[Freddy] How's it going, Terry?
Terrible!
I've sunk in about $120,000.
To me, it's everything.
[Freddy] Well, we know he's losing gold, there.
[Terry] What the heck here?
He's gonna need another hand out here.
The biggest thing we need to work on is his wife.
[Terry] Since I've gotten so big in the last few years,
she's a little intimidated here.
[engine starts]
Heads, you talk to her.
What's your biggest fear here, honestly?
[Freddy] We don't have time to screw up.
Now the generator stopped!
Did it just shut down?
[Freddy] I know you wouldn't want to go
off the side of this mountain here.
It's a long, long way's down
to that river, Juan. [chuckles]
Yeah, for sure.
That's a hell of a drop, there, Freddy.
And I can't swim, so...
[chuckles]
[narrator] Freddy and Juan are in British Columbia
traversing the remote northern Rockies
10 miles north of the U.S. border.
en route to a solo miner,
in what may be
his final season,
without a lifeline.
He's doing everything from digging the pay,
to running the plant,
to taking care of the tailings,
to putting everything up.
That's a ton of work for just one person.
[Freddy] He must love gold and gold mining.
That's for dang sure.
[narrator] In the 1880s,
prospectors first mined along the Salmo River,
as they hiked east along the Dewdney Trail,
from Vancouver to Wild Horse Creek.
Between 1899 and 1979,
almost 800,000 ounces of gold were mined in the area,
worth $1.4 billion today.
[honking]
[Freddy] Well, this looks like it's it, huh, Juan?
[Terry] Hey guys, how are you?
- [Freddy] Good. - [Juan] You must be Terry. Juan.
- Nice to meet you, Juan. - Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you, Terry. - Freddy!
Nice to meet you, too, guys. Holy smokes!
You guys made it in.
- [Freddy] Yeah. - [Juan] Yeah, we made it.
It's not the worst road we've been on,
but it's definitely not
- the best road we've been on. - [all chuckling]
It really lets you know that you're in the backwoods here.
Gold mining is something that I've always had a passion for.
On the weekends, I would go down,
and sit with a couple of old-timers,
and we were pulling out some nice size gold nuggets.
My eyes kind of went to saucers.
I want to know where
the big guy hid his jewelry box,
and I want to dig it up.
[narrator] Terry bought this 247-acre placer mine
from his uncle,
and began to follow his dream.
[Terry] My wife and I started out
working with a small trommel, hand mining,
you know, about a yard to two and a half a day.
[Stephanie] Oh, it was really exciting.
We'd shovel two, three hours at a time,
go have a beer, come back, do some more,
and actually, we found some really nice gold.
[narrator] But Terry wanted to go bigger.
In 2020, he cashed in his retirement fund
and his family's life savings to upsize his trommel
to a 15-ton wash plant.
[Stephanie] I don't know the exact number,
'cause Terry never told me,
but there's a lot.
Like, a lot. We have no savings.
Everything we have is on the line.
I've sunk in about $120,000.
Into this.
Maybe to some people,
120 grand is not a lot of money, but to me,
it's everything.
[narrator] The huge investment
has become a strain on their relationship.
It's very stressful.
Yeah.
Sleepless nights.
Mmm-hmm.
- Lots of those. - Yes.
Our fair share of arguments as a couple, you know?
[narrator] All his savings sunk into the equipment,
Terry hasn't been able to hire any help.
[Stephanie] He needs help down there,
but, because of the big equipment,
it's scary.
Like, you never know what can happen, right?
Anything can go wrong.
I really don't feel I have a place down there,
because I really don't know what to do.
My dream here is to say I'm an actual miner,
and if I could make this into my livelihood
as I'm getting older,
then I'm a super happy guy,
because that means I'm being successful.
- [Freddy] You're doing all this all by yourself, huh? - Yes, I am.
- So, you're feeding the plant? - Yes.
- Tailings? - I do that, too.
- [Freddy] Digging the pay? - Yes.
- [Juan] Wow. - [Freddy] Doing the cleanup?
- Yes. Everything. - [Freddy] Everything all by yourself?
All by myself. Yes.
- [Juan] It's a lot of work for one guy. - It is.
- [Terry] Yes. - A ton of work.
Last year was actually my really first year
setting all this up,
trying to get everything all up and running,
and of course, it took me all summer
to go through, I would say,
about 40, 50 yards of material.
[Juan] Oh, wow.
Yeah, not much at all, you know, especially...
[Freddy] So that's all you've ran?
That's all I've ran through this plant.
[Freddy] Are you about out of savings?
Pretty much. [laughs]
I'm losing a lot of money doing what I'm doing.
We don't have nothing in the account.
It's all invested into here.
[Freddy] You got any of your gold?
[Terry] Actually, yes, I do.
[Juan] That's really good-looking gold, though.
[Freddy] That's beautiful gold.
What kind of gold are you needing per day
to make a living in here?
Well, I would like to at least pull out
an ounce every second day, you know?
So, last summer how much gold did you get?
About 20 grams last year.
- [Juan] Twenty grams last year. - Yes.
- [Juan] Oh, wow. - [Terry] Yeah.
- Not much at all. - [Juan] No.
[narrator] Twenty grams of gold
is worth roughly $1,200.
[Juan] What's your goal for this year?
[Terry] I need to make at least 40 ounces a season
to get out of the red, to get into the black.
