Tonight, five bone-chilling tales of icy horror.
This is right into a pressure ridge.
Big pieces of ice overhead.
Zeke is crushed when he feels the squeeze...
of Pressure Ridge.
I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna make this work.
Dreams become nightmares...
when faces Kris faces...
The Crawler.
I've had more things that can go wrong.
Under the ice, Vernon unleashes his...
Two Headed Monster.
Tell Larry, he's gonna have to start working harder.
Get you some gold?
Get it buddy, get it.
Then, Shawn's trapped
in another dimension as he enters...
The Goldless Zone.
No...
And Chris McCully may never be seen again
when he finds himself...
I'm stuck.
Stranded.
Sit tight as Bering Sea Gold
makes your blood run cold and leaves you...
...gasping for breath.
We got our shack moved to our new spot.
Uh, I cleaned out our first hole over there yesterday
and the gold is getting better and better over here.
Zeke Tenhoff's been on a gold-getting streak.
But, will today be the day he cracks under pressure?
I'm stoked about it, like, we got some momentum
but, right here, this is, like, right into a pressure ridge.
So, I'm gonna have to go out under there, kind of, like, under that pressure ridge
I think to stay on it.
Uh, I'm not looking forward to that.
We've been following a really hot paystreak,
but it seems to be leading us directly under this pressure ridge.
A pressure ridge is caused by the winds and the tides
forcing the ice together
to create an upside down mountain of ice.
For an ice diver, this situation
is as dangerous as it can possibly get.
It creates so many hazards.
It can block out nearly all your lights
so you're just almost mining blind.
The ice beneath the pressure ridge is really jagged.
It's easy to get your tether snagged
and you could get trapped. That's the ultimate nightmare.
This is gonna take some work, so, we are gonna do a double dive today.
First, I'll go down, set it up,
and get us tapped into a new paystreak.
Okay, let's do it.
Once we've got the gold flowing,
then I'll send Nate down and he'll finish it off.
Are you right on top of the pressure ridge?
There's big pieces of ice hanging overhead.
As Zeke scares up the gold...
We've got the engine running,
we've got the heater running.
I think we're ready to go.
Vernon Adkison is about to find out
if two heads are truly better than one.
Today, we're gonna put two divers down.
- How're you feeling, Scott? - Pretty good.
Are we go?
Check out some spots. See if we can get on something.
There's no gentle way to say it.
This winter has sucked so far.
I'm aiming for 200 ounces.
At this rate, I'll be lucky to get 20.
When you're backed against the wall, you've got to take chances.
I'm gonna to do something I've never done before.
Hell, I've never even seen anybody else do it.
And that's sending two divers down at the same time,
and see if I can jumpstart this operation.
That will be something new for around here.
With two divers working together,
one moving rocks and the other working the nozzle,
we should be able to increase productivity quite a bit.
So, here is how it's gonna work.
One diver will be moving rocks out of the way,
and the other diver will be sucking up the gold.
Way more productive, but way the hell more complicated.
It's bad enough with one diver down there,
but with two, it's got to be off the charts.
Twice as many lines could get tangled.
This is why you never see anybody doing it.
We'll hit the cobble pile and see if they went
through the clay or just took the top layer.
Exactly, right.
Luckily, I've got two very experienced divers.
Larry and Scott.
- Good? - Good.
Hopefully, they'll be able to communicate
and we'll be able to pull this off.
If they can't do it, no one can.
Thought you'd be down there already.
I'm ready, get out of my way.
Okay, I've got both divers down.
We're in the general area
where we got some really good gold in the past.
That rock man
is really loosening up that material for the nozzle.
Now, this will speed up the operation quite a bit.
You can get the two-diver method down pat,
but if you're not finding the gold,
it doesn't amount to jack.
And it'll cost an arm and a leg to boot.
Sometimes what you gotta do is
keep plugging away until you hit.
Yeah, yeah. We can see it up here.
