It's a confrontation that's been brewing
all season long.
A duel between the brash newcomer and the mining titan.
We got McCully moving in.
Two mining soldiers on the frozen battlefield
on a quest for supremacy.
Get it, John.
I put a lot of gold in the box.
Heck yeah.
Right now we're going to Wall Street.
- Whoo! - No gold.
That dive was a big win.
Killing it.
Now it's time for the final duel.
I'm gonna prove that I'm untouchable.
As they take their last paces...
I really got to push to stay ahead.
- Aim. - There's a new force in town.
And fire.
It's been a grueling 10 weeks on the ice.
But now, a storm looms less than 24 hours away from landfall,
bringing with it high temperatures and rain
that'll put an immediate end to ice mining.
So today is the fleet's last chance for gold
before their dreams melt to the bottom of the sea.
Last day of ice mining.
Get a couple of dives in.
We're struggling, struggling,
and this last week we've been kicking ass.
After rolling the dice
and stumbling on the east tract close to town...
Thought this was going to turn out to be a good spot.
But no gold.
...Shawn Pomrenke returned to his trusted ground
on Tomcod, and reaped the benefits.
I haven't seen puddles like this since Bluff.
- Boo-yah! - Whoa!
But will it be enough to retake the top spot in the gold count?
I was a little worried that we weren't going to make [bleep] this winter.
But one week, we make up for the whole winter.
There's no question. Today's the last day we can mine.
That storm's going to blow in late tonight
and that ice is never going to survive.
This is our last chance to hit the 100 ounce goal,
and to make sure that nobody ends up with more gold than us
at the end of the season,
including Chris McCully.
'Sup, Joe?
Hoo-boy!
Pretty rich gold this way. It's really rich.
We're on an unbelievable pay streak.
We followed it down just a little bit north.
If it's anything like that last hole, we're gonna be bathing in gold.
Joe's gonna go down first, then I'm gonna do down and clean up.
It's go time.
Yeah, let's get her, Joe.
Yeah!
Hopefully he can get onto something.
How's that looking down there?
Yeah, that's not good.
All beat up down there?
Found a marker buoy?
Yeah.
Well, that sucks.
Frustrating.
Hoping to be diving all day the last day.
Instead we're going to be digging holes and moving again.
tired of it.
Nothing.
Might be our worst hole all winter.
From one of the best holes to one of the worst holes, just like that.
This hole's a dud. So even though we're down to just a few hours,
we're gonna move, dig a new hole,
and give it another shot.
This is absolutely brutal.
I'd rather be on the bottom sucking up gold than be up here
digging around in the [bleep] ice.
While Shawn's coming up empty...
Gotta move swiftly.
Ain't no around today.
Chris McCully started out hot this season.
And has never looked back.
We're ahead of the game.
And now in the final hours,
he's trying to nab winter's top spot.
Trying to get two dives today. That's the main goal.
Here we are. The final lap.
This season's all about getting 100 ounces
and getting more gold than ever.
We're on some real hot ground.
So if we kill it today,
I think would have enough gold to be the top dog of this season.
We're on Wall Street.
Amazing ground.
John's going to go down there first and sweep up that sweet pastry.
When John is done diving then I'll be the closer and I'll load up the account.
It all comes down to the next few hours.
Whoop-whoop! Yeah.
All right, Chris.
Aight.
Idle up.
Oh, yeah? Right on, dude.
Woo-hoo!
Ha, dude, I like that. I like that, dude.
We're on the gold again so I'm happy.
It's all gonna be good from here.
What up, what up?
Okay, let me go and do that real quick.
Idle down and up three times.
Three times.
Yeah, do that again.
The best way to get a rock jam out
is you shut off the pump and then you fire back up again.
The force of the water coming back online will kick the rocks out.
We're gonna do this three times and hopefully we can get that rock jam out
so we can get back on the gold.
And we got to do it quick.
Especially on our last day. We got no time to waste.
Come on, come on!
Okay. Oh no.
John's coming up.
Idle down.
Coming up.
That was a bust.
We have to pull the diver up and the hose.
We basically have to find that rock and clear it ourselves.
A season ending storm is just a day away from Nome,
and out on the ice...
Well, it's 30 degrees. Tomorrow it'll be 40 degrees.
It's the end.
After a season of setback...
I'm not getting into the water today.
...after setback...
The hose broke right off.
...Kris Kelly and his revolutionary sea crawler
are crawling to the finish line.
Ah, the plan right now is...
Finish out this hole.
A big storm is coming and it's going to start raining.
So it's almost time for e to get the hell out of here.
Let's get going.
I hope we get a lot of gold.
Shazam, gold. Wow, Kris, gold, congratulations.
You made the crawler work gold.
When I started this season, I envisioned a record setting winter
using for crawler for Reaper Nation.
We were aiming for 75 ounces.
Well, that fairy tale when out the window long ago.
We've got no gold so far, nothing.
My goal at this point is to prove this baby works.
So I'm ready to hit the ground running this summer.
And I'd say 20 ounces would be that proof.
Okay, we're almost ready to put the crawler in the water.
The operation looks good. We're gonna go down there, we're gonna kill it.
This is it. The last day. I need the crawler to run flawlessly.
Something that honestly has never been close to happening.
Okay, we're ready to go. Let's get into position.
