[Tony Beets]
The Yukon River is huge.
Nearly 2,000 miles long, and for 6
months of the year, it's frozen solid.
When it starts to crack,
that's the sign.
You know
it is time to get going.
The gold rush starts again.
[Parker Schnabel] There's
a w*r for ground in the Yukon.
All the good ground is tied up.
That's why we're digging
deeper than ever.
We're hunting for ground.
As soon as you start
getting desperate...
- *bleep*, man.
- People can smell it on you, and that's dangerous.
We need ground.
We got to trust something,
and we got to trust somebody.
I'm 38 years in the game,
and I've never seen
anything like this.
I spent a *bleep* whole lot
of money in the offseason.
I'm making this my year.
[man] Let's crank it up.
This ain't like
any other season.
Right now, it looks like we're
dead in the *bleep* water.
Sometimes we have to force
our way through something,
that's just what you're
going to have to *bleep* do.
[Rick Ness] Out on the
Indian River, Parker, Tony,
those guys are battling for
the last bits of good ground.
I seen that coming and I got
the hell out of there.
I'm doubling down and
I'm going for 2,000 ounces.
Bigger the better.
That thing's massive.
[Rick] I've got no crew,
but I'm coming out fighting.
Whoo!
You've got one *bleep* job,
why can't you do it?
Well, that's on you.
This is what I've been
waiting for. This is next level.
[Fred Lewis] For me right now,
mining is more than just gold.
Oh, yeah!
Whoo-hoo-hoo!
Two Green Beret's
leading the charge.
I'm on a mission to make a
better life for my all-veteran crew.
It's about living
the American dream.
- You guys made it.
- How's it going?
Good, how you been?
It's a treasure hunt.
Who doesn't love
a treasure hunt?
Everybody that's looking for
ground is competition, right?
Finally, sluicing gold. This
right here is what it's all about.
I will not fail again.
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] Klondike legend,
Tony Beets,
once a farmer
in the Netherlands,
now stands at the top of
a gold mining dynasty.
At an age
when most people would retire,
Tony's primed to make big moves.
[Tony speaking]
Well, I'm never surprised
by your plans anymore.
[Tony speaking]
Don't count your chickens
till they hatch.
- Yeah.
- [man] Yeah. Piece of cake.
[Tony speaking]
Day shift, night shift?
[Tony speaking]
Here and the Hill?
[narrator]
For nearly 40 years,
Tony snatched up
gold-rich ground in the Yukon.
Now, with gold prices holding
at historic highs,
he's looking
for a monster payday.
To get his $16 million payout, Tony's
reopening his Indian River operation,
where he hopes to bank
40 miles north, he's counting
on his Paradise Hill claims
to deliver the other
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] ...but there's
one massive problem.
[Tony speaking]
[Mike] Let's get going.
[narrator] Leading the charge
to push the first dirt of
the season at Paradise Hill,
a brand-new massive
that can shift
And a 100-ton 950 excavator,
the biggest in the Yukon.
[Tony speaking]
All good.
Okay.
Okay.
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] Tony's first target
on the hill, an 8-acre cut
he discovered 30 years ago,
filled with big gold nuggets.
We need to move a absolute
crap ton of dirt this year
if we're going to
reach Tony's goal.
Gold is high right now, so
*bleep* strike while the iron is hot.
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] When Tony
discovered the prime piece of land,
he didn't have big enough
equipment to get down to the pay layer
80 feet below the surface.
Even last year,
it would have taken at least
three weeks to get to pay.
But with his new arsenal, Tony
wants it done in just five days.
It definitely is nice
to have the 950,
then it's full.
[narrator] As the Beets race
to transform the family's future,
daughter Monica has
the biggest role of all.
[Tony speaking]
My father likes to pretend he's not
excited, but he is very much excited.
Tony can look so scary and intimidating
but just melts for dogs and kids.
[Tony speaking]
Yeah, you know, I'm happy
to be back up here though.
It's been brutally cold, but it's
just finally starting to warm up.
[narrator] In just eight
seasons in the Klondike,
Parker Schnabel has gone
from an 18-year-old
mining prodigy to one of
the region's top producers
after clocking record
gold totals year after year.
Now this seasoned 26-year-old
is at a crossroads.
I don't know where we're
gonna be mining this year.
We're just eating all
the reserves faster than ever.
[narrator] Last season, Parker
mined a record $14 million in gold,
but he chewed through
so much ground,
he's now running out, and the
future of his operation is in jeopardy,
forcing him into survival mode.
And with gold prices going up, it's a
terrible time to be looking for ground.
Like, landowners are in
complete control right now.
And that means doing a lot of hunting
because all the good ground is tied up.
And that makes... that
makes me stressed out.
I don't know that-- A good
friend of mine, you know,
he's been here
before, Liam Ferguson.
And Liam's in the area,
so I might just see
if he'll come over and talk
to me a little bit about it.
[narrator] Liam Ferguson drills
for gold all over the Klondike
and knows just about
every landowner out there.
- Hey, man.
- [Liam] How's it going?
- Good. How are you?
- Not too bad.
How's your spring?
- It's been going good so far. Pretty busy.
- Yeah.
What's up?
We're just about done,
like, around our camp,
and there's very few
pieces of ground left.
Well, I drilled some ground
for your neighbor last fall
that turned out pretty good.
He was looking to lease it out.
And what's your opinion of it?
It's really good ground, yeah, but
we got a very clear defined channel.
The holes range from
mid-40s up to mid-60s.
[narrator] The neighbor's ground
sits a mile east of Parker's Airstrip Cut.
Liam's drill result show unique
pay streak in an ancient riverbed.
The tests show five times
more gold than other claims
on the Indian River,
but it's covered in a layer of
sticky black glacial overburden
60 feet thick, deeper than any
Yukon ground Parker's ever mined.
It's a lot of dirt to move.
It'd be expensive to strip.
We haven't mined
much ground like that.
Yeah, well, I mean, I can at
least tell you that the results
are real and that we're
confident in what we found there.
It's up to you to work out a deal that
makes it make sense for you, I guess.
It's not gonna be an--
A particularly good deal
because he is a gold miner
and he knows what he's got.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
*bleep*
Can you give me
some resource insurance?
- No.
- [laughs]
A case of beer if
there's no gold in it.
- Perfect.
- Call it-- call it even.
[narrator] It's a rare chance
to mine such a gold-rich claim
and Parker's only hope of securing enough
ground to keep his operation running.
[Parker] I'm gonna go see if we
can make something work with him.
In this industry, as soon as
you start getting desperate,
people can, like,
smell it on you.
Right.
Very close to being desperate.
He is, you know, not too interested
in being involved in TV stuff.
And, uh, I definitely won't get
anywhere with him if you're with me.
His camp's just up here,
so I'm booting you out here.
There's a car behind me
that'll pick you up.
I think that's your guy.
Yeah. Get out. Please.
[narrator] On an urgent
hunt for ground,
Parker Schnabel returns from a
meeting with a neighboring claim owner.
Um, right now, it's just that
it's a seller's market,
you know, price of gold is high.
