[narrator] Tony Beets only has a few weeks left in the season and wants
to blow his rivals out of the water
to secure his crown as King of the Klondike.
He's already stacked over $30 million,
but with the gold price jumping another $100 an ounce,
the king is hungry for more.
[truck horn honking]
If Tony is to hit a record 1000 ounce haul this week,
he needs to run the fresh Hester Cut pay.
Now let's see if we can find some gold in the pay.
And for that, he needs to set up
his fourth wash plant, Harald, fast.
It's time to build her up.
Build him up, I guess, huh? It's a Harald.
First step, build the pad for the 100 yard an hour plant.
Pile over here, pile in the middle,
and a pile over there. -OK.
Also, I think about a step back.
[Colby] It's looking pretty good.
We'll pull the plant on, see what it does.
Whoa.
[indistinct]
Beautiful. Done.
Next, install the 30-foot-long hopper feeder.
Everybody, the [bleep] out of the way.
Straight back, Len, straight back.
Good, good, good, good, good.
Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop!
Stop! Oh, [bleep].
Forward, Len.
Had it on the wrong [bleep] channel!
Finally, connect the hose...
and fire up the pump that sends water to the plant.
[engine roars, dies]
What the [bleep] did they do to this thing?
Uh, this is telling me the coolant's low.
It's over full.
I haven't been that lucky with pumps.
[sighs] Lucas, do you copy? Lucas, do you copy?
If mechanic Lucas Lotz can't fix the pump, Tony's hopes
for a four wash plant blitz and 1,000-ounce week are toast.
So it's either sensor for the coolant or it's the ECM,
according to the code.
The ECM, or Electronic Control Module, is the pump's computer.
It will not allow the pump to fire up
if it can't sense coolant.
[Lucas] You guys have started it and everything?
[Mike] Yep.
Gonna go have a check in with what Colby's doing.
These engines are pretty common, but best case scenario,
I just need to redo some sensor wiring.
Worst case, we'll need an ECM, and it'll be about a week.
Mike will be [bleep] pissed.
So the coolant sensor's definitely [bleep].
That's probably why it won't start.
It thinks that there's no coolant in it.
Yeah, that's over full.
These are potentiometers.
Sometimes, in a pinch,
you can use these in place of a sensor,
if you know what you're doing.
With no spare sensors, Lucas plans to bush-fix
the pump with a potentiometer, a type of variable resistor
he hopes can replicate the electronic signal
of a working sensor.
[Lucas] You just gotta match the resistance that the sensor
would regularly put out.
So we got it plugged in. So now I got to play with it.
And then once I get it to the sweet spot,
the code will go away.
And then we're in business, theoretically.
Yeah.
[engine roars, starts]
I think I got it.
Well, a little bit. [laughs]
Yeah, it looks like a potentiometer trick worked.
So Mike's gonna be more happy than a pig in [bleep]
or a pig in gold this time of year, I guess.
[suspenseful music playing]
This is kind of a big day for Mike if he gets
to start up Harald again.
We'll start turning it on.
Hey!
You got water?
Dump! Dump!
We have to go get some champagne, Mom.
[Mike] Yeah, finally.
With Harald finally sluicing Hester Cut paydirt,
the Beets have a shot at a record-breaking
1,000-ounce week.
Now it's going. That's good.
I hope it stays going until the end of the year.
[Mitch] What's happening, man?
I just wanted to let you know we're gonna come do
the stripping down here this fall for next year.
So the whole stripping crew's coming down.
So we're gonna go up and take another bite
into the hill. Just keep an eye on them, um...
-[Mitch] Well, that gets pretty deep over there... -It's deep, yeah.
-...going to that hillside. -There's a lot of mud.
We only got a couple trucks down here.
I'm trying to dig pay, do fines, keep the plant
running 24 hours a day.
Like we've got, what, five of us down here.
[Parker] Running a whole mine site.
-No, I get it. I totally get it. -[Mitch] [indistinct] 24-7.
It -- you know, we are where we are.
I mean, I know it needs to be done, but it doesn't make
getting it done any easier.
I'm aware of that, but they're coming down.
