Original subtitles

[tense music playing]

[country music playing]

[Parker] Come on, dude, don't do this.

Dozer, pick it up.

Everybody's waiting. Get it.

Get the toy. Get your toy.

Get in.

All right. Let's go.

[narrator] Twenty-seven-year-old mine boss, Parker Schnabel,

is facing the toughest season of his life.

In the Klondike, he's chasing a 10,000 ounce,

$18 million payday

that comes with an expiration date.

[Parker] Because our license is expiring,

we have a very real deadline here

where this all has to be done.

We got started sluicing early

and that's super important this year.

Like, it's a big year of sluicing

more than ever before.

The big push right now is keep the plants running

and stripping crew stay out ahead of them.

[narrator] Parker needs the Klondike

to start paying out big right away.

In just a few short weeks,

he plans to open another plant in Alaska,

a move that will stretch him to the limit

but could deliver a massive payday.

Every year, we're pushing it,

but this year, there's no wiggle room in it,

so we can't afford anything that keeps us down for too long.

[tense music playing]

[narrator] Parker's original 45 acres of ground

on the airstrip has doubled to 90

since his deal with Tony Beets.

The first section to be mined

is the 14-acre Keyhole Cut

where Parker's crew are already down the pay

and sluicing the gold rich material

through Big Red at 200 yards an hour.

[Mitch] Let's get some gold.

[machine whirring]

[Mitch] You know, we've been making really good progress with the Keyhole Cut.

Right now, I'm loading trucks.

Justin's up running the wash plant

while Tyson's trying to send some pay dirt up to Big Red,

so he can keep it running.

Garf, get in.

You know, we have a lot of ground to go through this year

and really not that much time.

You know, it's twice the amount of ground we mined last year.

And right now, we only have one wash plant running

and it's probably gonna stay that way for quite some time.

[bleep] it's frozen [bleep] stiff.

This is not good running into permafrost here in the cut

that we wanna be sluicing.

The only thing we can do is send the pay to Big Red

and hopefully it thaws before Big Red runs out of pay.

[narrator] After one of the harshest winters on record,

the Schnabel crew is battling permafrost

in the pay layer.

Yeah. Big Red's a...

She's a hungry [bleep] but frozen pay dirt

doesn't really mesh along with Big Red.

They don't get along very well together.

[metal creaking]

[Justin] Oh, we might have a jam up in the feeder.

[narrator] Frozen for thousands of years,

the permafrost pay dirt

is starting to jam up the hopper.

[Justin] It looks all right for now.

Just like that, feeder is clear.

Back to sluicing.

I see some frozen chunks of pay up by the plant.

And it sounds like Justin and Tyson

are having a real hard time with the frozen material.

It's just been a really cold spring and that's...

You know, it's bound to come with issues.

Get out and stretch your legs.

[narrator] In addition to slowing down the operation,

frozen chunks of pay dirt running through the plant aren't melting,

leaving gold trapped inside the tailings.

[Parker] Hey, man.

I was just coming to talk to you about this exact problem.

[Mitch] It's called permafrost for a reason, right?

Because it's permanently frozen.

I mean, it would help us a lot

if it was more than like 35 degrees for at least like four hours.

We need some warm weather

trying to keep up with stripping

and sluicing at the same time.

And then that's the problem is that

we're using a lot of our manpower right now

to just try to keep the plant fed.

I really feel like we should shut the plant down.

[tense music playing]

And just focus on thaw and stripping.

But the thing is, with this much area,

if we shut the plant down, I don't know

if we'll be able to get through it all

by the end of the year.

But we're just gonna fight it all season

if we don't put our foot on the brakes

with the sluicing and focus on our stripping, you know.

We're never gonna get to the point

where we're just digging nice, clean thawed pay.

So let's go ahead and just shut it down.

It's a gamble that we're just gonna have to take.

Yeah.

We'll fire back up when the sun decides that it's summertime.

And make the best use to everybody that we free up.

Well, I'll go up there and shut it down now

and we'll just start working on

getting everything taken care of down here.