He's offered it to us, not really
in the most favorable of terms.
You know, I'm usually pretty
open about drilling and mining
and deals and whatnot
because I don't really care,
but he doesn't want
much details on TV, so.
[narrator] Parker believes the 9-acre
cut could hold 8,000 ounces of gold,
a $14 million haul, but to
mine the 60-foot deep cut,
Parker will have to drop over $1
million just to get down to pay dirt
and find out if the ground's
as rich as everyone says.
[Parker] They're willing
to gamble and take big risks.
We need to keep
the company running.
Everything else is
just stupid details.
[narrator] 100 miles
east of the Indian River,
Rick Ness begins his fourth year
running his own mining operation
after two rocky seasons.
I don't know what else to do
it right now, I mean, it's just...
it's getting out of control.
Shut the pump off,
shut the pump off.
[Rick] What did I drag
all these guys into?
Shutting it down. They're going
home. It's as simple as that.
[narrator] Last year, he came
back from the brink of disaster.
If we hadn't done this
this year,
I don't know that there
would have been another year.
This represents
your guys' bonuses.
[all laughing and cheering]
[narrator] Now he's getting
a jump on the season,
arriving early to his
Duncan Creek claim.
[Rick]
Big strong handsome dozer.
[narrator] And he's
bringing out the big g*ns.
[Rick] I've dropped
a half a million dollars
on the biggest dozer
money can buy.
This dozer is
obnoxiously expensive.
This thing can push
That's three of my
[narrator] The 200,000-pounds
makes quick work of stripping
the first section of Rick's Creek Cut.
[Rick] Where we're
starting this year,
the gold is really good, and all
it's gonna take is just, you know,
an hour to the strip.
You know, is the cost worth it?
I think we're going
to prove that it is.
We're going to be able to strip so
far ahead, so fast, it's almost, uh,
it's almost ridiculous.
The bigger the better.
This year's all about going big.
I'm gonna double what I got last
year, we're going for 2,000 ounces.
[narrator] 2,000 ounces, worth $3.6
million, would move Rick's operation
to the next level and prove
that his bold decision
to get out of the Klondike
was the right one.
You know, having a dozer,
especially a dozer this size,
is kind of one of the last
pieces of the puzzle to putting,
you know, the entire
package together,
being a legitimate mine boss.
Makes things pretty
*bleep* real.
[narrator] This season, Rick has also
invested in a $1 million 750 excavator.
He needs all the horsepower
he can get.
After starting his operation with
a team of hometown buddies,
years of struggling to find gold have
left him with just one, Chris Kruse.
[Chris Kruse] As good as it feels to
be back up here and doing our thing.
Being gone for six months,
it's never easy.
Got married to my fiancee
of ten years, Michelle.
Rick married Michelle and I
in his backyard.
And then we went to
a baseball game that night.
A pretty good day.
And I hope everything, you know,
plays out the way we hope it's
going to this year,
because it'd make it that much sweeter
being gone from my wife for six months.
[Rick] Good to see you, buddy.
The wash plant's
right where we left it.
[Kruse] Yeah,
it didn't move itself.
No, and it's still
half beaten to death.
She's looking pretty sad.
We're gonna have to
get this thing running because
you know the name of the game.
If there ain't gold coming in,
it's money going out the door.
Not a good business model.
[Rick] Well, as usual, we've
been plagued with problems.
I mean, Karla's... she's
focusing on other things, man.
So she's... she's not
coming back this year.
That's gonna suck. She's become
my little buddy around camp.
You know, Carl, you know,
he's going in for his surgery
and his health... I mean,
his health's number one.
[narrator] Without mechanic Carl
Rosk or gold room operator Karla Ann,
Rick is a miner without a crew.
It's tough losing, you know,
integral parts of the... the crew.
But we're gonna have
to figure out a way to do it
because we've got 2,000
ounces to get this year.
[Kruse] There's definitely no
way I can fill both of their shoes.
It would be nice to have another
set of hands, though, I'll tell you that.
And I... I got... I will have
some help for you, I think.
So, you guys can hit
the ground running.
Yeah, there's a ton of
*bleep* to do. Let's go, man.
[narrator] On the road
up to Duncan Creek,
Rick's newest crew member
heads towards a fresh start.
[Brennan Ruault] Here I am on
my way back up here to the Yukon.
I just knew it was
time for a change.
A whole new crew,
whole new blood
and a whole new way
of mining, you know.
[narrator] Mining veteran Brennan
Ruault is jumping ship from Parker's claim.
Last year was, uh...
it was pretty brutal.
Parker and I seemed to not
see eye to eye anymore.
It's very draining and stressful
when you're angry half the time.
Like, that's no way to work,
you know.
[narrator] Brennan met Rick on
Parker's claim six years ago
when Rick was the foreman and
Brennan a greenhorn operator.
Nice work today, boss.
We did good.
Whoo!
[narrator] Two seasons ago, he
was promoted to co-foreman himself...
I guess the big question is
if you are game for that.
I'll definitely step up.
[narrator] ...but after a
series of run-ins with Parker...
I have hardly dug any of this.
I don't care.
Are you in charge,
or are you not in charge?
[narrator] ...he reached
the end of his rope.
So *bleep* over this *bleep*,
man.
I'll pack my *bleep*
and leave right now.
I don't give a *bleep*
about any of this *bleep*.
Right there, I kind of knew,
I was like,
"Well, this, I don't think is
gonna go any further for me."
This year, I just want to run
some big gear, move some dirt
and, you know,
go back to having a nice
fun summer like it used to be,
and-- and k*ll it and hopefully
find a *bleep* ton of gold.
Ricky, coming to see if you
need some help for this season.
- How's it going, buddy?
- Good to see you, pal.
- Yeah, *bleep*. Been a few fricking years, eh?
- No, *bleep*.
- Man, I'm glad you're here.
- Yeah, me too.
You know, Parker and I just
seemed to, for some reason,
start butting heads a little
bit more in the last few years,
and it's just made it--
Made it quite tough and draining
at the end of the day and...
Yeah. Well, I certainly
know that feeling.
- Yeah, yeah.
- I know you know.
- Yeah.
- So now we're reunited.
Yes, sir.
I can't wait to get out
there and get started
and start learning some
new ground here, man.
- Yeah, buddy.
- It's gonna be fun.
I'm gonna throw my boots on.
Why don't you go throw your
work clothes, I'll meet down there.
Yeah.
Sounds good, bud, thanks.
[Kruse] Oh, boy.
- How's it going, buddy?
- Brennan.
Kruse boy.
- What's going on, buddy?
- Not much. Nice to see you.
- Oh, you look good.
- Thanks.
[Brennan] Wow.
We got a big crew.
- [Rick] Right?
- [Kruse] Yeah, huge.
I'm excited personally to start getting
some gold, so let's get after it, buddy.
[Fred] I've been through some pretty
complicated scenarios in the military
where my life and my career
was at jeopardy every single day.
And reality is gold mining is the
most difficult thing I've ever done.
