Original subtitles

Everybody would have every right to be a little down in the dumps right now.

Usually this part of the season we've got

a few hundred ounces in the bank,

and right now we're sitting at zero.

Five weeks into the season,

Rick Ness is fighting a battle against time.

There's a chance we won't have water licenses next year,

so we have to get as much gold out

of the ground as we can, no matter what.

With water license issues looming,

this could be his last year to mine Duncan Creek.

You know, we don't have weeks to waste up here, you know.

We just wasted a week and it's uh, it's my fault.

I ordered the wrong damn pump.

Adding insult to injury,

Rick delivered a self-inflicted wound last week.

It was weeks getting that one.

Holy I screwed that up.

When he bought the wrong pump

for Wash plant Monster Red

and returned it to recoup the $150,000 he spent.

I-- I don't know how I made that mistake,

but I guarantee you I'll never do that again.

We've got to get the dirt through the box.

We got to get the gold out of it.

All we can do right now is keep our heads down. Keep charging forward.

To get the ball rolling...

Hey, guys.

...Rick's cooked up a risky plan.

We're gonna have to move our eight inch pump that's in Rally Valley.

That's hopefully got the jam to run this plant.

So I think what we're gonna have to do

is we're just gonna have to pull that one out and run that right now.

Otherwise, we're sitting around here. We're not running dirt.

Yeah, for sure.

All right.

On the brink of bringing in his first gold this season,

Rick decides to gamble.

And relocate the eight inch pump,

removing water from the cut.

And use it to run, pay dirt through wash plants Monster Red.

At the same time, the crew will continue to dig, pay dirt,

hoping to clean out the cut

before it's flooded with groundwater.

Which would force him to move the pump back.

This pump uh, has got to work for us.

You know, we're ready to sluice,

and you know, we need to get some gold.

in the bank for Rick.

We've got a 30-foot incline over there,

plus 400 ft of hose.

If this eight inch don't put out the pressure

for Monster Red, then we got nothing.

Oh, yeah, perfect.

I think we're all sick of waiting.

You about up there, Kyle?

Right here. Copy.

How does it look coming out the bypass?

We got some water here.

Holy [bleep] Dude, are we gonna run pay today?

That water's flow good. We're ready to go.

Let's go fire this thing up.

- Are you ready? - Let's go!

This is our first bucket of pay going in.

That thing's looking good.

Hey, stop!

Kill it.

When you get up there, there's that much of the

screen deck on that side, not even being touched.

You see what I mean?

Ryan has spotted an issue with the spray bars,

For the love of

We need to fix this.

We have to. Yeah

I'm gonna do it.

All we're doing is wasting gold,

and it's just going off into the tailings right now with no water

touching this side and washing any of the rocks, so.

Instead of getting 75% of the mat.

We want 100% of the mat.

I'm thinking if we can connect

all four of these together on the outside,

and it's a constant flow that instead of that water

coming at an angle, now you've got back pressure

and that water will shoot straight [bleep] down.

So what we'll do is we're going to go get two 90's and two T's

And we can make that work.

Okay. You're gonna connect them all together.

Yeah. We're gonna connect them all together.

So they've got the same flow.

Monster Red is fed paydirt by a conveyor into the pre wash.

The rich gravel then travel along the shaker deck screens.

But the spray bars on one side

don't have enough pressure to wash the pay properly.

And gold is being lost, stuck to waste tailings

Ryan will use tea pipes and new lines

to link all the spray bars together.

So that the water pumped in

circulates throughout the system,

builds up pressure

and is forced out of the spray nozzles.

And a consistent flow

across the full length of the screen.

Cleaning all the pay completely.

All right, we're gonna get the installed real quick.

Cool.

Hand me the next one T.

That way, all the water pressure equalizes

instead of it just coming one direction.

And we are soaking everything over here.

So, yep. Got everything connected.

Fire it up. Let's see what she does.

Here it comes.

Yeah!

That looks so much better.

A hundred times better.

Obviously, the key to the game here is to wash all the rock,

wash all the dirt and catch all the gold.