[Mitch] All right.
Well, we'll see what we can do to keep them rolling.
Right now we're just trying to keep this wash plant
running, bringing a bunch more machines down here.
It's just more we got to stay on top of,
and right now we got our hands full.
It's been a long season and, you know, the end is
well within sight.
Parker Schnabel is gaining momentum.
With multiple weeks above 500 ounces,
he's nearly 700 ounces ahead
of Tony in the race to 10,000.
But he's already got his eye on next season's prize.
Fall time is one of our most productive stripping times,
um...
for the next year.
And with how much we're sluicing these years,
the stripping is just incredibly important.
We've got a crew just starting our next pit
on the Indian River for next year.
And in the midst of, you know, trying to keep wash plants
running and keep things thawed out,
Mitch is also taking that on.
Can't understate, um...
how important that part of the company is.
[Mitch] This is such a massive project here.
Parker wants all the mud off before the end of the season.
And even if we throw every resource we have at it,
I still don't think we've got enough time to get this done
before the end of the season.
At the Indian River, in Ken and Stuart's Pit 2,
Mitch still has three acres to mine out and sluice
through Roxanne before the end of the season.
But now, a third of a mile away, Parker has tasked Mitch
with also overseeing a massive stripping project,
opening up a new 28-acre cut.
Mitch's crew must first shift nearly a million yards of mud
to expose the cut's layer of permafrost.
Once thawed by the sun,
they need to strip it down to pay gravels
before winter freezes them out.
[Mitch] Just so tough when you're trying to be at two places at once.
I need to be down at the wash plant
taking care of things there,
and then you come over here, check on the stripping crew,
and you're like, "Oh, I could spend all day over here
making things work better."
[Jacob] I love running dozer.
It's probably my favorite machine.
It's like playing in the sandbox when you're a kid,
but now I have a really big, muddy sandbox.
Operator Jacob Allin is in one of the two D10 dozers,
removing the top layer of mud.
[Jacob] If we don't get down to permafrost,
sun can't thaw it out, and we're pretty well --
pretty well screwed.
In the 950 excavator, Kayden Potvin loads
the overburden into rock trucks to dump out of the cut.
We got as much gear down here as we have available to us
right now, so thinking optimistically, we could be out
of here before Christmas.
Uh-oh.
Kayden, I'm gonna need your help.
Just hit a pretty good soft spot here.
All right, I'll crawl off the pile here
and come give you a little push.
[Jacob] Yeah, that'd be awesome.
Jacob's 1.5 million dollar machine
is no match for the slop.
All this water seeped up through underneath
and it's turned it all right to poo.
Come on now.
More.
Oh, wait, I'm not gonna get the [bleep] out of this one.
[bleep] mud mountain.
[Jacob] Come on, come on!
[bleep]!
Parker's Indian River stripping crew is stuck
in the mud.
[Jacob] You're gonna have to go up more, Kayden.
I'm even sliding backwards.
Yeah, Kayden, I don't think that worked.
If they can't strip the overburden this week,
they won't be able to thaw the permafrost,
ruining Parker's plan for a fast start next season.
[Kayden] Yeah, I'm getting stuck too.
So I'll dig this out, see if that works.
[Jacob] Yeah, you're gonna have to come around from the side.
[Kayden] I got you.
I'm just digging out all the stuff
that's making the dozer spin out, and it should just be able
to drive right out here.
I do tell the rock truckers that they get one freebie,
and then every time I get them unstuck after that,
it's a case of Dr. Pepper.
That's way cheaper than the case of beer
I was gonna buy you. -[laughing]
[Kayden] OK. Good luck.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Jacob] Making a break for home.
Thanks, Kayden. I really appreciate that.
Hey, man, like I said, first one's free.
This is gonna be an expensive hill.
[Kayden laughs over radio]
500 feet away, at the other end of the new cut...
We've got to get the mud moved, if we got any shot
of mining this ground next season.
Right now the weather's holding out for us, so we got to make
the most of it. -[Parker over radio] Mitch.
Yeah, man, what's up?
[Parker] We've added some horsepower to the fleet.
