14x19 - Off the Rails

[bunniefuu]

It's been a long,
long, hard season.

I think I can say
for everybody

that we're definitely glad
that we're nearing
the end of it.

King of the Klondike
Tony Beets' operation

may have turned a corner.

His biggest gold producer,
the trommel,

is finally up and running


It's really good to see
that the trommel is turning
and we're actually sluicing.

It's always nice
to be at Paradise.

Right now, Tony's not around.

He always seems to be,
you know, out in the boonies
or something.



Tony's determined
to keep his newfound
momentum going.

Seven weeks ago...

...Tony's
shaker wash plant

suffered a screen
deck failure...

...and halted mining
at his Indian River claim.

Now,
Tony has a plan
to reignite the operation.

Instead of waiting
for a new screen,

Tony's gone and purchased
a nearly brand new wash plant

from his next-door neighbor.

That'd be nice.

That's very nice.

Do you just kick
this tray down
and you spray everything out?

Yeah.

yeah.

What?

$800,000 is a lot of money
to spend right now.
There's no money, man.

But that's actually
too expensive.

You don't even know
how much money you have.

I don't wanna talk to you.

So,
what's the game plan?

Near the end of the season.
I wish we would have
had more time.

It's gonna be a struggle.

The bottom line is
you gotta fight hard.


Rick Ness's comeback season
is on a knife edge.

With just over a month left,
he's only halfway

towards the 1,000 ounces
he desperately needs
this year.

Yeah,
I know the best gold
we're gonna mine all year

is here in Rally Valley.

We're gonna get
as much pay out here
as we can this week.

And, then, we're gonna
turn on Monster Red

and try and run it all
before the winter
chases us out of here.

The Bench Cut
gave us good gold all year.

Yeah, there's some left
up there, I know there is,
that we can get.

After last week's
big 92-ounce haul,

Rick's decided to continue
running pay from the Bench
through wash plant Rocky.

The pressure's on me
and Bailey to keep
this wash plant running

while the other guys
are hauling pay
out of Rally Valley.

The pressure's on.
Season's coming to an end.

At Rally Valley,

Rick's working
on his next move...

building up a stockpile
of pay dirt.

At the end of the week,
he plans on
shutting down Rocky

and firing up
his massive wash plant,
Monster Red.

We got a lot of work
to do to hit 1,000 ounces.

We've got not many people.

You know, we've been short
on people all year,

so I got my buddy,
Zee, coming in.

He was here at the beginning
of the season to help me
get started,

so it's gonna be helpful
to have him around
to start up Monster Red.

It's just me and Rick.
Literally, just the two of us.

Long-time friend,
Zee Zaremba, helped Rick
kickstart his season

and resurrect Monster Red
after a year out.

We're gonna run
some dirt.

Oh, yeah!

This is huge, man.
I'm proud of you.

dude,
I couldn't have done it
without you.

-That's yours.
-Aww!

Just coming back from spring,
but everything looks
a lot different.

It looks good.

Looks like they've been
hard at work.

What's going on, buddy?

Oh, yeah!

-Good to see you, bud.
-Yup.

What do you think?

The ground's
not the only thing that looks
different. You look good.

-Yeah?
- Yeah.

I've been putting on
some weight.

-Nothing wrong with that.

I've been doing that
for years.

So, in Rally Valley now, huh?

Yeah, dude.
So, think about this,

just a few weeks ago,
we'd have been
standing underwater,

So, yeah, we've made
some progress.

It looks good.
So, you been good, though.

Yeah. Yeah, really good.
I mean, I've...

I mean, I've had no choice
but to throw myself


You know what I mean?
If I didn't, there was no way
it was gonna work.

- Yeah.
-I feel better
than I have in a long time.

I can feel good
about myself doing this
because I can do it.

- Yeah.
-I mean, I know I can.

It just... it just...

you know, just
sideways for too long and...

But it was a good
reminder and...

Yeah, I feel
a hell of a lot better,

-just even about myself now.
-Yeah, good.

The year you took off,
and all those demons
you had to shake,

and to come up here
and see you looking like this,
and all you got accomplished

-is awesome, dude.
-Thanks, man.

