45:05Let's keep it that way.
00:45:10Short of time and manpower.
00:45:12Let's go, you d***.
00:45:13Rick's skeleton crew must first attach the 1.5-ton distribution box to wash plant Rocky.
00:45:24Why don't you guys wrap your nuggets around how the f*** we're going to get that thing in there.
00:45:28To help out, Rick's tapped local heavy load truck driver, Nathan Thornington.
00:45:34So how's it going?
00:45:35Good, buddy.
00:45:36I heard you guys needed help out here this season.
00:45:39Oh, yeah.
00:45:39I was like, hello, buddy.
00:45:40I was like, hello, buddy.
00:45:40I was like, hello, buddy.
00:45:41Always good to see you.
00:45:42Well, buddy, you showed up just in time.
00:45:45I'm really happy that we got Nathan to join our crew.
00:45:48I've trusted him for years to move my wash plants, my heavy equipment.
00:45:51So compared to that, moving this distribution box should be easy.
00:45:55I've been around this sort of stuff all my life.
00:45:57So hopefully we can get this in on the plant.
00:46:02Rick plans to maneuver the 10-foot box into the heart of the wash plant using the 480 excavator,
00:46:10then winch it into position.
00:46:16Keep going.
00:46:17Yeah.
00:46:19We might be able to slide it right here.
00:46:21Yeah.
00:46:21All right.
00:46:21If you go underneath.
00:46:23You just go real slow, Rick.
00:46:31Whoa.
00:46:36We'll blame it on the new guy.
00:46:37That's you.
00:46:38Oh, .
00:46:44Haven't you guys ever moved a couch into an apartment?
00:46:47Just think of it as a real heavy couch.
00:46:49Okay.
00:46:49Come in.
00:46:50Down, down, down, down, down.
00:46:53Okay.
00:46:59There we go.
00:47:02It's really nice having Brennan here.
00:47:04You know, he does have several years of experience now.
00:47:06We're not going to let him think that that gets him a free pass.
00:47:09If anything, that's going to get him picked on more.
00:47:11Going to have to keep him grounded.
00:47:13Get ready with that chain.
00:47:14I'm going to try and lift on this end, Krusey.
00:47:16All right.
00:47:17You ready?
00:47:18One, two, three.
00:47:20Hurry up.
00:47:21I've got to crank it up.
00:47:23Hold on.
00:47:24It's easier said than .
00:47:25I know.
00:47:26I've got it.
00:47:27I've got it.
00:47:28All right.
00:47:29I blew a blood vessel in my brain there.
00:47:32You mean a blood vessel where your brain should be?
00:47:37Good job on this side.
00:47:38All the hanging off it.
00:47:40Distribution box is hanging from the chains now.
00:47:42That's how it's designed.
00:47:43Everything else is pretty much ready to go.
00:47:45Like, we get this thing over here, plum it in, and we're good.
00:47:52I'm just going to go.
00:47:54Next task, drag the 25-ton steel wash plant 500 yards to the creek cut.
00:48:07It's always nerve-wracking, moving a plant.
00:48:14Anything else that we destroy, break, or whatever, we can survive, but not the one machine that
00:48:19gets our gold, so just got to try and take it slow and smart, which I'm not good at either
00:48:27of those.
00:48:45That worked out about as perfect as we could have asked for, I think.
00:48:50I haven't ever showed up on the first day.
00:48:52I've been ready to sluice.
00:48:53Can you believe Nathan's pulling that pump and that loader with just that little ratchet strap?
00:49:01This is the sweetest plant move ever.
00:49:03Yeah.
00:49:06Water line and generator hooked up.
00:49:08Yay!
00:49:09Here you go, man.
00:49:10High five.
00:49:11Rick is ready to fire up for the first time this year.
00:49:16For me, there's always a certain amount of excitement, but also a little bit of, you
00:49:20know, anxiety, because the fuse is lit as soon as the button gets turned on that thing, and
00:49:24we're, our pants are on fire until October.
00:49:28You guys ready?
00:49:29It's go time?
00:49:29Yeah?