For the first time this season,

Monster Red's washing paydirt at 250 yards an hour,

and Rick could finally bank his first gold of the season.

All right, guys, well...

Like uh-- Like people like the Christmas ships

when they start sailing, I was like chuck a beer at the plant

when we started going for the year.

Here we go.

Bam!

Now, that was a beer I wasted.

Sorry, Kyle.

Well, let's get some gold, boys.

Five weeks into his season,

Tony Beats is ahead of the game.

He's already mined one 1105 ounces of gold.

From Indian River worth $2.7 million dollars.

To hit his seasoned target,

Tony has divided his family across his mining empire

to open up as much ground as possible.

At Paradise Hill,

Tony's youngest son, Mike, and daughter, Monica

are extending the 18-acre super pit by seven acres.

And building a stockpile ready to sluice.

Tony's nephew and new protege cousin Mike,

is foreman at Indian River,

where he oversees Sluicealot.

Currently, Tony only running wash plants.

Well, that cut looks done.

All right. Yeah.

Yeah. That's the plan.

See you later.

Cousin Mike has only been Foreman for five weeks

but has already mined out half

of Tony's 10-acre comeback cut.

Now he's being tasked with moving Sluicealot

to the other end of the cut

closer to the last five acres of pay.

Tony doesn't like to admit it,

but everybody is getting older,

running up and down between two mines.

That's very hard.

And so it's good for Tony

to have someone he can trust and rely on

to look after things when he's not there.

What are we doing?

So we made a new path close to the dreads on the airstrip.

And, yeah, I'll hook up the dozer and drag it over,

so we're going straight through the cut.

- Perfect. - We build a ramp on the end of the cut.

- Yup. - It's a little steep.

Let's just [bleep] hook this thing up and get it over there.

- Yeah, let's do it. - Okay

Cousin Mike's taking a risk

only Tony himself would take.

Rather than use the mile long service road,

he will drag Tony's $800,000 wash plant

down a shorter 2000 foot route.

Across the comeback cut.

This dicey off road move should save time

but requires careful navigation

through difficult terrain.

Then, up an access ramp, with a 20 degree gradient

until the plant reaches its final spot.

There's rain and hail

and it's a disaster outside.

The crew attach a winch cable

from the 45-ton wash plant

to Cousin Mike's 500 hp D10 dozer.

We can have a track and follow him.

Your truck better get [bleep] out of the way

unless it wants to get swiped.

Get out of the way! Get out of the way now!

You guys.

Hopefully, with this rain,

it doesn't create like the ground

to be compromised and too soft.

Come gold mining, they said.

It'll be fun, they said.

That hill is definitely soft.

He's getting really close to the edge.

Once he hits that edge, there's a big [bleep] drop.

He's getting really close to the edge.

At Indian River,

cousin Mike is battling torrential rain

and muddy conditions in the comeback cut

to drag Tony's only operational wash plant, to its new pad.

There's a bit of thunder, there's a bit of rain.

There's a bit of hail.

We've got some lightning happening over there.

A good storm will lead to a rainbow,

and hopefully the rainbow will lead to lots of gold.

Sluicealot is good to go.

There's your baby.

Yeah, we're working on it.

Yeah, we'll get her level, hook up the water.

We're all good.

Fire it up.

Tony's always wanted the kids to take over

the business down the line.

Unfortunately, every time he's tried to do something like that

and take a step back,

he really hasn't and that has killed a lot of motivation.

But I do like the mining

kind of enjoy a bit of the chaos,

a bit of the rush, you know, the "Let's [bleep] do it."

Just not at Tony's place.

And well, now I'm putting my money where my mouth is.

To step out from his father Tony's shadow.

Kevin Beets has struck out on his own.

But even with a helping hand from Tony,

he's had to pour most of his life savings into the new operation.

Flew further behind than I would have liked.

But just going to keep on plugging away,

and hopefully we'll get it.

Well, not hopefully, we're gonna [bleep] get it.

By the end of the week, I'm really hoping to get pay.

Kevin's been besieged by equipment failures

and groundwater flooding his links cut.

Now five weeks in, he still hasn't seen an ounce of gold

and is determined to get down to pay by the end of the week.