- All right. Thanks, Mitch. - All right. Yup.

[Parker] So it's not really something that I like to do.

Our rule is always that like once we start sluicing,

we are running 24/7.

But given the price of fuel and where things are at,

we're much better off shutting it down for a while.

[narrator] Parker's gambling that shutting down Big Red

will focus his crew on getting more ground stripped

and exposed to the sun, so that it can thaw.

We're really just hoping the weather warms up for us,

so we can get this ground thawing out

because right now, we're not making any money, we're just spending it.

[tense music playing]

[country music playing]

[chainsaw whirring]

[Fred] Really gonna treat your poor chainsaw like this?

It's ice.

Long as there's no rocks in here, I'll be okay.

[narrator] Far from the big Klondike mining operation,

ex-Green Beret medic Fred Lewis

is battling 30 feet of ice

that's holding his pay dirt hostage.

We're using our pumps, spraying water onto this ice to melt it faster.

Everything we've done to this point

really hasn't done much to dent it.

[chainsaw whirring]

If we're going to wait for this to melt,

it may not even melt the whole year.

You know, I promised my guys a 500 ounce season.

We need to be mining now.

[narrator] Only a few hundred yards away,

the Clayton brothers are also chasing the dream.

Twenty-three-year-old Brandon,

one of the youngest mine bosses in the Yukon.

Hey, Brady.

[narrator] And his 20-year-old brother...

- Yeah. - I got a map of our claims here.

Are hunting for untouched virgin ground.

Let's go see if we can put a mining plan together for the season.

[narrator] Brady has a hockey scholarship,

but is dedicating his summer vacation

to helping the family get back on its feet.

[Brandon] I think if we have any shot

in getting to our 500 ounce season goal,

we got to find some good ground and quick.

[narrator] The Clayton brothers need to mine

500 ounces of gold

to help pay off a crippling family debt.

So last year, we stripped this

and ran about 20,000 yards,

averaged 1.5 ounces.

Right.

And I'm thinking it was getting better down here

because there's two creeks that joined,

so I think for our plan this year,

we should look at spots where creeks join together.

There is another one just downstream here that,

see it, looks like it's coming in.

[Brady] Mmm-hmm.

So we should poke around and...

Take the excavator and poke some holes?

Yeah. Do some panning.

Yeah. I like the sounds of that.

[Brandon] Okay. Well, let's go do her...

Yeah. Little treasure hunt.

[narrator] The source of the California Creek gold

is the Sixty mile Pika fault.

Over thousands of years,

flowing water eroded gold from the fault,

taking it downstream.

Last season, the Claytons mined out the junction of two creeks

where the water current slowed,

allowing the heavy gold to sink

and be caught by natural riffles.

Working on the same theory,

Brady has identified another junction

half a mile downstream,

where he's hoping the same process

has deposited more gold

and will deliver a monster payday.

[dramatic music playing]

With the goal that we're shooting for this year,

we need a lot of ground, a lot of area.

We got bills to pay.

We got to help our family out,

so if we don't find anything,

we might as well [bleep] go home.

[Brady] What are you thinking?

[Brandon] Where we're starting to get wide here.

Yeah.

So the water would've slowed down

and if it carried gold, it would've just deposited it.

So let's dig a hole right in this ground here,

throw that over, get me the gravel and I'll pan it.

All right. Sounds good.

This is kind of... kind of a do or die

for not even our season, but for our family.

[Brandon] Okay, Brady, I'm gonna get in that hole

and grab some gravel here.

[Brady] All right. Sounds good.

[dramatic music playing]

We got a lot riding on this pan,

we need to see some serious gold.

If we think we're getting 500 ounces,

this has to be the pan to do it.

[tense music playing]

Holy [bleep] dude, look at this.

One, two, three.

[Brandon] That's pretty [bleep] good right there.

[Brady] Look at how big these things are.

Six, seven.

There's probably 15 colors in this pan.

Yeah. It's pretty [bleep] good.

Wow.

If this pan represents this whole claim--

We're [bleep] set.