-You'll be pleasantly surprised. -[Mitch] I'm on my way.
Yeah, I definitely never thought that we'd be buying one
of these brand new.
But the gold prices being where they're at, it made sense.
[Mitch] I mean, check that out! Brand new D11.
You know, crazy to think that's $4 million right there.
That's how Parker spends his money.
You know, you could have a sports car, big house,
but, you know, that's what Parker's got there is
a big yellow iron, which turns into some shiny yellow gold.
Well, buddy, thanks for sending that new D11 down here,
cause if we got any shot of getting this done,
it's gonna be with that machine.
It -- it's just -- this thing's more fodder for the frozen mud.
It'll be beat to [bleep] in no time.
[laughs]
Parker is taking the first shift in the new D11.
[Mitch] There's nothing moving as much dirt right now as this brand
new D11 with that big old blade on it.
It's really helping us out here.
Hopefully it's gonna get us to the finish line.
This thing is pretty sweet.
It always feels good when Rick calls me to come up here.
Hopefully, I can...
help these guys out a little bit for the final push.
All right, here we are.
-[Rick] Buddy! -[Zee] What's going on?
-What's up, man? You made it. -How you doing?
-Good. -Oh, welcome back.
-Yeah. -How's it going?
Oh, man, that's a whole different story.
-Yeah? -It's this time of year, man.
-You know, everybody's tired. -[Zee] Oh, yeah.
Everyone's ornery.
Everybody's ornery, but they'll be happy to see
you, and we sure as hell could use an extra set of hands.
[Zee] Where you at now?
We're not even at 700, barely over 600. [clears throat]
So, yeah, we're a long ways off.
But we're back in Vegas Valley.
OK.
[Rick] You know, pulling some good pay out of there.
Let's hop in your little Hilux here and go take a look.
All right, let's go take the tour, buddy.
Rick Ness' season is finally turning a corner.
After two months with no gold coming in, last week,
Rick fired up Monster Red
and pulled out over 200 ounces from Vegas Valley.
Holy [bleep]. That's a big cut.
Yeah, it's pretty impressive, eh?
For a seven-man crew, the guys moved some dirt.
We know it's good pay in Vegas Valley, for sure.
We're gonna get on a roll here now.
We -- the last cleanup was good.
We need them to be a little bit better,
but I know they're gonna be.
We just need to get a few more hours on the sluice box, you know?
Well, nothing like setting a fire to everything
the last three weeks and trying
to pull it out, so... -Oh, yeah.
One way or another, this place is gonna be
on fire when I leave, so... -[laughs]
[Rick groans] Anyways, enough chit-chat.
-Want to help out? -[Zee] Yeah.
To hit his 1,800 ounce goal and pay his crew their bonus,
Rick needs record-breaking 400 ounce gold hauls every week
for the rest of the season.
[Zee] It's that final push.
This is when you kind of need
that extra little boost of energy.
This pivot from Valhalla back into Vegas Valley,
I think it's gonna be a good thing.
We know there's good gold in there and, you know,
Bailey's just gonna have to get every last ounce
out of that cut.
[Chris L.] I think people are getting tired.
I think people are missing, uh, home.
As it stands right now, I don't think anyone's getting a bonus.
[Ryan] Even though we've got pay right here, and we finally got
the plant fired up, you know,
I don't like to be the negative Nancy,
but I don't see 1,800 coming.
-Hey, Rick, you got a copy? -Yeah, go for Rick.
I kind of got a big problem in the cut.
-Could you come down here? -I'll see you in a few minutes.
Putting in some work here.
Yeah, man.
[Rick] I see the problem though.
[Bailey] Yeah.
It didn't -- it didn't take long.
I thought, uh...
maybe it was gonna take longer, but we're moving along
really too quick, I guess.
[Rick] Mm-hmm.
Vegas Valley is almost out of paydirt,
much earlier than Rick expected.
[Bailey] So imagine, like, cleaning that all out.
Like, it'd -- it'd be a week.
[Rick] Yeah, we're definitely gonna need some more.
Yeah.
I'd say the only thing we can do is try to expand.