00:49:30I'm ready, man.
00:49:30Let's get her.
00:49:31All right.
00:49:32Let's fire this thing up.
00:49:34Shake it up, brother.
00:49:35Shake it up.
00:49:35Little big rocks up there that are going to come tumbling out.
00:49:40Let's get the water pumping.
00:49:55Ready?
00:49:57First bucket of dirt.
00:50:04Looks good!
00:50:06We're ahead of the game this year.
00:50:07I've never sluiced in May before, so this is pretty awesome.
00:50:11If Rick wants to shoot for 2,000-plus ounces, you know, we've got to make sure we get every
00:50:16damn nugget and flake of gold out of this ground.
00:50:19That's actually kind of cool to see it up and running, eh?
00:50:22It's actually amazing.
00:50:24Despite the bare-bones crew, Rick's sluicing earlier than ever before.
00:50:30You know, we haven't been here for long, and my plan is always, when we get here, we want
00:50:35to be sluicing as quick as possible.
00:50:36So, we are going to get gold coming in right away.
00:50:48At this point, in order to get 9,000 ounces, we have no time to around, we got to go.
00:50:53A full month earlier than last season, Tony's ready to fire up his massive 8-foot-wide trommel
00:51:01and starts sluicing nugget-cut pay dirt.
00:51:04But his whole operation now rests on firing up one 900-horsepower, 1,500-gallon-a-minute
00:51:12water pump.
00:51:13Well, let's see what it does.
00:51:15Here, let's have a look.
00:51:16I'm not waiting.
00:51:17I'm preheating the engine.
00:51:19Kevin is putting some antifreeze in it.
00:51:20I'm here for my looks.
00:51:22So, Monica's standing there with her good looks.
00:51:25At least one of us should be good looking.
00:51:26Yeah.
00:51:27And, hey, we'll fire it right up.
00:51:30Let's see if we get some gold in the box.
00:51:36I put more in.
00:51:37I told these to check that yesterday.
00:51:40What good does that do here, doesn't it?
00:51:43TV tried to turn over the generator.
00:51:45Batteries are just clicking.
00:51:47Anybody at the plant copy?
00:51:48Anybody at the plant copy?
00:51:50Yes, I do.
00:51:52Run my truck out better the batteries on the 349.
00:51:55To jumpstart the 900-horsepower water pump, Tony needs an engine with a bigger battery.
00:52:02Let's see if we can get the damn thing started.
00:52:06So, we're going to run in the 349 and boost it off of that.
00:52:10You got cables, Len?
00:52:12Yes, he does.
00:52:30Hey, Monica, can you get all of these for a sec?
00:52:35Did you decrease it?
00:52:37Did you decrease it?
00:52:39No.
00:52:39Oh, damn it.
00:52:42Give the pail to Len on the other side.
00:52:45Well, things are hooked up.
00:52:46Let's see if he's safe.
00:52:55Sounds like me trying to get up in the morning.
00:52:57All right, f***ing stupid.
00:53:24Everybody clear.
00:53:46We did it.
00:53:47We're back in business.
00:53:54We're back in business.
00:54:08We started pushing this year earlier than last year, which is great.
00:54:14Now, when we get in the river going, we're going to run two more plants over there.
00:54:19It should bring us well on our way to 9,000 ounces this season.
00:54:36Wow.