[Juan] Okay.
- You know? - [Juan] It's a big jump, yeah.
[Freddy] It is a huge step.
[narrator] Terry needs more than 50 times that amount,
around $70,000 in gold, to make up his losses.
Well, let's fire the plant up, and run four hours...
- Let's do it. - ...see what we see.
All right. That sounds good with me, guys.
Okay, Freddy! Firing it up!
All right!
[Freddy] Let's clock it, Juan-o.
[Juan] Set the time.
Four hours.
[narrator] The first step in his process,
Terry sifts out large boulders with a rock grizzly.
He then feeds the pay
into his five-yard hopper feeder.
A 35-foot conveyor belt carries this material
to a prewash and shaker deck,
where it is grated
before it passes down into the sluices.
[Freddy] Pretty wet material, eh, Juan-o?
- [Juan] Yeah, very wet material. - [Freddy] Pretty damp.
- [Juan] He almost needs a vibrator on that. - [Freddy] Yeah.
Yeah. He does, if it's not gonna fall through.
Stuff's just plugging up on that grizzly.
Time to go have a look here, see what's going on.
This material's been sitting since last year.
[Juan] So it's pretty wet, huh?
It's still wet. Like, it's already two years old.
I'm very frustrated right now.
I thought for sure that the material
would be a little bit better.
But even though I inlined my hopper feeder,
it's still sticking to the inside walls.
So it's actually not sliding down where it's supposed to.
Let's see what the heck here.
Now I gotta bang the side, you know,
just to keep the material moving.
Whew, okay.
[narrator] Once through the hopper,
and into the shaker deck,
the paydirt splits into three different sluice runs,
coarse, medium, and fine.
A fourth run, for extra fines,
passes through a centrifugal bowl
that separates the gold by rotating at high speed.
[Freddy] What do you think, Juan?
[Juan] I don't know, Fred.
I'm not a big fan of that bowl.
[Freddy] No, I don't need it.
[Juan] Let me get a gold pan.
I want to see what that bowl is puking out.
[narrator] A centrifugal bowl is lined with rubber riffles.
Mounted on a vertical shaft, it spins at over 100 rpm.
This centrifugal force causes gold to travel upward
along the inside of the bowl,
to be pressed against the walls,
and caught beneath the rim,
but if it becomes clogged with wet pay,
gold escapes into the tailings pond.
[Juan] Bit of material in there.
[Freddy] Two colors, Juan.
Maybe three.
It's so fine, it might need a magnifying glass.
[Juan] Yeah. I see two, Fred.
[Freddy] Two really fine ones, huh?
I have a lot more faith in a really good sluice box,
- than that bowl in there. - I do, too.
[Juan] The problem with, you know, those bowls, Freddy,
is just, there's no capacity.
- [Freddy] Nope. - There's no capacity.
- It eventually starts puking material out. - [Freddy] Yep.
So, two colors in, you know,
a quarter of a cup, half a cup of sand.
Well, we know he's losing gold there.
[Juan] So, right now, we'll be taking a look at his screen,
see what it's doing.
Remember, he's screening several different sizes.
[narrator] At the screen deck,
Freddy and Juan spot another problem.
That counterweight.
Stuff's just plugging up on that.
[Juan] Yeah.
[narrator] Two and a half hours into the run...
Back out I go.
[narrator] ...Terry still battles the jammed hopper.
[Freddy] How's it going, Terry?
Terrible!
I'm working like a dog.
- Whoa. - I got blisters happening.
[Freddy] You're getting blisters on that rock.
Don't kill yourself.
No, I'm trying not to.
- Can we just-- - So, this is what I do
on a daily basis when I am out here.
[Freddy] How many buckets have you put in so far?
[Terry] Uh, that is my second,
but if you look inside my hopper,
I bet you there's, like, one full, complete bucket
- still hung up in there. - Yeah. Yeah.
Uh, I don't know how to get it, you know,
without, you know, get in there
with a pick and a shovel.
Mild explosives?
[Terry] That would work.
- Sometimes I feel like blowing the damn thing up. - [Freddy] Yeah.
[engine starts]
[Freddy] But he's not running
- a lot of material per hour, is he? - [Juan] No.
[Freddy] Maybe, what, three yards?
Two and a half yards an hour?
[Juan] It should be at 10 yards an hour
through that plant.
More than anything, I think he just needs help.
[Freddy] He's working his ass off.
Feeding it, tailings, starting it.
Well, you know, between that feeder
and everything else, you know,
he's got a lot of little issues,
but really, I think his biggest problem is
he's gonna need another hand out here.
[Freddy] Yeah.
[engine sputtering]
Oh, man!
Aw, the generator. What's going on?
[engine shuts off]
What happened? Did it just shut down?
Yeah, it did. Let's go look at it.
Right now, we're at three hours.
The generator stopped!
I think I ran out of propane, so I gotta turn the pump off.
Hey, Freddy. Hey, Juan.
Just letting you know I ran out of propane.
[Juan] Oh, okay.
Well, at least we made three hours, though.
Probably knew you were getting too many blisters.
Well, I think do a cleanup, and weigh it up,
and see what we got.
- [Terry] Okay. - [Freddy] Okay.
[Terry and Juan] Sounds good.
[Freddy] All right, guys.
I got my whole life investment into this.