Right now, we're in the plugging away mode.
We're cranking right now.
Let's get these on and tightened up.
I've tightened those on and there's a couple more bolts
I have to tighten up too.
Power saw. This doesn't have the cord.
I got it all. Where's that bag I handed you?
I don't [bleep] know.
Kris Kelly is about to unleash...
his latest creation.
The Crawler.
I'm just desperate to get this going and make this work.
Desperate. We're running out of time this season.
- I know. - We're running out of time.
Winter's about halfway over right now and we have no gold.
Let me repeat that. No gold.
The Crawler's gonna be the thing that turns our season around.
Right now, it's just proving way more of a bitch
to get set up than I imagined.
But, today, we are putting the final pieces on
and we'll be ready for our close up.
Last day of working on the crawler.
Really, we have everything ready to rock and roll.
I was sitting having coffee with my friend today,
and he goes, "Did you check the camera angle?"
I'm like, "No, I'll check them in the water."
He goes, "No, you should really check the camera angle."
So, I thought about it for five seconds and I'm like,
"That's a great idea."
Hook me up to power.
Power.
So, there's gonna be three cameras on this bad boy.
One facing the back, and the hoses and umbilicals,
one facing forwards, so we can see where we're working,
and the most important one looking at the nozzle
to see if there's gold coming up the hose.
And if there is, hopefully we can just sit in a nice warm shed
drinking coffee and counting our money.
- Okay, we're good? - Yeah.
- There you go. - Oh, there we go.
Then we come back over here.
I'm ten times better looking than you,
so what does that say about you?
My ass looks better than
My left ball is way better looking than you.
Got more hair
- That is [bleep] awesome! - Yeah, it is.
That's, that's a success. That's [bleep] money, baby.
- All right? - Yeah.
Now for the next.
Oh, I love being kind of smart, you know.
So, camera number one that we installed right next to the nozzle,
probably the most important camera,
I think we will be able to see gold.
Do you think we'll be able to see gold [bleep]?
Yeah. That one was looks great.
Okay. Camera number two...
Yeah, that's perfect. We're going to camera number three,
and that's the camera that faces backwards.
Perfect!
I could see something like 20-30 feet behind you.
- Yeah, that's what we want. - Yeah.
We want to be able to see the hoses, the umbilical, rocks behind us.
I think it's gonna work out real well for us.
Finally, everything is set.
We can get The Crawler out on the claim,
underneath the water and finally start making some money.
Booyah, baby, I wanna see gold
on top of my operation!
Out on the frigid ice...
a miner's life could change forever.
Stranded.
Looking to retake the top spot in the gold count,
young gun Chris McCully is on the hunt
for a new paystreak.
So, my goal this winter
is to get the most gold out of anybody else.
And, so far, things have been running so flawless.
Last time out, we finished up a sweet paystreak.
In order for me to keep the gold coming in as good as it's been,
I got to find a new paystreak that's just as killer.
So, today, I'm gonna take advice
from one of the best divers in Nome.
Last summer, Yukon John hit it big on this remote spot.
I'm gonna go ahead and listen to him
and move the entire operation.
This is the hardest thing to move.
Spinning my wheels, man.
Well,
I should've put the shed on skis instead of tires.
The ice is pretty uneven this winter.
And there's a lot of pressure ridges,
there's a lot of cracks.
And it's super easy to get stuck.
And this is not city driving.
If you get your equipment stuck out there,
good luck getting it out.
I think it's gonna work.
Yeah, one more time.
Little bit harder.
Damn it! God!
Life is messing with me right now.
I'm not making any money, like, zilch, zero, nothing.
Nothing is coming.
Zero.
You know, it is what it is.
It could be the end of my season, you never know.
As one miner's season could be headed for an early grave,
across the ice...
Where you going? Where you going?
Chris' chief competition, Shawn Pomrenke,
is looking for his next hot spot.
But he could be headed...
for The Goldless Zone.