So he can hit his 1000 ounce season goal.

I don't know if I want to say that being a first year mine boss

was more work than I expected.

I think it's different than I expected.

I had really hoped I'd be able to spend

more time in the office being able to plan ahead.

But Tony's lack of regular maintenance

is kind of biting me in the ass right now.

We don't have enough spare iron and equipment

for situations when something happens,

Just down in the cut here, stripping some ground.

Hopefully, Kevin kind of finds his footing here

and gets into that mine boss role a little bit more.

Three miles from Tony's Indian River mine

sits Kevin's 44-acre claim at Scribner Creek,

where he's identified the 11-acre Lynx cut

as the most likely to yield the best gold.

So far, Brennan's crew have ripped open just three acres of the cut.

But still need to clear the overburden in that first section,

down to pay to hit Kevin's end of the week deadline.

I wouldn't say his morale's low,

but I mean, you can definitely tell, like...

Kevin and Brennan

well, they're definitely you know, a little stressed about things.

What something's not feeling right.

That's strange.

What's next?

Sick of this

What is this?

Bolts obviously fell off the inside.

Can't keep this old running for more than days.

You're on there, Kev?

Go for Kevin.

Hey man, the D10 finally degraded.

Found a bunch of bolts have broken off on the ground here, so.

Uh, [sighs] all right, I'll see what we can do to tackle that.

Okay, buddy. I'll see you shortly.

Now this is the worst [bleep] time.

We need this dozer out there ripping and producing

What we tried is to keep everything rolling.

'Cause we need to get some ground open up.

It's like every time we get one step ahead,

we're getting 10 steps back.

and we barely even started the season this year.

The 30-year-old D10 is Kevin's only dozer.

Without it, his plan to get the links

cut down to pay grinds to a halt.

So yeah, this ain't great.

We've got a bit of an oil leak,

I need to take out the engine

so I can get to the transmission,

so it's essentially looking like it's going to be down for a [bleep] while,

and it's pretty frustrating.

I think D10 is pretty much dead in the water right now.

Kevin doesn't have the equipment to remove the engine,

and a full transmission fix would cost $60,000.

Money he doesn't have

I don't have another dozer

I can just go grab and walk over,

so I'm definitely going to be talking to Tony.

Today is a good day.

Monster Red's running perfect.

For the first time this season,

Rick's washing Rally Valley pay dirt

through Monster Red.

We've got 1500 ounces trying to get this season.

But as long as we stay steady from here on out,

we're-- we're gonna be looking real good.

At the end of the day,

we're going to get as much pay as we can out

and, you know, not leave anything behind.

Obviously all this water in this hole

is not going to get pumped out.

Rick's only pump

is being used to supply Monster Red with water,

Meanwhile, operator Bailey Carten

is 200 feet down in Rally Valley

racing to dig out pay before it floods with groundwater.

That's a lot of water.

- The water is not going to stop. - No.

All the stuff that I'm digging out of this hole right now.

It slightly looks like bedrock a little bit.

Rick did say there should be at least another 20 feet down.

It's hard to tell when there ten feet of water.

Rick, can you hear me?

Yeah, I'm right down the rare bottom

of Rally Valley right now and right near the Sun Pole.

And it looks like it's all bedrock now.

Can you come take a look and figure out what to do next here?

Rick's been digging at Rally Valley for three years.

If Bailey finally hit bedrock,

he could be on the richest pay yet.

No, that's bedrock rim.

It's gotta be.

I'm gonna get out and talk to these guys about it.

Oh, Boy.

Look at all that fine gravel.

We're definitely onto something here.

We found our rim.

I'm very excited. What I see right there.

I've been waiting to see bedrock in this hole.

We've got it right here.

Um, you know, this is where the good stuff is.

We're either on the best gold in this hole

or we're very close to it.

So that's exciting.

We've got a lot planned for this season.

But the number one priority above all else,

was getting to the bottom of rally.

We're just about there.

We're finally finding the rim.

Now that they've hit bedrock,

they need to chase this layer

along the rest of the cut,

pulling out what could be

the richest pay dirt they've ever mined.