I got two granddaughters
that I get to also have out here,
Audrey and little Zadie,
out to Papa's gold claim, and go find treasure,
as she says, you know, so hopefully,
I got a future for them and in the mining world.
[Juan] You know, really, we only had three hours,
but for a one-guy operation, man, you know,
he worked his ass off.
In the loader, out of the loader,
in the loader, out of the loader.
And I don't know what his situation is
with his wife, but we really need
to talk to her about maybe helping.
Exactly.
You know, whether it's feeding the plant,
or something, because he can be doing other things.
Well, 'cause right now,
he's only doing two yards an hour,
which is unsustainable.
- [Freddy] Hi Terry. - [Terry] Hey, how's it going, guys?
[Freddy] Doing all right. How are you?
[Terry] I've got some gold here for you to weigh up.
Well, let's weigh it up.
[narrator] Running out of fuel
means one-man band Terry's test run
was just three hours,
and with material constantly clogging,
he only ran six yards of pay.
[Freddy] Moment of truth, here.
[Terry] Yeah, gotta make sure we get all that out.
[Freddy] .06.
[Juan] .06 for a three hour run.
[Freddy] Juan and myself, we've seen a lot of stuff,
but this is almost
no worse than gold that we've found.
You aren't gonna buy a new house with it.
[narrator] 0.06 ounces, worth around $100.
That's $15 a yard...
[Terry] Okay.
...which, if you can run yardage,
you can make money on it.
- Awesome. - [Freddy] All right?
Well, that's what I was hoping.
[Freddy] So, if you can go from two yards an hour
to, let's say, 10,
instead of $30 an hour,
like you're running now, it's 150 bucks an hour.
You just got to get more material
going through that plant. You got the gold here.
[narrator] If Terry can run 80 yards of pay,
instead of 16,
he could make $1,200 a day,
and could exceed his half an ounce target
to turn a profit.
The material that he's running
- is super sticky. - It's sticky. Well, here's my thought.
He's got that static grizzly over there.
- [Juan] Yeah. - [Freddy] Right?
So, the material he's putting through there,
it's in the shade.
So, we take the material out from under there,
and windrow it, and spread it out.
What about on his hopper here, Fred?
What about maybe putting
a little vibrator here to help that material vibrate down?
I like it.
If we're gonna do that let's put two vibrators on it.
But on top of this, he's got issues
down at the recovery side of it, too.
Honestly, if he's good with it,
I think we eliminate that bowl altogether.
[Freddy] Then we could put an additional sluice out here.
[narrator] Freddy and Juan plan to set out the pay
into V-shaped piles called windrows,
to dry it out before going through the plant.
Two vibrators on the hopper
will stop any pay sticking to the walls.
They will modify a counterweight on the prewash
to help shake off any remaining pay.
Finally, a new plumbing system will divert material
away from the centrifugal bowl
and into a brand-new sluice box.
But wash plant improvements are just half the battle.
Really, I think the biggest thing
we need to work on here is his wife.
- That she's scared of the equipment. - One of us... One of us...
If we could turn this in from a one-man operation
to a couples operation...
And two people are gonna be twice the production as one.
[narrator] Financially,
Terry's already at rock bottom,
and these fixes won't come cheap.
[Freddy] I know he's on a budget, but...
- Each one of these... - [Freddy] ...the vibrators are
a few hundred bucks apiece, probably, right?
That sluice run and carpets
and everything else come up to 3,200 bucks.
- So, at 3,200 bucks. - Yeah.
[Freddy] You making more blisters, Terry?
- [chuckles] - Hey, guys! Yeah, I'm working on 'em.
[Freddy] Well, Juan and myself put some ideas together.
Starting with your grizzly,
the way that you store your material.
You actually leave it underneath the grizzly.
Well, the problem there is it gets just sopping wet.
So, our thoughts were grizzly it,
and then windrow it out here,
so the wind hits it, and the sun hits it,
and then put it in your plant.
The next one's gonna be, obviously, your hopper.
- [Terry] Yes. - So we talked about putting a vibrator on the top,
so it can help that material vibrate through the hopper.
Next, we're gonna eliminate your bowl...
- [Terry] Okay. - [Juan] ...and actually have it all
go down one sluice, and extend it out,
[Freddy] And probably the...
[Juan] Biggest.
- ...biggest fix... - [Terry] Yeah?
[Freddy] This is gonna be the hardest fix,
possibly, as well.
It'll be the cheapest fix,
- but the hardest fix. - But hard.
We'd like to get your wife introduced into being able
to help a little bit more.
You know, I know that this is something
- that you guys started together. - Yep.
- [Juan] You guys really loved it, right? - Yes. Yes.
[Juan] Now that it's a little bit bigger,
she's a little scared of it.
- [Terry] Yeah, she could be. - Well, what if we took a little time,
and we taught her how to run the excavator?
[Terry] Okay.
Well, my hat's off to you guys if you could do it.
[all laughing]
- [Freddy] I see that, too. - Honestly, you know,
I've been wanting her to be a part
since I've got this going,
but she's intimidated due to the size of the equipment.
Yeah.
Now, the money part of it.
We figure that it's gonna take about $3,200 in materials
to do what we want to do here this week.
[Terry] Well, I'm on a very tight budget,
you know, so, uh, almost breaking the bank,
but I'm just happy you guys are here to do this.
[Freddy] Deal, then. Good deal.