This season's been going good.
I got my eyes on a hundred ounces.
I should be on pace, and, hopefully, I'll keep
the competition at bay in the process.
Last time out, I finished up that ancient beach line.
Now, I got to find new ground,
otherwise I'm gonna be dead in the water.
It's gonna do it, it's gonna do it.
Joe said he had a beautiful cut this summer
right under our feet.
So, we're gonna bring out the heavy artillery
get a new hole cut quick and get on it.
This is the hole.
Okay, guys.
Let's go get some gold.
Get it, buddy, get it.
Where's the gold? Let's get it.
Come on, land right on top of it.
How you doing down there, partner?
Yeah, the air is good, suction is good.
Water is good, all systems go.
Engage.
Come on, where's that gold?
Across the claim...
Yeah, there's gold here.
Zeke Tenhoff's reign of gold-getting terror
is in full swing.
It's pretty terrifying, honestly.
We are on good gold, that's what's important.
I'm gonna come up
in the spot that we hit.
Roger that, sounds good. I'm gonna start suiting up.
Okay.
So, this spot is solid.
The gold appears to be nice and tasty.
The pressure ridge is the real deal.
It's super dark and spooky down there.
And the ice overhead is so jagged that I have to keep
constant eyes on my tether to keep it from getting snagged.
All we need to do is be ready.
You've got to be ready to [bleep] fail. It's so sketchy.
Nate's obviously not as experienced.
So, he's gonna have to stay extra vigilant about everything.
The whole situation might freak him out a little.
All right. Yeah, right where I left the nozzle there
is pretty much... there's a bunch of gold over there.
Yeah, keep a close eye on the pressure ridge.
Watch your tether around those ice blocks under the pressure ridge.
Sorry. What was that?
I'm sorry, can you repeat that?
What's that?
I couldn't make any of that out.
Wow! That was close.
Nate's regulator froze up
and he was freaking out trying to get back to the hole, and then, bam!
His tether got snagged around a ice chunk under the pressure ridge.
No air.
Imagine losing air, in the dark, struggling to breathe,
and, then, you get tangled up in the ice and you can't even get back to the surface.
Yeah, that's terrifying.
My concern is that this may have spooked Nate so much
that he might want to bail.
Nate's a total boss. He's not afraid of anything,
and I'm totally here for it.
Yeah, you know, it comes with the territory,
that freeze-ups happen.
We're just trying to get back on the gold.
We are not moving dirt, we are not making money.
And that's why I am here.
It's time for another trip
to the underwater fun house.
One more go-around.
Your airflow still feeling good?
One more inch, stop.
We got it.
That's it. We're ready to go.
We've hit stop. We're gonna move the crawler out right now.
Chris McCully is hoping that lightning will strike
as he unleashes his own Frankenstein's monster.
The Crawler...
I'm ready to go. I've been waiting for this for a month.
It feels like it's been forever.
But we're finally ready.
We're gonna get The Crawler on the ice,
we're gonna put it in the water,
we're gonna finally start getting some gold. Hell, yes!
Hey, we're ready to go.
Pretty beautiful, huh?
My little Crawler on the way to make me money.
I love it when a plan comes together.
I really went out on a limb this year.
I hope it pays off with lots of fruit.
Come on, baby. Come on, baby.
We're ready for this moment. We've already scouted out the location.
Not a lot of overburden,
flat ground and I know this area has lots of gold.
We're ready to hit the ground running.
I'm here, everything's ready.
It's time to show everybody
I'm gonna so this, I'm gonna make this work.
This is gonna make money.
I hope to God this thing's not too heavy for the ice.
Big thick ice is forming on the hole,
which means I don't have to worry about my operation sinking.
I hope.
Only 15 more things to do before we can get The Crawler in the water.
We're getting the command center squared away.
Uh, with this, I'll be able to run my entire operation
while sitting on my ass. And that is the American dream.
Ooh, I'm getting close.
