Original subtitles

The higher price gold should go.

On this "gold rush"...

Come on, big guy. You at least ought to be able.

To do the work of two people.

On a mission to build a massive war chest.

Of gold, parker schnabel expands his crew...

We don't have enough people. We need some more bodies.

It's a bit nerve-racking.

To make up for lost time,

Tony beets resurrect an old beast...

I don't have that hundred ounces, my season's.

And rick ness hedges his bets...

If we can get this thing up to a hundred yards an hour,

That's a quarter million dollars a month.

In a bid to max out his wash plant.

Holy what was that?

Captions by vitac... www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by discovery communications.

The king of the klondike,

Tony beets, is battling to make a comeback.

After failing to hit his target two years in a row.

To cash in on high gold prices,

This season, tony's pushing for at least 3,000 ounces.

To hit their gold, daughter monica is feeding.

Gold-rich pay from the mega cut.

Into the family's only working plant.

This pandemic has been affecting a lot of things.

It's hard getting parts, and everything takes longer,

And that's saying something.

Because things already take forever here in the yukon.

At the end of the tunnel,

Ruby mahoney clears worthless tailings in the loader.

My season's been going quite well.

With gold prices being so high,

Tony has been going after every piece of land.

That has gold in it.

No. No. No. No. No.

Kevin, you copy, kevin?

Copy, kevin. Go for kevin.

Yeah, man. The last loader's down.

To stop tailings backing up.

And hitting the plant, ruby shuts it down.

She's talking.

David will start it, I'll press that button again.

The engine blew up. Boom.

Now, we only had one loader going.

Because we just had a string of bad luck.

Pretty much every 988 we try it has gone kaboom, kablooey,

Or ka.

It's not a day project.

It can take weeks because we need parts.

It's the fourth loader that's died in the last week.

Now, the entire fleet is down.

The bigger our operation gets, the more behind the game I feel.

Doesn't really sustainable long-term.

This year for us,

It's really about trying to build a good war chest.

In order to buy new ground and fund exploration.

In some ways a bad economy is good for us.

In that fuel prices are low,

And the more up the world gets,

The higher price of gold should go.

Parker has most of his crew.

Working at the promised land, helping tyson lee.

Prepare sluicifer for a move.

Moving the wash plant.

No one really enjoys because it's a stressful time.

Over at the last cut, parker's top miners,

Co-foreman mitch blaschke.

And brennan ruault fight.

To keep big red running with a skeleton crew.

Brennan rips ground in the dozer.

While mitch digs and stockpiles gold-rich pay.

To keep the wash plant fed.

We got to do something here, man,

Because I'm getting this dirt dug up faster.

Than what you're opening it.

Well, I hear you buddy.

I just don't know if we can keep going.

At this pace.

Well, buddy, I think that's probably.

All we're going to get for now.

Without a full crew...

Probably our last scoop for the day, man.

They can't dig enough dirt to keep the wash plant fed...

And they have no choice but to shut it down.

You know, it's frustrating right now.

You know, this is the prime of the season.

This is when you should be sluicing, having these plants.

Run 24 hours a day.

We got to shut this thing down.

It's frustrating, but it is what it is.

We got to get some more help.

Everybody's just spread too thin right now.

Let's go have a chat with the boss.

And see if we can figure this out.

Hey, man, we just had to shut down big red.

Because we ran out of pay, and we don't have enough people.

We need some more bodies.

And I mean right now, you know, with everybody having to go.

Through quarantine and all that, it's going to make it tough,

But the sooner we can get somebody up here, the better.

Yeah the big problem here is somebody with no experience.

Is almost worse than nobody.

Man, I don't care if they have lots of experience,

No experience, we can train them.

Whatever you can find us. Okay. I'll do it.

I'll do what I can as quick as I can.

We're trying to do more and more every year with, you know,

Less time, less people, and, well, there comes a point.

Where that just doesn't work anymore.

We're still suffering a bit from the late start,

But we are on good ground.

This year,

Rick ness is future as a gold miner.

Hangs in the balance.

I just want to make sure that we're doing.

Absolutely everything to maximize, you know?

I want to make sure we're not leaving anything on the table.

As far as what we're doing.

After two years barely breaking even,

He needs a 1,000-down season, or he'll have to pack it in.