[Brandon] We got to get a better view.

There's so much ground here to move.

This is insane.

This is what we need to get to our 500 ounce season goal,

- right here. - Yup.

And, man, if it pans like this,

- this is Golden Acres. - Yeah.

[bleep] Brady, this is something

we're gonna have to write home about.

- [Brady] Yeah. - [Brandon] Dad's gonna be stoked.

We just need to get down here.

[Brandon] We got to get here.

[narrator] But there's one massive problem...

[tense music playing]

their wash plant, Dirt Devil

is a half mile upstream from Golden Acres.

[Brandon] With fuel prices, we definitely don't

wanna haul from down here up in there.

Let's have a look and see

if we can get the trommel through there or not.

Here, we got a road here so we could easily drag it

- right beside the creek. - [Brady] Mmm-hmm.

It's just this part here is what worries me.

Anything past this is not stripped,

it's narrow as[bleep].

[narrator] Halfway between Golden Acres and Dirt Devil,

the creek narrows

and is surrounded on either side

by steep, rugged terrain.

For us to even think about getting it there,

- we can't pull it on the mud... - Mmm-hmm.

because it'll just get stuck.

Can't drag it through the creek.

Building a road down here would cost $50,000 in fuel.

We definitely can't afford to spend $50,000.

And that's just...

- Not even-- - not happening.

At the end of the day,

our goal is to clear up our debts.

[narrator] The family's debt means Brandon and Brady

have almost no capital to fund their mining season.

Last thing we wanna do is let you down.

[narrator] And the last of their cash...

What the heck is going on here?

[man] That's bad.

was spent repairing their dozer.

[Brandon] We need that CAT to be stripping.

I can't even run dirt.

We're down before we even started.

[tense music playing]

[Brady] Kicked us in the nuts.

If we can't figure anything out,

our season is over before we start it

and we might as well pack our campers up and go home.

[tense music playing]

[tense music playing]

[country music playing]

What have you been up to today, Len?

I don't have a [bleep] clue.

[laughter]

I can break something for you and you can fix it.

Oh, yes. You're good in that, so.

I am... I am good at that, yeah.

[Tony speaking]

- Go. Bye. See you later. - Here we go.

[narrator] King of the Klondike, Tony Beets,

has gambled his season

on a high stakes treasure hunt

at Paradise Hill.

The fabled white channel pay runs through the claim,

and if he can stay on it,

he could be in for a big payday.

[Tony speaking]

[tense music playing]

[narrator] In the 9-acre Cold Cut,

Tony's crew have already stripped

almost half of the cut down to pay.

100 yards to the north,

Tony wants to open up the 6-acre Blue Cut

to double his chances.

But to reach the white channel gold,

his crew must first

dig through 100 feet of overburden.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] Tony wants his oldest son Mike

to get it done in just six days.

I took a breath to try to talk while I was drinking,

didn't work quite so well.

You dink.

We were throwing everything we can

to get all this dirt moved

before air comes up too much of a pain in the ass

to move with trucks and we're gonna end up

having to do more expensive [bleep] around.

We're gonna have to hurry up with everything

to stay ahead of the tractors and excavators.

[narrator] Mike Beets and cousin Mike

rip and pile up worthless non-gold-bearing earth

known as overburden with two dozers.

Excavators then load the rock trucks

that haul the dirt up to the dump sites.

[Megan] [bleep] move, man.

Go.

[Ruby] You're way too close to me.

There's always the beginning of the year hiccups

that always happens.

You know, if it didn't happen,

I mean, it wouldn't be gold mining.

Oh [bleep].

[tense music playing]

[Mike] What's going on here?

Mike, need a copy.

What's wrong with that dozer?

I've got a leak.

[Mike] Holy [bleep] me.

Kevin, do you copy, Kevin?

[Kevin] Go for Kevin.

Hey, Kevin, the D10L is leaking.

So I'm gonna send him down to the lower yard.

You wouldn't mind checking it out for me, please?

[Kevin] Be right on my way.

Okay. Thank you.