I'm still very aware, though,
that, you know,

the biggest hurdle
is coming up, you know?

Anybody can start something.

-You gotta
finish it, right.
-Finish it.

But I'm just glad
that you're here for it, too.

-You know I'll
do anything for you.
-Oh, yeah. I know that.

I need you to get
Monster Red fired up.

I mean, I ran it
that whole year
up at Duncan, so...

Yeah, exactly.

I'm excited.

-I need your help
running one of them.
- Yup.

-You ready
to jump in the truck?
-Sure.

Give me another one.

Good luck.

I'm super excited
that Zee's back

to help me
finish out the season.

You know, he was there with me
here in the beginning
to start it.

It only makes sense
he's here at the end.

Last time
I was in a rock truck
would've been

five years ago.
It's been a while.

I'm just gonna run it down
by bus and get Monster Red
set up for the final push.

Zee's first task,

remove all the old boulders
from around Monster Red's
hopper feeder.

Yeah, I mean, it's not
the most ideal piece
of equipment to be running...

but it's kind of
all we got right now, so...

I always wanna help Rick out,
so I'm just happy to be back

and contribute
a little bit myself.

When I left
in the beginning of the year,

we had just gotten
up and running, so...

it's good to see
how much progress
all these guys got done

this year so far, so...

No! Oh, no, no.

What the ?

Oh, my .

What the ?

What the ?

Get over
to the tailings pond!
We're about to lose a truck!

At Duncan Creek,
Zee is hanging over
a 20-foot deep tailings pond.

-You all right?
- Yeah, I'll be fine.

Just hang tight.

I don't like
that it's leaning like that.

I don't want that thing
to tip over
into the water.

All good, buddy.

There you go.

We got that
"no around" chain.

-Yup!
-Here we go. Good!

With the rocks
removed,

Buzz carefully pulls Zee back
onto solid ground.

Don't turn your wheel!

Straighten that
wheel out!

Straighten
the wheel out!

Straighten the wheels.

No! Dude, the other way!

There we go.

It was like ,
what the ?

Real bad.

Had my fingers
crossed the whole time.

-You all right, buddy?
You all right?
-Yeah. Yeah.

Could have been
a lot worse. He's lucky.

It's a bad spot to be.

Let's get the
out of here and get back
to business.

-Yeah, haul more pay.
-It's getting cold.

Yeah.

So, yeah,
we're in the final push.

Trying to get Monster Red
running, trying to get
Rally Valley to run.

And this happens, you know,
it's accidents, so...

Good thing no one's hurt,
the machines are okay.

Cost a couple hours,
but we'll get back
to business.

Two weeks out
from the end of the season,

we're spending money
like crazy.

We pretty well smashed
all previous spending records.

We've also smashed
the 5,000-ounce target we had,
which is good.

But I'm still losing money
with that target.


Parker Schnabel is on a roll.

He's blown past
his initial 5,000-ounce goal,

and, now, he wants more.

We've upped the ante
another couple
thousand ounces,

and want as much gold
to go in our pockets
as possible.

That's the goal.

To hit his new


Parker's got
two operations running.

Wash plant Slucifer

is chewing through
Australia Creek's
boomerang cut,

while on his Dominion Creek
claim, he just brought in
a brand new toy

he hopes will increase
his gold haul.

We've got our new plant,
Roxanne, here on Dominion.

It has a few
teething problems,

but I think that once we get
a few little bugs worked out,
it's gonna be amazing for us.

I'm digging pay here
for Roxanne.

We got a lot of dirt
to get through.

And if we're gonna hit
that target, we need the plant
running fast,

and we need dirt
going up the belt.

Foreman
Mitch Blaschke
is dialing in Roxanne

in its first full week
of sluicing.

Right now, I just wanna put
two people on this wash plant,
day and night.

Parker said, you know,
no way, that we're still short
on people.

This plant
is definitely a bit faster.

Operator
Sandy Dubois pulls double duty
in the loader,

feeding the plant,

and clearing waste tailings.

So, I'm racing
down here to do
another scoop of tailings,

and by the time
I do take two scoops,

my feeder is going dry.