I'm getting close, I can feel it.
It looks good.
Okay, hammer it out.
Let's test the hydraulic system.
We're gonna test the traction and everything right now.
Don't through the one I'm on.
You see one of the tracks moving, or no?
Hey!
That's my track!
Okay. Good, good, good. What about this one?
- Yep. - Successful test.
We have everything set up correctly
in the command center.
Hydraulics are hooked up, suction hose.
Next goes the cameras and lights.
This is actually really exciting.
I feel like a giant weight's been lifted off my shoulders.
It's almost cathartic.
Is everybody ready?
Cameras and lights. Okay, here we go.
This is a new era for Reaper Nation.
Turn the power on.
No, I don't know what's going on.
I don't know why we're not getting power to these.
I don't know, dude. There's more than enough power.
This is stupid. One little itty-bitty thing is stopping me right now.
Something we already tested.
Come on!
Argh!
So, for some strange reason we're not getting 12-volt power
from the battery to these convertors
that hooks up the camera.
Without the cameras, we're not going any further.
It doesn't matter if the hydraulics system works.
Doesn't matter any of that
If I can't see what's going on
through the monitors...
it's not gonna work.
Close, but no good.
We've got to get into the [bleep] water.
Two divers at once...
is proving to be twice as nice
for Vernon Adkison.
Okay. Little more.
How about Larry? Is your temperature okay, Larry?
Tell Larry, he's gonna have to start working harder
to warm himself up.
You all coming up?
They got almost four hours in.
That's a good day's work.
I'm not going to bitch about it.
You're staggering, man. You've been drinking down there or what?
This season's been a ball-buster.
But today, with two divers down,
we've broken the streak of absolute crap.
Both Larry and Scott worked great together.
They pulled it off flawlessly.
Hopefully, this will be the turning point in our season.
They were tearing it up.
I was very pleased to see that
that concept seems to be working.
While Vernon survives the day...
What's up? How're you doing?
After an earlier snag,
Zeke's team is pressing their luck
to squeeze out every last ounce.
How is it going?
Yeah, well, I think we've had enough fun for one day. You can come up.
Hey, coming up.
Despite having to dive under this massive pressure ridge,
we've had a pretty great day all in all.
And Nate really demonstrated that he's not gonna be scared off by anything,
so, he's getting towards A list status in a hurry.
Yeah, tomorrow we're gonna finish off this hole.
We're gonna start melting the next one.
That's a full day for the Tenhoff crew.
While the Tenhoff gang crushed it...
How you doing down there, partner?
Shawn Pomrenke is still trying to get on gold.
No.
But he's hit a dead end.
But, that's just how it goes.
If it were easy, it wouldn't be here.
- Come on up. - I'll be right up.
Feels like I'm in some alternate universe.
I'm trying to get a 100 ounces
trying to stay on top,
fend off Chris McCully, but I'm coming up empty.
There's nothing here, it's a complete bust.
I'm not seeing cha-cha.
It is what it is.
This is not good timing.
Mother, father.
I know Joe is just trying to help us out.
He put us on a spot he believed in.
But the truth is, it set us back.
I'm gonna head back to town, hit the drill logs, see what I can find.
It's been a long time since I've come up dry like this.
It's hurts, it's a killer.
- We'll call that one the [bleep] butthole. - Okay.
The butthole.
We're done with the butthole,
the butthole didn't pay off.
And now, another episode of Social Hour with Vernon.
All right. Well, I'm gonna see what's happening out there
in the world of social media.
- Steve, come on, dammit. - What?
I'm the king of the iceberg. I'm back, Nome, I'm back.
Chill out, okay?
They don't have a weight belt.
I literally had to in a plastic bag this morning.
Oh. You know, I'd probably go with Hurricane Dave.
Because Steve, I'm pretty sure I'd have to wring his [bleep] head off
pretty early in the game.
Dave... him too,
but it's probably still a little bit later on.