[Michael] We really can't deal with this right now.

We just need to get this thing fixed as fast as possible

and start ripping again.

[narrator] Mike continues in the D11.

But without the D10's ripping power,

he has no chance of getting down to pay

by the end of the week.

The D10 down,

I have a lot less ability to get stuff done as fast as I want.

Very, very, very, very problematic.

[dramatic music playing]

We've had to shut the plant down

and we're just super shorthanded.

And one of our best dozer operators

is sat in the office and we need him.

[narrator] With all his pay dirt frozen,

Parker Schnabel shut down

his only operational wash plant

and changed course.

While the sun thaws the pay,

he's opening even more ground

betting that high temperatures

will melt it all

and give him a massive pay pile to run.

Hey, boss, are you super busy?

A little. Yeah. Can't you tell?

[Parker] Yeah, I know.

We're having a pretty rough time

out in the pit with frost

and just fighting things down there.

I was wondering if you can come out

of retirement for us for a little bit.

You have probably more experience in a dozer

than just about anybody on this mine site.

So I was hoping to... I was hoping to try to use

some of your expertise out there.

- [Nona] Okay. - Is that okay?

Do you know how long... how long I'll be out there for?

Like, how many days?

[Parker] Probably a week.

Okay.

That's fine. Yeah.

I can do that for you for sure.

- Okay. Thanks. I appreciate it. - [Nona] Yeah.

- Thank you, girls. - [Nona] Okay. Thanks, Parker.

Okay, we can do that.

[dramatic music playing]

Right now, we're just throwing everybody we can

at these cuts to get them caught up

and ready to go and because, like,

where we're at right now, there's, you know,

12 feet of gravel that needs to thaw.

[narrator] The frozen pay won't thaw

unless it's broken up and exposed to sunlight.

We've got to do this as fast as we can here

to get this ground exposed.

This is what it's gonna take.

I mean, everybody's got to step up

because we just have too much ground to get through

if we don't have everybody pitching in.

[dramatic music playing]

This gold mining gets in your veins,

gets in your blood.

[narrator] Office manager Nona Loveless

uses the 73-ton D10 dozer

to rip through the permafrost.

[Nona speaking]

Some of this... some of this material is...

Was permafrost

and that stuff to rip is a real challenge.

It's expensive, it's hard on the equipment.

I am in a tough spot right now

trying to get this done but it'll come, we'll get her.

Holy. Come on.

That doesn't seem to be wanting to come out.

Whoa.

What the heck.

What... Oh, my [bleep].

What the hell is this?

Are you kidding me?

That hull is lifted off the blade.

This is not what we need for another machine to be down.

We get nowhere, nowhere today.

Hey, Jordan, you got a copy?

You're not gonna believe it, the blade is peeling up, just come and get it.

Thank you.

[dramatic music playing]

This is really thin and it wore the welds off,

so you have to take all these pieces off

and then put the new pieces in that we have.

What's going on, man? Why are you pulling that thing out of here?

Oh, the skin is peeling right off.

Obviously that frozen [bleep] just grabbed the bottom and peeled it up.

[Mitch] Oh, no way.

It's crazy how abrasive that stuff is

to wear the steel down that hard.

[Jordan] Yeah, I didn't think it was gonna go away that quick.

Well, yeah, the sooner we can get her back in action

the better off we're gonna be.

[Jordan] Yeah.

Yeah, kind of [bleep] timing but...

[Mitch] Yeah, couldn't be any worse.

Wasting a lot of money here.

[tense music playing]

[country music playing]

[Mitch] Man, fighting that frost is just...

It's a never ending battle here.

[narrator] Parker Schnabel and his crew

are racing to get ground ripped and thawed

so they can get back to running pay,

but they're down a dozer.

Even Nona is one of the best past hitters that we've got.

So, at a time like this,

her skills are needed.

[Ty] This is[bleep].

[bleep].

Boys are asking for this.

They got a lot of frozen ground,

Big Red is down right now.