So, there's just
no catching up.

It seems like my tailings
are piling up again.

They're starting
to touch the bottom
of the bottom chute.

- Hey, Mitch,
you got a copy?
-Hey.

Hey, I'm struggling
to keep up. The tailings
keep building up.

Is there any way I could
get a helping hand,

or can we figure
something else else out
for these tailings?

Gotcha.

Well, we'll just see
what we can do.

We gotta get through
this dirt.

Definitely
sounds like Sandy's
having some trouble,

This thing runs out
of material, you see
those belts go dry,

that's when you're gonna have
the best chance

of what you exactly
don't want,

of gold getting washed down
your sluice runs.

And if it happens enough,

it's gonna get washed
all the way out the far end.

So, I got an idea.

We can put
one of our excavator
conveyors in place.

The loader only has to worry
about just feeding
the wash plant.

And that might be a way
that we can keep
this thing running

full-speed here


Sandy feeds Roxanne
with pay,

then races 170 feet
to clear the tailings
from below the waste chute

before it gets blocked.

If she can't keep up
with feeding the plant,

the belt runs out of pay,

allowing water with no dirt
to whitewash gold
out of the sluice box.

Mitch wants to bring in
a 120-foot
excavator conveyor,

with a hopper feeder attached,

and position it
under Roxanne's tailing chute.

This will carry away
the waste rocks
and pile them higher,

allowing Sandy to focus
on just feeding the plant.

That thing
is massive.

-Tyson's bringing in
that conveyor?
-Yeah.

So, we're trying
to get the hopper
on the excavator conveyor

to go underneath
our lower tailing chute.

We'll slide it underneath
and all the tailings will land
in the hopper

and go up the conveyor
and out of our way.

It doesn't
really like turning very well.
How am I looking?

Yeah. That should work.

Gotta get this
conveyor in and this thing
back to making money.

You ready, Alec?

Yeah.
Send her in rewind there.

Keep coming.

And, hold it there.

What's the problem?

We're right
at that height
of the chute there.

We just want it
a little bit tighter
to the plant.

What is he doing? You can't
drag that around
on the ground like that.

How we doing height-wise?

Yeah. I think we just
take a few scoops here and,
then, back it into its home.

Well, it looks like
there's enough room here
for the hoe to come in,

-if you wanted to...
- Yeah.

Give that a go.

See if you can put it down
into the dirt just a bit more.

Drop the hopper.

Yeah. Swing right.
Swing right.

Just don't know
how much room you've got.

-Whoa! What happened?

hell!

Sorry, Parker!

- Whoa! What happened?

Hell!

Sorry, Parker!

At the Money Pit,
Parker's crew is scrambling
to install a tailings conveyor

to new wash plant Roxanne.

That way
a little bit.

Lower the hopper.

Stop there.

Uh, keep coming back.

That's good there.

I think that'll clear
where it's sitting.

Pretty big hopper,
like, height-wise.

Yeah, that looks
pretty good.

I think the rock
will end up in it.

Yeah, that's pretty
happy there.

I like that.

Well, she might look old,
but she's got lots of life
left in her.

Now that we've got
our excavator conveyor
in place,

we can crank this baby
back up. So let's do it!

Here we go!

This is what
I'm talking about!

Roxanne
up and running...

Yeah, man!

...Parker's crew
are back in the chase to hit
his new 7,000-ounce goal.

The loader operator
feeding the plant,

the only thing
they have to worry about

is putting that dirt
in the hopper feeder.

That thing is really moving
some dirt now. Let's see
if they can keep up.

Hell, yeah,
brother!

Fill feels good!

Tony Beets
has gambled nearly
a million dollars

on a new wash plant
to get his Indian River
operation back on the gold,

and he wants it running
by the end of the day.

First, Mike needs
to pull into position

next to the out of action
shaker deck.

But there's a problem.

The new plant's


prevents Mike
from backing up his dozer
close to the wash plant.

So, he needs to detach
from the back of the plant,

recouple at the front
with a longer cable,

and carefully maneuver
the plant between the Shaker
Deck's feed conveyor

and the pay pile.