But I'm not a quitter.
I've never quit
anything in my life.
If we can just find ground,
I feel like we could succeed.
[narrator] Special Forces
veteran Fred Lewis
is on a 1,500-mile journey determined
to resurrect his gold mining dream.
[Fred] I've tried to settle in
with the civilian lifestyle,
but nine-to-five job
is just not in my DNA.
I packed up all my stuff.
I'm driving up to the Yukon.
I need this freedom.
I need the risk.
My mission is to find ground.
It's the only place I know where there
is good gold in the ground for a fact.
Because last season, I would pretty
much categorize as a complete failure.
I had a window of opportunity.
I took it.
[narrator]
In Oregon last year,
Fred and his band of
combat veterans
mined just $12,000
worth of gold.
[Fred] That puts our
total at 6.39,
which is honestly embarrassing.
[narrator] Now, after striking
out prospecting in the lower 48,
Fred's driving into the fiercest
w*r for ground in decades,
hanging his hopes on a meeting
with his only contact in the Yukon.
Parker is the only one in this game I
know that I can trust wholeheartedly,
and he's the only one I know
that will give me advice.
Maybe he has somebody I can go talk to,
maybe he has ground I don't know about.
It's really the only option
we have at this point.
It's a Hail Mary,
but I'd rather throw a Hail
Mary than lose the game.
[narrator] Fred Lewis has
traveled to the Yukon
in a desperate last attempt to
find ground to mine this season.
- Hello?
- [Parker] I'm in here.
- You want a coffee?
- [Fred] I'm good, thanks.
[sighs]
So how's everything
going here, man, um?
It's going good. We just signed the
lease on a block of ground that is--
Average depth is
like 55 feet of mud.
- [Fred] Oh, wow!
- Yeah.
Man, so you just gotta go
layer by layer on this, huh?
- [Parker] So that's a big project.
- That is yuck.
That leads me to something
I was going to ask you about
because, the team, we put a lot
into this offseason looking for ground,
and it's just... there's
nothing that was viable.
So this is like my last
hurrah to come up here
and see if I can find something.
[Parker] Right.
And so you're just out
looking for ground right now.
Yeah, I don't necessarily want to ask
you for help, but I know you might know--
Aren't we all
looking for ground?
Yeah, right?
It is a little conflicting
for me because, like,
there's a very finite number of
ounces of gold in the ground... [inhales]
And at a certain point, everybody that's
looking for ground's competition, right?
Now, I'm like trying to ask
for a favor,
but we look for
different things, though.
We don't need
a big piece of property.
I think property you would
probably not even look at.
So I was kind of hoping you might be
able to point me in the right direction.
Hmm.
You'll have no problem
finding ground.
But good ground.
- That's the difficult part.
- Right.
Very hard business, and it's a
difficult community to break into.
The Yukon will punch you in the
face pretty hard if you're not careful.
What would you do
if you were me, honestly?
I don't know.
I was in your shoes when I met
Tony Beets. Probably go talk to him.
You think that would be wise just to
show up and try and get his number
and call him and see
if he'll meet with me?
Yeah, just show up
at Paradise Hill.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
All right.
You know, if you're into it and, um,
you know what you're getting into,
then more power to you.
All right, man, I'll get out of your
hair. I know you're busier than me,
so that's pretty busy,
but thanks, dude.
Oh, no worries.
It's good to see you.
- Appreciate it.
- No worries.
Let me know if
you need anything.
[Fred] Yeah, you know I will.
I wasn't expecting much, but I
was expecting a lot more than that.
Definitely not comfortable
right now with what Parker said.
It does not lead me to
believe this is gonna be easy.
You don't have time to eat,
except for at lunch.
Don't have time to, like-- barely
have enough time to drink water.
[Kevin] Now we're in kind of
a rush mode.
We are doing a big push right now to
expose the cuts, get them all ready to go.
That'll allow myself and Tony
to focus out on the Indian.
[narrator] As the Beets Family wait on a
water license for their Indian River claims,
it's all-hands-on-deck to strip the
Nugget Cut at Paradise Hill in record time.
Now, Ruby and I are at home, everybody's
is gonna have to work extra hard
to make sure that we
get the 9,000 ounces.
That's Tony Beets for you.
Go big or go home, right?
ba*ls to the walls all the time.
[narrator] With Tony's new
D11 dozer and 950 excavator,
they've removed 80 feet of
overburden in just four days,
revealing a massive
We have hit gravel
and pay in the back.
Yippee ki-yay.
[narrator] Monica's school
friend Ruby Mahoney
pulls down the pay dirt
to load it into rock trucks.
[Ruby] You know,
it's crunch time.
We have to get this dirt moved.
Holy *bleep*,
it's *bleep* solid.
Oh, I... I'm just wasting time
here, I cannot get through this.
This is just not working.
Tony, do you copy?
Tony, do you copy?
This wall is completely solid.
We are at a *bleep* standstill.
Can you please
come and talk to me?
[Ruby] This wall is
completely frozen.
Yeah, she's solid.
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] To rip through the frozen
section, Tony plans to take his brand-new
$2.7 million D11 dozer to
the top of the pay dirt cliff.
He'll then go right to the
edge of the 40-foot drop
and use the 10-ton ripper shank
to break up the frozen layer so the
excavator can get to the pay dirt beneath.
[Ruby] The D11 has arrived.
[Tony speaking]
You get high enough, sink the ripper
in, pull the whole *bleep* cliff down.
[narrator] Tony maneuvers
the 120-ton machine
right to the very cusp
of the 40-foot drop.
Tear the *bleep* out.
[narrator] As Tony busts
through the permafrost,
Ruby removes
the pay dirt beneath.
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] Tony has pay dirt ready to
run a full month earlier than last year,
a vital head start on his
mammoth 9,000-ounce goal.
Huh?
You want to say that again?
I'm finally, uh,
almost to the claim.
[narrator] Parker Schnabel's
foreman, Mitch Blaschke,
arrives at Scribner Creek
for a milestone season.
You know, I can't believe that
this year is my tenth year of mining.
You know, when I started this,
I was just a young guy
coming up here
trying to figure it out
and wanting to work on stuff
and, you know, now I'm helping
run Parker's mine site.
[narrator] Mitch first
came to the Klondike
as a fresh-faced mechanic for Todd
Hoffman with no gold mining experience.
For the last seven years,
he's worked for Parker...
He's gonna be coming right
through here, so watch yourselves.
[narrator]
rising up the ranks
to become his
most trusted wingman.
[Mitch] Whoo!
[narrator] But now he's
without his co-foreman,
Brennan Ruault.
He's my go-to guy, I mean,
we're bro-men, you know,
we do all this together and we
work so well with one another.
To try and find another guy
like that, um,
it just doesn't
come around that often.
It is what it is, you know.
I'm back here and just gonna
have to try and make the best of it.
Here we are.
Oh, I see he's got a golf cart.
- What's happening?
- [Parker] What's up?
Now see I might go for
a ride with you in that.
- How you been, man?
- [Parker] Good. How are you?
Not too bad.
