Was once a thousand people right here.
Then it dropped to 150 and now it's a ghost town.
150 years ago, definitely a lot of gold in this area.
- The saloon, huh? - Must have been, huh?
Just think, you know, the guys, they mined
all the gold and they probably spent a lot of it right here.
Yep. A lot of those old gold miners,
they came to get rich, but they spent every bit of it
- and blew it all. - Yeah.
Old rocker box, the poor man's wash plant.
- Yeah. - It was way faster than a gold pan.
They could run a hundred times the amount of material
they could panning.
- Pretty neat to see. - It is.
Well, let's get down to that mine. Check on the guys.
Well, Freddy, this is our third time in Montana
in the last few years, huh?
Yeah, Roger that, Juan-O.
That sure is pretty, huh?
So what do we know about these folks, Fred?
Well, their names are Rich and Kevin and they're brothers.
They've been in here two years.
Nice.
Freddy and Juan pushed deep into Big Sky country,
70 miles west of Helena,
snaking towards a struggling mine owned by the Dietz brothers,
who, after decades apart, reunited over the dream
of mining gold.
Do you know anything about their plant?
Well, they said they've got a small trommel
they can't seem to keep running.
They seem to think they're cursed in this valley.
I know a lot of miners are kind of superstitious.
I kind of feel like you make your own luck
and you make your own destiny.
Do you know Montana's motto? It's actually oro y plata.
You know what that means?
Gold.
And I'm not sure on plata.
Silver.
Yeah, 10-4, gold and silver.
In the early 1860s, the discovery of large gold
and silver deposits attracted so many fortune seekers
to this region that the federal government
created a new territory called Montana.
State capital, Helena, started off as a mining camp in 1864,
and by the late 1800s, the riches pulled out
created more millionaires per capita than anywhere else in the nation.
Even today, there are nearly 5,000 gold mines in the state.
- Hi. - How's it going, guys?
- Good. How you doing? - Doing all right.
- I'm Kevin. - Freddy.
- Nice to meet you. - Freddy.
- Kevin. - Nice to meet you, Ron.
- Rich. - Glad to meet you, Rich.
- Yeah. - Thank you for coming.
They've mined a lot of gold out of these valleys.
- Definitely gold country. - Oh, definitely, yeah.
Yeah.
This land was for sale when I called Kevin up.
We knew there was gold up here with the history,
and we found gold on it right off the bat.
So we thought this would be a good place.
What made me want to be a gold miner was my quest for adventure.
I spent a week here, a week there, gold mining,
and now it's turned into something a bit more than that.
Now, both in their 60s, brothers Rich and Kevin Dietz
quit the daily grind in pursuit of gold.
I was in a rock and roll band until I was about 23.
Then 25 years in an insurance field.
Started in sales and moved my way up to eventually
a vice president.
For the last 20 years, I've been doing background investigations
on people looking for jobs,
but I had a dream of doing this.
The brothers were brought up by their mom in Casper, Wyoming.
It was hard for her. She had three jobs,
and she wasn't around very much.
I'm the oldest, then my brother Randy, and then Kevin, and then Kyle.
I became the young son who got picked on.
Consequently, I left home when I was 14,
and literally until four years ago that we...
acquaintance may be a better word than brothers,
and we reconnected through gold.
We're really glad you're here, because we need help.
How much gold you produced last year?
We produced five ounces, and we moved about
500 yards of dirt.
This year we moved about 700 yards of dirt,
and we've got about three ounces.
So we've went back the way.
It's going, yeah, the wrong direction.
What are you guys looking at for amounts of gold
you need to keep mining in here?
We need about an ounce a day.
What's the most you've ever done in a day?
- Half ounce? - Yeah, maybe.
So you're not making money is what you're saying?
No, we're not even close.
We're in big trouble.
I have $75,000 in cash invested.
Rich probably has three, four times that.
Yeah, I don't know. I don't want to know.
Right.
Basically, I've put everything I've got into this.
I've sold my classic car, my '68 Mustang.
We sold all my equipment, so everything I've got
is invested right here, right now.
If this doesn't work out, I start over.
After sinking their pensions, savings,
and more into the operation, so far, the return
has not been worth the risk.
