Original subtitles

7 down on their luck miners, Hunt Klandai Gold, on the edge of the Arctic Circle.

Just saying a gamble anymore, this is now an necessity.

But winter is closing in fast.

And the miners are only halfway to their hundred ounce gold.

We're out of time, we're out of money, and we're out of season.

Now, with just two weeks left in their second season,

the Huckman crew risks life and limb to run all day and all night.

And the battle weary miners finally hit a pastry that could change everything.

Down at Porcupine Creek, the coat of Fred is on his best gold yet.

The ride real estate here.

But 70 feet down is no place to get an excavator stuck.

Don't try this at all.

And at Big Nuggen, the future of the mine lies in 17-year-old Parker's hands.

Once again.

With, there's nothing at Smith Creek.

I don't know what'll happen to Big Nuggen mine.

In the Klondike, the Huffman crew is facing the end of their second mining season.

They're finally running dirt from their second cut.

And to hit their 100 ounce gold, they need it to be their best yet.

The bottom cut to is going to be rich, so we're going to kick some ass here.

And we're not going to fail at this.

We're going to get a bunch of gold.

Shut it down.

Todd stops the run to examine the sluice box.

Dude, look at this, Greg. Look.

Look at that.

Look at that.

That's right in here.

This looks good down in here.

Gold.

Over the last four and a half months.

They pulled 47 ounces of gold out of their first dig site.

Cut one.

But they quickly ran out of gold rich dirt.

Three weeks ago, they started clearing the frozen mud from a second dig site.

Cut two.

Every blade I push against me, that much closer to sluice.

Got a cut number two.

They got down to pay grub and have spent five days running it through the wash plan.

Now is the moment of truth.

Their first full clean out from cut two.

Determines if they leave quartz creek with any profit.

We're working on cut two.

This clean out right here.

We not only have a lot of material.

It's good cleaning.

So I'm expecting in a double-digit.

I'll try to cut my estimate and half.

But I'm going at 10 and a half to 12 ounces.

The Huffman crew has to find nearly two and a half ounces.

Every day to hit their 100 ounce,

160,000 dollar gold.

I believe this clean out is going to be really nice.

There it comes.

From five days worth of dirt, they need at least 12 ounces of gold to stay on track.

Guys, I'm a little discouraged with it.

Basically what it turned out to be is 7.34 ounces.

I'm really disappointed 7.5 ounces.

That for sure we'd have at least 10.

They need to increase their hull by at least an ounce a day to go home with any money in their pockets.

Well guys, we have almost quadrupled what we did last year but still.

I don't know.

We got to get to a hundred for we get out of here.

To the weather pushes us.

Let's do it smart.

What's going to take?

Well, I think what we're going to have to do taught is we're going to have to commit to go running.

That machine should not shut down if we're going to continue to run this.

We just got to keep her going and get the good pay.

I don't know if we can pull it off but if we can, I'd love to just go for it.

Okay, who's that?

Okay.

All right.

To hit 100 ounces.

Let's go.

The crew has to go from running eight hours a day to running 16 hours a day.

Fire it up.

We have to go for it.

Just go as fast as we possibly can and run as much as we possibly can for as long as we possibly can.

But they've never pushed the wash plant this hard.

Give me more.

Let's go.

Oh, no water.

No water, sir.

Let it down.

And let.

Dude, we're out of frickin' water.

Look at that.

We don't even have any storage.

And there isn't any.

It's just not just all mud.

Our water system is not working now.

We're too muddy.

Running longer in harder drains the holding pond faster.

Without clean water, the wash plant can't run dirt.

And we've got the gold bearing dirt sitting there waiting.

Everything's ready to go.

It's frustrating.

We have gold at our fingertips.

It just we can't get it.

Down in southeast Alaska.

Dakota Fred is digging deeper than anyone ever has at Porky Pine Creek.

He thinks he's finally at Bedrock.

We're about eight feet below where the hopman's reach last year.