-But -- -It's not ideal.
This time of year, it's not ideal.
But really, I'm looking at this piece right here.
I mean, that's pay right there, and we're staring at it.
[Bailey] Yeah, I know.
You don't seem very excited about it.
[Bailey] Yeah, I just see all this.
That's 40 feet down of material you have to move
to get to the pay. -[Rick] Yep.
At the bottom of Vegas Valley, Bailey only has
a week's worth of pay.
To keep Monster Red fed for the rest of the season,
Rick wants to chase
Vegas Valley's pay streak upstream.
The only problem, Bailey will have to dig down
a further 40 feet to hit the gold-rich pay,
all before winter freezes them out.
[Rick] One way or another, we gotta make it
till the end of the season. -[Bailey] I know, I know.
If we're still gonna get to 1,800 ounces, that's the only
way we're gonna do it. -[Bailey] I just -- I don't know, man.
Like, what have we got left?
-Three weeks? -[Rick] Maybe more, maybe less,
but it's around there.
[Bailey] I just think three [bleep] weeks, that's...
We'll make it happen.
-You just keep the trucks going. -Is it going to be worth it
for a [bleep], for a week's worth of pay?
Yep.
If it gets us 400 ounces, yeah.
-[Bailey] OK. -Definitely.
We're not at 1,800 ounces, but at the end of the day,
I'm trying to make sure these guys go home with gold in
their pockets, and that's all there is to it.
I'm just really [bleep] worried with the time that we have,
and how much work's got to be done, and...
I don't think it's gonna work out, but I hope it does.
Maybe, you know, in another week, my mind will change.
But right now, it's very stressful.
I'm gonna go start up Harald and start running it with these
two new people that I just recently hired, uh,
Brent and Taylor.
Mike Beets is starting a new shift.
Hopefully all goes well and they can run
1,000 yards today.
And needs his crew to sluice 1,000 yards a day to help hit
Tony's 1,000 ounce target for the week.
I don't see how they can [bleep] it up, but -- eh.
I've been proven wrong before.
-Morning. -How's it going?
Well, my dad wants to do 1,000 yards on this thing.
If you go on the hoe, you go on the other hoe.
-Right on. -[Taylor] Thank you.
When they're a couple, they generally work well together.
And then it's nice for them
because they have a loved one nearby.
But it also has the negative that if one decides they want
to quit, you usually lose both.
First bucket's in. We're running.
All right, 999 more buckets to go.
Local operators Brent Nibecker and Taylor Olson have answered
the call for end-of-season workers.
Like, I've run lots of wash plants before,
never went on a mine site this big.
It's -- it's really cool, yeah.
Taylor is on the Hester Cut's pay pile,
where she loads rock trucks.
I've been mining for about six years, and I normally load
trucks or strip cuts down to pay.
So -- and I've also ran plants as well.
The gold-rich pay is dumped next to Brent, who loads it
into Harald's hopper.
[Brent] We actually met at a mine.
We've been together pretty much since.
She's the greatest, yeah. It's really good.
We don't have many problems at work at all.
She can get a little bit frustrated, but that's OK,
cause we're here to support each other.
[Mike] Slow.
Slow -- gonna have to speed that up.
I want to get through all that ground.
[Taylor] It looks like there's a lot of rocks
coming off your plant now, hey?
Yeah, so Mike has come down here and turned up the speed.
OK, copy that, and I will keep them coming.
With the increased speed, Brent needs to load
four buckets a minute to keep the hopper full.
[Brent] I literally can't even take
a drink or have a bite of a sandwich.
But he's barely managing three.
Ah. [bleep]!
-Just back me up to where you want me. -OK.
Yeah, looking good, straight back.
Good there.
In the amount of time it took you to dump the truck,
the plant went empty.
[Brent] Yeah, that's a lot faster.
[Brent] Can't [bleep] feed that fast.
Bro, I haven't slowed down.
I'm on full throttle, stacking as high as I can.
Copy that.
-[Taylor] Hi, babe. -[Brent] Hey, you.
I'm going at my max capacity just to keep up, which it was OK
for an hour, but I can't do that for 12 hours straight.