[narrator] Back at Parker's yard,

mechanic Ty Smith

and specialist welder Dan Colen

are fighting to get the D10 back in action.

[Ty] Our blade skins are ripping apart.

Dan's giving us a hand here.

He's cutting everything apart.

We'll get the new skin put on here

and then this D10 can go back to pushing some mud

and we can keep opening up ground.

[Dan] We're getting this done as fast as we can.

We need this machine running.

[Ty] It would be nice to get this thing back out

in the cut and ripping some dirt.

[Dan] Right oh, yeah, she's solid.

Sweet. We'll get the truck ready

and get this thing down there.

[Nona] Mitch, you got a copy?

Go for Mitch.

[Nona] Blade's fixed, we're back in business.

[Mitch] Yeah! Let's do it.

[Nona] Ty got this done.

And now we can get back on track

and try to get Big Red fired up

and we are running out of time.

[dramatic music playing]

As soon as we have enough pay dirt, we're gonna fire Big Red up.

We can get ahead of it a little bit

and hopefully Mother Nature works with us.

We can get this thing rolling again.

The Yukon and Mother Nature working with us

don't belong in the same sentence.

[laughing]

[narrator] With Nona and their dozer back in the game,

the crew can rip for the next 24 hours straight.

[Mitch] So we've been stockpiling pay dirt

ever since we shut the plant down.

You know, the decision to shut down

Big Red this week, definitely something

I'm, you know, not a huge fan of

but Parker made the decision

to focus on stripping ground.

We can definitely use this warm weather

that we're getting today here

to help some of this pay thaw out.

Yeah, it looks good.

We definitely got enough dirt to fire the wash plant back up.

[rock music playing]

Well, man, you know, at least it's not snowing today, so.

- [Parker] Right on. - Hey, Justin, you got a copy?

Go ahead.

Hey, man, let's... We're gonna fire this thing back up.

Let's get back to washing some rocks here.

Sure thing, Mitch, show time, let's go,

let's feed this beast.

You wanna do the honors, Mitch?

Let's do it, man, here we go.

- Yeah! - There we go.

[Mitch] Get it, Justin, let's do it.

There it is, Big Red is back running.

Hopefully, we got a lot of gold in that sluice box

the end of the week here.

[dramatic music playing]

You know, originally we were gonna move the plant.

Turns out, it's a bit more challenging

than we anticipated.

[narrator] On the westernmost frontier of the Yukon,

the Clayton brothers are out of luck

and out of cash.

They need to build a road to the hotspot

they found at Golden Acres,

but it'll cost $50,000.

At the rate we're going, we're [bleep] not gonna make

our goal and one thing we're gonna lose the [bleep] so.

- Yeah. - I ain't losing.

[Warren] But what the [bleep] are we gonna do?

[narrator] Operator Warren Binnie has traveled

from Grande Prairie in Alberta

to join the Clayton brothers this season.

You know, we've invested enough just getting up here

and getting started all the repairs

for the transmission on the dozer, the torque,

you know, we need to try something.

[Brady] Well, what are we gonna do then?

Why don't we test up top upstream of it?

Like, just haul like a couple hundred yards or something?

Yeah, say do 200 yards,

if we have enough up there

then see if we can get some money to...

From there to go down to Golden Acres.

[Warren] I like it.

You know, it's a shot in the dark,

but it's worth the shot, I think, we're here.

- Right. - You know, we're a team, guys.

We don't give up.

Then, let's give it a go.

We'll get Dirt Devil running,

we'll wash 200 yards.

We'll see how much gold is there.

[bleep] yeah, guys. Let's do it.

Let's [bleep] kick some [bleep] ass, guys.

Hell yeah.

[narrator] Brady's plan, mine a strip of land

just a hundred yards upstream from their wash plant.

He's hoping there's just enough gold in the ground

to finance their road

and get them to a gold bonanza

at Golden Acres.

[Brandon] Pretty exciting. You know, we're gonna start

running our first bit of dirt this season.

I'm gonna take the top gravels off.

And we're gonna go 10 feet deep.

We'll take the bottom five

and then we're not diluting our pay stream.