Last season, Jack Hoffman dug down to 70 feet searching for a glory hole.

He fought, held millions in gold.

But the season closed him out before he struck it rich.

What the Hoffman's head was not the glory hole.

It was just a hole.

Fred bet the farm on finding the best gold deep in the old hopman hole.

This is the deepest stuff we got.

We hope that it's going to be really good.

But getting down to Bedrock hasn't been easy.

Fred started out running dirt from a wide area across the claim.

He changed his strategy when he found that gold got better.

The deeper he dug.

Just keep it on digging deeper and deeper.

It paid off when he hit 50 ounces.

50 points seven.

With $80,000 in gold, he broke even for the season.

Now, if the Bedrock material stays good,

Fred and the Dakota boys could go home with a fortune.

I would really like to know what this material is running.

This will tell me whether it is worthwhile,

continuing in this situation.

After two days running just the gray material from Bedrock,

Fred calls for a cleanup.

This is the deepest dirt that we've had.

Could be the best gold ever.

Could be the worst gold ever. You'd never know until after you ran it.

I'll be damned. Look at that.

Okay, well, that's a bunch of gold.

All this line right here has got flakes of gold in it.

I'm seeing gold all over the top, blue spots.

We've obviously gotten some bigger gold.

That's what I like to hear. Yeah, yeah. That's what I like to hear.

Damn nice. Look at that.

I have to get you right there.

My guess?

Five ounces.

How much? Five. Five.

Yeah, that's it.

I just see a few flakes here and there.

You are so full of it.

I'll give you a pile of them right here.

Look at that.

I've never been able to do this before.

I can scoop them up right now.

There's a number of gold up here. Look at this.

This is insane.

Nine ounces.

Might be a little bit in here too.

Oh, nice.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

We're going to do it here.

Fred has 50 ounces of gold in the bank.

Only half way to his 100 ounce gold.

For him to have any chance of hitting 160,000 dollars worth of gold

in the last couple of weeks, he has to get at least seven ounces.

In this clean out.

Come on, baby.

17.

Six. Good job.

God.

That's more twice what we've been getting.

A couple days.

A couple days running.

A couple days running.

Half months took a year to get 15 ounces.

They're 17.

Six.

They're running.

I love it.

Fred has pulled $27,000 of gold from the bedrock

dirt in just two days.

At this rate, the last two weeks could net the Dakota boys 120 ounces.

Worth almost $200,000.

Up at Cords Creek, the Hoffman crew is having trouble with their water supply.

Again.

A month ago, Dave Turin addressed the water shortage.

By pumping the groundwater,

seeping into their first dig site over to their intake pond.

Fire it up.

That clean water that's coming out of our cut over there.

Popping into here.

But there still isn't enough water to run for 16 straight hours.

Because cut one is out of pader.

Dave comes up with another way to use the pit.

We're going to flood it and use that for a reservoir for our clean water.

So we can slow.

We'll flood the pit up to the pump.

So first thing in the morning, we'll flip this pump on.

Flood our intake.

So we got nice clean water.

So we can run all day tomorrow.

A pump has been keeping the cut dry.

With the pump now switched off.

Ground water springs should pour in overnight and fill it.

This area half the size of a football field will become a reservoir for clean water that can be pumped into their intake pond.

Definitely is a love-hate thing with this water.

Sometimes it's your friend.

Sometimes it makes your life miserable.

By the next morning, Dave's plan delivers a reserve.

Awesome.

Of another 160,000 gallons of water.

We solved the problem.

We got clean water to run with.

It should be enough to allow the miners to run dirt from cut to.

Uninterrupted.

Nice clean water.

I like it.

As long as we keep this water supply up, we should be able to run long days.

So that's going to help us get to our goal and close out the season.

Hopefully with a bang.

Start it up.

How's it?

Here we go.

We're going to run.

We're actually going to be don't cut too, huh?

Yeah, we're getting close.

Want to know what we're going to run?

Now they've doubled their runtime.