We've just got to now follow that bedrock,

and it should show us the path to the best gold.

Now. That is pretty cool, though.

There's still days of digging left

to get all the payout,

and the water keeps pouring in.

Yeah, it's definitely stressful down here a little bit.

You know, we got to deal with all this water,

but I'm obviously really excited to see

you know, when we finally clean out Monster Red

and see what-- What the hell is in those mats?

You know, I feel like it's--

It's gonna look really good.

Boss says it's going pretty good.

So I'm just gonna go check it out

and see what it looks like.

What do you say, guys? Want shut it down?

Rick makes a quick spot check of the sluice runs

to see if the pay has started to deliver big gold.

I know that there's good gold down there,

but, you know, until you see it in the box,

it's always-- it's always you're always tentative.

You're always nervous.

I'm expecting to see good things.

But really right now. I just want to get my eyes on.

It's gonna take a lot of pressure off.

Find anything yet?

Not yet. I just walked up here.

Look, here's one guys.

Look at that. That's a beauty.

Here's another big one.

- Yeah - Holy, that's a thick one.

These are easily some of the biggest ones we found.

That's the biggest one yet.

Well, that's neat.

That is just neat.

I don't know about you guys,

but it took this long to get running.

I knew-- I know that the gold is in there,

but until you see it, it solves a lot of problems.

Catch up real quick on the season.

- Good job. Good job. - Good job, boys.

Good job.

Rick has hit the jackpot.

Now he is in a race to get all the gold out of the ground

before Rallye Valley floods with water.

That's a hell of a thing to find.

That's amazing, you know, that just goes to show you.

We're definitely in the [bleep] Rally Valley.

All we gotta do is run the rest of it.

I'm happy with the wash plant move.

Plus plant is in one piece, good to wash.

We do want to keep sluicing because right now

there's only one plan going out of three.

At the comeback cousin Mike has successfully moved

and fired up Tony's only functioning wash plant

sluicealot and is back on the gold.

I like working for Tony.

You know what you get?

You know what you have and those last 40 years.

He did a lot of hard work,

and he built up this whole mine from nothing.

So, yeah, that's pretty impressive.

There's lots of advantages to moving.

sluicealot you know, it's a shorter distance for the rock tracks,

where just trying to be as efficient as possible.

I'm sitting in the back here with an excavator

trying to feed the plants and hopefully she's nice and rich for us.

This thing sounds like

Oh, what the Uh-oh, uh-oh.

Why the Michael running?

Shut it up.

The screen made a terrible noise.

You can't run it like this. or it will destroy itself.

So?

We got a big piece of metal here

that's supposed to be in here.

Now we've got a huge gap instead.

So it looks like it started wearing here in the middle.

And then because of the vibration,

it just broke the whole impact plate.

We can't run without it.

'Cause, uh, it's gonna just destroy the bottom deck.

You can see there, actually,

there's huge rocks on the bottom screens.

And those bottom screens are only made for the rocks

that fit through these little holes

that are, what, two by two inch.

Now, there's a big rock like this on those bottom screens.

So, it's not good.

A large rock has smashed the impact plate on the first screen deck.

Cousin Mike needs to replace it quickly

to get up and running again.

Those big rocks,

they, uh, did some, uh, damage.

Broke the whole impact blade.

And there is big rocks on those bottom screens.

Figure something out

and get it going as soon as we can.

At Indian River,

a rock has broken Sluice-A-Lot's screen deck impact plate...

shutting down Tony's only working wash plant.

All right.

So, we just gotta take the whole thing out,

just build a new one a little bit stronger.

Put that back in, and then be back to sluicing.

The screen deck's old, busted impact plate is removed.

Mike then welds two pieces of inch-thick steel together

to create a new, stronger plate

that can cope with the large rocks.

This year is big for me.

This is the first year I'm in this position.

And I always like to do a good job.

But especially now,

because I wanna show Tony that I can do the job.

After just two hours' downtime,

Sluice-A-Lot is fired back up again.

So, if Tony's happy, I'm happy,

and, uh, let's get some gold...

and make it to our 5,000-ounce gold.