To hit his goal, he needs almost 70 ounces a week,

But so far, he's averaged less than 40.

We're around a bucket every minute

Rick set up a time trial for the crew.

To try and up his average.

We're losing too much time.

New operator mark doverspike.

Feeds the plant with the excavator.

I've been running his numbers,

And we're really only doing about 80 yards an hour.

Through this thing, and I think it could do more than that.

There's a fine line between too much and not enough.

Now, you don't just dump it, you know?

You just kind of feather it in.

Not enough dirt, and the sluice runs too fast,

And the gold goes out the end.

Too much dirt, the riffles will plug,

And the gold will go out the end.

It demands your full attention all day.

Rick's hometown buddy chris kruse.

Has also spotted the bottleneck.

Yeah, I think you can have probably the best hoe operator.

In the world feeding dirt into this plant.

There's really no way to keep it consistent.

But rick has a plan to speed things up.

It's a well-built, simple plant.

It's made for this ground. It does a great job.

But I know that a hopper feeder right now.

Would just maximize the potential. I know it would.

A hopper feeder can process larger loads of pay dirt.

Bars known as grizzlies filter out big rocks.

Conveyors then take the pay dirt.

And feed it evenly into the wash plant.

With a constant feed, the wash plant rick leased.

From claim owner troy could catch 25% more gold.

If we can get this thing up to 100 yards an hour,

And with current prices,

That's a quarter million dollars a month,

But hopper feeders don't come cheap.

I definitely wasn't planning on making any big purchases.

I don't have it in the budget at all.

You know, I owe troy 100 ounces.

By the end of this week.

Hey, rick.

When rick arrived in the yukon,

Claim owner troy taylor needed a guarantee.

The late start would not affect his royalty payments.

Hoping you can pull out 100 ounces in a month or so.

And then I'll feel more comfortable.

That we're we're going to be okay.

I think we can manage it.

Rick's banked 107 ounces this season.

Now the royalty's due in six days.

If he can't pay it, he'll lose the lease.

That's the only thing I'm struggling with.

It's a lot of money to pay off by the end of the week,

But I don't see how I can't do it.

Instead of saving his gold to pay troy,

Rick is putting it all on the line.

To upgrade his wash plant.

So, I heard there's a nice hopper feeder for sale.

It's just a couple hours away.

It's at this guy, porter's, yard.

I'm gonna go see him.

It's a bit of a gamble, but I got to do something.

We're definitely not maximizing what we can do right now.

Got to go look at it. Hopefully it's the one.

Up ahead...

I'm hearing some metal breaking.

Rick ness takes a massive gamble that mill make.

Or break his season.

Holy what was that?

Hey, dog.

Is he friendly? How you doing? I'm rick.

He's good. Nice to meet you. I'm porter.

Right on, man. This is the feeder?

You betcha.

She's a beauty.

Yeah, it's pretty nice unit.

Yeah. Well, you mind if I poke around, take a look at it?

Yeah, give her. Alright.

Yeah. Hydraulic grizzly bars.

Perfect.

What kind of yardage is it rated for?

Probably like 220. 220 yards an hour?

Well, that will get the job done.

This thing's in actually really nice shape.

I'm good.

I don't think that this thing seen much yardage through it.

I mean, the paint still on the rollers, for sake.

I think this thing would be pretty much perfect.

For what I need.

Well, you what are you looking to get for it?

Like to get $90,000 for it.

$90,000 is 51 ounces, almost half of rick's gold.

$90,000? At least, yeah.

I mean, I'd like to see it somewhere around $70,000.

Oof.

I don't know, man. It's in really good shape.

I'm thinking like... Maybe $80,000, $85,000.

$75,000 is going to be the most I can go.

You get it out of here today,

You can have it for $75,000 and be gone, yeah.

$75,000 is almost 43 ounces of gold.

I think we got a deal.

Alright, man. Right on.

You got some paperwork for me? I'll write you a check.

Sure. Sounds good.

But rick is now 36 ounces short.

Of his royalty payment to troy.

Well, that's good news. We got a hopper feeder.

That's really gonna help out my operation.

The bad news is I can't give troy his 100 ounces.

And pay for this, so we're going to have to bust ass,

Get more gold out of the ground.

Tony beets' entire fleet of loaders.

Is down waiting for parts.

His operation is at a standstill, and he's losing.