They're getting through the pay dirt from cut to twice as fast.

So I got paidered on two all the way up.

It actually looks like we're going to get through it in about a week.

So we got to get cut three down or it's over.

Dave and Greg have already started clearing the vegetation on a third cut.

South of cuts one in two, where Toronto and Quartz Creek meet.

But that's on hold while the crew and machines are feeding the wash plant cut to pay dirt.

We're going to have to search strip and cut three up tonight.

Guys aren't going to like that, but I don't really care.

Todd's plan is to stockpile the pay dirt from cut to by day and clear away the overburden on cut three by night.

Now we're going to run the night and Greg and Dave.

Let's get over on three.

See if you can see if you can peel it and get down to some pater.

Try to strip it, break through there.

I know that dosa is on its last leg, so do what you can.

Keep it safe and let's see what happens, huh?

Come on, let's go.

Dave and Greg are now faced with the daunting task of operating 175,000 pounds of machinery

in close proximity to each other on slippery ground in the pitch dark.

What's up, Greg?

Greg, stock in the mud.

Ten more.

That soft buck that just acts like quick sand and guys have lost entire machines.

It's a really hard time seeing it.

Easy, easy.

Stop, stop, stop.

We break the dosa we're done.

I think we're all going home.

This is getting ridiculous.

This isn't working, it's too muddy, too dark.

I just don't have enough light to see what I'm doing.

And right now it's just a joke, it's totally frustrating.

And Greg, go.

We're done.

I can't do anything.

I can't see.

Call it a night.

This is ridiculous.

Sorry boys, we're going to break something.

It's just a dream.

At Portiovine Creek, Dakota Fred is digging in the best material he's ever seen.

The rich great dirt from the bottom of their pit,

netted him in astonishing 17 ounces,

worth $27,000 in just two days of running.

More than the Hoffman's got in their entire first season.

Go for it, dude.

Man, I've got the water running just right but I can't stop for very long, so try to keep up.

But the 80-foot hole is now so steep, the bottom has narrowed to a small ledge.

And when I come back up with a damn thing back there, I can't turn around right now.

My ass hit is hitting the wall.

Don't hit a hole.

It looks like a backup, you'll have to try it back here.

We'll not back up.

It's having a little problem with turning around because it's a little tight.

It's boxing and all of them.

The break goes, the closer the walls get.

And he just doesn't have the room to turn his machine all the way around.

In his race to get as much of the gray material as possible, Fred has boxed himself in.

Over the season, as he dug deeper and deeper into the steep-sided hole, his operating platform became smaller and smaller,

leaving him no room to turn.

If he tries to dig out the side, he risks elapsed the 80-foot walls on himself in the 270.

I would never do that with wood.

There you go, Fred.

Get it.

This is serious.

This is not.

I've got to have a little backup.

Damn it.

Got it, damn it.

And then damn thing to go.

There we go.

Just sit down, follow up a little bit.

The 270 is the Dakota Boys only means of getting it Peter.

If it's stuck in the pit, there will be no more goal.

If you want to...

I can pivot around one more time to get on top here.

Fred has no choice, but to try and pull himself to save him.

There we go.

The pit they've dug is too steep for him to work in any longer.

We're going to have to abandon the real deep material.

We're not going to go back to bottom of the hole.

It's just too boxed in now.

So it took us four months, but the hole's done.

At Court's Creek, the Hoffman crew is on an all or nothing push to the end.

But running late into the night is worrying doser operator Dave Turin.

Yeah, last night it was impossible.

It was getting dangerous.

I didn't have enough light.

Greg was swinging with the hole.

There's no way we should continue to do what we're doing.

It's just too dark.

So I'm going to get a harness over here and see if between the two of us we can come up with a solution

to get more light on that doser.

I'm going to cut three over there.

You know, I'm running into a lot of mud.

Problem is I got really bad lighting on that.

All I have is two on the front and they shine right on the blade.

So I can't see over the top of the blade.

I need something up high that's like looking down in front.