I gotta go and talk to Tony about that D10,

see if we can swap it

or if there's anything else we can use.

It's super frustrating that even when I'm away

from working for Tony, I still have to deal

with his poorly-maintained equipment.

Three miles away, at Scribner Creek,

Kevin Beets' season is falling apart.

The dozer he borrowed from dad, Tony,

to rip ground is down.

And he needs to replace it to hit his target of getting to pay this week.

Hey, Tony.

Ugh. Well, I need to talk about that D10.

Uh-huh.

She kind of, uh, grenaded.

Uh, something in the transmission.

Pretty much dead in the water.

I need to have a spare from you.

Back at the Lynx cut...

The dozers are the most important lifeline out here.

I mean, we're in frozen ground,

and if you're gonna try and mine gold in the Yukon,

you need a big dozer

to get through this permafrost as quick as possible.

Oh!

No dozer leaves Brennan no choice but to try to strip and remove

overburden down to pay with an excavator.

I'm gonna end up having to come up

with some sort of idea to get through this.

Whatever we gotta do to get by

is what we gotta do to get by this year.

And that's, uh...

I'm feeling the pressure, let me tell you.

That's brutal.

This is not gonna work out.

I'm gonna have to come up with a plan.

We are gonna just try to help out with this,

so we can keep production in full swing,

'cause otherwise, we're not gonna get that 1,000 ounce.

Brennan fits a Devil's Finger to his 460.

A ripper attachment

designed for digging drainage ditches.

The excavator will need to do the work of a dozer

if Kevin's crew is to have any hope

of getting to pay this week.

There it is.

Hey, uh, Brennan, I think I got an electrical fire over here.

Got an emergency over there? What's going on?

Hot electrical smells and, uh, some smoke.

Are you kidding me?

Nobody, buddy.

Okay, I'm on my way.

Holy [bleep].

Matt Kiefer is operating Kevin's

biggest dirt mover on-site, the 700 excavator.

Smelled some hot wires

and saw some smoke coming out of this back corner here.

Right on.

So, I reached over and shut the master switch off,

and it quit making noises and quit smoking, so...

- So hard not to even laugh at this anymore. - Oh.

Let's go have a gander.

Oh, yeah. There we go.

The bottom of this solenoid caught fire.

Hiya.

Yeah, that's interesting. Must have shorted a hole in the

plastic housing there.

And then spot she was on fire was right here,

where you can see that the housing has been

a little bit burnt and/or cracked.

The 700's starter motor solenoid,

which provides the initial spark

for firing up the engine, has blown.

Without it, the machine won't start.

Kevin's biggest excavator is now also down.

He has no dozer and no chance of hitting pay.

Ugh! Sadness, sadness, cry, cry, cry.

Ugh!

Yeah, that's a new one.

Let's see if we got a spare solenoid.

This is frustrating.

Because, well, this is just more fuel for the fire.

We're making money right now.

I think Tony will be happy.

With Cousin Mike running Indian River...

...Tony has more time to appreciate life.

I've been worried about that 700, though.

This is definitely an unexpected problem.

Kevin Beets is struggling to get down to pay,

and needs to get his 700 fixed

after an electrical fire knocked it out of action.

Oh, it's been pretty nonstop, "Oh, fix this thing so we can run,

fix that thing so we can run,

fix this thing so we can run."

Starter and solenoid.

Replacement found,

Kevin gets to installing the new solenoid.

And back down we go.

Every time we get ahead a little bit...

something happens, and we gotta redo, redo, redo,

replan, replan, replan.

This is the, uh, replacement solenoid.

Huzzzah.

That locked in.

Okay, man.

And I'm just re-hooking up everything.

Turn the key and see what sparks.

I mean, there's no smoke yet, so that's a good start.

Thank [bleep].

We're good. Huh!

All right, much [bleep] better.

Definitely did not need that kind of extra stress

in our life right now.

So, one heart attack down, let's see how many more I get today.

Back throwing dirt with the big girl here.

The, uh, the original plan is not gonna happen.

It's... We're not even close.