[narrator] Brandon thinks the best gold

lies at the bottom of the pay layer.

Okay. Brady, this is gonna be our first little test here.

Let's get it to the Dirt Devil.

[bleep] yeah, I like the sounds of that.

[dramatic music playing]

It feels good to be back in the machine.

Not usually rock truck, but I don't mind

running these things. They are fun.

Beats the hell out of fixing

[bleep] I can tell you that.

The gravel looks good.

But we tried in upper vents last year downstream

and it didn't pay worth a [bleep]

so, uh...

I'm hoping that's not the case here.

[dramatic music playing]

[Brandon] Yeah. I'm definitely depending on this.

If this doesn't pan out

like how I want it,

I don't know what the [bleep] is next.

[Brady] Dirt Devil looks good, eh?

[Brandon] Yeah. It's good to be down here.

Just she's got a little rust on her

and probably should throw some rocks

and water in there soon

and make her sparkle.

[narrator] The Clayton brothers are doing

a test run of pay dirt from a site

close to their wash plant.

I think we're gonna run

our 200 yard test here,

then we'll figure out

if we can make money on it or not.

- Okay, well, let's do her, guys. - Well, pitter-patter.

- Let's go fire her up. - Let's do it.

[narrator] They need this test

to deliver an ounce of gold

to prove the ground will deliver the cash

to get them to Golden Acres.

All right, boys, this is it.

This is the first start of Dirt Devil of the season.

So let's start her up and spin her over.

[Brady] She'll go. She'll go.

There she goes.

Okay, feed her.

[Brandon] Yeah. That's looking good, Warren.

10-4.

I don't know what [bleep] motivates me more,

seeing him sluice

or just having a really big task over there

on our claim, but right now,

this is kind of pissing me off.

[narrator] Fred has bet Brandon

he'll mine more gold this season,

but right now, he's on the back foot.

The ice we have over there

and all the problems we have, he could be a [bleep] month

ahead of us right now.

We're still gonna beat his ass.

You know what I'm saying? Right?

We're still gonna beat his ass.

[Fred] Let's quit moping. Let's get back to work.

Use this as fuel.

[Brandon] What do you think? Is it gonna be good?

[Brady] I think it's gonna be good, boss.

[laughing]

It's a pain in the ass having only one CAT to rip.

[narrator] Trusted by his dad to run the claim,

Mike Beets is down a dozer.

Without it, he has no hope of getting down

to pay in the Blue Cut

by the end of the week.

Hopefully, my brother who's fixing the D10

gets it done quick

so I can get that dozer back in here

to give me a hand and finish all this ripping,

because I, am somewhat falling behind on that.

Something's up with the 10 L,

so I'm gonna go check in with Cousin Mike

and see what it is.

Whatcha break?

Cylinder here.

I looked behind me and I saw oil

dripping out really quick.

Inside the cylinder, the rod piece coming out,

there's a seal around that.

And that is... Well [bleep]

it looks like I'm stuck doing a cylinder swap.

And of course, this happens at the best [bleep] time

where, you know, we really need it.

So we got to get this machine, the D10 L,

back up and running ASA [bleep] P.

So I gotta go sign

so I can find a [bleep] cylinder or two.

Hey, Cody, got a copy, Cody?

[Cody speaking]

We have a D10 hydraulic leak,

so now we need a new cylinder,

and you know where that's hiding?

[Cody speaking]

- Cool. - [narrator] First up,

Kevin removes the broken hydraulic cylinder.

If we come to the front of our cylinder,

we have our ram here.

And what keeps her on the inside

is this here seal.

And right here you can see you got a [bleep] hole.

It's not gonna hold the oil in.

Because that's what holds in all the pressure.

Meaning, when you engage the hydraulics

and that isn't working,

you can get like a 20-foot spray.

It's important to not run it when it's doing that.

This will be the new one to go in.

[narrator] Repairing the seal

will take hours,

but Kevin has a faster plan.

Swap out the broken cylinder

with an old spare bought at auction.