So the plan today is we rip it around, do the south side,
try to start over here and work around.
Everything's good.
Pumps are running. Everything's going good, now it's just time to do work.
Okay, I don't want to jinx anything,
but the crawler's working great,
and Andy is maneuvering the thing great.
His attitude isn't terrible which is pretty unheard of.
Already got gold in the box.
If it keeps going this way, all day, we're golden.
Hey, you see? Look at that. It takes everything, dude.
I'm gonna do well.
I'm gonna do real well.
Hear that sound? That's money.
Rocks through the box.
The only way you make gold is put rocks through the box.
Everything's good. Everything is good.
While Kris' last day could be his best,
just across the ice...
If this is my last dive, I'm totally... I'm content.
It's been a winter of near death experiences for Zeke and his crew.
What was that?
But the risk may have been worth the reward,
as the team is within striking distance of their goal
on the last day of the season.
Uh, can you guys turn my hot water up a little?
Yeah, up a bit.
It's been an all right season.
I feel somewhat redeemed.
Despite diving under these pressure ridges, which has been super dicey,
we're just shy of our 25 ounce goal,
and I want us to finish as strong as we can.
Since its our last day, if we get on gold,
I wanna keep as many divers down as possible.
Hell, let's make it a diving marathon.
That's what he said.
Wow, it's real nice down here.
Right, I'm on the bottom.
And, uh...
Pump action!
What's it like down there?
Well, maybe it's just hiding from us and it's still somewhere down here.
We can hope for the best.
Hell, yeah. That's good to hear.
That sounds awesome.
Yeah!
Yeah, that's awesome.
It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings.
Twelve miles east...
All right. We're running out of time.
This will be our last hole.
For Vernon Adkinson,
it's been a series of challenges above the ice...
I had an attack Sunday night.
They operated on me Monday.
...as well as below.
Come on, get him up! Get him up!
And it's kept the surly captain far from his season goal.
Onward and upward.
This season went to hell in a handbasket.
Started out shooting for 200 ounces.
We'll be lucky is we get 20.
That said, I'll be rolling in my grave before I quit.
As long as there's still time to get gold
and get something decent for the season, I'm going for it.
We got a battle plan.
Get two guys in the water as soon as possible.
Start out with one and work into it.
Take this one last stab at it.
Put some gold in the box and just hammer it.
Not to sound like a broken record,
but today I'm going to try to get two divers down at once
and be successful at it, damnit.
Luckily, I think we have the kinks worked out.
Keep bleeding it right there.
Until we get the temperature right.
And we're on a new spot.
This one is near our super gold spot from last summer.
And it better be super.
Because this is our last bite out of the apple.
I feel really good right now about this hole.
About closing the season off and putting some weight in the box.
Wish we could've done this two months ago, but it's never too late.
Test, test.
Okay.
Larry, how you doing down there?
Roger, roger.
Okay, I'll set this temperature.
All right, that's what I'm talking about. Good show.
Whoo!
He's on the gold. He's pretty excited about it.
He's got good air, got good hot water, camera's working.
All systems are go.
That's what we need to finish with a bang here.
So, Larry...
He's getting suited up now.
It's a good feeling to finally be on the ice.
Getting the gold.
Huh?
Scott's harness is cut.
That's weird, Scott. I don't know how that happened, buddy.
I think I cut a little bit of tap when I was doctoring on
that thing right there.
This is a total cluster.
Scott's harness straps are cut.
The harness holds the umbilical and the weight belt in place.
It's impossible to drive without it, it's just a no-go.
How does that happen?
I have no clue.
All I know, it's the last day and I'm already down to one diver.
It kinda put him out of the ballgame.
Right now, we're back down to just Larry diving.
I got another harness.
I think it's going to be too big for Scott.
Might have a talk to him about it.
He's not much in a mood to talk right now.
He's kind of pissed off.
So, um... don't blame him.
Uh...
Yeah.
It's costing us.
The last day of the season could be
a road to redemption for the Riedel team.
Oh, we working today.
Whoo!
Finish strong.
This season's been a hot mess.
A lot of sniping and fighting.
I have an issue with you because you don't know what the [bleep] is going on.
I don't say that I do.
And things breaking down.
And not finding any gold.
0.66.
Yeah, we at least did something.
I feel like we just finally found our groove and it's just in time.
Aww.
Oh, my goodness.
So precious.
Now that Emily's a mom, the five ounces that we made
is not going to keep that cute little baby in diapers for long.
And then their daughter is just going to on the floor.
'Cause there's no money for her diapers.
The plan is to pull off a double dive today with Jeff and Eddie
which sounds like a pipe dream for us.
But we need as much gold as possible.
Or I've totally let Emily down.
'Cause there is no gold.
And gold equals diapers.
Okay.
Okay, sounds like a plan.
My God. We finally have a diver down and he's on gold,
and nothing's breaking down.
Like, could this finally be the day where everything
works the way it's supposed to?
I mean, miracles do happen, right?
Rocks look really good!
- Isn't that nice? - Whoo, yeah.
As Team Riedel gets a last minute reprieve,
a battle rages on the ice.
We have to move.
Mr. Gold's been forced to find new ground
after coming up empty.
Story of my life.
I'm spending more time on the backhoe than I am on the bottom.