- [Terry] Thank you very much, guys. - [Juan] Sounds good.
I appreciate it so much.
Freddy and Juan mentioned to me about maybe seeing
about getting Stephanie, my wife,
to jump into an excavator.
I thought I would never, ever see the day,
and maybe still not, you know?
I think that's gonna be one of the biggest things of all
is to get her to feel confident enough
to even try, you know,
so I guess time will tell.
[narrator] While they wait for Stephanie to arrive
at the claim,
Juan begins work in his cut trailer.
[Juan] So, we're gonna add a couple vibrators
to his feed hopper.
The way these vibrators work,
you gotta put 'em on a base plate,
and then you actually weld them to the structure,
but whatever you do, you want to make sure
that the material that you're welding to
is strong enough to be able to hold up to the vibration.
So, what we're gonna do is we're gonna add
a half-inch plate as a base plate for it,
and that'll transfer the vibration to the hopper,
so that way, it can properly clean
the material down in the hopper.
[narrator] By the wash plant,
Freddy starts teaching Terry to windrow,
an old miners' trick
to dry out dirt going to the plant.
Start, put one there,
one there, one here, loader bucket,
and then one next to it, boom, boom, boom,
and then next to it, boom, boom, boom.
All right!
Back in the hunt.
- [Freddy] Oh, this is perfect. See how it... - [Terry] Yep.
Just keep it veed at the top, like you got it, right...
- [Terry] Okay. - ...then put the next one next to this one,
and the next one, and the next one, all right?
It's hard to do, but don't pile 'em into each other,
- so you got this Vee... - [Terry] Yes.
- ...and then you got this Vee, so that water can run off. - [Terry] Gotcha.
[narrator] Windrowing allows air to get
to a large surface area of paydirt,
and encourages excess moisture to evaporate.
Dry pay should mean less clogging at the plant.
[Freddy] Sometimes it's the little things
that make a big difference.
No difference here.
If we can keep the material dry,
it's gonna make a huge difference here.
It sounds like a little thing.
"So your dirt's got water in it."
Well, it's a huge thing.
[narrator] As Terry dries the pay,
wife Stephanie arrives at the mine site.
[Freddy] I think just one person does it.
- [Juan] Yeah. - That way, it doesn't look like you're
- ganging up on her. - [Juan] Like, ganging up on her, yeah.
[Freddy] So, uh, flip a coin on it?
- Yeah, let's do it. - [Freddy] You call it in the air.
[Juan] All right. Heads.
Heads you talk to her.
[Juan] Okay.
- Heads it is. - Argh. All right.
I guess it's me, Fred.
- [Freddy] It's you. - [Juan] Well, I'll take the quarter, then.
- [Freddy chuckling] Well, let's go talk to them. - Let's go. [chuckles]
[Freddy] I've never won a coin flip, and that's one
I didn't want to win.
[Juan] Hey, Stephanie. Hey, killer.
What was her name again?
[Stephanie] Athena.
[Juan] Athena. Athena, you little cutie!
Is she part pit bull?
- [Stephanie] No. - [Juan] No?
[both chuckle]
[Juan] I had a pit bill that thought he was a chihuahua.
He's 120 pounds, and he'd want to get on your lap, and...
- [chuckles] - ...lick you like a popsicle all the time.
I'm like, "Come on, get off me."
[both chuckle]
So what's your biggest fear, here, honestly?
You know, when you guys started out,
you really enjoyed it.
- Mmm-hmm. - You enjoyed being a part of it...
- Yeah. - ...and it was kind of a family adventure.
[Stephanie] It's huge.
I don't know.
It just is intimidating.
I worry about injury...
- [Juan] Yeah. - [Stephanie] ...you know, for one.
I'm a nurse's aide, I'm not a nurse,
- but my arms and legs are my livelihood, right? - Yeah.
[Stephanie] So, I really can't get hurt here,
and then not be able to work.
[Juan] I get that.
So, what we wanted to talk to you about is
seeing if you would be willing to get in the excavator.
Um...
I don't think so.
Terry would bring you the material.
You just drop it into the hopper.
[Stephanie] No.
I'm not gonna be able to even try it.
All the work that Terry's doing on his own is just...
It's way too much work for one person to do.
In order to be able to make this
cash-positive or feasible,
Terry really could use the help,
so it'll go from being two and a half yards an hour
to 10, 15 yards an hour, where you guys need to be.
[Stephanie] I don't know.
[Juan] Well, my wife she's a five-foot-nothing,
you know, a little Hawaiian gal,
and she's actually a better operator than me.
Whenever we're doing stuff at the shop,
she's actually the one that runs the excavator for me.
You know, it's something that she enjoys,
and once you kind of get the hang of
how the controls in that excavator work,
it's actually pretty simple to run.
Okay.
- Good sport. - I could try.
- I'm not gonna promise anything, but... - [chuckles]
Well, that's all we can ask for.
[Stephanie] I'm a little nervous.
A lot nervous. [chuckles]
But I'm willing to try.
Hey, Freddy. Well, I got some good news.
I talked to Stephanie
and, you know, she's open to the idea.
- Good job, man. - Now I'm happy.
You know, I told her, I'm like, "Hey, you know what?
At the end of the day,
your husband really needs the help."
And she's like, "I know, I know.
You know, I want to help."
I'm like, "Well, this is an opportunity
- for you to help, so..." - Yeah.