00:54:37This is the stuff you think of when you think of, like, the old gold rush of people coming
00:54:41up here at the frontier and vast unknown definitely not comfortable right now with what tony and
00:54:49parker said i'm not expecting to walk in and just fall into something but there's got to be
00:54:55something here special forces veteran fred lewis heads to clear creek a remote and little known
00:55:03area 45 miles east from the indian river in a last ditch attempt to find ground to mine this
00:55:10season with his band of combat veterans the guys i put together you know we're a really close team
00:55:17we're brothers so if i'm going to drag them all up to the yukon to mine it's going to have
00:55:22to be
00:55:22something that's going to put money in their pockets and pay back the debt the company made last season
00:55:27tony said not to make those mistakes twice and we're not doing that it's not just about fighting
00:55:33the first chance i get but time is running out and all fred has to go on is the name
00:55:39of a small-time
00:55:40family mine owner given to him by tony beats trying to find this paul phillips guy in hopes that he
00:55:48has
00:55:48ground that has water rights and has permits that we can actually mine this season
00:55:57paul hello fred lewis whoo you said you were far out here yeah we're a ways out
00:56:04so uh am i catching you in a good time oh yeah we're just starting to get stuff out of
00:56:08retirement
00:56:08for the winter well i'm really kind of cold calling you i know yeah but uh tony mentioned
00:56:13your name and that was enough for me to come out and talk to you yeah said that you might
00:56:19have some
00:56:19ground you might be willing to lease we haven't really done much on clear creek because we've always
00:56:27had the other places to work at we hadn't really considered it yet but something we'd look at for sure
00:56:34paul phillips and his family used to mine in the klondike but this year they've left it behind to
00:56:42mine out here in clear creek i've got a really small operation so i'm really trying to find a
00:56:49piece of ground that's got that open space we're looking for and a relatively non-complex mining
00:56:55operation because they're not the most experienced operators it's pretty much a team of greenhorns
00:57:00plants well this would be some of the easiest for your team to handle until they get some
00:57:05experience i would think it's quite simple the first time we washed down there i stripped for
00:57:10one day with the 400 by myself and we had enough we sluiced for six weeks holy cow it's lean
00:57:16ground
00:57:17but there's lots of it so just run it yeah and catch the gold okay well i would love to
00:57:23see like how
00:57:24you have done it here if you don't mind sure i'll walk down to the creek and show you where
00:57:28we've been
00:57:29anyway yeah so this basically is uh borderline the creek yeah the creek's right there okay so if
00:57:38someone were to come up in here from start to finish how long do you think it would take them
00:57:41to
00:57:41get into sluicing hmm maybe an hour two hours are you serious yeah so it's pretty much ready to go
00:57:50like the plant didn't turn the pump on it's definitely profitable mining well what do you
00:57:55think the odds of maybe getting the test up here um just to kind of see what we've got up
00:57:59here yeah
00:58:00i don't have a problem with your testing okay that sounds good to me that's more than uh no yeah
00:58:06i'll take that any day to come back from last season's failure fred needs to be sure the ground has
00:58:14good gold okay right on i'll just fire this thing up sounds good
00:58:21i think right now the treasure hunt begins if it's here we're gonna find it
00:58:36i'm really looking for 10 to 15 colors that's really going to be the
00:58:39target for what i'm looking for a lot of fine gold there's not any chunks in here but oh boy
00:58:45i'm
00:58:45seeing some good color oh yeah so this is what we're looking for i think this pan i just did
00:58:54is
00:58:54sitting at about a little under an ounce 100 here because i'm not a professional i'm just i'm learning
00:58:58as well but i'm at least at 0.8 um which is fantastic fred calculates he needs at least half
00:59:06an ounce
00:59:07of gold in every 100 yards of dirt to make his season pay this is our second hole it's on
00:59:13the
00:59:13left side of the valley i honestly don't know right now i'm looking at probably 0.6 maybe 0.7
00:59:22per 100
00:59:23out of that pan and this is exactly why we came to the yukon if you can find a claim
00:59:27with a good claim
00:59:28owner that has potential that hasn't been mined out you're probably going to find gold