While eight miles east...
One of those days.
A young superstar's still stuck between a rock
and a hose piece.
We're just shy of 100 ounces.
And I'm trying to get more gold than anybody in this fleet.
Now the hose is completely out of the water,
we're looking for this stupid rock.
That means I'm not making any money,
but that's our situation right now.
You know, the last few hours we could be diving
is now passing us by.
You got the knife? Thank you.
See, look?
There's our culprit, right there.
Oh yeah, she's a good one right there.
Holy [bleep]. That won't even come out just by doing this.
- Get right in there. - There you go.
Man.
- Yep. - All it takes.
That's all it takes. Yeah.
I mean, just look how small that rock is.
But when it goes that way, it's perfect.
It clunks it perfect, huh?
All right. Ready to go back to down.
So we avoided major crisis.
We lost a little bit of time, but the great news is we're still on Wall Street.
We know we're on killer gold, so it's time to crush it.
Get money, dude.
Yeah.
We got the rock out.
John's back in the water.
Just a minor hiccup.
Things are looking pretty good from here.
While Chris gets a homerun on Wall Street...
We got a lot of gold in the box.
And it's building up at the front where it should be building up.
...Reaper Nation could be experiencing a miracle.
Looking really good. Lots of material. Lots of big boulders.
We're working this [bleep] out.
We're getting a system.
More importantly, we're getting gold
without jumping underneath the water.
Can I get a hallelujah?
♪ Hallelujah ♪
I think it's gonna be a great day.
Check this out.
Trouble free crawler action
for like, a few actual hours.
This is what I've been talking about all season.
It looks like we're really gonna finish strong.
There's something wrong.
What the is going on?
What the is going on with that?
Your umbilical line cable's on something.
It's stuck.
What's the matter?
- Umbilical! - What?
The umbilical line's tangled on something.
Okay, well...
Maybe we're just not supposed to have nice things.
I don't know.
Andy runs those controls like he's playing PAC-MAN.
He doesn't really pay attention to anything that's happening down there.
A bunch of lines got tangled and ripped some cameras off.
So now the whole thing's impractical.
We're basically running blind down there.
Andy just [bleep] us.
I wish Andy would have taken it easy to start with.
We're gonna have to take it out of the water
to, uh, put the cameras back into position.
So right now, I have to dive in the water,
direct Andy to get the crawler positioned underneath the hole
so we can hook it up with the winch.
I have to be his eyes down there.
We're not making any money right now.
Just what I want to do on the last day of the season.
This is a joke.
Pull up his umbilical, only give him what he needs.
K, can you hear me?
I can barely hear you. This comm-box is taking [bleep]. Say again.
Left and back?
'Kay.
Hey, Daniel! Get the [bleep] in here.
What?
'Kay.
What?
Set the comm-box. I can't do this and that.
pissing me off.
Left, left, left, left. Get left.
I'm just saying...
Stop. Okay, go to your left.
Keep going left.
'Cause I'm blind in the back.
So if I go too far back,
I'm worried I'm gonna run him over.
He has to go backwards for a second.
'Kay, what do you need?
Say again.
We're the comm-box with him.
Can you hear me, Kris?
He's not answering.
What do you need?
Pull the umbilical up.
Keep pulling it.
Well, I've been in better situations.
Let's just put it that way.
It ran over my umbilical.
It got [bleep] trapped.
I don't wanna talk about it. It's [bleep].
Super [bleep].
I'm glad I made it out of that situation.
Thank God that the hose didn't rip in half.
So that was a clown show.
The comms weren't working. Those guys can barely hear me.
And Andy drove right over my airline.
Yeah, good times, man.
But whatever, I survived.
We just need to get the cameras back on the crawler,
so we can get it back under the water.
Get some gold and retain some dignity.
Winch it up.
We're mining today, one way or another.
Nothing's stopping us.
Even if he has to get down there with a bucket and a shovel.
Well, I wouldn't go that far.
Meanwhile...
back at the duel.
How goes everything, John?
That's awesome.
Wall Street is paying big
for the McCully team on the last day of the season.
Hey, John, you've been down there for four hours now.
Just come up whenever you're ready.
John's coming up.
You can't stop us. No one can stop us.
We're unstoppable.
That kind of a rock jam, that we just experienced,
it would have ended the season for other miners.
But we got it cleared out and we're back on the gold.
Now Wall Street is a bull market today, man.
Hey, buddy.
Now it's time for me to go down there
and close the season out in style.
Booyah!
Last dive.
All right. Got to the bottom.
Last dive.
You like what you are seeing?
I know, baby.
While Chris McCully knocks it out of the park...
There we go. Punch a couple holes,
drop the drill pipe down.
Take a couple samples.
See if we can find some gold.
After striking out,
Mr. Gold's stepping back up to the plate...
with a bigger bat.
See if this works.
I can't afford another swing and a miss today.
We're running out of time.
Instead of going down blindly on the next hole,
I'm gonna use a core sample device that I devised
and pinpoint a spot.
You drill a hole in the ice,
haul a piece of pipe down to the bottom.
Pull out a sample,
yank it out.
Pan the sample with the boot.
You have an instant read on the ground below.
Here we go.
Think I made it through.
Let's see if there's any gold here.
Good sample.
We got a good sample.