I think we're gonna end up missing our deadline

to get through that cut's pay.

So, yeah, a little bummed out about that.

Kevin has spent the week working

more as a mechanic than a mine boss,

and his mission to hit pay by the end of the week

has ended in failure.

That 1,000-ounce gold is pretty important for me.

That is kind of where we're gonna break even.

So, we really do want to hit that this year.

And it's really been hard

with all the breakdowns we've had.

It sucks 'cause as a mine boss,

there are certain things you just can't control.

And it makes it a lot harder than it has to be.

Hey, guys, how are ya?

Whoa!

At Indian River,

the Beets family gather to weigh up

their only working wash plant's gold.

I'll go sit over by my mummy.

Yeah, it just...

I got it all lined up, just putting things in place.

No. He wants

- his favorite cousin. - Or your favorite cousin?

Yeah.

He's... he's just as skillful and a lot more quiet.

How are you guys doing in the Indian?

- Well, we're sluicing. - I don't--

Yeah.

We're the only ones making the money.

I think we should see how much Sluice-A-Lot did this time.

- Um-- - How much did Sluice-A-Lot sluice?

I'm not counting.

- Oh, well-- - Yeah!

Okay. All right.

- Ruby is gonna pour. - Uh, Ruby is pouring.

Are you ready?

- I am ready. - Okay.

Tony needs over 200 ounces a week

to keep on track for his 5,000-ounce season target.

15, 20, 40...

60, 100...

110, 120, 130...

146.10.

Worth over $365,000.

That's not too bad with the plant being down.

That wasn't a bad goal today, Tony.

Tony's season total is now 1,250 ounces,

banking him $3.1 million.

So, get the hell out.

See you later.

- Bye. - Yeah.

♪ Four little ducks are in a room ♪

- What's up? - Jason, Heather.

Rick's brought his whole crew together

for the first gold weigh of the season,

including husband and wife duo,

mine manager, Jason, and gold recovery specialist,

Heather Folster.

Fellas.

What's going on, sir?

Last season, Rick pulled out 251 ounces

from Rally Valley in his final gold weigh.

Now, he hopes the bedrock pay is even richer.

Well, should we weigh up some gold?

- All right. - I'm excited.

I'm gonna go get it.

Got the old trusty scale.

She's been through a war. She's been through a war.

Bailey, you gonna count it?

- Yeah. - Get up there, buddy.

- Get it, Bailey. - Mmm.

- Ready? - I'm ready.

Here we go.

10, 20...

60, 70, 80, 90,

110, 113, 114, 115.

115.71.

- Yeah. - It's good for one jar.

There's for sure more.

I don't even know what you're talking about.

'Cause there was nuggets.

There's more.

You know, I like to sandbag you guys.

I do have more.

So, I actually already weighed this up.

Ooh.

It's beautiful. You ready?

And it just keeps going.

Get up, Buzz. Go look!

You haven't even seen it.

Now, that's a pour.

That right there brings us to 315.71 ounces.

Worth over three-quarters of a million dollars.

Rick and his crew have smashed it out of the park

with one of their best gold hauls ever.

I'll take that all day.

That's [bleep] huge. That's huge.

That's the biggest we've ever done.

Can you imagine this sending through one of the bank teller boxes and...

Deposit that in my checking account.

Thank you, good sir.

That's just a start,

you know what I mean? That's the first [bleep] gold weigh out of Rally Valley,

and, uh, we know there's more down there.

And, uh, I've never put that much gold on the table at once.

And if we can keep 'em like this,

then 1,500 ounces is gonna happen [bleep] quick.

- Cheers! - Yeah, right on.

Cheers. Cheers.

This is the biggest gold... gold weigh I've ever seen,

so that makes one excited,

and, uh, [bleep] hopefully, there's a lot more

to come out of Rally Valley.

This is seven people working their balls off

and, uh, and believing that,

you know, things were gonna turn around,

'cause we had a tough start to the season.

There's no doubt about that.

But right here, I'm holding on to almost three-quarters

of a million dollars' worth of gold.

It's the blood, sweat and tears of all these guys,

and it's the start to our season.