00:59:33i know that there's strip ground here i know it's easy for me to access i know the gold's here
00:59:38depending on what pollen i come up with for royalty this could be workable
00:59:52at parker schnabel's mud mountain cut next truck can back in right where my bucket is
01:00:00tyson lee is on a mission to get down to pay and test what could be the richest ground they've
01:00:06ever
01:00:06mined but first he has to strip over a million cubic yards of overburden
01:00:15you know we're a week into mud mountain and we've made a hell of a dent but as you can
01:00:19tell
01:00:19it's warming up and definitely slowly sliding backwards the mud gets a lot ahead of us so
01:00:42you know we really cannot afford breakdowns right now
01:00:56due to the mud there's this big hole so i've got to drive really slow otherwise i'm going to slam
01:01:02the rock truck and it can really damage the hydraulics we're sliding everywhere
01:01:10although now we have a bit more space so we can actually fit in four trucks
01:01:15we don't have much time here because as the snow melts uh all the water is coming down from the
01:01:21hills so we are getting a lot of mud um so we got to be pretty fast here so we're
01:01:27just flying here
01:01:47it's uh very very difficult right now it's it's tough it's advanced rock driving
01:01:54if that's the thing to keep on track with parker's 30-day deadline tyson's rock trucks need to dump at
01:02:01least 400 loads of overburden a day at the waste site but with multiple breakdowns tyson is falling
01:02:08further and further behind i'm normally a sluicer man i don't move bud you know brennan can run any piece
01:02:16of equipment that was around here you can't replace that experience overnight like anything in life
01:02:23anything new is a learning curve and this is going to be one hell of a learning curve
01:02:27can i steal a truck here can i have one truck please hey jordan i got a copy yeah man
01:02:34my truck keeps
01:02:35going to limp mode i want to accelerate it won't really do anything in here rookie jordan tatlow's
01:02:41truck is in limp mode a safety mechanism that slows it right down when there's a mechanical problem
01:02:49bring it up to the mechanics up there and let them know that's their department
01:02:54one rock truck goes down that's 100 less loads a day we're getting 100 loads a day that we're gonna
01:02:59have to get on a mud mountain at a later date when it's warmer and when the mud's thicker
01:03:04hey mitch you got a copy mitch yeah we got another truck down here at mud mountain one's coming your
01:03:09way
01:03:09oh wonderful just what we need already two trucks down tyson must send another to be fixed
01:03:17mitch he's in the yard right now trying to keep the mechanics going you know trying to get everyone
01:03:22caught up but just tough and i'd say it's mud mountain one and our crew zero in the yard foreman
01:03:32mitch
01:03:32is back where he started nine years ago wrenching to keep up with broken equipment we're out here
01:03:39doing everything we can to get these trucks fixed all that permafrost muck that just keeps getting into
01:03:44everything and right now we're not even keeping our heads above water hi what up are you deep in the
01:03:55middle of something what you got going on mud mountain do you want to bump down there i know we
01:04:00got a ton of
01:04:01work to do out in the cut but we got way more to do right here if we keep stopping
01:04:05we're never
01:04:05going to get any of it done okay but we're just trying to get that crashed out and get on
01:04:09to the
01:04:09next one here i know as a foreman probably not the best you know use of my time to be
01:04:16in here working
01:04:17on stuff right now we need to be thinking about moving dirt not working on trucks but we have no
01:04:22other option right now we've got to get these machines to where we can rely on them every day they
01:04:26can go out and do their job i can't be both places at the same time and it seems like
01:04:30that's what
01:04:30parker expects every day jordan's truck reaches the yard it's not one thing around here it's usually
01:04:3910 things more every hour it's down makes it harder for tyson to hit parker's 30-day deadline
01:04:47what is going on down here first we have to try and get rid of some mud so we can
01:04:55actually get to the
01:05:06bolts
01:05:07really not what we're wanting to see down here this hydraulic pump completely encased with this
01:05:12well pretty much mammoth this stuff is like concrete here it flowed in as a liquid it'll
01:05:18let set back up and this stuff it's brutally hard here you can barely bust it apart