Yeah. That's what I'm talking about [bleep].
Whoo.
Look at that. That's from this little three inch pipe.
You can see one, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.
There's 15 plus colors in that pan.
And that's how you find gold.
I think I found our next dive hole.
With no diving involved.
That tells me if there's that much gold in a little tiny three inch pipe,
that there's a whole bunch of gold right underneath our feet.
Now we just gotta get the shack pulled over and get moved.
We're gonna make some money, honey.
It's the last chance to get some gold.
If this hole can be good, then we will be good.
Well, you never know until you get back down there.
The core sample doesn't lie.
The more colors in the pan, the better the hole.
15 plus colors. That's sick.
It's down there. I just gotta get on it.
This is our last chance.
Let's crush it.
Go get 'em.
Booyah, Shawn. One more pile of gold.
Man, it looks really good down here.
What you seeing down there, Shawn?
Lots of cobble. Lots of rocks.
Sounds like a difference from the last hole.
I have some fresh ground over here.
Let's find some gold.
Come on baby, where you at?
Come on, baby.
Haven't seen gold yet.
I'm gonna try this. There's more rock here and material.
Where you at?
Aw. There we go. There we go.
I'm seeing gold!
Oh, yeah!
Okay, guys. I'm looking at it. Yeah!
Look at that. Look at that.
Yeah!
Back in business.
Yeah!
As the storm, that'll shut down winter mining,
advances on Nome...
Zeke's making it count on the last mining day of the season.
I mean, I'm having a great time now.
I'm already stoked on coming back next winter.
All right, guys. I'm gonna head up.
You wanna pull up my tether? I'm done for this winter.
Sounds good.
I'm leaving on a high note for sure.
I love the way we're ending this season.
No major pressure ridges.
Great gold. And we were able to get multiple dives in.
We're gonna get Nate down there and then Sam.
And we're just gonna keep this party going.
All righty.
Yeah, I'm looking at this little hole.
It's just kind of like, on top of that silky stuff, you know.
Holy [bleep].
Oh, I see some big old chunks.
Yeah.
That's good stuff.
Just across the ice...
Hey, Vernon.
Oh, yeah. It's big. But it's not as big as you, Larry.
After a rocky start,
Vernon's team is rockin' and rollin'.
All right. Let me see that...
golden rainbow underneath it.
Whoo.
Stay on it.
And now, a last-minute victory could be in sight.
Yeah. Here we are end of season,
and we got a good hot hole,
and we moved quite a bit more material with two divers.
But, Scott cut out. His harness got cut.
I got one other harness and it's like, a large harness.
Actually, it's extra-large.
So when Larry comes up, we'll send Leonard down.
He'll mop everything up.
Get all the gold, but we'll do it one diver at a time.
Okay.
I'm gonna go ahead and come on up.
I'm gonna leave the nozzle here.
We might not have gotten two divers down at once,
but Larry made up... more than made up for it.
There's gold in that box.
Hot water was working. The air was working.
And I'm seeing gold.
Started... came into a line on that one.
And we just knocked it out.
- Well, that's a good thing. - Yes, it is.
We thought we were down to one diver for the day,
but Leonard fits perfectly into that back-up harness.
So we're gonna get him down there.
And I call him the Mike Tyson of diving.
But his first time under the ice, he almost got knocked out.
He got caught in a bunch of lines
and we had to pull him up to safety.
Hold, hold, hold. Hold on. Get him up. get him up.
Get him up.
Hopefully, he isn't gun-shy,
because he's gonna be our last batter at the plate this season.
Figure it's gonna be the last dive.
Put some gold in the box.
All right.
- Okay, Leonard, you hear me? - Yes.
Pay attention to your umbilical.
Make sure it doesn't get twisted,
or caught up on the hose or rocks.
Okay.
He's doing well. He's down there. He's...
taking suction. Hopefully there's some gold in it.
A pay layer? Okay.
That sounds good.
All right. Well, that's the way we want it. Make the season.
It's been a slow roll out,
and a couple of bad holes and some bad weather.
But, maybe this hole will make up for it.
12 miles west.
Everything's up and running?
Back at it.
That's money, baby.
That is. That's money.
As the book is nearly closed on winter,
Kris Kelly has the crawler back in business.
I had a really bad day.
I came really close to losing my air supply,
and being pinned underneath the water.
Even though nobody believes me.
And I don't give a [bleep].
You know what?
That was a close call with my airline.
No matter what Andy says.
I mean, the thing weighs two tons
and you're running over rubber hoses.
Screw him. I don't care.
The most important thing is,
we got the crawler back down there and we're running material.
Idle up.
We're seeing gold in the mats.
Suction's really good. Lots of material. Lots of big boulders.
And we're lucky.
You know, like, we, for some [bleep] reason,
land on gold for no...
And Andy's one lucky son of a [bleep].
It's probably his only real gift.
That's what I'm talking about, baby.
Everything's actually great.
And I swear to God as my witness.
Strike me dead if I'm lying.
It's gonna get a lot better right now, from this
magical point on.
Oh, [bleep]. What the is going on?
Something's wrong.
And the problem is, I got no suction hose.
There's my coupler.
There's no hose.
You know what? I just can't win.
This is gonna shock people.
But one of the most important things
to get gold off the sea floor
is the suction hose.