The only thing we've got around here that's going to have any powers those.

Those are like a million candle powers.

What if I take a couple of those off and stick up on the top of it?

Yeah.

In the middle of the clundice, hearts aren't easy to come by.

Harness is forced to scavenge from his pride and joy.

His truck.

If they can't see, they can't work.

So it affects all of us and it's a danger factor too.

I mean, I don't want to see somebody get hurt.

It's worth it to me to sacrifice a couple of lights and keep things going to get some more gold.

The beast lives.

With the new lights on his doser, Dave attacks the new dig site.

Cut three.

I haven't got stuck.

It's a lot better tonight than the last night that we were out here trying to strip the dark.

And in mud, I got it stuck three times.

I haven't even stuck yet.

So it's a good day.

Dave pushes off the worthless overburden and dumps it into the now useless first cut.

But even with the new lights, it's hard to see the edge of the 30 foot pit.

It's just a big black dark space and a little bit dark spot this.

Careful near that edge, Dave.

That's a 30 foot free fall.

It's just a big black dark space and a little bit dark spot this.

Okay, stop right there. Stop.

Dave touring is stripping cut three in the middle of the night.

He has almost driven the doser off a sheer cliff.

You look like you're going to just flop right over and that goes down about 30 feet.

So you have anything that can bark my edge out here.

Tell you what, I got a couple of fliers and I'll throw a couple of fliers.

That's a good idea. Thanks Todd.

Well, Dave gets keeps getting close to the cliff edge and he always scares the heck out of everybody because he's because he's kind of a dare double.

So I'm going to put some fliers here.

We're going to mark it a little bit so he knows where he could stop.

Hey, Dave, I want you to move up here. Tell me where you want these fliers.

I'll kind of direct you over here.

All right there.

Yeah, right there. Put a flare there.

Put one about five feet on the left side, five feet on the right side.

That way I'll stay between him and then I know where the edge is.

There you go, Dave.

I don't know what he's looking after. My dozer or me.

It is a little bit scary right here, though.

I don't want to lose Dave, but I definitely don't want to lose the dozer. Sorry Dave.

There's two more fliers.

All right, thanks Todd.

All right, Dave.

At 2 a.m., while Dave strips in the pitch dark, the rest of the crew runs dirt.

Through the wash plant, desperate to up their seasons goal total.

These guys don't want to stop.

They want to work here tonight.

They're putting more through here than has ever been put through it.

Faster than has ever happened.

Running the wash plant in the dark is just as dangerous as running the dozer.

Jack, a big rock.

Duck in the feet.

Shoot it down.

That rock was huge.

I am.

Of course, the biggest rock I've ever seen has to go in there tonight.

Jack, stuck a huge rock in there.

He's stuck.

He's got jammed in there.

Thurber tries to free the boulder with a crowbar, but it won't budge.

Running the conveyor for a second could jerk the rock free.

Dave, real short.

But it's a dangerous manoeuvre.

Horneus is down at the controls, but he can barely see or hear Thurber from his position.

Duck.

Duck.

Go ahead.

Stop it.

Don't pay attention what the fuck you're doing.

That's what's going on.

Regardless of what happened, I couldn't hear you.

You said, on and off.

And so that's what I did until you told me not to.

There's no excuse for that.

That is this.

If I had it soon, do you know what stuff man has popped in there?

He would have busted my legs off.

I'd be a lot shorter if not dead.

The crew shuts down to take a break and check the sluice.

Would you look at that?

Look at this.

Jump right here.

No way.

Is that gold right down?

That's gold.

Good.

Good.

Good.

This is some great gold in here.

I think we did good.

It's a good run, you guys.

Great run.

I'll tell you what.

We'll run the crap out of it.

We'll do one clean out out of it.

And we'll see what we get.

All right, man.

Nice run, you guys.

Let's go hit the sack.

In 2010, 33 Chilean gold miners were trapped underground for 69 days.

19 days longer than anyone else in history.