- Well, I'm glad I lost that coin toss, 'cause... - [chuckles]
- Put that on me, yeah. - Yeah, you're a lot better talker
- than I am when it counts. - Yeah, I got the gift of gab.
[Freddy] You do.
[Juan] So what do you think, Stephanie?
- You ready to give it a shot? - Sure am.
[Juan] All right, Stephanie. Come on up.
Made you a little ramp here.
[Terry] I'm not too sure how things are gonna turn out,
but I never thought I would ever see her in an excavator
coming down and doing it.
[Juan] Let's go through the... the controls on this.
First off, we have your throttle there.
Also, it's a kill switch.
So, you go all the way forward, it actually kills the...
kills the motor, shuts off the fuel.
Pull it back towards you lifts up the boom, right?
- [Stephanie] Lifts up the boom, yeah. - Okay, perfect.
So then you push it away from you, drops the boom.
Then you go to the left, bucket in, right?
- [Stephanie] Bucket in, yeah. - [Juan] Okay.
And to the right, opens up the bucket.
So then here, bring this one towards you,
- that brings your stick in, right? - I can't wait.
Stick in, stick out.
- So that goes to the right, and that's to the left. - [Stephanie] ...to the left.
- [Juan] Well, let's start it up and let's give it a shot. - Okay, ignition...
[Juan] Pull that throttle back just a little bit...
- [engine starting] - All right, right there. All right.
We'll just grab a bucket of dirt right there out of that pile.
You can drop your boom now.
Yeah, now remember stick in...
- Other way. - Okay.
You're fine.
Now you're gonna want to lift your boom up at the same time.
Okay, then now curl. Now curl.
- That's pretty good. - Not bad, not bad.
[Freddy] Well, that's pretty cool,
your wife rode on that tractor.
I know, right?
I... I can't believe Juan actually convinced her to, uh, get in there.
[narrator] At the plant, Freddy and Terry get started on the first fix...
Old meat hammer.
[narrator] ...diverting water from the malfunctioning centrifugal bowl.
[Freddy] During that three hour run,
we noticed that that bowl had gold coming out of the end of it.
Did a few test bands on it, so...
...we're gonna bypass the bowl and get the material feeding in to this line here...
...which will go into a sluice, so that end of the new sluice system
strictly designed for that really, really fine gold.
[narrator] Unlike most wash plants which are joined up,
Terry's uses an elaborate system
which takes dirt from the wash plant
to the sluice spots in four large pipes.
Freddy plans to disconnect the bulb and use a T-junction to divert the water
into the new, wider sluice system.
[Freddy] There's always an unknown here somewhere
when you start playing with this water and that material.
Let's just hope it works the way we think it's gonna work.
I mean, we only got quite a few days,
so we don't have time to screw up.
- How's that? - [Terry] Oh, that sounds... You know what?
- Let's get to work. - Yeah.
[Freddy] What we're gonna do is unhook this,
- and we're gonna put a T in here. - [Terry] Okay.
Got her, yup, I did.
- [Freddy] Here we go. - [Terry] All right, there we go.
Damn, rubber a little bit on the tight side, isn't it?
[Freddy] We should be able to make this work.
- Square peg, round hole. - [Terry] Yup.
Oh, there... it went almost a good foot, eh?
You'd think there'd be enough flux in that.
Let's try to get this one over here.
- [Terry] Okay. - [Freddy] On here.
[Terry] So, I guess that we're gonna have to try to bend it
- and put it on here, right? - [Freddy] Yep.
- You ready? - [Terry] Yup, I am.
[Freddy] Here's where I pinch a finger...
- I think she's close. - [Terry] Yeah, I think she looks pretty good.
[Freddy grunting] You bugger.
- [Terry] Okay? - [Freddy] Okay.
Here we go.
[Terry] Look at that.
That went on there really nice, Freddy.
Sometimes you look at it, you go, "Oh, that's gonna take...
...10, 15 minutes," and it ends up taking two hours.
So, we're kind of running behind.
So, start opening your bucket slowly.
Okay, stop.
All the way to the right.
Okay, stop.
You got this, okay?
[narrator] One hour into her excavator master class,
it's time for Stephanie to go it alone.
[Juan] If you feel at any moment, you know, you panic,
- just let go of everything. - Let go.
- Put your hands on your lap and regroup, okay? - Okay.
[Juan] Let me just jump out.
Go ahead and drop that in, Stephanie!
[sighing] Okay.
I'm gonna try right...
Ooh, no, I'm gonna go up.
[humming] Doo-doo-doo...
Turn left, oh... Turn left...
Yeah, lots of nerves.
You gotta move those hand pedals simultaneously,
and pull the boom out, arm out,
all of... kind of at the same time.
Anything can go wrong, and...
...they're big.
[silently] Again...
[mumbling] Try it again.
Straight back into the lock command...
Oh, big rock.
Little nerve-wracking still...
...especially when the machine shakes.
[Terry] My wife's very supportive,
but to jump in, in the sense of having
no fear jumping into equipment,
is a huge step.
[Stephanie] It was nerve-wracking...
...heart-racing, hand-sweating.
Yeah, lots of nerves.
[Juan] I'm hoping by tomorrow or the next day,
we'll have her running that efficiently and being able to feed the plant.
But, she was really nervous, so I'm worried about it.