The gold won't magically float up,
or jump off the floor of the ocean,
like a magical jumping bean.
You need a hose.
And now suddenly, we don't have one.
Once again, we have my brother to thank for this.
The truth is,
if you were looking at the back of the camera occasionally...
- Okay. You can go. - You can plug it in, every now and then.
Watch the front camera. Yeah, like that ain't got more, huh?
I know. But you look like every hour and every half an hour,
you could plug the other one in,
it's like, oh, everything's cool here.
Idle down the hydraulics.
Andy just [bleep] us, hard.
That's gonna be a [bleep] to fix.
We might as well just call it a season.
'Cause, you know, like, this is a [bleep] joke.
That storm's coming.
We don't have enough time to do a fix like this.
Not even close.
I would say, this is not the way I wanted to end this season.
But hopefully, Andy's psycho-aggressive style
has netted us some gold.
'Cause whatever we got in the box right now,
is what we got for the season.
Well, it started off like it was gonna be a good day.
It's definitely not turning out to be a good day.
All right, Leonard. This is the final dive of the season.
Diver Leonard Lowens finishes his fourth hour
muscling up gold in the waning moments of winter mining.
All right, Leonard.
He's coming up. He's coming up.
Well, it wasn't two divers at once,
but it was the next best thing.
Two divers separately getting a lot of hours on the box.
I doubt if they're gonna pull in 150 ounces,
but I'm glad we had a successful dive for once.
That was a good dive.
Yep.
Come on up.
Great dive.
I'm not trying to be a bitter sourpuss right now,
but I'm not exactly celebrating.
I mean, let's be honest.
This season was an absolute ball buster.
No disrespect or anything,
and I'm not talking about you,
but I'm disgusted with this [bleep] season.
But even now, once we finally got things working,
- now it's over. - Season's over.
We got little bit of gold in this.
We'll put it on the scales and we'll see.
We'll just bag it, tag it, take it to the house.
It is what it is.
I'll take my licks and keep on ticking.
As Vernon packs it in...
This to me is like, pleasure town, man.
This is good, clean fun.
And I'm seeing a lot of nice chunky pieces.
The gold train keeps chugging for Team Tenhoff.
There's still probably a lot of good stuff to the west.
We're gonna have to get around to it at some point.
But, gold on that whole bench.
So, uh, I mean,
can't ask for much more than that.
This is the kind of material you could just put your hand down and work.
You've been down about four hours at this point.
This hole's really good.
Whoo!
You always wanna finish strong and that's what we're doing.
I had a strong dive and Nate absolutely killed it.
Pop down there, put a herd on this ground we've got.
Got some good ground, so I'm excited to see some gold.
And now it's time for Sam to mop up what's left.
We're ploughing through our gold. That's for sure.
All right.
Yeah, pretty much there.
And then you can see it follow towards this,
where it meets the sand and there's that big wide strip.
Hell yeah!
Whoo!
Any luck of finding where it's at in the hose?
Rock jam.
That's a bummer for sure.
But honestly, if it's gonna happen,
it might as well be in the last hour or two of the season,
after you've been crushing it all day.
Don't wear yourself out if you can't find it.
Usually we'd pull the hose out and try to find the rock,
and then pull the rock out.
But we basically got no time left.
And we've already had an amazing day.
I'm cool calling it for the season.
And I think it's beer-thirty.
Hell yeah. Whoo.
I was working a little bit. Man, there's so much gold down there,
it's [bleep] awesome.
This is all working great.
Like, I'm so happy with what we were able to do this year.
I want to do it again.
12 miles east.
Are you seeing gold?
After a season of struggles,
Jane and the team
just might be ending with a bang
as their last day might be their best.
You're at three hours right now.
Okay.
Wow, Jeff had a trouble-free awesome dive.
I'm kind of in a state of shock.
After this, maybe we'll get Eddie down
and then maybe lightning will strike twice.
I guess it took to the very last day
for us to get our crap together.
Yeah, let's check out the box.
Well, that's [bleep].
Yeah. I don't know how.
Unreal.
One of the screens that separates the gold
from the other material popped out.
So now it's at the bottom of the Bering Sea somewhere.
Along with half the gold
from the last three hours that was on it.
Seriously, all the way down to the last day,
we are still a hot mess.
That's irritating.
What a bummer.
Just sucks losing the screen. Like, that's a lot of material
that just got taken out of the box.
It just bums me out, because, you know,
blow out $4,000 or $5,000 in 20 minutes.
Probably more than that, yeah.
That's what I'm saying.
Do we want to just try and get the screen
back in the box and run more?
I think the odds of finding that screen right now
- are going to be like slim to none. - Low.
I just don't even have access to any more screens.
And so it doesn't make sense
to do a dive if we don't have a back screen.
We can't get it back. So do we just wrap it up?
We might as well just... just wrap it up.
What an embarrassing, crappy way to end the season.
But it's par for the course this winter.
I guess I'd be kidding myself
if I expected anything different.
That's sad, man. That makes me really upset.
We'll just clean the box, and we'll call it a season.
Well, that's it, guys. Our last hole.
The start of the season,
I was damned near [bleep] dead.
I hung in there, and these guys hung in there too.
We got some gold, and, uh,
we finally got hot water, air.