01:05:23the hydraulic pumps power the truck's suspension brakes and steering without them the truck is
01:05:30useless mechanic taylor must remove them and assess the damage
01:05:40we know the pump's not building pressure you can see damage on the plate here
01:05:47we'll take the guts out of this one and we'll have a look
01:05:53more than likely the pistons the pistons or the slippers are toast you can see here these grooves
01:05:59in here are why we're not building any pressure the oil can just go wherever it wants it's not forced
01:06:04through the output ports mud mountains fine black silt has worked its way inside the pump breaking the
01:06:13pistons and damaging the precision engineered plate that seals in the hydraulic fluid okay um there's a
01:06:22curveball getting a spare up to the claim could take weeks man the only other thing i'm wondering here
01:06:31we could do and try in the meantime so if we can get this to all look like this outer
01:06:37portion here
01:06:39yeah and maybe with the new pistons here and if we can get this flat again
01:06:44without a working seal from the top plate the pump leaks hydraulic fluid and is unable to gain pressure
01:06:52mitch's hail mary bush fix
01:06:55remove and replace the damaged pistons then take the top plate and grind out the grooves
01:07:01to create a seal so the pump can regain pressure and power the truck
01:07:15so we've polished up this piece here so hopefully this will seal this will make pressure and if it does
01:07:23this truck can go back to work if not we're going to be waiting for a new part
01:07:28we're going to roll the dice on this thing see if she works 100 we just got to fire it
01:07:49up see if it works
01:07:50you ready you ready you ready here we go
01:07:59come on baby
01:08:11you see our pump build enough pressure to raise the machine all the way up to the top
01:08:16before we took it out it wasn't building any pressure
01:08:29you know we've been working on trucks all day but this is the last one right here heading back
01:08:36out to the cut and everything's good to go again hopefully it lasts a while
01:08:40all the way up with the full fleet back in action tyson has a fighting chance to hit parker's deadline
01:08:49hey jordan yeah it's good to see you're back man you know we need every truck going here at mud
01:08:53mountain we can get that's one step closer to getting me the hell out of the mud and back around
01:08:59a wash plant in my happy place
01:09:01how's it going guys hey fred how you doing fred lewis's chances of getting gold
01:09:26rest on striking a deal with paul and diana phillips to mine their pre-stripped claims in clear creek
01:09:34how'd it go i got all my testing done and i'm seeing the exact type of gold that you guys
01:09:39told me
01:09:39it's consistent throughout the valley like you said
01:09:44so what are you guys looking at for royalty
01:09:50it's probably the easiest ground you'll ever find to mine go about 50. 50 percent
01:10:01i've never heard of that before did a lot of time on that and all you gotta do is just
01:10:05pick up
01:10:05the dirt and throw it in the plant giving up 50 percent of every ounce of gold could make this
01:10:12lean
01:10:12ground a loss maker to be able to give my guys their goal bonus at the end of the year
01:10:17so they're
01:10:18not working for free that coupled with last season's loss i'm not sure that the uh 50 percent
01:10:25well i know the 50 is something i just can't i can't bite on this ground here is already set
01:10:32up
01:10:32stripped and ready to mine we can't give it away fred i know and that's my that's it right there
01:10:42but it's still below that line where i told myself and my entire team i won't bite unless i find
01:10:49this
01:10:49for you if i'm being painstakingly obvious i i don't feel like there's a there's a ground that
01:10:56we can are going to come to that both of us are happy on it's just not a good option
01:11:01for us
01:11:04thank you very much goodbye fred thanks fred i'll talk to you guys yep
01:11:1550 there's no way i can make 50 work
01:11:21what do you think you know paul no miner has the opportunity to walk in on ground that's already
01:11:29stripped pawns in place literally bring your machines in and start sluicing once everything's
01:11:35all hooked up i mean it's very rare it doesn't happen that often you made it sound so easy but
01:11:43you know if it sounds too good to be true it probably is really sucks because i had my hopes
01:11:49up it's not
01:11:50just give me some ground let's go dig the very minimum is i've got to put money into the company
01:11:55and my guys pockets or we're a failure i'm pretty much back to square one