Good to see you.
- How are you doing?
- Good.
I'm sure you heard
about Brennan.
I talked to him just
a couple of weeks ago there,
said that he wasn't
going to be here this year.
I'm just pissed off that he
didn't tell me until March.
You know?
I mean, we've been working hard
to get this system running good.
Then you take a guy
like that out of the mix and--
It's a-- it's a pisser, but
that's all right. We'll be fine.
Yeah, we'll just have
to figure it out.
See what we can do, I mean.
What's the game plan
for the season?
We picked up
a new block of ground.
Go Tuesday,
we had the first meeting,
and on Saturday,
we signed the deal.
Oh, wow! How deep is it?
Average is... about 50.
Well, it's got
a lot at the bottom.
Just want to make
sure we don't *bleep* it up.
Well, I guess, uh, yeah.
I'll go get settled in.
You can show me
your big project here,
and we'll figure out
a game plan.
For sure.
I'm glad you're back.
I hope you're glad to be here,
'cause, *bleep*, do we have
a lot of work to do.
If I didn't want to be here,
I wouldn't be here, right?
Right.
- That's usually-- Whenever I--
- [laughing]
Whenever I say that, that usually
means I don't want to be there,
but I don't want
to answer the question.
And, you know, we definitely
need some new dirt here,
but it sounds like
it's pretty deep.
So I'm pretty interested
to go take a look at that,
see what we got going on there,
and just see what we're
gonna have to do
to make this season work.
And, you know,
without Brennan here, uh,
it's definitely
not gonna be easy.
[narrator]
As the lone foreman,
it's on Mitch to figure out
how to tackle the new cut.
[Chris Doumitt] What's
happening there, young man?
[Tyson Lee]
How's it going, Mitch?
Oh, not too bad. Well, I see
you guys found this place.
[Tyson] Yeah.
[narrator] Tyson Lee, last
year's rookie plant boss,
and gold room expert Chris Doumitt
joined Mitch at the new ground.
So what we got here is this section
of ground through these claims here.
This stuff with the way it's
drilling, if the math is right,
might be 10 ounces an hour
with just one wash plant.
- Seriously?
- Yeah.
So we're talking like
The only problem
is 60 feet deep.
[Chris] Oh, geez!
I've been doing it for
ten years now up here
- and we've never gone this deep.
- [Tyson] No.
We're looking at a million
square feet of mud to move.
So we're gonna have to mine this a lot
differently than we've done anything else.
We've never had to tackle
a project like this.
So once we do get it opened
up, we're gonna gut sh**t
this thing right through here.
We're gonna take
just the best because
when you're going 60 feet deep,
you can't hit marginal ground.
It's going to look like a
crater. It's going to look like
the Grand Canyon
by the time we're done.
[narrator] To get down
to the pay layer,
Parker's crew normally strips around 10 feet
of overburden with dozers and excavators.
Mitch will have to dig a narrow
canyon to follow the course
of the ancient riverbed
and its deposits of gold.
He'll open a small section
first to find out
if the ground
is flush with gold.
He wants to do it
in just 30 days.
Yeah.
Should we name it Mud Mountain?
That works, because, like I say,
you're gonna have a mountain
range by the time we're done.
It's gonna be tough.
There's no part of this that's
gonna be easy, not to mention that,
you know, we don't have...
you know,
we don't have Brennan here.
We don't have, you know,
a lot of people
who have a lot of experience
with moving material like this.
I mean, if we have issues with
any of the machinery in this,
we're gonna end up a couple
hundred grand into this cut real quick.
- Yeah.
- Let's hope it pays out.
I'm gonna get back to the yard
because we've got a ton of
gear in the yard that needs work.
'Cause the last thing we want is
*bleep* breaking down out here.
- All right. Let's do 'er, boys!
- Solid plan.
[narrator] To dig out
the first section,
Mitch taps rising crew member,
Tyson Lee.
How's everyone
doing this morning?
- [man] Never been better.
- [Tyson] That's good.
Parker was saying that
he wants this cut opened up
by June 1st when we started
it, so that gives us 30 days.
Just be careful. The roads are
slick and we just gotta try and move
as much mud as we can and try
and keep the trucks from getting stuck.
- Drive safely fast.
- Yeah, exactly.
Okay.
- [woman] Awesome.
- Let's get to work!
[narrator] Tyson and his crew are up
against the toughest dirt moving operation
in Parker's mining history.
When the melting snow mixes
with the thawing find glacial silt,
it creates a toxic
combination, a slippery surface
riddled with
quicksand-like holes.
[Tyson] We're gonna have
three excavators swinging,
five rock trucks, four Cats
ripping and pushing day and night.
[narrator] Short on crew,
Parker pitches in.
It's definitely gonna be a
difficult block of ground to mine.
You know, some of the more
deep ground that--
That's on the Indian River, it
does have some high royalty.
For sure it's gonna
be a challenge.
I wouldn't be moving 60 feet
of mud if I thought there
wasn't a hell of a lot of
gold down here.
[Fred] This is only the second
time I've been in a helicopter
without a parachute,
jumping out.
[narrator] Greenhorn miner
Fred Lewis
is hitching a ride with Klondike legend
Tony Beets in search of a claim to mine.
[narrator] Last year,
the Indian River produced
over $30 million worth of gold.
High gold prices now make leasing
good ground almost impossible.
You would come up here, and
you would think there's so much, like,
hard-to-reach spots,
but I'm seeing houses
up in these little valleys where
people have already come up.
Makes me wonder how
much work's gonna have to go
into finding something that I
can actually mine this season.
Yeah, and I don't have a lot.
I like a challenge, though.
[Fred] Yeah.
Right.
If you had a small group here,
how... how would you hit it?
Yeah. Well, after the doctor?
[Tony speaking]
Okay.
I definitely want to look at it.
All right. Well,
I'll get out of your hair.
Appreciate it, Tony.
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] Fred finally has
a lead for a landowner
who may lease him ground, but it's 45
miles east of the gold-rich Indian River.
I'm gonna go and talk to Paul
Phillips and see what he has to offer.
You know, people may think
that I don't know what I'm doing
or that I'm over my head here.
You know what? I am over my head.
Went up against a lot of
odds in my life, you know,
just becoming a Green Beret,
the attrition rate is over 90%.
So at this point,
I'm all in for gold mining,
and I don't see anything
that's gonna stop me.
This thing is ready
to *bleep* go. It's turnkey.
[narrator] At the stripped
Creek Cut, Rick brings Kruse
and new crew member
Brennan up to speed.
Well, we're going for
so we're gonna have to
seriously up our game.
I mean, the gold that we got out of
this creek bed last year was good.
It got us to our goal.
That was where we found that 1
[Brennan] That's crazy.
From what we left last
year in the Creek Cut,
I figured we got 600-700
ounces to get started sluicing with.
And that's just money
in the bank.
That gets us the money we need
to start stripping these deeper cuts.
It's early in the season, but
we really got to get moving.
So the wash plant's where we left it
last year, it's got to get moved over here.