The miners were stuck under 2,000 feet of rock.

All survived your deal.

And were rescued in a televised event that had a global audience

of over a billion people.

In Alaska, Parker Schnabel has just finished

another day of high school and is heading to his other full-time job.

Running the big nugget mine.

I think that this is great.

Big challenge to juggle school and then the mine is going to be pretty tough.

The only way I don't burn myself out in this first week.

And then have a month to go being miserable is to just take everything

head on and go after it.

Two weeks ago, Parker handed the mine back to grandfather John

and returned to school.

Running a gold mine for three months to sit in a classroom.

But just days later, 91-year-old John had a heart attack

followed by life-saving surgery, placing the future of the mine

back in Parker's hands.

I was supposed to just go to school, but I've just been

thrown right back into it.

Parker's attempts at finding new gold-rich dirt at the big nugget mine

have failed.

Veteran John believes that the ground on top of Smith Creek Hill

is the key to the mine survival.

From his hospital bed, my grandpa said to do whatever it took

to find out what was up at Smith Creek this fall.

I don't know what we'll do if there's nothing at Smith Creek.

I don't know what'll happen to a big nugget mine if.

I'll find it, baby.

To save the mine, Parker and his team have to shift thousands of

tons of worthless dirt and rocks in the hope of hitting a

gold-rich pastry.

The plan is to kind of slope this down off the hill, right?

So what we'll do is knock this hill out.

Take that slope at this slope all the way on down to the back.

I think it'll work just fine.

We're all pulling for John to get back here, of course.

This is his life.

At the end of the day, John Schnubble makes a surprise visit

his first since his heart attack.

I'm glad you can come up here.

Me too.

John hasn't seen the progress.

Parker has made on Smith Creek Hill.

You know what I really would like?

What?

If you get that four-wheeler without your help?

Yeah.

Take me up, I want to see his Smith Creek.

My goodness.

I never dreamed you would ever be this wide out of here.

I'm impressed.

I really thought this little canyon wouldn't be more than maybe 50 foot wide

as a best.

My goodness.

It's a hundred and fifty wide out.

You know, Smith Creek.

It's kind of an all or nothing deal for the whole mind.

Yeah.

I mean, it might be something that's just not worth it.

I think you're close to finding out what you got here.

It's very encouraging.

Just head back down the hill, I've seen it all.

All right.

Well, I sure appreciate you taking me up here, Parker.

I can't help but feel this was going to be a well-rewarding experience.

Man, you've poured a lot of material.

Oh.

No, I'm all right.

It would kill me if he never found out what was up here.

Because we've both wondered for a long time.

My mission is to make sure he does find out before anything happens to him.

Across the creek, the Dakota boys are panning the last of the gold-rich dirt

that Fred had to abandon when his excavator got stuck at the bottom of their hole.

Say, Paul, we got to get back down to bedrock.

God.

That deep gray material right on top of that bedrock.

That's some good stuff.

I'll say, dig, dig, dig, get back down there.

Let's go for it.

We're going to get back down there and take that spot out.

It's just has to happen.

Fred comes up with a new plan of attack for the pit.

He will come at it from the only safe side.

But this will involve moving a massive amount of earth.

What we're going to have to do is go back and expand the coal back about a 40 by 40 area.

The way we're going to get to it, we're going to build a roadway,

and go around the back of the cabin.

And then peel a little of this off there.

Fred uses his 270 excavator to build a new access road

around to the far side of the pit.

And almost like the interstate out here now.

The road allows Dustin and Paul to join Fred

on the northern edge of the pit.

Hey, let's say we get it down as far as those two big rocks down there.

I'll say, start processing it from there on.

From this side of the hole, Fred plans to strip away layers of dirt to open up the pit.

This will allow him to build a new safer road,

back down to the gold rich pader at the bottom.

Fred and his crew have to move an incredible 20,000 yards of dirt,

enough to fill more than 100 swimming pools.

Don't mind mind right now getting it dirt out air

and getting down a bottom of the hole.