[Taylor and Brent speaking]
Brent found it a little bit stressful to have to keep up
with the plant [indistinct], with it running this fast,
but I am happy to run it at this pace.
I have more hours feeding plants.
I used to be the night shift, um, plant operator for about
four years, so I'm pretty fast at grabbing the dirt and getting
it into the hopper.
How's it going in there?
That's good, yeah, I'll just keep it as full as I can here,
if you can keep the pay coming.
I wanna see if we can get our wash plant going.
Hey, that would be amazing.
[Brent] Yeah, we were goldmining.
I did two seasons and did pretty good the first year.
And not so good the second year.
I lost a lot of money.
I guess I, like, had that gold fever.
We kind of ran out of gold where we were, so I started
digging a hole. [laughs]
And then I ran out of money.
[Taylor] Hey, this is our last bucket.
Whoo, right on baby! Hell yeah!
-Hello. -Hey.
Well, we made it through.
Got your 1,000 yards through.
So how'd the shift go?
Uh, a few problems, but we swapped out,
so we got through her.
Sometimes it's nice to swap out and get a break
from the one job, right? -[Brent] Yeah, it is.
It's good to see Brent and Taylor got it done.
No, I wasn't called down here for any major problems,
so it went well, and we're just gonna
hopefully keep it going until the end of the season.
After waiting 40 years to mine it...
[Tony speaking]
...Tony is keen to see if the Hester Cut has the gold
to get him over 1,000 ounces this week.
[Tony speaking]
[Minnie] There's quite a bit of gold in there, by the way.
[Tony speaking]
[Minnie] It's amazing.
I'd be interested to see what comes out of that.
[Tony speaking]
[Tyson] Right now, there's just a lot going on here at Dominion.
We're at that point in the season where everyone's
just kind of in their -- in their spot, in their seat,
and it's a matter of just keeping things going.
At Parker's main operation on Dominion Creek,
foreman Tyson Lee is in charge of three wash plants,
the Golden Goose and Big Red in the Golden Mile,
and Bob in the Bridge Cut.
We still have a lot of sluicing to do.
We're still a ways off 10,000 ounces, and...
we just gotta keep things going
in the direction they're going in right now.
[Luke] Hey, Tyson, you got a copy?
Yep, go ahead.
[Luke] I got a bunch of pay piling up on the plant hopper here.
I might need you to take a look at it for me.
OK, I'm on my way. Thanks, dude.
Looks like it's piling up quite high up here,
so I'm just gonna try and clear it here.
The [bleep] going on?
The hopper chain drive system on wash plant Bob
should push all of the pay towards the shaker deck.
It's not clearing, which isn't good.
If the pile of pay reaches the feed conveyor,
it could tear the belt.
You know, I've just tried moving our hopper chain system,
and it's not working.
It's kind of binding up, so gotta get it fixed up.
-[Bill] Hi, buddy. -Hey, Bill.
I would say that it skipped a tooth
on the sprocket on one side.
So now you're trying to twist a steel bar around a corner
as it goes around instead of rolling nice and flat around.
-[Liam] Yeah. -Now you're going to have
to shut this thing down.
We're feeling pretty confident that it's just the chain has
jumped a link on the one side, so we ought to empty
the prewash and then hopefully, we can get the link to go back
into place, and then the bars will be parallel
to go over the sprockets.
OK. Going backwards!
Try and roll the chain backwards.
Whoa!
[Bill] Liam!
The -- the issue is the sprockets are [bleep].
This could be a major deal.
This time of year, it always gets difficult.
You know, crew's tired, plants are tired.
Just got to keep -- keep these wash plants running.
At Dominion Creek,
a broken hopper chain drive system
means wash plant Bob is down.
It didn't jump the link as, like, we thought it did originally.
The sprockets are completely, uh, wore out.
[Liam] So we need new sprockets.
Two new sprockets, my friend.
And, uh, you'll be back in business.
Wash plant Bob's hopper chain drive is driven
by two 10-inch sprockets.
Over time, the sprockets' teeth have become worn, causing them
to slip and stop moving the chain forward.