That distribution box we've been
working on, we got to slam that thing on.
And we're ahead of
the game from last year, so.
We are, yeah, exactly.
I basically-- I want to be
sluicing by the end of the day.
[Kruse] It's kind of
a time crunch thing.
Let's keep it that way.
[narrator] Short of time
and manpower...
Let's go, you *bleep*!
[narrator] ...Rick's skeleton
crew must first attach
the 1.5 ton distribution box
to wash plant Rocky.
[Rick] Why don't you guys wrap
your nuggets around
how the *bleep* we're gonna
get that thing in there.
[narrator] To help out, Rick's tapped local
heavy load truck driver Nathan Thornington.
- [Nathan] How's it going?
- Good, buddy.
I heard you guys needed
help out here this season.
- Oh, yeah.
- How's it going, Kruse?
Always good to see you.
Buddy, you showed
up just in time.
Really happy that we got
Nathan to join our crew.
I've trusted him for years
to move my wash plants,
my heavy equipment.
So compared to that,
moving this distribution
box should be easy.
[Nathan] I've been around
this sort of stuff all my life.
And so hopefully we
can get this in on the plant.
[narrator] Rick plans to maneuver the
ten-foot box into the heart of the wash plant
using the 480 Excavator,
then winch it into position.
Keep going.
Yeah!
[Nathan] We might be able
to slide it right in.
- [Rick] All right.
- [Brennan] If you go underneath.
If you just go real slow, Rick.
[Kruse] Whoa!
We'll blame it on the new guy.
That's you.
- Oh, *bleep*!
- [all laughing]
Haven't you guys ever moved
a couch into an apartment?
Just think of it
as a real heavy couch.
Okay, come in.
Down, down, down, down.
Okay.
There we go.
[Rick] It's really nice
having Brennan here.
You know, he does have several
years of experience now.
We're not gonna let him think
that that gets him a free pass.
If anything, that's going to get him picked
on more, gonna have to keep him grounded.
Get ready with that chain, I'm
gonna try and lift on this end, Kruse.
- [Kruse] All right.
- You ready?
- [groans]
- Hurry up.
[Kruse] I got to crank it up.
Hold on.
- Easier said than *bleep* done.
- I know.
[Kruse] All right. All right.
I think I blew blood
vessel in my brain there.
You mean a blood vessel
where your brain should be?
Good job on this.
*bleep* hanging off it.
Distribution box is hanging from the
chains now, that's how it's designed.
Everything else is pretty
much ready to go.
Like, we get this thing over
here, plumb it in and we're good.
I'm just gonna *bleep* go.
[narrator] Next task, drag the 25-ton steel
wash plant 500 yards to the Creek Cut.
It's always nerve-racking
moving a plant.
Anything else that
we destroy, break,
or whatever, we can survive,
but not the one machine
that gets our gold, so.
Just gotta try to take it slow and smart,
which I'm not good at either of those.
All right, that worked about as perfect
as we could have asked for, I think.
I haven't ever showed up on the
first day and been ready to sluice.
[Rick] Can you believe Nathan is
pulling that pump and that loader
with just that
little ratchet strap?
[Nathan] This is
the sweetest plant move ever.
[Rick] Yeah.
[narrator] Waterline
and generator hooked up...
[Brennan] Yay!
Here we go, man. High five!
[narrator] ...Rick is ready to
fire up for the first time this year.
[Rick] But, for me, there's always
a certain amount of excitement,
but also a little bit of, you
know, anxiety because the fuse is
lit as soon as the button
gets turned on that thing
and our pants
are on fire until October.
You guys ready?
It's go time? Yeah?
- [Kruse] I'm ready, man.
- [Nathan] You betcha. Let's give her.
All right.
Let's fire this thing up.
[Kruse] Shake it up, brother.
Shake it up.
Pull big rocks up there that
are gonna come tumbling out.
Get the water pumping.
Ready?
First bucket of dirt.
Looks good.
[Brennan] We're ahead
of the game this year.
I've never sluiced in May
before, so, this is pretty awesome.
See, if Rick wants to sh**t
for 2,000 plus ounces,
you know, we got to make sure
we get every *bleep* damn nugget
and flake of gold
out of this ground.
[Nathan] Yeah, it's actually kind
of cool to see it up and running, eh?
It's actually amazing.
[narrator] Despite the bare bones crew,
Rick's sluicing earlier than ever before.
[Rick] You know, we
haven't been here for long
and my plan is always,
when we get here,
we want to be sluicing
as quick as possible,
so we are gonna get *bleep*
gold coming in right away.
[narrator] A full month
earlier than last season,
Tony's ready to fire up his
massive 8-foot wide trommel
and start sluicing
Nugget Cut pay dirt.
But his whole operation
now rests on firing up
one 900 horsepower, 1,500
gallon a minute water pump.
I'm here for my looks.
[Tony speaking]
- [Kevin] At least one of us should be good looking.
- Yeah.
[Kevin] I'd put more in.
TB's tried to turn
over the generator.
Batteries are just clicking.
[man on radio]
Yes, I do.
[Tony speaking]
[narrator] To jumpstart the
Tony needs an engine
with a bigger battery.
[Tony speaking]
So we're gonna run in the
[Tony speaking]
Yes, he does.
[grunts]
Hey, Monica, I need you
to hold these for a sec.
Thank you.
[Tony speaking]
[Monica] Sounds like me trying
to get up in the morning.
[Tony speaking]
Everybody clear?
[Kevin] We did it.
We're back in business.
[Fred] Wow!
This is the stuff you think of when
you think of like the old Gold Rush
and people coming up here
and the frontier and vast unknown.
Definitely not comfortable right
now with what Tony and Parker said.
I'm not expecting to walk in
and just fall into something,
but there's got to
be something here.
[narrator] Special Forces veteran
Fred Lewis heads to Clear Creek,
a remote and little
known area 45 miles east
from the Indian River in a
last-ditch attempt to find ground
to mine this season with
his band of combat veterans.
The guys I put together, you
know, we're a really close team.
We're brothers.
So if I'm gonna drag them
all up to the Yukon to mine,
it's gonna have to be
something that's gonna put money
in their pockets and pay back the
debt the company made last season.
Tony said not to make those
mistakes twice, and we're not doing that.
It's not just about fighting
the first chance I get.
[narrator]
But time is running out,
and all Fred has to go on is the
name of a smalltime family mine owner
given to him by Tony Beets.
Trying to find this Paul Phillips
guy in hopes that he has ground
that has water rights and has permits,
so we can actually mine this season.
- Paul?
- Hello.
Fred Lewis.
Whoo. You said
you were far out here.
Yeah, we're a ways out.
So, uh, am I catching you
at a good time?
Oh, yeah, we're just starting to get
stuff out of retirement for the winter.
Well, I'm really kind of
cold calling you, I know.
Yeah.
But Tony mentioned your name, and that was
enough for me to come out and talk to you.
Yeah.
Said that you might have some
ground you might be willing to lease.
We haven't really done
much on Clear Creek
because we've always had
the other places to work at.