[Terry] Get that... stupid thing in there.
Nothing's ever as easy as you think it's gonna be, is it?
No.
[narrator] At the wash plant, time is running out
as Freddy and Terry continue to battle the unusual plumbing system.
We want the gold in his pocket not laying there in that hose.
[narrator] If the pipes sag in the middle,
gold could settle in the bottom
before it even reaches the sluice boxes.
- [Freddy] Okay, you're gonna have to do all the... - [Terry] Yup, don't worry.
[Freddy] I'll bench press this and this again.
[Terry] Okay, Freddy. Hold it.
Eh, you don't have the most comfortable rocks around here, I'll tell you that much.
- [Terry] Okay, I'm gonna take her up. - [Freddy] Do her.
[Terry] She looks good!
Here we go, Freddy. Let her go!
- [Freddy] So far, so good, huh? - [Terry] It's holding!
[Freddy] We got the plumbing work done...
...to bypass the bowl down there,
and get it into the sluice.
But, we won't know...
...how good it's gonna work until we fire the plant up.
Juan and myself have done a lot of stuff,
but that doesn't mean we...
...aren't gonna get bit in the butt on this one, on that plumbing.
So, I got a... I got a little bit of reservation going on.
We're running out of time, right now I'm trying to finish
up this sluice box, Freddy's up at the mine site.
Ah!
[narrator] Freddy and Juan have less than 36 hours left
to help struggling miner Terry Lind and wife Stephanie.
There we go.
[narrator] And, there's still a new innovative sluice box to build.
[Juan] You know, this sluice box is gonna be just a little bit different.
It comes in, it's only a seven and a half inch opening.
But where it comes out to the sluice itself, it's gonna bell out,
it's gonna go to 26 inches wide.
So that way that material that's coming through,
has enough time to be able to spread out and properly get sluiced down that box.
[narrator] The wider sluice will slow down the water flow,
allowing gold to settle into the riffles.
[Juan] So we got it all cut out, all the pieces are ready to go,
we're gonna let 'em cool down a minute,
then we're gonna clean them up,
we'll start assembling the sluice box.
[narrator] As Juan races towards the finish line...
[Stephanie] I'm a little short.
Okay.
[narrator] Stephanie is back in the excavator.
[Stephanie] I never actually thought I would...
...drive one, ever.
[narrator] For the Linds to achieve their dream of profitable full-time mine,
they must be a team operation.
[Stephanie] I wanna try, I wanna help him.
If this doesn't work, I don't... I don't know.
I don't even wanna think of that if it doesn't work.
[Freddy] Hey, Terry. You wanna spin her around?
Let's get this counterweight here...
- [Terry] Oh. - [Freddy] ...down to the bottom.
- [Terry] Okay. Right there? - [Freddy] Right there, sir.
[narrator] Before Juan's sluices attach to the plant,
Freddy has one final clog point to sort on the shaker deck.
- [Freddy] We'll put a heavier counterweight in here. - [Terry] Yes.
And it'll give it more throw and it's gonna wash your rocks better.
And it'll keep these grizzlies cleaner.
[Terry] That sounds awesome.
[Freddy] Right now, up there, that's only shaking about a sixteenth of an inch,
which isn't enough to get that rock really moving,
and to get it really washing and flipping over in there.
So, we're just gonna have to weld some more
counterweight onto the weights that are inside of there.
It'll either, uh, work or it won't work. Time will tell.
[narrator] A heavier counterweight will not only
vibrate the screens more violently,
it will also prevent clogging, allowing more paydirt to reach the sluices.
[Terry shouting]
[Freddy] Now, the fun stuff...
[narrator] For Freddy, no job is too tight.
[sarcastically] Oh! Those bolts are comfortable.
I had more room when I was born!
- Eyeballs! - [Terry] Yup.
- [Terry] How's it going? - It's not going great.
[Terry] Have you been to yoga before, or what?
[Freddy] I'm probably the least flexible person...
...you've ever known.
Okay, that's welded on.
- [Terry] It's all good. - Yes, sir.
Now the fun part, getting out.
[Freddy] Who designed this thing?
- Got her. - You're out.
- I think... - Yeah.
You're not tagged on anything here, either.
[Terry] You know, Freddy had struggled a little bit there,
but, uh, you know, he's hoping by...
by adding that extra weight, this'll, uh, solve the problem
and, uh, get me more yardage at the end of the day.
[Freddy] Fire it up!
Let's see what she does.
[Terry] Firing it up!
Well, it definitely sounds a little bit better!
Can hear a little bit more of a shake on there.
[machine sputtering]
[Freddy] Well, I'd say we run her like that,
- see what she does. - All right, okay.
That sounds good to me.
Well, another pretty productive day.
Once again, things took longer than they should've.
We already assume they do, but we got a lot done.
Go check on Juan now, he's out finishing that sluice box.
[Juan] You know, honestly, it's all hands on deck right now.
Divide and conquer, hopefully we'll get it all done in time.
You know, it doesn't matter how great of a shaker you have,
or how great of a trommel you have.
If your sluice box is inadequate,
that means nothing.
So I'm hoping that this sluice box that we're building for 'em
is gonna take it to the next level,
'cause right now he's puking gold out of that bowl.
We can't have that.
I'm happy with that.
Looks good.
[Freddy] How's it going, Juan?