01:12:12best part is we fired up my first week here you know we're already washing rocks so that's pretty
01:12:17sweet just hope there's a whole load of gold in here rick ness and his bare bones three-person crew
01:12:24are gunning for 2 000 ounces banking on a fast start sluicing creek cut pay dirt shut it down
01:12:33after three days of washing rocks it's time for the first cleanup of the season
01:12:39oh i don't know why i'm so nervous it's the first one of the year i
01:12:43you seem a little giddy i am well all right i can't talk anymore let's do this let's make it
01:12:47rain boys
01:12:54yeah look at that pile right there brennan look at them all man yeah buddy yeah
01:13:02oh there's one look at that buddy oh yeah look at that nugget right there
01:13:09oh buddy it looked really good oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
01:13:23you feel like the first time again it does
01:13:26look at those chunks coming out of there it's amazing
01:13:30pretty excited like if we had a big fat first cleanup you know it's gonna make everybody feel pretty
01:13:34good for the season and what we have to look forward to i hate to make guesses and i won't
01:13:40but
01:13:40i will say that it looks good it looks really good like some of the best i've seen it in
01:13:43that box so
01:13:50i see some gold in that pan a lot of gold actually right you know the cleanup looked really good
01:13:55yeah yeah it does look good and actually i mean that being said why don't we just wait this up
01:14:01let's
01:14:02do that sounds good to hit his 2000 ounce season goal rick needs around 100 ounces a week so this
01:14:10three-day run needs to deliver at least 50. 5 10 20 30 40 50 60
01:14:24what 67 50. buddy oh man how does that feel huh awesome
01:14:35that's well that's evidence of all our hard work right there yeah
01:14:39at over a hundred and twenty thousand dollars rick's pulled more gold in his first three days
01:14:46than he did in the first three weeks last year
01:14:54well for now it's the four of us let's just keep doing our thing i mean that's a hell of
01:14:57a start
01:14:58in all honesty the four of us i mean work really well together like i i'm impressed with everybody
01:15:02that's good to hear yeah you know you stepped up this year like you always do get us started
01:15:07brennan you showed right up jumped right in you know cruisy i mean you know everybody pulled their
01:15:12weight and the results are right here let's go get some dinner some sleep get back at it tomorrow
01:15:18yeah but it's good sleep line bro oh well we definitely have a good start to the season but
01:15:26it's a long way to go to 2000 ounces so i'm not going to jump the gun and say this
01:15:29is going to be
01:15:30easy but i've got the right people here with me we did the right prep work over the off season
01:15:35and last
01:15:35fall and we got a hell of a start so onward and upward
01:15:50find out if my little shack is still livable
01:15:55go see what we got going on here i got water sounds like i got heat too
01:16:04wow everybody's been using my shower oh hammer and chisel and sandblast it and be good as new
01:16:12somebody tried using still wool on it to clean it up and left the still wool in the shower that's
01:16:18always good all right i'm home let's go
01:16:31this first segment is almost done once it's done then we can move on to the next piece
01:16:37two weeks into digging mud mountain parker schnabel's crew is 55 feet down in the first half of the cut
01:16:45and pushing hard to hit pay dirt so they can find out just how rich the ground is
01:16:52word on the street is that at the bottom here there's roughly 8 000 ounces when parker told me
01:16:58that i said okay so after we've done this we're going to mexico right because we've hit our goal
01:17:02or we've pretty much topped it we've done every other year and he's like yeah exactly tyson that's
01:17:07exactly what we're going to do but i have a feeling that's uh wishful thinking on my behalf
01:17:13it looks like there's some bedrock
01:17:17hey mitch doom it you guys got a copy yeah hey tyson what's up yeah i think i hit pay
01:17:23gravel down
01:17:23at mud mountain you guys want to come down oh man if you hit gravel in mud mountain it's gotta
01:17:27be pay
01:17:29oh yeah it's pay it's been such a tough week we've been out here fighting struggling to keep
01:17:36these rock trucks going really excited to see what's at the bottom of this 60 feet down we're
01:17:40gonna go out pan it up and uh well hopefully the pounds look as good as the drilling
01:17:47what do you think chris you ready to do this you bring a gold pan i know all you've been
01:17:51seeing is