I named my wash plant Voodoo because this is like a curse.
It consumes you.
It really does.
This is the feeder.
The chain is broken there right now.
This is our excavator.
We've had lots of breakdowns.
Cash doesn't grow on trees.
I don't want to just throw it away
without potentially seeing some sort of return on investment.
Our land has been heavily mined through the years.
We were confident when we bought the land,
that the old timers have not got it all.
But now, I'm losing hope that there's commercial gold
on this land.
And as we stand here today, I don't see a next year.
I'm hoping that Freddy and Juan can help us
learn how to be better gold miners.
We are just a small operation. Everybody has to start somewhere.
Well, we kind of got a lay of the land now.
Why don't we take a look at the plant, Fred?
- Yeah. - Let's do it.
Nice little setup you guys got here.
Thank you.
- Did you build this plant? - Yeah.
It's kind of my creation.
Rich built his entire trommel by watching internet videos.
What kind of yards can you run through it?
Comfortably 20 yards an hour.
- That's an old sander. - Yes.
And it's not really made for rocks that we're running.
We've had considerable breakdowns
after breakdown, after breakdown.
So this isn't working right now at the moment, huh?
- No, the chain is broken right now. - Yeah.
- Okay. - We can run the hydraulics and the belt,
but we can't run the chain.
At the shop, it worked great.
But then you get it up here in the material in the real world.
They're just not doing what I thought it would do.
So how are you feeding the plant?
What we're doing is just going up here and dumping slowly.
So you're just feeding directly on top of that conveyor?
- Okay. - Feeding directly right into here.
And then it goes up into the hopper.
Okay.
We'll have a look at the sluices. Hey, Juano?
Here's a nugget trap.
What's the biggest nugget you found?
About the width of a dime.
It was only like about, I think, three grams or two grams.
Yeah.
For extra support, Rich and Kevin
brought in friends Lyn and Jerry.
- How you gentlemen doing? - How's it going, guys?
- Lyn. - Lyn.
- Freddy. - Nice to meet you.
- And Jerry. - Jerry, nice to meet you.
Well, guys, you know what Freddy and I really like
to do is we like to come into a situation,
kind of see what you guys got going on, do a test run.
And Freddy and I are just going to walk around
- and see what's happening. - See what your problems are, your issues.
- Yeah. - We'd like to do a four-hour test.
- Okay. - Okay.
- Let's do it, huh? - Let's fire it up.
Fire it up.
Water's coming. Here it comes.
Fire up the trommel.
That's kind of slow that way.
Yeah.
The hopper provides a steady feed of pay onto the belt.
With it out of commission, Jerry must carefully
load directly onto the conveyor,
leaving it empty for a third of their run time
and slashing yardage by roughly 30%.
The conveyor carries dirt up to a pre-wash
before it passes through the eight-foot trommel
that Rich fabricated in his workshop.
Material then drops into the 20-foot sluice run,
where gold should settle in the riffles.
Jerry, Jerry, got a copy?
Kevin, we don't care about that.
Now, that son of a gun's packed.
- Yeah, it is. - Holy cow.
This is just a pack.
A pack-it-up, machine is what they've got here.
A pack-it-up, gold-losing machine is what it is.
- Yep. - There's nowhere for it to sit.
Twenty minutes in, Rich's handmade riffles
are already clogged.
Any fine gold will be washed off
the end of the sluice and lost.
I have to get away to get that material evened out.
Right now, it's screwed up.
The material they're running doesn't look good.
Nothing.
I really don't like the look of that material.
- Really, nothing. - One little bitty speck.
- You want to pan on that pay pile? - Yeah, let's do it.
We haven't even ran an hour, but we're not finding much gold.
- You seeing anything? - No, it doesn't look good at all, Freddy.
- No. - It's supposed to be a gold country back here.
- Want me to pan it for you? - Here, you pan this one.
See what we find.
There's nothing to speak of?
Well, I think we ought to shut it down.
- What do you think, Juan? - I agree.
We're just wasting fuel.
Hey, Rich.
Yes, sir.
I'll let this be your call, but I think we ought
to shut the plant down.
Juan just panned one out of this material here.