We hadn't really
considered it yet, but...
it's something
we'd look at for sure.
[narrator] Paul Phillips and his
family used to mine in the Klondike.
But this year, they've left it behind
to mine out here in Clear Creek.
I've got a real small operation,
so I'm really trying to find
a piece of ground that's got
that open space we're looking for
and, um, a relatively
non-complex mining operation
because we're not the most
experienced operators.
It's pretty much
a team of greenhorns.
Well, this would be some
of the easiest for your team
to handle until they get some
experience, I would think.
It's quite simple.
The first time we...
we washed down there,
I stripped for one day with the
We sluiced for 6 weeks.
Holy cow!
It's lean ground,
but there's lots of it.
- So just run it.
- Yeah.
- And catch the gold.
- Okay.
Well, I would love to see like how
you have done it here, if you don't mind.
Sure.
We can walk down to the creek
and show you where we've been.
Yeah.
So this basically is,
uh, borderline the creek?
- Yeah, the creeks right there.
- [Fred] Okay.
So if someone were to come up
in here from start to finish,
how long do you think it would
take them to get into sluicing?
Hmm. Maybe an hour. Two hours.
- Are you serious?
- Yeah.
So it's pretty much ready to go.
Back your plant in,
turn the pump on.
It's definitely
profitable mining.
Well, what do you think the
odds of... of maybe getting
a test up here, um, just to kind
of see what we've got up here?
Yeah, I don't have a problem
with you testing.
Okay. That sounds good to me.
That's more than, uh, no.
- Yeah.
- I'll take that any day.
[narrator] To come back
from last season's failure,
Fred needs to be sure
the ground has good gold.
[Paul] Okay. Right on,
I'll just fire this thing up.
[Fred] Sounds good.
[Fred] I think right now the
treasure hunt begins. But if it's here,
we're gonna find it.
I'm really looking for 10 to 15
colors, that's really gonna be
the target for what
I'm looking for.
A lot of fine gold, there's
not any chunks in here but...
Oh, boy, I'm seeing
some good color.
Oh, yeah.
So this is what
we're looking for.
I think this pan I just did
is sitting at about
a little under an ounce
a hundred here,
'cause I'm not a professional.
I'm just-- I'm learning as well.
But I'm at least at 0.8,
which is fantastic.
[narrator] Fred calculates he
needs at least half an ounce of gold
in every 100 yards of dirt
to make his season pay.
This is our second hole.
It's on the left
side of the valley.
I honestly don't know. Right
now, I'm looking at probably 0.6,
maybe 0.7 per 100
out of that pan.
And this is exactly why
we came to the Yukon.
If you can find a claim with a
good claim owner that has potential,
and it hasn't been mined out,
you're probably gonna find gold.
I know that there's
stripped ground here.
I know it's easy
for me to access.
I know the gold's here.
Depending on what Paul and I come up
with for royalty, this could be workable.
[narrator] At Parker
Schnabel's Mud Mountain Cut...
Next truck come back in,
right where my bucket is.
[narrator] Tyson Lee is on
a mission to get down to pay
and test what could be the
richest ground they've ever mined.
But first, he has to strip over a
million cubic yards of overburden.
[Tyson] You know, we're a week into Mud
Mountain and we've made a hell of a dent.
And as you can tell,
it's warming up
and definitely slowly sliding backwards
as the mud gets ahead of us, so.
[narrator] Thicker than
regular overburden,
Mud Mountain's sticky wet black
muck is a force to be reckoned with.
So far, we've had two rock
trucks down for three days
at 100 loads each a day.
You know, we really cannot
afford breakdowns right now.
Due to the mud,
there's these big holes,
so I've got to drive
really slow,
otherwise, I'm gonna
slam the rock truck
and it can really damage the
hydraulics. I'm sliding everywhere.
Although now we have a bit more space
so we can actually fit in four trucks.
We don't have much time here,
because as the snow melts,
all the water is coming down from
the hill, so we are getting a lot of mud.
Um, so we got to
be pretty fast here.
So we're just flying here.
It's very, very difficult
right now, it's... it's tough.
It's advanced rock driving
if that's a thing.
[narrator] To keep on track
with Parker's 30-day deadline,
Tyson's rock trucks need
to dump at least 400 loads of
overburden a day
at the waste site.
But with multiple breakdowns, Tyson
is falling further and further behind.
I'm normally a sluicer, man.
I don't move mud.
You know, Brennan could run any
piece of equipment that was around here.
You can't replace that
experience overnight.
Like anything in life, anything
new is a learning curve,
and this is gonna be
one hell of a learning curve.
[Tyson over radio]
Can I steal a truck here?
Can I have one truck, please?
Hey, Jordan, I got a copy.
Yeah, man, my truck keeps
*bleep* going into limp mode.
Won't accelerate.
Won't really do anything
in here.
[narrator] Rookie Jordan
Tatlow's truck is in limp mode,
a safety mechanism
that slows it right down
when there's
a mechanical problem.
[Tyson on radio] Bring it up
to the mechanic's up there
and let them know.
That's their department.
One rock truck goes down, that's
Or 100 loads a day
that we're gonna have to get
out of Mud Mountain at a later date when
it's warmer and when the mud is thicker.
Hey, Mitch,
you got a copy, Mitch?
Yeah, we got another truck down here
at Mud Mountain, one's coming your way.
[Mitch on radio] Oh,
wonderful, just what we need.
[narrator] Already,
two trucks down,
Tyson must send another
to be fixed.
[Tyson] Mitch,
he's in the yard right now
trying to keep
the mechanics going,
you know, trying to get everyone
caught up, but it's just tough.
I'd say it's Mud Mountain one
and our crew zero.
[narrator] In the yard, foreman Mitch is
back where he started nine years ago,
wrenching to keep up
with broken equipment.
We're out here doing everything
we can to get these trucks fixed.
All that permafrost muck that
just keeps getting into everything.
And, right now, we're not even
keeping our heads above water.
- [Parker] Hi.
- [Mitch] What up?
Are you deep in the
middle of something?
- [Mitch] What do you got going on?
- Mud Mountain.
Do you want to bump down there?
I know, we got a ton of
work to do out in the cut,
but we got way
more to do right here.
If we keep stopping, we're
never gonna get any of it done.
- [Parker] Okay.
- But we're just trying to get that crashed out
and so we can get on
to the next one here.
I know, as a foreman,
probably not the best, you know,
use of my time to be
in here working on stuff.
Right now, we need to be thinking
about moving dirt, not working on trucks.
But we have
no other option right now.
We've got to get these machines to
where we can rely on them every day.
They can go out
and do their job.
I can't be both places
at the same time.
And it seems like that's what
Parker expects every day.
[narrator] Jordan's truck
reaches the yard.
If it's not one thing around
here, it's usually ten things more.
[narrator] Every hour
it's down makes it harder
for Tyson to hit Parker's
[Mitch] Whoa!
What is going on down here?
First, we have to try
and get rid of some mud
so we can actually
get to the bolts.
Really not what we're
wanting to see down here.