This has been another episode of
Social Hour with Vernon.
After a harrowing day,
it's weigh-out time for the Tenhoff team.
Not too bad.
Yeah, that's it.
You've got a little bit of gold there.
Getting the gold in this cleanup was no walk in the park.
Nate almost met his maker in the process.
So, I'm really hoping that it's gonna be worth it.
One... two ounces...
three...
Come on, get in there.
3.75.
Hell, yeah.
3.75 ounces is worth over seven grand.
Not a bad haul.
I'm happy with it.
But now, the pressure's on
to hit 25 ounces by the end of the season.
I'll take it. And now that we know there's gold in this paystreak,
that following this pressure ridge is good,
then we just need to keep pounding it.
With this new shack, and this big team and all this gear,
I put a lot of money on the line this winter.
And if I can't make it pay, it's really going to sting.
I mean, it really doesn't hurt that the price of gold is so high.
But we need to get more ounces than that.
We just need to have a bunch more of these clean ups.
- Scale. - See what we got. It looks like
a pretty nice little pile there.
Don't trip, don't sneeze.
Time to see if double the diver
results in double the gold for Vernon Adkison.
Okay, all right. Let's see what we got.
Two...
three...
four...
five...
six...
- Six. - Come on, baby, get out.
- Come on, get out. - Looks like it.
6.75, I'll take it.
6.75 ounces is worth over $12,000.
By far, Vernon's biggest haul of the season.
That little pay layer paid off.
- Yeah. - That little strip that I got into.
- Hm-mm. - That paid off.
Well, it doesn't exactly set the world on fire,
but I'll more than gladly take those results.
It's so rewarding to try something out of the box
and have it pay off.
Now, the trick is,
we need the rest of the season to go this well.
So, buckle up.
Hopefully, this is gonna be a hot ride.
So, what can I say? Yippee-ki-yay.
Back out on the ice...
I honestly don't know what's going on.
The cameras are still down...
I'm not getting into the water today, that's for sure.
...leaving Kris' future in the dark.
I'm real pissed off that I failed.
Basically, the power supply for the cameras are fried.
There's so many factors to come in
to make this equation work.
Everything's gotta work perfect
for this to make gold.
And this little nothing issue
is enough to screw us right now.
We're going home in shame and defeat.
Uh... we let a simple 12-volt connection
stop us from mining today.
I guess I'm not as smart as I thought I was.
We are half way through the season right now
and I've no gold. And it's a joke.
It's a joke.
The Crawler will make us gold
if we ever happen to get it underneath the ice.
As sunlight begins to fade
across the ice...
...there's one team that's still pushing forward.
We did all that work getting this motor over here.
I really can't wait tomorrow just to find out
if this is the good ground or not.
So, I'm gonna get suited up
and [bleep] find out tonight.
So, our shack was stuck in the snow and it was not moving.
But there's no way I was gonna give up.
So, I gotta know if this hole has gold.
And I'm not gonna burn a second day
just to find out if there's gold or not.
Hopefully he likes this ground.
So, it wasn't easy. We put on our big boy pants,
and we got everything moved.
So, now, let's let it rip.
John says this spot is really good.
Let's see if it lives up to his words.
Oh, please be there, baby.
Please be there.
How's the, how's the ground? How deep is the ground?
Little tight here.
I like the material coming through.
That's pretty nice.
A little cobble. Medium size rock.
Everything that we like.
It's a matter of what he's seeing down there.
Damn, already?
I [bleep] this stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Good gold, baby!
Yes!
We did it again.
Now the mission is,
stay on it and suck everything up.
Yeah, it's gonna be a long night.
Zeke and Vernon spook up some ounces
while Shawn's empty day...
is truly frightening.
Next time, on Bering Sea Gold...
Standby, let's rock and roll.
We worked really hard to get this hole cut.
It'd be nice to pull some gold out of it.
Oh, yeah.
Be a 100-ounce week.
Here we go.
What's that?