Almost $60,000 a day in gold.

But the king of the klondike has a back-up plan.

On the other side of paradise hill,

He's left a loader with a seized engine.

That he wants to bring back to life.

But there's a problem.

The loader is on a narrow access road.

On one side, a sheer drop, and on the other, a dirt wall.

There's no easy way to get it onto a truck.

Tony has a radical plan.

Instead of hauling the loader back to the mine,

He harvests an engine from the boneyard.

And plans on dropping it.

Into the dead loader...

Then driving it back.

A side boom is designed.

To lay heavy pipes in rocky or uneven terrain,

The perfect machine to swap out an engine.

Where there's no room to move.

Yeah, I'm free over here.

This is a really handy machine to have.

This is going relatively smooth.

The old engine removed monica lifts the new one into position.

The most important thing is.

You always want to watch people directing you.

Because you can't see.

You don't know where those people's fingers are.

I'm clear on this side.

I believe are you good?

I'm good on my side right now as of right now.

As long as we keep her straight.

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.

We're singing, buddy.

Golden.

It's been five years since this engine.

Was last turned over.

The king of the klondike is back in business.

Tony is failure to resurrect the dead dozer.

Has left his mining operation shut down.

This year, you know, I left mitch and brennan in charge.

At big red, and everybody here is working their asses off.

Parker schnabel's gunning for a record-breaking season.

To get back to running a full operation,

He's brought onto new miners.

Trying to find people this time of year.

Is really difficult because good people are working, you know?

We have two new people.

But no promises on where we end up.

In the last cut, big red is up and running again.

Seasoned operator monique stone stock piles gold-rich dirt.

I'm totally up for any challenge.

I love this work.

Portuguese rookie miner tatiana costa.

Has been hired to drive a loader,

But this is the first time she's ever fed a wash plant.

Parker has got us some help here for running big red.

But, you know, nobody's come with a résumé,

So it's going to make things real tough.

You know this year, with being behind schedule,

And trying to make up for lost time,

We're certainly want to run everything just as fast.

As we can, and, well,

That definitely makes it tougher on new operators,

But we'll just give them a chance here.

And see what they got.

You know, I really hope that,

You know, parker's decisions here,

How we're doing things, you know,

Don't just bring this whole operation to a shutdown.

At lower duncan creek,

Rick ness is taking delivery of his new $75,000 hopper feeder...

That he hopes will increase his gold haul by 25%.

Looks good, buddy. Excellent.

In the laydown yard, mechanic carl rosk.

Prepares it to run...

And at the wash plant, kruse builds a pad for the new hopper.

Yeah, I know we've got a deadline with troy.

Spending this extra money right now,

It's a little bit scary.

This hopper feeder is going to make it.

So we can feed a consistent amount of dirt.

And figure out how rich this ground really is.

How's this thing looking, besides the obvious that is?

Yeah, it's in good shape, but it's it needs some love, right?

Yeah. Well, I really wanted to have this thing perfect.

Before we put it in service.

Yeah, me, too.

But it's just not going to happen that way.

Yeah, I got troy coming at the end the week.

For his money, and guess what...

I gave his money... To the guy for this.

Okay, buddy.

Alright, that being said,

What's your plan getting this thing down here?

We got a ways to go with it yet.

I'll build a jig for the inside the bucket there.

Okay. It'll have to be pretty strong

'cause we got to go through a creek.

Rick needs to get the hopper feeder to the wash plant.

On the other side of duncan creek,

But it's too wide to use the bridge.

Rick and carl have no choice.

But to drag it through the fast-flowing water.

Well, hopefully, we don't have an issue.

Getting this thing to the plant, right?

We got to go through that creek crossing,

Which is going to be pretty gnarly, right?

Got an idea what we're going to do here?

The only vehicle on the claim.

That can haul the 13-ton hopper is the 220 loader,

But, first, carl must fix a towing hitch to the bucket.

Got the hitch on here.

We're going to drag this thing down there,

And hopefully have this thing in and running by lunch, right?

Feel pretty good about it?

Yeah. You'll be fine.

I'm going real slow. Should be good, buddy.

I need to get this feeder in as quick as possible.

I would troy 100 ounces by the end of the week,

And I just spent it on this feeder.

So, the only way to make it back is to get it working.

All 13 tons of the hopper feeder.