This hydraulic pump completely
encased with this, well,
pretty much mammoth *bleep*.
This stuff is like concrete here.
It flowed in as a liquid.
Well, it set back up and this
stuff, it's brutally hard here.
You can barely bust it apart.
[narrator] The hydraulic pumps power the
truck's suspension, brakes and steering.
Without them,
the truck is useless.
Mechanic Taylor must remove
them and assess the damage.
[Taylor] We know the pumps
not building pressure.
You can see damage
on the plate here.
We'll take the guts out of
this one, and we'll have a look.
More than likely the pistons--
The pistons or the slippers are toast.
[Mitch] You can see here these grooves in
here are why we're not building any pressure.
The oil can just go
wherever it wants.
It's not forced through
the output ports.
[narrator] Mud Mountain's fine black
silt has worked its way inside the pump,
breaking the pistons and damaging
the precision engineered plate
that seals in
the hydraulic fluid.
Okay, um, there's a curve ball.
[narrator] Getting a spare up
to the claim could take weeks.
[Mitch] Man,
the only other thing
I'm wondering here we could
do and try in the meantime.
So if we can get this to all
look like this outer portion here...
Yeah.
And maybe with
the new pistons here,
and if we can get
this flat again.
[narrator] Without a working
seal from the top plate,
the pump leaks hydraulic fluid
and is unable to gain pressure.
Mitch's Hail Mary bush fix, remove
and replace the damaged pistons,
then take the top plate and grind
out the grooves to create a seal
so the pump can regain
pressure and power the truck.
[Mitch] So we've polished up this
piece here, so hopefully this will seal.
This will make pressure. And if it
does, this truck can go back to work.
If not, we're gonna be
waiting for a new part.
I'm gonna roll the dice on
this thing. See if she works.
[Taylor] 100%.
We just got to fire it up
and see if it works.
You ready?
- You ready?
- [Taylor] Yeah.
[Mitch] Here we go.
Come on, baby.
[Taylor] We just need our pump
to build enough pressure
to raise the machine
all the way up to the top.
Before we took it out, it
wasn't building any pressure.
- There it is, buddy.
- How about that!
You know, we've been
working on trucks all day,
but this is the last one right
here heading back out to the cut,
and everything's
good to go again.
Hopefully, it lasts a while.
[narrator] With the full
fleet back in action,
Tyson has a fighting chance
to hit Parker's deadline.
Hey, Jordan, yeah, it's good
to see you're back, man.
You know, we need every truck
going here at Mud Mountain we can get.
That's one step closer to
getting me the hell out of the mud
and back around a wash plant
in my happy place.
How's it going, guys?
- [Diana] Hey, Fred.
- How you doing?
[narrator] Fred Lewis' chances of
getting gold rest on striking a deal
with Paul and Diana Phillips to mine
their pre-stripped claims in Clear Creek.
How'd it go?
[Fred]
I got all my testing done
and I'm seeing the exact type
of gold that you guys told me.
It's consistent throughout
the valley, like you said.
So what are you guys
looking at for a royalty?
It's probably the easiest ground
you'll ever find to mine, go about 50%.
I never heard of that before.
Did a lot of time on that,
and all you got to do is
just pick up the dirt
and throw it in the plant.
[narrator] Giving up 50% of every ounce of
gold could make this lean ground a loss maker.
To be able to give my guys their
gold bonus at the end of the year,
so they're not working for free,
that coupled with
last season's loss,
I'm not sure that the 50%--
Well, I know the 50% is--
Is something I just can't...
I can't bite on.
[Diana] This ground here is already
set up, stripped and ready to mine.
- We can't give it away, Fred.
- I know.
- We can't.
- And that's my... That's it right there.
But it's still below that line where
I told myself and my entire team,
"I won't bite unless
I find this for you."
If I'm being
painstakingly obvious,
I don't feel like there's a...
there's a ground that we're gonna
come to that both of us are happy on.
It's just not
a good option for us.
- Thank you very much.
- Thanks for stopping by, Fred.
Thanks, Fred.
- I'll talk to you guys. Yep.
- Take care.
I can make 50% work.
[Paul] What do you think?
You know, Paul, no miner has
the opportunity to walk in on ground
that's already stripped,
ponds in place,
literally bring your machines
in and start sluicing.
Once everything's all hooked
up. I mean, it's very rare.
It doesn't happen that often.
[Fred] He made it sound so easy.
But, you know, if it
sounds too good to be true,
it probably is.
Really sucks, because
I had my hopes up.
And it's not just give me
some ground, let's go dig.
The very minimum is I've got
to put money into the company
and my guys' pockets,
or we're a failure.
I'm pretty much
back to square one.
The best part is we fired up
my first week here, you know.
We're already washing the
rocks, so that's pretty sweet.
Let's hope there's a whole
load of gold in here.
[narrator] Rick Ness and his
bare bones three-person crew
are gunning for 2,000 ounces,
banking on a fast start
sluicing Creek Cut pay dirt.
[Rick] Shut it down.
[narrator] After three
days of washing rocks,
it's time for the first
cleanup of the season.
I don't know why I'm so nervous.
It's the first
one of the year. I--
[Kruse]
You seem a little giddy.
I am.
All right, I can't talk
anymore. I got to go look--
- [Kruse] Let's do this. Let's make it rain, boys.
- [Brennan] Whoo!
[Rick] Yeah, look at that pile
right there, Brennan.
- Yeah.
- Look at them all there.
- [Rick] Yeah, buddy.
- *bleep* yeah.
Oh, there's one.
Look at that, buddy.
Look at that nugget right there.
[Rick] Oh, buddy.
It looked really good.
- *bleep*
- [Brennan] Oh!
Holy *bleep*, man.
[bleeping]
- *bleep* - Does it feel
like the first time again?
It does.
Look at these chunks
coming out of there.
It's amazing.
Pretty *bleep* excited, like,
we had a big fat first clean up.
You know, this is gonna make
everybody feel pretty good
for the season and what we're
having to look forward to.
I hate to make guesses, and I
won't, but I will say that it looks good.
It looks really good, like, some of
the best I've seen in that box, so.
I see some gold in that pan.
A lot of gold actually, right?
You know, the cleanup
looked really good.
[Kruse]
Yeah, it does look good.
And actually, I mean,
that being said,
why don't we just
weigh this out?
- [Kruse] Let's do this.
- Sounds good.
[narrator] To his 2,000 ounce season
goal, Rick needs around 100 ounces a week,
so this 3-day run
needs to deliver at least 50.
- Buddy.
- Oh, man!
How does that feel, huh?
*bleep* awesome.
Well, that's evidence of
all our hard work right there.
Yeah.
[narrator] At over $120,000, Rick's
pulled more gold in his first three days
than he did in the first
three weeks last year.
Well, for now,
it's the four of us.
Let's just keep doing our thing,
I mean, that's a hell of a start.
In all honesty, the four of us,
I mean, we work
really well together.
Like, I'm impressed
with everybody.
- That's good to hear.
- You know-- Yeah.
You know, you stepped up this
year like you always do, get us started.