Well, Fred, we're just getting cleaned up.
Sluice is pretty much done.
I got, uh, the base plates for the vibrators
all cut out, drilled, and tapped, ready to go.
- [Freddy] It looks good, Juan. - [Juan] Came out good, I'm happy with it.
[Freddy] It looks really good, yeah.
You got the carpets and ripples, too?
We got it done.
[Juan] Ready to go, so tomorrow morning, first thing,
we'll be able to get in there and get it all installed,
and hopefully by the end of the day, we'll be ready to run.
We need to be ready tomorrow.
[Freddy] I see there's an old cabin here.
[Terry] Yeah, this is an old miner's cabin.
[narrator] On Terry's claim, evidence of the old-timers near a running stream
could mean good gold is still in the ground.
[Freddy] They'd have panned their way through here,
and when they got to here, they're like...
well, the gold's better here, most likely.
So, that's why they built the cabin.
This water running down here probably reconcentrated some gold right here.
I'm just looking at it through the grass and the trees and stuff,
trying to read it while we're standing here.
I imagine she's pretty good water too, huh?
It's good and it's cold.
Yes.
[narrator] But gold isn't the only thing this water might carry.
Growing up, where I grew up in the mountains of Colorado,
our water was just right out of a creek like this.
Everybody up there would die of beaver fever
or something, you know, or Giardia.
But, uh, it makes you poop your pants once in a while till you get through it.
[narrator] It's the final day of fixes
at Terry Lind's claim.
Well, let's get it loaded up and get it up there.
- [Freddy] You got her, bud? - [Juan] Oh, yeah.
- Hold on, let me get my hand out of there. - [Freddy] Hurry.
I got it.
- [Juan] Yup. - [Freddy] Go in, bud.
[Juan] Ready to go.
[Freddy] How's that sluice box doing on the back of the truck?
It's still lookin' strapped down tight.
Yeah, it's still pretty tight. Looks good, Freddy.
[narrator] With just hours to go until the final test run,
Juan's new funnel-shaped sluice heads for the Lind's wash plant.
[Terry] Okay, stop, stop...
Oh, wow.
She looks really good.
[Freddy] Juan did a good job on it.
[Terry] Yeah, he sure did.
[Freddy] Well, let's pick it up and set a new sluice box, Terry.
Coming your way...
[Terry] Oh, look at that.
[Freddy] Look at that, Terry.
[Terry] Hey, fit in there just perfect, Freddy.
[Freddy] Well, I like it.
This one's gonna be rigged up strictly for fine gold.
- It'll catch little nuggets, too. - [Terry] Yes.
[Freddy] We're gonna make it where it's in love with the fine gold.
Before you were divorcing the fine gold.
- [Terry] Okay. - Now, we wanna make this box fall in love with it.
[Terry] Awesome.
[narrator] As Freddy and Terry weld on the sluice,
Juan has a double fix for the extra wet paydirt clogging the hopper.
You can see all these marks right here.
This is where Terry's been beating on the side of this hopper
trying to get all that material broke free.
So what we're gonna do is we're gonna cast one mound in horizontally
and one vertically, so that way we have two different motions going on.
It's gonna increase the material through the plant,
and at the end of the day, it's gonna increase his gold recovery.
We've never done that before, and hopefully it works.
Because the truth is, this is his biggest bottleneck.
[narrator] At the sluice, there's one last thing to check.
I got multiple boards here, right?
So I can change the wets, 'cause we don't know exactly your water flow.
I'll have you fire the water up, and, uh,
- we'll watch that water flow through there. - [Terry] Okay.
And we may add more to one side,
and we may take away from one side.
But it gives us that option to do it on the fly.
[narrator] Changing the width of the boards
will control the water, allowing Freddy to set the sluice
at exactly the right speed.
[Freddy] There we go.
First water there...
I like it.
I think that water's just about right for what we need.
The water looks pretty good, there.
Now it's time to, uh...
Get some material with gold in it
running through the plant, see what it does.
- [Juan] We'll show you what we did. - [Terry] Awesome.
[Juan] During our initial test, we actually came down here
and panned some of the material that was coming out the bowl.
- [Terry] Yup. - [Juan] And there was still color in it.
So what we did is we redirected all the material and water.
It's not going through the bowl anymore,
it's gonna strictly come through the sluice.
Set up strictly for fine gold here.
[Terry] Now, that's pretty cool, guys.
[Freddy] Well on the screen, Terry, it wasn't shaking quite hard enough.
[Terry] That's right.
[Freddy] But we, uh, put that extra weight on that counterweight.
It can scrub the material better.
The more material we can get feeding through here,
- the more gold you're gonna have in your sluice box. - Yup.
But the biggest thing is out here on this feeder.
Your material is just so gummy.
- [Terry] Yes. - [Freddy] So while Juan
was cuttin' plates for the sluices,
he cut mounting brackets for those vibrators.
The vibration probably won't solve 100 percent your problem with feeding,
but it'll eliminate a lot of it.
That sounds really good to me, guys.
You know, anything's better than what I was doing before.
[narrator] There's one more piece to the puzzle...
[Juan] Well, Stephanie, you ready for this?
Moment of truth, huh?
[Stephanie] I think so.
[narrator] ...making this a true two-person operation.
As long as you did what you did over here the other day,
you'll be fine.
- Okay. - [Juan] All right? Let's go.