Bill's plan?
Split the chain, remove the old worn-out sprockets,
and replace them with new ones.
[Bill] Those are cat-like reflexes.
-Oh, safe as a church. -Hydraulics on.
[Bill] OK, go a little bit in reverse.
[Liam] A little bit in reverse.
[Bill] Whoa, whoa, your other reverse.
[Liam] Other reverse.
Jeez, look how brittle that is.
-So worn out. -[Bill] Nasty.
Chain split, sprockets are off, so we just got to install
these new sprockets, and then we're all set.
Everything's tight. We're good to go.
OK, sprockets are in, so now we'll get Liam to, uh...
turn the hydraulics on.
-Oh. -Whoa!
OK, stop.
I have one pin in.
I'm all done. I'm going for ice cream.
We're gonna fire this thing up and try it and see how
it turns. -[Dwayne] Ready, Bill?
[Bill] Yep.
[Liam] I'm super happy to see it working.
Hopefully, there won't be anything to stop the conveyor
from working for the rest of the season here.
[Tyson] Well, should we fire back up?
If we're gonna catch up, we got to put dirt through
the plant, right? -All righty.
After four hours downtime, Bob is back in the game,
sluicing Bridge Cut pay.
[Liam] It looks good!
[Tyson] We don't have much time left in the season, so hopefully,
that's it for downtime here at the Bridge Cut.
100 miles east...
I haven't really thought too much of the extension
or how we're gonna do it.
...the Ness crew need 400 ounces of gold a week
in order to hit Rick's 1,800 ounce target.
Bailey is mining out the last of the pay
from the Vegas Valley Cut.
I'm trying not to think about it until I get this
Vegas Valley cleaned out, and then we'll move on to that.
Holy [bleep]! Who sits in this?
At Monster Red, Rick's best buddy, Zee, is jumping into
the hot seat to load the plant.
I still got it.
I still [bleep] got it.
While mechanic Ryan Kent uses a second loader
to clear the tailings.
Well, Zee, it's good to see you back.
How does it feel to be back?
I mean, how couldn't you like it up here?
Look at it -- look around.
This is like the best office view in the world.
Why do you keep coming back?
I mean, it's like a second family up here for me.
I always come up in the beginning and the end,
but the amount of dirt you guys moved this year is pretty --
pretty substantial.
You don't wanna be here for the grunt work, do you?
Listen, if that was the case, you probably shouldn't
tell anyone. Let's keep it between us.
Yeah, your secret's safe with me on channel one.
[laughs]
[Ryan] Oh, [bleep].
-What's the matter, Ryan? -[Ryan] I don't know.
Give me a sec.
Hey, Zee, shut the -- shut the feeder off real quick, dude.
[Zee] All right, all right.
[bleep].
You're missing a pin somewhere.
Where'd you find it?
Dude, I literally saw it bounce off, hit the tailing chute,
landed right on the [bleep] top of the bucket
when I was coming out.
I knew I should have stayed in the truck.
Yep.
Let's figure out where the [bleep] it came from.
-Hey, Zee. -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's over here.
This ought to be fun.
The two-inch pin that connects the grizzly bars
to the feeder's hinge has broken in half.
I don't want to take a chance on breaking this feeder,
doing any damage.
Better off trying to get the [bleep] fixed.
You lose this grizzly bar, then you lose
the rest of the season.
[Zee] We got to go find one.
The grizzly bar's old pin is too worn out to reuse,
so the guys search for a replacement.
[Zee] A second hopper feeder.
We were using it on Monster Red.
I bet you it is the same.
Man, this thing's [bleep].
I better climb up there and measure it.
Getting too fat for this [bleep].
-It's two inch. -Is it?
That will work.
-Now we got to get it out. -[Ryan] Yeah.
[Zee] We don't have a ladder anywhere, huh?
[Ryan] No.
-You want to stand on my shoulders? -[chuckles]
I'm sturdy.
This pin looks like it is in there.
Oh, it moved.
-[Zee] Shut up. -It moved.
Oh, baby. Oh, [bleep].
That sucks. Just -- watch where it goes.