Once in position,
the water pipes
can be attached,

and the plant can be fired up.

Knocked that dirt down
with the hull, I think.

Looks perfect.

That actually
went pretty good.
I am quite happy.

Now, we just gotta do
the little nitty-gritty.

The new wash plant
in place, Mike hooks up
the water line.

We're almost done.
Once we have this all done,

we literally only have to
hook up the pipe.

And we'll be laughing
to the bank

as we wash gold
from the rocks.

I'll start it right up.

First scoop in the new plant,
let's do it!

Tony's $800,000
gamble is up and running,

and for the first time
this season,

gold is coming in
from two wash plants.

Ty, do you copy?

Yeah, go for it.

It's time to head back
to the hill
and get that going.

Okay, perfect.

With Mike
returning to Paradise Hill,

it's on new hire Ty Smith
to feed the plant


Let's get that gold!

It's definitely
a lot of responsibility

to run any of the plants
we have here...

particularly this one,
since it's brand new.

In the loader,

first-year gold miner
Chelsea March
clears the tailings.

If anything happens,
it's pretty much on us.

The fines are building up
a little bit.

I'm just gonna
backlight it out
so the water can flow nice.

Tony's new plant
is set up in a different way
to his other wash plants.

The coarse and fine tailings
are being discharged
behind the plant,

forcing Chelsea
to drive across
the stream of watery fines

coming out of the sluices.

I hate tailings.

It's never-ending.

I can't keep up.

The water
from the sluices

is turning the ground
into quicksand,

slowing Chelsea down

and threatening to eat away
the wash plant pad.

I can't
see anything!

Ty,
I'm drowning here, man.

Tailings are building up.

Water is starting
to go everywhere.

Yeah. If you can't keep up,
it's gonna
everything up.

All right,
I'm shutting it down.

At Indian River...

Can't keep up,
water's everywhere,
tailings are .

Tony's arrived
to check in on his new
wash plant,

but it's shut down.

-Hi.
-Hi.

Tony uses
coarse tailings
to create a raised road

that channels away the water
to a settling pond

and provides a solid path
for the loader.

Okay. Makes sense.

- Beautiful.

Tony showed up,
the plant was down.

Needless to say,
he was not happy.

He hopped in the loader
and got a new system
going for the tailings

and told me what he wanted.

And we just really need
to keep everything
running well.

Tony's $800,000
gamble is back on track.

So, today's been a busy day.

At Dominion Creek,

Parker's crew were dialing in
his new wash plant, Roxanne,

in its first full week
of running.

Right now,
I'm still getting
used to the new plant.

Tyson and Mitch
put a conveyor at the end

that basically shoots out
the coarse tailings,
so I don't have to do it.

Which means,
now I can go get pay
from a lot longer distances.

Tatiana Costa
feeds the plant 250 yards
of pay an hour.

Every plant has its quirks,
so I'm just right now
figuring it out,

what are the quirks?

Alec!

-We need to turn
the feed rate up.
- Yup.

I want to run it
at, like, full force.

Is there enough water?

We really need that
up 20%.

Okay.

Parker bumps
Roxanne's feed rate
to 300 yards an hour.

And Alec boosts the water
pumped into the plant

from 2,800 gallons a minute
to 3,000

to help wash
the increased dirt
now flowing through.

I went up about 20%.

Yeah, yeah.
No worries.

Right now, they'll be running
a faster speed
than Big Red's, for sure.

The belt is much faster
than what we were
running before.

So, yeah, I really need
to move a lot faster
and speed up.

Hey, Mitch.
You got a copy, Mitch?

Yeah,
go ahead. What's up?

Just to let you know
there's some water coming out
of the the distribution box.

It's coming all the way
to the floor,

so I'm not sure
if it's something
we should be concerned.

I'm on my way.
I'll come have a look at it.

What RPM you got, Alec?

Is she all maxed out?

Parker just upped it.

Parker decided
he wanted to make
some adjustments on the plant.

We had it working
what I thought
was pretty good.

And now
this thing's probably running
at 20% over capacity,

and it's spilling
everywhere.