- Mm-hmm. - Found one tiny, tiny speck.
Right now, we're just burning fuel.
Right. Then there's no point in doing it.
Okay. Well, let's shut it down.
Guys, we've got to shut it down.
Freddy's timer at just 40 minutes.
The first test ends.
This might be the shortest run of our history.
We're not finding hardly any gold in it at all.
Where it's mainly just dirt, and dirt's for growing potatoes,
not for gold.
We'll clean it up, and we'll see what we get.
Dang it. That was a cluster [bleep].
Total cluster
All right, brother. You hold this, and I'll move the bucket.
I'm [bleep] tired of this [bleep].
The relationship with my brother right now is rocky at best.
He's my big brother, and I'm the little brother.
We see things two different ways.
Kevin and I, we've never been real close,
so the time we get to spend together is good.
Sometimes we fight and whatnot,
and it isn't very pleasant for him, and it isn't very pleasant for me.
We're both stubborn and pretty pig-headed.
Not a doctor or a psychiatrist,
just so you know.
I don't expect you to be, but if you could do some work
between me and my brother, it'd be great.
I'm sorry. This whole thing's going to hell. It really is.
Gold brought the brothers together again,
but now risks driving them further apart.
This is not worth, you know, losing a brother or friend
or anything.
This could cost Rich and me a relationship
that we're trying to rebuild, and it could cost him.
It could cost him everything.
Ooh, that's what we said.
Well, it is what it is.
Let's run it and see what it does.
Scale don't lie.
The Dietz brothers' one-ounce-a-day goal means
their 40-minute test run needs to deliver
well over 0.1 of an ounce.
0.06, guys.
That's, um...
really disappointing. I mean...
I'm just guessing that I'd say 75% of the material
- that was ran through that plant. - Just dirt.
- Yeah. - Leave it right where you found it.
You know, the problem is, if you go in there
and you pan, you see the odd piece
and you get excited. You want to run it all,
but the truth of the matter is you're wearing down your plant.
You're wearing down your equipment
for something that has minimal, minimal gold in it.
This concerns me greatly because I want my family
to be successful.
But at some point, the money runs out.
That's how gold mining is, though.
- I mean, it's always a gamble. - And that's my concern.
So this is what you're digging?
Yeah, this is the material right here.
We don't really know where the layers is.
After a disappointing first test run,
Freddy's first step, investigate the Dietz brothers' pay.
How are you breaking this bedrock up?
We're just using the excavator out there,
but it went down the day before you guys got here.
That almost looks like a mix of gravel and volcanic ash.
When the stuff gets dried, does it turn to, like, a powder on you?
- Yes. - Yep.
Absolutely.
You can see it, Juan. Even though it's wet.
Powder.
So it's a streambed of some kind at some point,
and then whatever volcano put this ash down.
The Edel Mountains in Montana is an ancient volcanic field
active about a hundred million years ago.
Its volcanoes have eroded away, but the ash
from their eruptions remains in the subsoil,
mixed with the region's pockets of gold-rich pay dirt.
That's probably not very good stuff right there.
When we got down to this stuff,
- we really didn't plan much. - I wouldn't even play with that.
Freddy and I, we always tell people this
when we first get there.
We can help you guys find more gold.
We can help you guys catch more gold, but we can't put gold in the ground.
That's what I'm concerned about.
And just know, on this property,
that's what it's going to be. It's going to be a treasure hunt.
You're going to find these spots, you're going to run them.
You can't just take the whole dang hill because
it has a little bit of gold in the beginning.
I'm sure there's a tremendous amount of gold around here,
but this whole pit right here in my eyes has played out.
So this is the retirement plan then?
I'm all in. I've got this as the only thing I've got,
I've auctioned off everything I've got.
The old timers worked at it many years ago,
and they did it by hand.
I believe, and everybody we've talked to believes the gold is here.
Ooh.
Sometimes gold gives people wealth,
- and sometimes gold takes people's wealth away. - Taketh away.
Hopefully we can help you where you're not
throwing away your retirement money to go gold mining.
Without Juan and Freddy,
we're going to tear a whole hill out and not get nothing.
Without them, this thing doesn't go past next week.