01:17:51nothing but mud out here all we've been seeing is nothing but broken machines in the yard so i'm
01:17:55ready to see some gold how about you guys yeah yeah for sure let me grab a pen we'll go
01:17:59wash this stuff up
01:18:01after moving 60 feet of overburden all parker's hopes for the season rely on a razor-thin pay layer
01:18:08less than two feet thick let's see what we got here
01:18:16well i wasn't expecting that what have you got over there a couple flakes what you got chris
01:18:22not a hell of a lot though not even a flake
01:18:31we're gonna need to show this to parker yeah
01:18:36we've definitely invested a lot of money tore up a lot of machines and uh what i'm seeing here looks
01:18:42like
01:18:46parker's already seven hundred thousand dollars in the hole and the first pans of mud mountain are duds
01:18:54how's it going how are you doing hey parker all right getting in the swing of things what are you
01:19:03guys up to we got a little bit of a problem i think maybe what kind of problem well we've
01:19:08been
01:19:08out at mud mountain panning our best pan had two colors
01:19:15it doesn't make me feel good it makes me a bit nervous actually
01:19:21you'd think with how concentrated the material is down there and you'd think you'd at least see
01:19:26something but it's not like it's not like we're just going off of a gut feeling like liam drilled that
01:19:32what can we do about it yeah you can't i mean you got the money invested in it we're going
01:19:36to sluice
01:19:37it right there's nothing we can do about it now we got to trust something and we got to trust
01:19:42somebody
01:19:42yep you're either going to come out of this and we're all going to be smiling and everything's
01:19:48going to be good or it's going to be a big learning experience so yeah i mean it's definitely a
01:19:52pretty
01:19:52big gamble especially with how deep it is and if it minds the way it drilled we're going to have
01:19:57a
01:19:57hell of a season and should be able to beat last year for sure all right well we'll get it
01:20:03through
01:20:03wash plant and see what we end up with thanks parker thanks in the beats family gold room we
01:20:21started sluicing everything from the nega cut i don't know how much tbeats was expecting but
01:20:26from what i've seen i do think we'll have at least a little bit of gold in there
01:20:33at the end of this week mom and i are heading 600 kilometers away to have a baby we're just
01:20:39really
01:20:39not set up here in the yukon to have babies anywhere except for white horse working for my family i'll
01:20:47be
01:20:47able to bring my child in and continue working she'll be in a playpen over by
01:20:54probably the table because that's a peaceful noise to listen to it is an exciting thing but
01:21:06it's the moment of truth the beats family's first gold way of their ambitious 9 000 ounce season
01:21:18so how's that 11 doing in the black muck there mike that thing runs basically a day on a half
01:21:23a tank
01:21:23i see what the 11 does it's like what yeah yeah we're moving some serious why do we have two
01:21:29jaws
01:21:30well i figured it's called the nugget cut so i kept all the nuggets out and we'll put them on
01:21:35top yeah how
01:21:36many hours did we get 40 roughly 40 45 to hit his 9 000 ounce target tony needs 475 ounces
01:21:47a week
01:21:48so this two-day run should deliver 160 ounces are you going to pour some gold for us five six
01:21:5614 15 18 25 40 50 70 80.44 have a look at the nuggets 82.72 82 ounces is
01:22:14worth over a hundred and
01:22:15forty seven thousand dollars we get 140 000 out of it i'd take that any day not too bad at
01:22:22all really
01:22:23so it's not quite that give or take two ounces an hour yeah it's more than the trommel produced per
01:22:29hour last season but still less than the 475 ounces a week they need well this will be your last
01:22:38gold
01:22:38player for a while well i mean only if you don't have somebody else cleaning the gold well i'm gone
01:22:42at
01:22:42least you'll have a job and she gets back me oh yeah she needs a job like a hole in
01:22:47her head let's put
01:22:48that kid on the bench and just go keep going no big deal well then you're gonna have to buy
01:22:53a playpen
01:22:54and maybe a mobile and maybe a white noise machine i need a humidifier we'll just have to see
01:23:01clean it up and let's go to work yeah i have stuff to do too so please bye
01:23:11now tony can expand to the indian river and easily double or even triple his output
01:23:22so the water license you know long as we get it in the next 14 days that's good we should
01:23:27do a boat
01:23:29operation up and running with all that i think we should be able to reach that goal
01:23:37so