[Kevin] This one was something

I believe we picked up in D.C.,

it can be as much as 10 years ago,

but we never tested any of these either.

For all we know, these cylinders

are gonna leak as well.

If she's not quite well, that's okay.

I can work with that.

Thank you. [grunts]

Can I have a hammer, s'il vous plait?

- [Mike] Does this one work? - [Kevin] [grunts] Thank you.

Can I get you on this side? Tell me how lined up I am.

Maybe like two millimeters up.

[narrator] If the bracket isn't lined up precisely,

there's no way the steel pin will go through.

[hammering]

- [Kevin] Oh, like butter. - [Mike] Perfect.

[narrator] Next...

[Kevin] Come on. Come on.

[narrator] He must attach

the other end to the ripper.

[Kevin] Okay.

Like, if there's one thing we're good at,

it's making [bleep] work with what we [bleep] got.

- She's in? - [Mike] Yeah.

[Kevin] Okay. Let me put the lines on.

Well, I'm gonna get my [bleep] out of the way,

so to speak, Mike's gonna lift the ripper up,

[bleep] flip that back and forth.

Force the air out,

see if it's gonna fail on us or not.

And we'll go from there.

[tense music playing]

[machine revving]

[Kevin] Here's the moment of truth.

Let's see what she does.

Whole thing all the way up.

Just putting it under a bit of load.

It's not going on one side, which is good.

Both sides look to be activating.

You know, it all looks good.

[Tony speaking]

- [Kevin] Got it in. - [Tony speaking]

Oh, yeah.

[narrator] With the dozer repaired,

Cousin Mike is back in the game

with a fighting chance of getting the Blue Cut

down to pay by the end of the week.

[Parker] Doumitt to the rescue, buddy.

[Chris laughs]

[narrator] To get back on track

and run more pay,

Parker's pulled gold recovery expert Chris Doumitt

out of the Gold Room and into a loader.

[Chris] I remember when Big Red was born.

I put the first scoop of dirt through Big Red,

ran it for the Hoffmans for a while

until my back got so screwed up, I couldn't do it anymore.

So Red and I go back a long ways.

We're both old and rusty.

We're gonna have a little competition

and see which one can last the longest.

[laughs]

[Brandon] If this doesn't pay out,

I think we're running out of options.

I don't know what else we got.

We need to get to Golden Acres

and we need to find something

to fund getting there.

[narrator] The Clayton brothers

are betting their season

on testing 200 yards of dirt.

[Brandon] We'd like to see three-quarters

of an ounce per hundred.

We can do half ounce a hundred,

but it would make things tight.

I can't see anything yet.

[narrator] They need to find at least an ounce of gold

to prove the ground is rich enough

to finance their road to Golden Acres.

[Brady] Usually you could see something by now

with all, um, in this one, right?

Right here?

[laughter]

[machine revving]

[narrator] The highbanker sluices the concentrated pay

washing away dirt

to leave the heavy gold in the riffles.

[Brandon] Oh, my gut is telling me it's not bad.

My gut... My gut is telling me

I shouldn't be too worried.

Well, there is gold in there.

Brady, we're seeing gold after the first pail,

so that's a start.

Yeah, it's coming.

It's looking up.

Well, it's hard to see, but you can see gold in those...

Right in these pockets here.

There's a few flakes there, hey?

Yeah, it's a...

There is some gold there, that's for sure.

[Brandon] Okay, boys, this is the moment of truth.

Let's see what we got. Let's put it on the scale

and see what it tells us.

[narrator] To prove the ground is rich enough

to finance the road to Golden Acres,

Brandon needs at least an ounce of gold.

...3 of an ounce.

[narrator] Worth less than $600.

Instead of providing the $50,000 he needs,

Brandon would end up losing money

running this low grade pay.

[Brandon] And we... Not even a half ounce.

Man, it kind of looked like an ounce

like, closer to an ounce but...

Well, we know that's not work... Gonna work, is it?

Nope. That [bleep] sucks.

Kind of a kick in the nuts.

That's not gonna work for the season, so...