Just keep digging down Fred down to the answer.

Dave, baby, Dave.

Don't drive this at home.

After three long days, the team finally reaches the bottom of the pit.

The end of the team, right there, we're at a great material start right there.

Success!

Once again, Fred is digging the gold rich grave pader

that gave them an epic 17 ounce cleanup worth $27,000.

Dustin waste no time getting the bedrock dirt over to the derog.

The decoder boys are on the gold.

But with the season rapidly drawing to a close,

it's going to be an all-out sprint to turn any kind of a prop.

In the clondike, the Huffman crew has been running 16-hour days in a race to the finish line.

We're all tired, we've been up late and we get up early and we're just tired.

With just days of mining left this season and with only 55 ounces of gold,

the crew is eager to find out if doubling their running time is going to pay off.

Damn, I'm going to scoop this my last scoop, I'm going to shut everything down.

That's it, we're cleaning it up.

You can shut all this off.

Hey, how are we doing up top above the ripples?

Every second, the wash plan is shut down.

The crew loses gold.

Todd wants to be back up and running as soon as possible.

You got to do this side, this side, and then whoop!

Now I can get the last one.

Yeah.

Nice one, nice nice.

They've got a few little nuggets here in there.

Yeah, those are good.

Thank you.

You take them?

They're all good, man.

They're fine, they're too.

As night falls, Jack works alone to extract every last speck of gold from the clean out.

Meanwhile, the rest of the crew continues battling the cold and the dark to feed

Peter into the wash plan.

Hey, Todd and the rest of you guys, I'm going to meet you by the fire.

I have a final towel here for you.

Okay, we'll shut her down, and we'll be over there in a minute.

All right, Jack, I'll be right there.

Chris!

I don't have super high hopes on this clean out because all this stuff and

it's starting in the water issues, but I'm guessing five ounces seven.

Three.

I was hoping to see at least ten.

What do you think, Dave?

I think we'll get eight ounces tonight.

It's got to be four or five in there.

Well, find out.

First Jack.

There he comes.

Ah, she's.

After four days of running dirt day and night.

This cleanup has to produce over ten ounces of gold.

If the crew is to have any chance of getting to their goal of 100 ounces for the season.

We're getting hot.

Yeah, right.

Give it to a straight.

How many?

How do we do?

What do you think?

Give us double digits.

Chris is going to town.

You're going to want to know?

Yeah, we want to know.

Yeah, two hours ago.

Fifteen ounce.

No.

No way.

Yeah.

Find me.

I'm a beggar.

Oh, yeah.

That's all right.

Fifteen ounce.

Yeah.

Fifteen ounce.

Are you getting there?

Well, in the frick.

How did you get that?

Fifteen ounces out of that.

That's our best forever.

Oh, that was good.

Yeah, I don't know.

Oh, geez.

Fifteen ounces, guys.

Whoo!

We're getting.

Last year, there's time we're at 14.6.

We have a total of 70.0.

Yeah.

Every ounce that goes from now on is just goes right straight in your pocket.

You know, we're way past what we need to take care of stuff and it's just extra.

Like me!

70 ounces is worth about $110,000.

Their running costs are now covered after two seasons of trial and tribulation.

The Hoffman crew is finally in the black.

They are now profitable gold miners.

It's going to start to pay off from here out.

So anything we get is going to be a bonus.

And I think that makes anybody happy.

A hundred ounces is within our reach, guys.

Let's not let the weather beat us to the goal.

You know?

Let's frickin' beat it.

This afternoon, we're sitting around, it's wondering.

Are we going to make it?

Can we make it?

No, I think we can.

I'm Crystal Joy, executive producer of Gold Rush.

This time on the Gold Rush after show.

I eat when I get nervous.

Maybe you should have less food up there.

No, I'm down 20 pounds.

I mean, I'm not going to fit into your designer jeans.

Watch the Gold Rush after show at discovery.com slash Gold Rush after show.