We're in another one of those situations here
where we really, really want to help these guys,
but we're only here a few days.
Just driving in, Juan and myself could see
that the amount of work they did in these valleys wasn't for nothing.
There was gold here, and there's still gold here.
Just got to find it.
We've got a lot to do today, Fred.
Yeah. The material they were running, what'd you find?
- One speck. - One speck.
With the time we have, I think a big part of what
we need to do here is help them get on some better ground.
I agree with you, because it doesn't matter
how tuned up we get the sluice box.
- Yeah. - If there's no gold in the dirt.
It's kind of a tough one, Freddy.
Well, what do you think if we can possibly fix that track hoe?
We definitely need that track hoe running.
We'll be able to go up and prospect.
Well, we can't do anything without it.
There's a few things that we can do on the plant.
Well, we've got that sander, right?
- Yeah. - It's got a steel plate, yeah,
with chain links on the side.
They said it's broke, so it's made to just move sand,
- and they're putting rocks in it. - Yeah.
And those rocks are getting caught in that chain
- and breaking it. - Binding up and popping it up.
And then the sluice, the water's going to one side,
and the material's going to the other side.
- It's a nightmare. - Yeah.
I think what we do here is just put some plates
underneath at an angle and force it to the center.
And you know what's going to happen when it comes out of the center.
- It's going to spread properly, right? - Then it spreads evenly.
The structure of the box is good, but everything else
is going to have to be replaced. All new riffles, hold downs,
carpets, under carpets, everything.
- Everything in it. - It'll be a complete box.
2,600 total to do it all, just in material.
What do you think about labor for us?
An ounce of gold apiece, so 2,600.
- Plus two ounces of gold. - Yeah.
I know Kevin's really nervous about the cost of all of this,
- Mm-hmm. - but that's what we need.
Freddy and Juan identify three key problems
with the operation.
First, the drive chain on the feeder's conveyor
is broken.
Repairing it will ensure a consistent feed of pay
and increase the yardage run by 30%.
Second, uneven distribution of water and material causes
the sluice to clog up.
Juan and Freddy will upgrade the carpet and riffles
in the sluice box
and attach metal plates to force the flow of material
to the middle, creating an even spread.
Third, and most importantly, if they can't repair
the excavator and find more gold on the site,
all these fixes will mean nothing.
How's it going, guys?
- Good. How you doing? - Good.
Doing all right?
A couple things that we want to do,
we want to fix your guys' feeder. Obviously, you know it's broke.
- The chain, yeah. - Your sluice is plugged solid top to bottom
when you ran yesterday.
- Mm-hmm. - So any real fine gold that's in your deposit,
you're going to lose a lot of it.
- All right. - You'll see that your water's going one direction
and your material's going the other in the first part of that sluice box, right?
- Yeah. - So I want to design a system
to get that material centered.
- And then it can actually disperse out and evenly feed. - Right.
We'll get a roll of good miner's moss.
So it actually has a place for that gold
- to get locked in there and get trapped. - It's expensive.
You know, it's like 700 bucks for a roll.
And then on top of that, I watched you guys clean it up
the other day. You actually have to bring out an impact,
wrenches, and everything else to be able to get it all taken apart.
What we want to do, we want to eliminate all that
and actually build a set of proper tie downs for it.
- Perfect. - Yeah.
- Great. - You only need a hammer.
Yeah. Quick, easy.
He knows how to use one.
So 2,600 is what we're looking at in material.
And then, once you guys get going,
we'd like an ounce of gold apiece for our labor.
We aren't making really anything on it,
but it covers our expenses.
I totally appreciate the information.
And it's no surprise that we're having problems.
And I mean, just you guys being here has opened up
- my eyes to what's possible, because we're losing a lot. - Yeah.
And that's got to be fixed.
I totally understand.
Sometimes you've got to invest money to make money.
- You always do. - Sometimes you have to bite the bullet
and, you know, go a little bit further.
If we walk away now, we're not going to get
- any better than what we are. - Well, let's do it then.
- Okay. Let's do it. - Sounds great.
- Thank you, gentlemen. - Thank you.
Okay, then.