Brennan you showed right up,
jumped right in, you know. Kruse.
I mean, you know,
everybody pulled their weight
and the results are right here.
Let's go get some dinner
and some sleep.
Get back at it tomorrow.
- [Brennan] Yeah, buddy.
- [Nathan] Sounds good.
[Kruse] Eat, sleep, mine, bro.
[Rick laughs]
Well, we definitely have
a good start to the season,
but it's a long way to go
to 2,000 ounces.
So I'm not gonna jump the g*n
and say this is gonna be easy,
uh, but I've got
the right people here with me.
We did the right prep work
over the offseason and last fall,
and we got a hell of a start,
so onward and upward.
Find out if my little shack
is still livable.
Let's go see what we got
going on here.
I got water.
Sounds like I got heat, too.
Wow.
Everybody's been
using my shower.
Oh, hammer and chisel and sand
blast it, and it'll be good as new.
Somebody tried using
steel wool on it to clean it up
and left the steel wool
in the shower.
That's always good.
All right, I'm home.
Let's go.
This first segment is
almost done. Once it's done,
then we can move on
to the next piece.
[narrator] Two weeks into digging
Mud Mountain, Parker Schnabel's crew
is 55 feet down
in the first half of the cut
and pushing hard to hit pay
dirt so they can find out just
how rich the ground is.
[Tyson] Word on the street
is that at the bottom here,
there's roughly 8,000 ounces.
When Parker told me that, I said,
"Okay, so after we're done this,
we're going to Mexico, right?
'Cause we've hit our goal.
Or we've pretty much topped what
we've done every other year,"
and he's like, "Yeah, exactly, Tyson,
that's exactly
what we're gonna do."
But I have a feeling that's
wishful thinking on my behalf.
Looks like there's some bedrock.
Hey, Mitch, Doumitt,
do you guys got a copy?
[Mitch on radio]
Yeah, hey, Tyson, what's up?
Yeah, I think I hit pay gravel
down at Mud Mountain.
You guys want to come down?
Oh, man, if you hit gravel
in Mud Mountain,
there's gotta be pay.
Oh, yeah, it's pay.
[Mitch]
It's been such a tough week.
We've been out here fighting,
struggling to keep these rock trucks going.
Really excited to see what's
at the bottom of it 60 feet down.
We're gonna go out,
pan it up and, well,
hopefully, the pans look
as good as the drilling.
What do you think, Chris,
you ready to do this?
You bring a gold pan?
I know all you've been seeing
is nothing but mud out here.
All we've been seeing is nothing
but broken machines in the yard.
So I'm ready to see some gold.
How about you guys?
Yeah, for sure. Let me grab a
pan. We'll go wash this stuff up.
[narrator] After moving 60 feet
of overburden, all Parker's hopes
for the season rely on a razor-thin
pay layer less than two feet thick.
Let's see what we got here.
I wasn't expecting that.
[Mitch]
What do you got over there?
A couple flakes.
[Mitch] What do you got Chris?
Not a hell of a lot, though.
[Chris] Not even a flake.
Well, we're gonna
need to show this Parker.
[Chris] Yeah.
[Mitch] We've definitely invested a
lot of money, tore up a lot of machines,
and what I'm seeing here
looks like *bleep*.
[narrator] Parker is already
$700,000 in the hole,
and the first pans
of Mud Mountain are duds.
[Mitch] How's it going?
How are you doing?
- [Tyson] Hey, Parker.
- I'm all right.
Getting in the swing of things.
What are you guys up to?
[Chris] We got a little bit of
a problem, I think, maybe.
What kind of problem?
Well, we've been down at
Mud Mountain panning.
Our best pan had two colors.
[Parker]
It doesn't make me feel good.
It makes me a bit nervous,
actually.
You'd think with how concentrated
the material is down there,
and you'd think you'd
at least see something, but...
It's not like we're just-- It's
not like we're just going off
of a gut feeling
like Liam drilled that.
What can we do about it?
Yeah. You can't.
I mean, you got the money
invested in it.
We're going to sluice it, right?
There's nothing
we can do about it now.
We've got to trust something
and we've got to trust somebody.
Yeah.
You're either gonna come out of
this, and we're all going to be smiling
and everything's gonna be good,
or it's gonna be
a big learning experience so.
[Parker] Yeah, I mean, it's
definitely a pretty big gamble,
especially with how deep it is.
And if it mines the way
it drilled,
we're gonna have
a hell of a season
and should be able to beat
last year, for sure.
All right, well...
We'll get it through a wash plant
and see what we end up with.
- [Chris] Thanks, Parker.
- Thanks, guys.
[narrator] In the Beets Family
gold room...
We started sluicing everything
from the Nugget Cut.
I don't know how much T Beets
was expecting,
but from what I see,
and I do think we'll have
at least a little bit
of gold in there.
At the end of this week,
Mom and I are heading
to have a baby.
We're just really not set up
here in the Yukon
to have babies anywhere
except for Whitehorse.
Working for my family, I'll
be able to bring my child in
and continue working.
She'll be in a playpen
over by... probably the table
because that's a peaceful
noise to listen to.
It is an exciting thing, but...
[laughing]
[narrator]
It's the moment of truth.
The Beets family's first gold weigh of
their ambitious 9,000 ounce season.
- [Minnie] Hi, folks.
- Hi.
[Tony speaking]
That thing *bleep* runs
basically a day on a half a tank.
I see what the 11 does.
It's like, "What the *bleep*?"
Why do we have two jars?
Well, I figured it,
it's called the Nugget Cut,
so I kept all the nuggets out
and we'll put them on top.
[Tony speaking]
Roughly 40, 45.
[narrator] To hit his 9,000 ounce
target, Tony needs 475 ounces a week,
so this 2-day run
should deliver 160 ounces.
Are you gonna pour
some gold for us?
[narrator] 82 ounces is
worth over $147,000.
Yeah.
[narrator] It's more than the trommel
produced per hour last season,
but still less than the 475
ounces a week they need.
Well, this will be your last
gold weigh for a while.
Well, I mean, only if you
don't have somebody else
cleaning the gold
while I'm gone.
Oh, yeah.
She needs a job
like a hole in her head.
[Tony speaking]
Well, then you're gonna have
to buy a playpen
and maybe a mobile and
maybe an white noise machine.
I need a humidifier.
Clean it up,
and let's go to work.
- Yeah.
- I have stuff to do, too, so please.
Bye.
[narrator] Now, Tony can
expand to the Indian River
and easily double or even
triple his output.
The water license, as you know,
as long as we get it
in the next 14 days,
that's good.
We should have both operations
up and running.
With all that, I think we should
be able to reach the goal.
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12x01 - Ground w*r
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Reality based series follows the placer gold mining efforts of various family-run mining companies, mostly in the Klondike region of Dawson City, Yukon, Canada, as well as in the U.S. state of Alaska.
Reality based series follows the placer gold mining efforts of various family-run mining companies, mostly in the Klondike region of Dawson City, Yukon, Canada, as well as in the U.S. state of Alaska.