Now rests on carl's down and dirty tow hitch.

Like I said, the creek crossing's.

Going to be the big thing for it.

Hasn't broke off yet.

This is, basically, a nasty little spot.

It's real steep, right?

- I'm going blind. - I can't see.

He's doing a good job right now.

Just don't want to pop it off, right?

If carl's hitch fails now,

Rick $75,000 machine could end up in the creek.

Just a little nerve-racking. That's alright.

Nice and easy.

It's a little scary here, but this is nice and easy.

I'm hearing some metal breaking.

Hope it's not that thing coming off here.

Holy.

Thing's heavy, man.

Way heavier than I thought it was.

We're finding out how tough our welds are right now.

Still holding!

At lower duncan creek,

Rick's moving a $75,000 hopper feeder.

Through a fast flowing creek.

Just keep straightening it out.

Let's turn it a bit just like that.

Just keep going. Straighten out.

That's working, buddy. Its working.

This is great.

Think to myself that I probably should have done.

One more pass on that now, but it's hasn't broken,

So maybe going to redeem myself here.

For all my jobs, right?

Once rick gets the new hopper into position...

Good stuff, boys.

Fire it up!

It's finally ready to run, but he only has two days.

To haul in at least 36 ounces of gold.

Yeah, this is perfect.

Exactly what I was looking for...

Running about 100 yards an hour right now.

This is definitely worth the money.

Now we just got to get enough dirt through it.

To get troy's 100 ounces.

Tony's whole operation is down.

Until he can get a working loader.

He's in the boneyard with welder cody hunter.

After swapping out the engine on a 988 loader, it seized up.

Now tony wants to get it back to camp to try one last fix.

Yeah, I got some stuff over there, tony.

Tony's plan is for cody to fabricate.

A steel toe ball.

He'll hitch it to the only piece of machinery.

Big enough to haul the loader off flat creek...

The 63-ton 520-horsepower d-10 dozer.

Well, we're going to pull the blade off.

Because we don't get much benefit having it on.

For what we want to do.

We're not actually pushing any dirt.

We're just using tracks to pull it along.

Just makes it a lot simpler for everybody down the line.

Alright.

Tony brings in his son.

Heavy-load specialist mike beets.

While mike hauls the dozer around paradise hill,

Tony fits the tow bar to the loader's bucket.

It needs to hold all 48 tons of loader.

You get a d-10 in front of that thing,

Not many things are going to argue the point with it.

It takes four hours for mike.

To get the loader six miles back to the yard.

Yeah. It pushed slightly going downhill,

And it grunts slightly going uphill,

But other than that, barely anything.

Skeeters!

This loader has been kind of a.

Next morning, kevin's found the problem.

I think... It should go now.

What was happening is that a couple of the valves.

Were a little stuck. Had to pull some of them,

And they were a real pain to get out.

This should mean that the transmission.

Is now free to move, which should allow.

The engine to move, which would allow.

The whole thing, you know, to run.

Yeah, she should be good to go at this point.

After four days of downtime, the beets crew has a working loader.

They can finally get back to mining.

Thank god that we got the loader.

We could finally have a steady run time,

Get back to sluicing, and maybe succeed.

In tony's 3,000 ounce goal.

The season is so short... Every minute, every second,

Every hour counts.

So, there's not much room here for mistakes.

At the last cut, rookie tatiana.

Is finally up to speed feeding the wash plant.

Mitch and brandon are working on the next spot.

Where the plant will be moved, so we got to keep up.

Well, it's so nice to finally be able to kind of start.

Catching up on things.

My first student, I think, is doing pretty well.

I think in the offseason.

I might have to open up a school,

You know, ol' mitch's mining or mayhem management.

I don't know. That's definitely up for grabs.

After a difficult week at paradise hill,

The beets family gathers for the gold weigh.

Yeah. Loader, loader, loader problems.

Truck drivers are doing less,

Planes aren't hauling

I don't think they do less,

I just think they have a hard time keeping up.

That other loader was nice.

From what I hear, it was a show.

You can read?

To hit his 3,000 ounce goal,

Tony needs a weekly average of 177 ounces.

128 ounces.

Is worth almost a quarter of a million dollars,

But it's not enough to hit tony's goal.

With the shortened season.

Could have been a lot worse.

We'd still be down waiting for parts.