-I need that. -Oh, no, it went down the well.
Oh, Timmy. Let's go put the new pin in.
[Zee] I'm sure you had a bunch of fixes this year.
Was this the easiest one?
This is by far the easiest one.
Well, we're not done yet.
Dude, it's just been a weird season.
You know, it's been tough.
We all come up here to work for gold.
That's the whole reason we come up here.
And to put in six months away from home and your family
and your business and not go home with much or anything,
that -- that's killer, man. It's [bleep] tough.
I know you got a lot of [bleep] at home.
Same as me, wife, daughter.
[Ryan] I don't need to tell you about how hard it is.
Rachel tearing up about
you know, me not being home.
-And she takes on a [bleep] ton, dude. -Oh, yeah.
And it's like, "Do I just stay home next year?"
I don't wanna let Rick down, but I also don't wanna
let my family down, so... -[Zee] No.
Let's -- let's -- let's focus on small steps.
Let's focus on getting this pin in and get back running.
[chuckles] Yeah.
And then we have all off season to figure this [bleep] out.
-You can't touch this one. -[Ryan] Why?
'Cause it's MC Hammer.
Oh, [bleep] [bleep].
[Zee] I think it's a 20 pound.
-[Ryan] Yep. -Don't hit me in the face.
[Ryan grunts]
No.
Oh! That one felt solid.
[Ryan] It went. It moved.
[Zee] It moved.
You want me to do the last one?
-One more. -Ready?
Uh-huh.
That's it!
-All right. -Pin in.
Pin it to win it.
Now you can tell Rick what you did.
I didn't do it.
-I just happened to be here. -[Ryan laughs]
Time to fire back up.
Ryan and Zee have lost just two hours of sluicing
and are back in the race to hit the 400 ounces
Rick needs this week.
Sucks having to plant down for a few hours, but...
I feel a lot better having the pin in there.
-Is there 1,000 ounces in there? -Oh, way more than 1,000.
-Hey, Zee. -Hey.
Good having you back.
It's good to be back, as always.
Is everybody else happy about that?
You're the best part of the end of the year, man.
-I'm the happy ending? -[all laughing]
We got more gold to come out of Vegas Valley, but not much.
-What do you figure, 20 feet? -20 feet left.
-That'll give us a week, maybe? -Yeah.
So that's not a lot, but, uh...
but we may have to open up a bit of another cut.
We do not know anything about this until we dig into it.
Well, I do know that if we don't do it, we're not gonna
get any more gold. -I know.
And I know you know that, and it's a rough thing to do
at the end of the season,
but we need more gold, right? We do.
Speaking of that, let's see how much we have
to add to that.
To hit his goal of 1,800, Rick needs 400 ounces a week.
That's 100 right there.
-That's another 200 right there. -Yeah!
And this is another big [bleep] jar of gold, so.
-Nice. -You ready, buddy?
All right, let's do it.
All right, there we go.
Don't let it blow away in the wind.
Oh, 20, 30, 50, 70, 90,
100, 120. Wow.
-133 point... -[Rick] Five-four.
-Nice. -So that is 433.54.
Worth $1.6 million dollars...
Whoo!
Rick's decision to pivot back
to Vegas Valley has paid out big,
delivering Rick's best ever gold weigh.
-Nice. -Yeah!
-Nice. -That puts us over a thousand.
Couple more like that, we're good, right?
We're almost there. We're so close, you know?
-Bring it in. -Get up?
-All right, guys. -Let's do it!
-Cheers! -Cheers, fellas.
-Yeah. -Yeah!
-Shake and bake! -Shake and bake.
When I left in spring, we -- I hadn't seen any gold yet,
so to come back now at the end and see a gold weigh like that,
400 and some ounces, um...
it's a great start to the final push.
[Rick] That is a big number, and, man, do we need it.
I -- I'm so proud of these guys.
They work so hard, and we need a lot more, but, you know,
we know the gold's down there. We're gonna have to pivot.
We're gonna run out of Vegas Valley gold, but we've got
a good spot to go to, and I know these guys
got it in them. We just need a little luck.