But by the time we worked out the problems,
we were on the last hole.
It was not the season he had hoped for.
But at least Vernon Adkison is ending
with a little something on the scale.
Nice little pile there.
Weigh it up and see what it came out to.
We did not go quietly.
We had two good divers to end it,
and hopefully there's some good numbers coming our way.
God knows we could use it.
Every speck is welcome at this point.
All right.
Okay, there's one, two, three, four.
Four point six nine.
All right. Pretty damn sweet.
4.69 ounces
is worth nearly $9,000,
bringing the surly captain's season total
to 17.87 ounces,
ringing in at $34,000.
Now it's over, and at least we got some gold.
It's not the first disappointing season I've had,
but hopefully it'll be the last.
All we can do is lick our wounds
and get ready for a big summer campaign,
because we're going to need to crush it
to make up for this winter.
Some years it just feels like
I'm banging my head against the wall,
and other years I hit.
I would like to get on a continuous streak
of hitting like every year,
but that day has not come quite yet.
Anyway, that's the name of that tune.
Back on the ice.
After losing one of their screens,
Jane and the team are trying to turn lemons into lemonade,
searching for every speck of gold they can find.
Losing the screen, we lost 40% of our box,
so it is what it is.
- I hope so. - Finish strong.
It's not easy, but right now
we have to de-box half full people,
instead of un-box half empty people.
I mean, look, Jeff had a good dive,
so maybe there's still a big number on the scale.
I can only hope at this point.
I see gold, Eddie.
Yeah.
Oh, there we go. Look at that.
- I like it. - Yeah.
Oh, wow.
Nice pile.
Sexy.
We're finally seeing some good gold come through.
So hopefully we're going to end this season on a high note,
like one of Emily's high notes. She's a soprano.
And not a trombone.
Is that the sound a trombone makes?
Okay, moment of truth.
One ounce, two ounces, three ounces.
Show me five.
- Showing you five ounces. - Whoo!
Six point one six.
Wow.
6.16 ounces is just shy of $12,000.
Sweet.
- It's the season, so... - I'll take it.
Bringing the team's season haul to 11.12 ounces
worth just over 21,000 bucks.
Pretty good for a brand-new operation.
- And a rookie diver. - New diver.
First ice mining season for Jane, you know?
- Yeah. - I learned a lot.
We did not get rich, and we did not reach our goal.
We even lost gold in the end.
Like, who loses gold?
We do.
But I see this as the first year of a new startup.
And we definitely came a long way in the end.
I just hope Emily sees it that way
when I give her the final stats.
So, end of season, everybody's happy, everybody wins?
Yeah.
I can't wait to do it again.
Whoo!
Okay, sorry.
The Riedel camp may have called it a season,
but two teams are still working away.
All right!
Yeah!
Whoo-hoo!
Gold's flowing like a fine wine.
Shawn Pomrenke is ending his season in style.
Booyah!
Keep sending it into the box.
Nice pieces of gold coming up the hose right now.
Go on up the hose.
Let's go.
Nice, coarse-looking gold.
Is this going to make for a strong finish to the year?
I think we're going to finish strong, buddy.
Booyah.
How many hours is that, boys?
You're at about five hours now, Shawn.
Whoo!
I got this hole finished up.
I'm going to get outta here.
That's a wrap.
Strong finish for the year here.
Wow, talk about a comeback.
I wish the whole day could have been that good.
Hell, I wish the whole season could have been that good.
But I'll take it.
Hell, yeah, I'll take it.
We got about 20,000 pounds worth of gear
out here on the ice
that we're going to get the hell off before we go through.
Look at it, it's all rotten.
Water on top of the ice.
I'm pretty sure we blew past our goal.
But the question is, by how much?
Yeah!
Whoo!
As Shawn Pomrenke takes the gravy train home
eight miles east...
Chris McCully's been living on Wall Street,
and now he's cashing out on his final dive of the season.
I hear you.
Yeah, that'll be nice.
Start the summer season off good right here.
Whoo-hoo!
Now pull your umbilical out.
Booyah!
Well, what can I say?
I couldn't have asked for more this season.
And to end like this, on gold that hot,
I really wanted to make a big statement this winter,
and we more than did that.
I can't wait to see that gold on a scale.
Not bad for my last dive.
Look at this. Killed it.
Gotta be 20 ounces in there.
After we clean this box, that will seal the deal.
Heck, yeah.
Whoo. Yeah.
That's it. That's all she wrote.
We're done!
And now, another episode of "Social Hour with Vernon".
Sometimes I just have to cheer myself up
and check the social media.
The thing about it is,
I don't lose that much gold every season.
I lose gold some season, and I make gold some season.
But this season, I gotta own it. It was a bust.
I didn't get nearly the gold
it would take to cover my expenses.
I had health problems.
I need to talk to the heart doctor is what I need to do.
But damn it, I showed up the day
after I got out of the hospital,
and I've been here ever since, plugging away.
I had enough in reserve to keep me in the game,
and I remain optimistic
that the day will come when I hit.
And I'm not quitting.
That's the main thing in the gold game
and the game of life.
If you quit, you don't win.
This has been another episode of--
I'll be here every damn season that rolls around
until they roll me into that hole in the ground,
or more preferably, I'd prefer to go
to Davy Jones' locker, if you don't mind.