You just gotta be patient
with it. You've gotta
work through it.

And, you know, patience
is one thing I don't think
Parker has much of.

By increasing
the feed rate
and water flow,

Parker's flooded
the distribution box.

As you can see here,
this plant's just
really struggling.

Uh, you can see the material
boiling over.

That's not a good thing.
All that water coming out

well, it means erosion.

The last thing we want
is this wash plant pad

to get too screwed up
and have to pull the plant
out of here and rebuild it.

Mitch needs to find
a way to stop
the water overflowing,

but still have enough to wash
the increased pay dirt
through the plant.

Gonna leave the feed
right where it is,

and I'm gonna change
a couple of nozzles
in the free wash.

We're gonna just change
kind of where the water
is spraying,

how the material hits,
how the water spreads.

That affects
everything down here.

So we're just going to shut
the plant down quickly here.

Hey, Tatiana, you got a copy?

Yeah. Copy.

Hey, why don't you go ahead
and let your feeder run out?

Yeah, no worries.

So, what I'm gonna do
is put some of the nozzles
around these bars.

This will help
spread the water,

and I'm hoping,
by spreading the water,

it's gonna spread
the material out as well.

But we need to do this quickly

and get the plant
back running,

'cause it's not doing
nothing here
while we're working on it.

Roxanne's
custom-built spray bars
are wide open

and causing the plant
to overflow.

Mitch wants to attach
flared nozzles
to all of the spray bars.

This will help break up
and wash the increased rate
of pay dirt with less water.

If Mitch can get
the right spread,

it should allow him
to reduce the water
that's causing the overflow.

By putting these nozzles
on here with this flare,

it's gonna help spread
the water out a bit,

kind of creating a wall
to spread the material.

We're gonna see
what that does.

Tatiana, you got a copy?

Let's throw
some dirt at this thing.

Awesome. Thank you.

Mitch can now bring
the pump back down
to 2,800 gallons a minute

while maintaining
the feed rate
at 300 yards an hour.

-Fire in the hole!

So, just looking at the plant
here after making
the modifications,

the water here
in our distribution,

it's a lot happier
than what it was,

and it seems to be
spreading the material
a little bit better.

If you look down here,

the water going through
the run's much more even.

Looks a lot happier here.

No more problems.

I enjoy this part,

the final push,
even though it's long hours.

Maybe people start getting
on each other's nerves
a little bit

and whatnot and, like,
it's all right.

It happen-- What?

All right, something's wrong.

It won't close.

The bucket's not going
all the way down.

Something's gotta
be wrong.

There it is.

- rock got in there.

That was by design. Standard.

Shut up!
Just gonna pop it out.

Easy-peasy

Glad it's something easy,
for once.

Well, that was fun.

-Did it work?
- Yeah.

Sweet. Ready?

Double chest? Ready?
Two, set...

So happy you're back.

- Yeah?
-Yeah.

You came back
with a bang.

Just wanted to show you guys
what I'm about.

-Yo! What's up, guys?
- What's going on?

-Oh, hey, Zee.
- Hi.

-It's good
having you back, bud.
- I appreciate it.

No, kudos to you, man.
You surrounded yourself
with a pretty good crew.

What I didn't need
was you coming back

and everything up
this week.

First day!
First day!

You came in
like a hurricane.

If you're gonna do it,
do it right.

I was watching.
I was trying to direct it.
I thought you were going over.

It's probably the fastest
I've moved in 15 years...

...to get out
of that door.

The nice thing was that
the that happened

didn't stop Rocky
from running.

Let's weigh this gold up,
see what we got.

Do you wanna count 'em out?

What did the Bench give us
this week?

Five, ten, fifteen...

Rick's crew
ran the Bench Cut all week

to be on track
for his 1,000-ounce target.

Rick needs it to deliver
over 100 ounces a week.







Here we go.



Rick's
second-largest haul
of the season,

worth over $172,000...

Nice bump
on the week. Nice.

...bringing
Rick's total to 639.24 ounces.

Two-thirds of the way there.

Very nice.

It's a good
week, guys.
Good week.

Rocky's been a great plant
for us all year,

but it's time to bring out
the big g*ns.