We gotta go back to work, don't we?

Get off my lawn!

- What's up, man? - What's up, guys?

At lower duncan creek, it's time for rick ness.

To find out if he's mined enough gold.

To pay his claim owner 100 ounces in royalties.

How are you?

Well, I'm a bit nervous.

I told you guys that troy wants their minimum royalty up front,

And, yeah, he's coming for it today.

We'll see where we're at.

So, far this season,

Rick has averaged less than 10 ounces a day.

Now, just two days after fitting his new hopper feeder,

He needs 36 ounces to pay his royalties.

And stay on the claim.

Alright, here we go.

It's going to be close, I think.

19.20.

30... 40... 50...

Man!

Yeah, dude, 55.32.

Worth $96,000.

And giving rick enough to pay his royalty.

That's a good-looking number there, buddy.

Just made it.

That's a good clean up, man.

The hopper feeder has paid for itself.

And helped get rick to a season total of 163 ounces.

While we live to fight another day,

We got the minimum royalties.

And a good part of that, too,

Is they're paid off royalty wise.

Now the rest of this gold is ours.

That's awesome. That's fantastic, man.

Feels so good.

For once, it's like we're rolling.

I want to thank you guys for busting ass.

And getting that thing in as quick as we did.

Because that was going to be key, right?

Like, it was a lot of money up front.

He's good, buddy.

Man, the hopper feeder is.

It works awesome. He spent the money.

Things are completely different than last year.

I can't say nothing bad about it.

I'm just excited we're on the gold.

Let's do some more sluicing, get some more gold.

Well, there it is, troy.

Wow. Look at that.

Your 100 ounces. Nice.

Well, I got to say that I'm happy that I'm able to do it,

But it's never easy handing somebody

100 ounces of gold.

It's nice looking stuff. That settles us up.

For the minimum royalty.

So, it's out of the way, and as long as you're happy,

We're going to keep on rolling like we are.

And hopefully going to have a lot more jars of that.

Right on. Good for you.

Alright, troy. I'll see you again.

Okay?

Gamble paid off... Troy's paid off,

The royalties are paid off, now every ounce we get.

Is going right into our pockets.

At scribner creek,

Parker's crew gathers to see how much gold.

The new crew members helped bring in.

- Sup?! - Hey, mitch.

So, how'd your week go, junior?

Yeah, it's been a challenge finding people

I can get into the klondike, right?

'Cause it's just, like, quite a few borders.

To get through, and the yukon has its own set of restrictions.

Are they at least letting crane operators in?

They're pretty green. They're both alright.

Give him some time, see if they can work their way in,

Get accustomed to it.

Well, how do we end up doing with the little bit of downtime?

Well tell you what, junior,

Even though you guys lost a shift,

Big red did really well this week.

It did, did it? Yeah.

Holy. Yeah.

Got the big jar.

I got the big jar. Ready?

You betcha.

So far this season, big red has averaged

200 ounces a week.

60...

100, 130, 220...

270, 280...

Keep going. 300.340.

You're joking right?

Nope. That's it. Right there.

356.65.

Wow! Well done.

- That's unreal. - Good job, parker.

Half-a-million-dollar week.

Yeah, that's pretty good.

Big red's just crunching it.

That last cut you guys are in just...

We must be hit a hot spot or something.

That's a lot. Yeah.

Well, actually, sluicifer did really well, too.

20, 40, 80...

160... 220...

272.95.

Finally, we beat them.

Yeah, that's awesome.

So, for the week, it's 629 and a half ounces.

And our season total is 2,303 ounces.

Not bad. Holy smokes.

That's one of the bigger cleanups big red had.

You know, that's a heck of a good week, parker.

Really good.

629 ounces is worth $1.1 million.

Parker is well on his way to a record-breaking season.

And building the war chest he needs to buy new ground.

Sweet. That's not a bad place to be right now.

On the next "gold rush"...

It's load a free dirt. All we got to do is pick it up.

You see that wooden thing there?

That is the sluice box.

They did that 80 years ago, so I think it'd be one adventure.

Whoo! That just about scared the out of me.

Shut it down!

- Watch your fingers. - Trying to do all this.

With two people, it's pretty ridiculous.

- Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! - -Holy.

It should be the usual.

Whoa! Hold it! Hold it! Hold it!