Just roll me off the side of the boat,
put a couple of shackles around my ankles...
...and call it good.
But in the meantime, as long as I can keep coming back,
I'll keep coming back.
We'll see how it plays out, stay tuned.
This has been another episode of "Social Hour with Vernon".
We're pannin', see!
There's gold in these hills, boys.
There's gold.
We struck gold.
The Tenhoff Gang is ready for their
final clean-out of winter.
Last pan of the season...
I'm feeling good, and it's been a great day under the ice.
I feel like hitting our 25-ounce goal
is totally within reach.
I'm loving the way we're ending this season.
What do we got here?
Boom, there's an ounce.
Two ounces, yep.
Four.
Fiver, oh, dude.
Six? Hell yeah.
Dude, we're gonna breach eight. Watch this.
Dude!
Dude, that's a pleasant surprise right there.
Almost ten, almost ten ounces.
That was a good haul.
9.61 ounces is worth over $18,000,
bringing the Mad Genius' winter haul
to an impressive 31.2 ounces
and banking a very cool 59 grand.
I haven't filled one of these up
in a season yet, but I will.
This summer.
I mean, this is like 27 ounces of gold.
Probably worth like, I mean,
approaching $60,000.
What a season. I love the setup.
We had a great team,
and we even ended with our best one-day total,
in God knows how long.
I'm really happy with how everything went,
and it's got me really primed and motivated
for heading into this next summer season.
I'm happy with where we're at.
I'm really, I'm like,
feeling waves of relief now that like,
we're pulling all our stuff off the ice.
I'm so happy with what we're able to do this year.
Right now we're going into the first cleanup
from the ice pool.
Kris Kelly's last cleanout of winter is also his first,
as the captain hopes to prove
the merit of his beloved crawler.
And I'm hoping, praying, to see 10 ounces.
Ten ounces would be nice, dude.
That's what I need.
That would be... that's necessary.
So we started the season with 75 ounces as our goal.
Audible to 20, now we're adjusting again to 10.
Look, I just need something to give me hope
that moving forward,
the crawler is the future of Reaper Nation.
And now that we've gotten the kinks out,
big times are ahead.
Huge, in fact.
Okay, that's it.
Jesus.
It really doesn't even look like five ounces.
Okay, well, whatever we got, we got it.
Oh, man.
So we got four ounces.
Four ounces.
So that's terrible.
4.5 ounces is worth about 8,500 bucks for the season.
The entire season.
Oh, well, you know,
let's not cry over spilled gold.
You know, this total right now may seem pathetic.
And it is, I admit that.
But I'm writing this season off
as research and development.
Okay, we're ready to go.
And now that we got this crawler
firing on all four cylinders,
I think sky's the limit.
In fact, this summer season coming up
could be our best season ever.
Let's just push forward
and hopefully just goes better for me.
And between my crawler, the Mistress
and all the other things I got planned,
no one's going to have a better plan
than I am this year.
Trust me.
I know I always say it,
but next year will be better.
A lot better.
Meanwhile,
500 miles south in Homer, Alaska.
Emily.
Hey.
Oh, my goodness.
Hey, welcome back.
Welcome back to civilization.
Well, almost civilization.
This is Evelyn.
Evelyn Isobel, we decided.
No way. I love it.
With her first ice season under her belt,
Jane Kilcher checks in on another first,
the first baby in the Emily Riedel household.
I mean--
It's definitely not something I want to do every weekend.
It was a very intense season.
After all that stress,
it's really nice to see my friend.
And it's just really nice
to be away from all that insanity.
And see the baby.
'Cause it's the cutest thing.
Cute little booties.
Oh, those are awesome.
Oh, check those out.
I'm still going to have to give her
an end of season report, which is not great.
We got 6.1 ounces as our last, um, clean out and weigh out.
But that sluice box, the engine is so powerful.
It blew out the back screen completely,
like into the ocean.
No, I probably didn't lose that much gold.
- That's been my fear this whole season. - I know.
Well, this sluice box made us lose all the gold.
We were on really good gold,
but this sluice box made us lose it all.
I've heard that one before.
I know Jane's disappointed that
she didn't make more gold for the team,
but I mean, this is her first time ice mining.
Like just a little bit is a miracle.
Ice mining seems so simple,
but it's so much harder than anyone realizes.
Most people strike out, but the fact that Jane didn't
just shows how badass she really is.
And, uh, I hope she sticks with the team.
Summer's our time to make money.
Alex and I, we're heading up in a couple of months,
so we're starting the summer pretty broke,
but, um, we know where there's some good gold.
Hey, if you want to come up again,
we'd love to have you.
I will help.
I'm thrilled that Emily still wants me
to stay with her crew,
and honestly, I cannot wait for summer.
That's the time when we make a profit.
I think you will, because we left a lot of gold for you.
I know, I know.
Apparently you blasted it right out of the box.
So we just got to go look for Jeff's tailings
and we'll be good to go.
And now it's time to test your brain muscles
on the BSG final exam.
This winter, how many times
did someone on the Tenhoff crew
almost meet their maker?
What was that?
How many times this season
did Jane get into a screaming match?
I have an issue with you
because you don't know what the [bleep] is going on.
I don't say that I do.
Everyone knows that I'm very new to all of this.