[Stephanie] Hopefully everything just runs good and right, smoothly.
He needs help down there.
Well, it looks like Stephanie's ready,
so let's fire up the water pump and fire up the plant, huh?
Sounds great to me, Freddy.
- [Freddy] Fire it up, man. - Sounds good.
All right.
First bucket, Stephanie!
[Stephanie murmuring] Down from the bucket...
[Terry] I'm so excited to see her in there,
and to operate, and actually feeding the plant!
I'm so, so happy.
Oh.
That was indeed very powerful.
Okay.
Well, it's running a heck of a lot better than it was before, huh?
[Terry] That it is, Freddy.
[Freddy] Sluice is running really good.
I'm more than happy with it.
They said that bowl was spitting gold out before,
and, uh, hopefully what it was spitting out we'll now catch it.
I know Juan has better eyes than I do, but...
I don't see anything in it.
- [Juan] Nothing. - [Freddy] Nothing.
- Not a color. - I don't see nothing there either.
Not a... Not a piece missing there, Freddy.
- [Freddy] Are you happy with that? - I'm happy with that.
Well, look at that. I'm happy with that.
It is dropping.
[Freddy] Proof's in the pudding, here.
- Yes. - [Freddy] Proof's in the pudding there.
- [Terry] Yeah. - Let's hope you got enough gold here
to make a whole lot of pudding.
The vibration up top that counterweight made a huge difference.
[Terry] You could see that the material that's coming out the end of it,
- it's just clean. - [Freddy] Clean.
[Terry] And we're running three times
- as much material now, too. - [Freddy] Yeah.
You know, that's one thing we never saw before, Freddy.
He never had a full belt. Look at that.
How many times have you had to use the hammer on the feeder today?
[Terry] Not once.
Right, how many times you had it that first run?
- I... I lost count after five minutes. - [Freddy] Yeah.
- [Freddy] That... You hit it a thousand times? - You know? Yes, yes I did.
- No more blisters on your fingers today, huh? - [Terry] No more blisters, no.
[Juan] Stephanie's out here working with him.
You know, honestly, I don't think he could be happier.
[Stephanie] Nice.
[Juan] There you go. Perfect.
- You're not so nervous any more now, right? - Nope.
[Stephanie] Actually, I'm gonna go right now.
Well, Juan, we're right at three hours.
- Let's call last bucket. - [Juan] Yeah.
Let's do it.
[Freddy] Hey, Stephanie!
That's three hours, last bucket!
[Stephanie] Okay.
[Freddy] It ran better, huh?
Ran much better.
[Freddy] Well, good job.
Thank you.
[Terry] Hey, you! How's it going?
- [Stephanie] Good! - [Terry] My goodness, you're in the excavator!
- [Stephanie] I did it! - [Terry] High-five.
Great, hon. I'm so proud of you.
I never thought I would ever see her in an excavator.
This is a great, uh, pivotal moment, uh,
you know, for her, but also for me as well too.
We can work the claim, you know,
and be working towards our retirement.
[Juan] She got in there, she grabbed the bull by the horns.
You know, I'm hoping that now Terry and Stephanie can work together.
She did great.
[Juan] How's it look, Freddy?
[Freddy] I see a couple little pieces in there, Juan.
[Juan] Let's pull some carpets, huh?
- [Freddy] No time like the present, huh? - [Terry] No, let's do work!
Ah, the test run went, uh, actually really well.
For the first time, my whole plant ran, uh, efficiently the whole time.
So, I'm excited for the weigh-in.
[Terry] Here we go.
Well, Freddy, I got everything all dried up for you here.
This is what we got.
[Freddy] Well, there's definitely more gold there than there was the first run.
[Juan] A lot more fine gold, too.
It's your gold, dump it in there.
[Terry] All right.
That way if he spills it
- it's his own fault. - [Juan] It's on him.
[narrator] Terry's first run produced 0.06 of an ounce,
worth around $100.
[Freddy] Well...
- [Juan] Look at that. - [Freddy] .20.
Over three times as much.
- Awesome, - [Juan] That's pretty good.
- Not a bad improvement. - That's awesome.
[Terry] That works out to about six and a half grams,
so about, uh, 300 percent, uh, of an increase.
So that, to me, is a... is a huge success in itself.
[narrator] A 300 percent increase means the Linds
can easily achieve their half ounce target.
Over a four month season,
that could give them $120,000 worth of gold.
[Terry] This is a real big gamechanger for us.
Long-term, it means we actually have a future
doing some mining in this area.
- [Freddy] A lot of it was yardage, right? - Yes.
You couldn't run before.
You know the cool thing, Stephanie?
That's material you put in the plant.
[chuckling] I did. It's exciting.
Very happy.
With such a big increase,
we can actually start putting back
some of this money that we have invested in it.
I'm excited I actually can be a part now.
I know how to help Terry, I learned how to drive the excavator and...
I'm really excited.
Ah, it makes me feel happy that I can help you again.
I don't feel like I'm a disappointment.
Well, you never have been.
I can't wait to do more.
I know, right?
Well, let's get on the road and go help some more gold miners.
Let's do it.
What do you say?
Do you wanna go and, uh, start digging some dirt
and then start running it through the plant?
- Absolutely. - Awesome, come here.
[kissing]
- [Terry] Love you. - Love you, too.
All right, let's go. Let's go get some gold.