Monster Red,


We got a third of the way
to go in only a couple
of weeks,

but I know we can
do it.

Great week, guys.

Thank you so much.

Wouldn't be here without you.

Just seeing
Rick's progression with life
and just how he looks,

he looks great,
gold looks good,
numbers look good.

Rick's got a great crew
out here.

It's just a great step
in the direction
and I'm glad I came back up.

It means a lot to me
to have my buddy Zee here.

I know we're gonna nail it
and, with him here,

it's just that much more help,
and it'll just be
that much

that much more sweeter
when we get it.

-Hello.
-Hello.

For the first time
this season,

the Beets have gold coming in
from both their locations,
Paradise Hill,

and thanks to Tony's
new wash plant purchase,
the Indian River.

Yeah.

Spending is done
and over with.

It's a lot of money going up.

So, hopefully, it'll make
its money back.

So, we can't just call
this new plant
"the new plant."

So, what if we go with...

Sluicetron!

Sluicetron.

- Whoa!
- I like that one.

Sluicemus Prime.

-Sluice-A-Lot?
-I like
the Sluice-A-Lot, sure.

Sure. Why not?
I really don't care.

How is
Sluice-A-Lot doing?

We just named the plant,
it's Sir Sluice-A-Lot.

How is it sluicing?

Okay, great.

Tony's new plant,
Sir Sluice-A-Lot,

has replaced the old
shaker deck, which averaged


Ten, 20, 30, 40, 50,


To prove its worth,

in the three days it ran,

it needs to produce
at least 60 ounces.



Worth $170,000.

- Yeah.
-How many sluices
did Sluice-A-Lot do?

That's not bad for...

I'm happy with that.

How did the trommel do?

Every day, 24 hours.

Next,
Mike's trommel
on Paradise Hill.

















Worth $800,000.

Yes!

You know, that might just
cover the cost
of the plant, too.

- No!

- Hey, man.
-What up? What up?

Sorry
for the hang up.

Oh, no worries.
I don't even think

Tyson's gonna make it
down tonight.

So, we made some adjustments
on Roxanne.

I love that name.

Adjusted feed rate,
adjusted water.

It was a lot of fun,
but definitely
a challenge.

-Yeah.
-'Cause, like, you're, like,
wide open material,

-wide open water.
- Walk away.

- Yeah. Walk away.
- I'm gonna go
get a thermos.

Is there some gold here?

Yeah, we're gonna weigh
some gold.

So,
this is Australia Creek,
all right?

This is Tyson's little baby.

Slucifer
has been running
on Australia Creek

for a month,

averaging 145 ounces a week.









That's not a bad week.

Worth
over $540,000.

Next up, Roxanne
in the Money Pit.

Roxanne is definitely,
you know...

It's got a lot of potential.
Is it as good as Big Red?
It had a decent run.

We had a little bit
of downtime as we were making
our modifications,

but this should be
a really good example
of what Roxanne's capable of.

Before
swapping in Roxanne,

Big Red was Parker's
main moneymaker,

averaging over 370 ounces
a week.

All right, we got 30.











So, there's 200
straight up.

And this is just kind of,
like, the remainder of it.

Okay.

Here we go.

We got another 30...







-The remainder, Chris?
- Right?



More than the first one. 220.



Plus, the fine stuff
that I couldn't clean.

So, we got 200 in that pan,
and then we got another 253.8.

A total
of 453.8 ounces.

That's nearly


We got three pounds
of gold there.

A 700-ounce week?



Over 700 ounces in one week.

That's nuts.

The biggest haul
of the season,
worth $1.4 million.

That's a hell of a result.

That's a really good week.

We're on track.

We're really on track.
This just might work.

That's pretty cool.

So, our season total...



Like, the more gold
that comes out of there,

the more I'm like,
"Oh. Like,
this is the ground."

And not just,
we happen to start
in a really good spot, right?

It's so nice. Like, it was...

At first, it was just relief,

but now I'm, like,
actually starting
to get excited.

Can you imagine, though,
if you had Big Red and Roxanne
side by side?

Oh, my God! I'd go on strike.