200 yards for .3 of an ounce...

tough.

Well, back to the drawing board.

Let's go see what we can figure out.

Yep.

[Warren] Let's get out of here.

[dramatic music playing]

[Brandon] We need to pay the bills

and, uh, help our family out with the debt back home.

So, just trying to think on what we can do

or how we can make some money this season.

I'm kind of just lost for words.

[acoustic music playing]

[Mike] We need to get as much stripping done as we can.

[narrator] At Paradise Hill,

with just hours before the end of the week,

Mike's stripping crew is battling

to get down to pay in the Blue Cut.

Right now, we're trying to open up ground

as quickly as possible.

It's kind of just all hands on deck right now

and we're all just trying to work together in this chaos.

[Michael] Oh, sweet.

Hey, Mike, do you copy?

I think we're hitting pay here in the Blue Cut.

[Mike] [bleep] you still look ugly.

I know. It runs in the family.

[grunts] Can't deny that.

What? Is that actually pay?

Looks like it does, too.

Actually, that is pay from there.

Yeah, that [bleep] is pay.

It's like you see over here.

Lots and lots of [bleep] quartz.

Big quartz. Like, look at that.

That's just... Look at all that rock.

[narrator] Gold is often found with the mineral,

quartz.

So that's how you tell that's [bleep] pay.

I wanna start sluicing all [bleep]

I wanna [bleep] start sluicing.

[baby crying]

What? Hi, baby.

[man speaking]

- Hola, everybody. - [woman] Hello.

[narrator] The Beets family gather to find out

if Tony's hunt for the elusive white channel gold

has paid off this week.

How did we do this week?

[Mike] Oh, not too bad.

Sluiced for seven days, more or less.

[Tony speaking]

- [Mike] Everybody ready? - [woman] Yup.

- [Tony speaking] - [Mike] And go.

[narrator] Tony needs at least 200 ounces a week

to reach his season goal.

[Mike] 100, 110, 120,

130, 140,

150, 160,

170, 180,

190...

202.3.

[narrator] Worth over $360,000.

[Minnie] No.

[woman] Bye, guys.

[acoustic music playing]

- [Mitch] Chris, what's happening? - [Chris] Hey, Mitchel.

- [man] Hey, Doumitt. - [Mitch] How you going, man?

Oh, not too bad.

[Parker] What up? What up?

[narrator] The Schnabel crew are finally

back running after shutting down

because of frozen pay.

So we had a short run. Obviously we spent some time

with Big Red down. But I mean,

we did get some thawed pay dirt up to the plant.

- Yup. - We got it through it.

How much gold was in it?

All right, Doumitt, let's see this.

Come on. Short week.

- [Chris] Short week. - [Mitch] Did we break a hundred?

[Mitch] Oh, it's gonna be tight.

[Chris] Forty, fifty,

sixty,

eighty,

a hundred, one-twenty,

one-thirty, one-forty, one-fifty.

163.5.

[narrator] Worth over $290,000.

[Mitch] Not bad for a short week.

[Chris] No.

For the week, we got the 163 and a half

and the season total is 525.65.

It's not bad.

[Mitch] When you look at how early we started.

- Well, yeah, it's early-- - [Mitch] We knew we were gonna fight frost.

You know, I'm not surprised we had to shut the plant down,

but still don't like it,

because with how much dirt we have to get through,

we need that thing running every day we can.

Judging by the way things are going,

you better order the cold weather gear.

- [Mitch] Yeah. - And be here late.

[Chris] Sluicing till November, Mitch.

Oh. Yeah. I'm getting

my Christmas tree ornament set up.

Send me a text on how you did, will you?

[laughter]

- Cheers. - Cheers.

- [Parker] Thanks, Chris. - Yup.

- [Mitch] Later. - See you, Doumitt.

[Chris] Okay.

[Parker] You know, everybody's doing good.

Equipment's staying together for the most part.

Cold's still coming in.

It's a little sad when you can pull in,

like, a quarter million dollars' worth of gold

and still not make money, though.