Is he hearing "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Nacho,
blah, blah, Nacho?" -Food.
He hears "Food, Nacho."
-Here. -Oh, yay! Thank you.
[Parker] So, how are things down at Ken and Stuart's?
Uh, it's busy now with all that stripping going on,
but we're a lot better with that new D11,
I'll tell you that. -Thing's sick.
Parker needs 1,058 ounces to hit
his 10,000-ounce season target.
All right, Chris.
-You ready? -Show us some gold.
All right.
So this is the Bridge Cut.
Let's see how Bob did this week.
Yeah.
Wash plant Bob is averaging 145 ounces a week.
Here we go. Got 40...
100, 140, 174.2.
-Nice. -Oh, that's nice.
That's good.
-Picked yourself up a bit. -Yeah.
Golden Mile. Two plants.
[Parker] So this is Goose and...
Big Red. -Yeah.
All righty, let's see how the two plants did.
Last week, the Golden Mile delivered 330 ounces.
40, 80, 140, 220...
Are we gonna break three?
302.25.
-Nice. -Just broke 300.
[Tyson] That's Goose paying itself off.
We got good old Roxanne, right?
-All right. -Ready?
We did a lot of dozing this week and a lot of sluicing.
Let's see what we got.
Since being in Pit 2 at Ken and Stuart's,
Roxanne has averaged 141 ounces a week.
And we got 30, 70...
100, 120...
150.8.
Nice. Not bad, not bad at all.
That is -- that is a solid week.
Last week, we had 548.55.
This week, 627.25.
Worth $2.3 million dollars.
-Wicked. -Yeah.
Good week. Our season total --
9,569.45.
That's nice. Nice.
[Chris] We're roughly four and a half away from our goal, you guys.
Another week like that and we'll have her.
-Yeah. -That's sick.
-Keep them running. -That's a hell of a result.
-We got this. -Oh, yeah.
-Yeah. -Oh, yeah.
-Get out there, you guys. -[laughing]
So, Mike, how's the Hester Cut going?
How's Harald?
Uh, literally, it's just two people.
Shut the [bleep] up and go, right?
They've been doing pretty good.
The trommel has been running pretty good this week, too.
It's been going nonstop. How about you?
I mean, we've never sluiced this much in our life.
For the first time ever, Tony is running two wash plants
at the Indian River and two plants at Paradise Hill.
Together, he's hoping they will deliver
a record-breaking 1,000 ounce haul.
All right, this is for Sluice-A-Lot.
30, 40...
Sluice-A-Lot and Find-A-Lot have been running
in the Corner Cut nonstop all week.
[Tony] 200, 220, 230, 238.20.
That's not too bad.
[Minnie] That's not bad.
-Find-A-Lot. -[Minnie] Find-A-Lot?
Sure I am.
40, 60, 100...
140, 180, 200.
217.54.
Total so far, 456 ounces.
[Minnie] Trommel.
30, 70, 90...
The trommel has been sluicing Super Pit pay.
150, 160, 170, 180, 200.
[Monica] You'll never make it as an auctioneer, friend.
220, 230, 260, 293, 310, 320, 340, 370, 380,
390, 410, 420.
[all laughing]
Sold to me! Yoink!
423.92.
Trommel's doing his job.
And we're not finished yet. We have one more to do.
To hit Tony's 1,000 ounce weekly goal,
Harald and the Hester Cut need to deliver 121 ounces.
[Minnie] 30, 50, 70, 90, 100, 120...
133.5. -Yeah!
At 1,013 ounces, this is Tony's biggest ever gold weigh,
worth a staggering $3.7 million dollars.
-That's a lot of money, Beets. -[Tony speaking]
[Mike] So, the bar?
Holy...
The Beets family are now only 300 ounces behind
the Schnabel crew.
[Monica] It's all coming up, Tony Beets.
Oh boy!
Let's stick to it. Let's keep on going.
Bye, guys.
-[Monica] Just [bleep] off. -Pretty much.
Four plants running. Our biggest gold weigh ever.
All the stuff we bought, all the things we did
to get ready, paid off.
Paid off big time, right?