That's the agreement.
All right. Chill.
How many times was Vernon forced to lie down?
I got to go sit down.
My heart is [bleep] up again.
Here it goes again.
I'm about ready to pass out.
And how many times did any crew member toss their cookies?
Hey, you're not supposed to swallow the gasoline.
You know that, right?
Thanks for playing, everyone.
There will be no prizes. See you next time.
The fight on the battlefield is complete.
And now it's time for each soldier to fire their last shot
and determine a winner in the great duel of Nome.
Damn, that was a nice hole.
Rich looking dirt. Hard earned.
Especially as it came from that one hole mostly.
Uh-huh. Well, it was all that one hole.
I know we crushed it, but the only question is by how much?
Nice little pile.
And then hopefully we'll have
more than anybody else in the fleet,
including Chris McCully.
Ho-ho-ho. That's a heavy one.
Yeah, man, it looks good.
- Real good. - Looks good, boys.
Let's see.
Three, seven,
- 10, 15, 22... - What?
...28, 35.
- 41.75. - Hell, yeah!
yeah.
- Good job, fellas. - yeah. Suck it up.
Forty-one, seven, five.
Nice hole.
That's what we're looking for. That's why we moved.
41.75 ounces rings in at $79,000,
bringing Mr. Gold's season total
to an impressive 140 ounces worth over $265,000.
Could have been better.
- Never enough. - Mmm-hmm.
I mean, come on, that's just a huge number.
And a monster haul on the season.
I'm not gonna say it's a done deal,
but with a total like that,
I'm feeling pretty confident that we're untouchable.
Never enough.
But it certainly could have been less.
- Yeah, it could've been less. - Yep.
But across town...
This is it. Best cleanup of the year.
Look at that.
Wow, Chris.
That's a lot of gold.
It's the young gun's turn at the scale.
Yeah.
That's insane, dude.
We're gonna throw it in the pot and dry it out.
Put it on the scale.
So it all comes down to this.
Final number.
Question is, how high can we go past 100 ounces?
And are we gonna have the most gold of anyone?
I don't know.
But the way it's looking,
there's a lot of gold over there.
This might be the biggest haul yet.
Looking good.
The pot sounds really good.
That's the best sound right there.
Ready to weigh it out.
Okay, we're gonna go by grams.
Here we go.
So there's 100, 200,
300...
400, five,
6, 7, 8.
My scale only goes up to 1,000 grams.
Are we gonna tip it?
Yeah, it's okay.
902.
So put this aside.
And we still have more left in the pot.
We got another 238.
That's a total of 1,140 grams.
That's 36 ounces.
- Whoo-hoo! - Yeah.
Good job.
Wow, dude.
I'm a little shaky, but...
Good feeling.
36 ounces, cashes in at over $68,000,
raising Chris's mammoth season total to 148 ounces
worth a hefty $281,000.
- Wow. - Damn, dude.
Easily blowing past his 100-ounce goal
and surpassing every other member of the fleet
for the season, even Shawn Pomrenke.
Good job, guys.
Thank you, thank you, guys.
Good job.
Good feeling, dude. killed it.
Wow.
What a feeling.
So I had high hopes for this season,
and we have accomplished them and more.
I'm so proud of the job that we've done,
and there's no doubt that this guy right here
is the top player in town.
So, Nome, better watch out.
Yeah, dude, let's get you guys paid, huh?
yeah, dude.
Feels so good to get paid, man.
- Vacation time. - Vacation.
Dude, I'm happy, man.
Dude, we killed it.
In a stunning upset,
the newest member of the fleet, Chris McCully,
edges out Mr. Gold, Shawn Pomrenke,
for top spot of the season.
This summer...
All right, you sawbelly son of [bleep], let's go mining.
Every morning, what are you gonna look for? Gold!
We're gonna keep that gold rolling in.
...revolution is in the air.
I love this crane. It makes more possible.
Ooh, we're like clockwork out here.
Okay. Now you can go.
It's gold time.
Whoo!
This dredge is a 14-inch suction dredge, a custom made suction dredge.
It is the most powerful ever made.
We basically use the gantry to lower everything into the water.
You can process more yardage per hour than Christine Rose can.
- So this is it, huh? - Yeah.
Looks like Frankenstein.
Gonna use that boat to launch my crawler.
We're gonna go to a depth where nobody can dive at.
I know there's a bunch of untouched gold sitting there and I'm going to get it.
We're gonna get chunks of gold that big this year.
This is the future of mining.
A lot of people around here call it the short bus,
because it's got a short bus on it.
The lights flash.
This chair was designed for my ass.
What? Oh!
I'll make a thousand ounces for the year.
It's like 1.8 million dollars.
But every revolution...
Half of that [bleep] is mine!
private money that I--
I'll see you in court.
...has its battles.
Doesn't wanna turn. Dammit.
Stop! Stop!
Hey!
And nothing in Nome...
We got a big blow coming in.
Hurricane force winds.
...will ever be the same.
No one in the gold mining fleet has ever experienced a storm like this.
We're gonna have to evacuate.
We're sinking.
I'm not leaving without my [bleep] gold!
I could lose every boat I own.
Oh man!
This thing could explode.
- Move back! - He's trying to get us out.
So let's move back.
This is crazy.
Everybody's screwed.