Kevin is a numbers guy. So when he says do it,
it was a big load off of my mind.
I'm hoping that this will all work out
and everybody will learn from it and grow together.
The reason why it matters so much to me
with my brother is that I miss that family connection
that a lot of families have.
I'm still hopeful that that will change
with the finding of sufficient gold.
- How's it going, Kevin? - Good, Freddy. How you doing?
- Bring your map? - Oh, I did.
Here's a look at it right here.
In the historic gold-rich hills of western Montana,
Freddy Dodge and mine owner Kevin Dietz
ready the hunt for ground the old timers missed.
- Shaped like a snake. - Yeah.
- Long and skinny, huh? - Skinny.
It has all the markings in terms of the boundaries,
but it also has areas of where the past miners
have mined. Why don't I show you around?
What we're doing right now is more important than anything else
we're doing for it.
You could have the nicest wash plant in the world
and you just sit there and polish it every day
'cause you don't have any gold to run through it, right?
- True. - I want to show you something on these rocks over here.
- Okay. - Okay.
- You see that? - Yeah.
You can see how the old timers stacked those walls in there?
- Yep. - For them to go through that much work to do that,
evidently there was some flipping good gold right there.
Over time, that stuff just keeps slowly, slowly,
slowly working down. So at one time,
this whole pile would have been over the creek
and the water would have flowed through it.
As the rock face eroded over millions of years,
it covered the gold-rich creek at the bottom of the hillside.
To recover the gold, the old timers shifted
tons of rock off the creek bed by hand and used it to build
a retaining wall, preventing further rock slides
while they mined.
- Well, let's keep looking around, huh? - Okay, sounds good.
I want to look at it from the top
- and kind of get a lay of the land. - Yeah, for sure.
The gravel bed that was in the bottom of the creek before they mined it,
- that's what we want to find up here. - Yeah.
'Cause once upon a time, that creek that's down
in the bottom was here and it's eroded its way down through over time.
So walking in here, if there was a spot I would dig,
it'd be this area, because it's flat enough
it could hold gravels. And lo and behold,
an old timer punched a hole in there.
Yeah. Sure enough.
Let's see what might be in there.
That one's been washed a little bit.
Rocks washed smooth by water indicated
dry riverbed, which could be teeming with gold
brought down from deposits further upstream.
What I think we ought to do up on this flat,
- if we can get that tracko fixed. Bring it up here - Yeah.
and run a trench across.
- Did we find anything? - Yeah.
You can see the little nick in it.
- Oh, yeah. - It was a pain in the butt to get to, though.
On the other side of the claim,
Juan and Rich rush to repair a punctured hose
in the mini excavator.
We don't have a whole lot of time, so fortunately
we were able to get this hosing in,
and hopefully it'll help them out to be able to find
- some decent ground. - Good.
- Don't smack my truck, please. - Okay.
- No leaks. Looks good. - Good.
An hour later, with the excavator back
in action, Freddy tackles the hill.
Oh.
I don't know if we're going to get this tracko up there or not.
It's safe.
Good, Freddy.
Well, I'm going to start digging.
Let's hope we can find some material here.
Yeah, 10-4.
Now that the excavator is fixed, I'm feeling very hopeful.
I'm feeling a bit of the excitement
that's starting to build back in me that I had a couple years ago
when we first started.
- You see how these rocks are shingled? - Yeah.
They're flat rocks. They're laying flat.
It means it's been worked by water.
This layer from right here looks promising.
This certainly isn't the same type of stuff
that we were digging.
This side of this wall is tailings, I think.
- See how much tighter these are? - Yeah.
So I'm going to run my hand down like that.
- Yeah. - I'm getting the odd rock.
Now this side.
- That's tailings. - Tailings.
That's one more thing that I've learned from you.
What I'd like to do is some panning on this material.
Freddy's test hole cuts directly through
a spot between the old timer's tailings
and untouched ground, which should contain gold.
- Jerry, got a copy? - Copy. Go ahead.
Freddy's got a bucket that we're going to put in your skid steer.
Copy that.
It's very interesting watching Freddy.
It's like watching a master at work who can read the signs
of the rock and the land.
It's looking good.
There you go. Now dump.
Thank you, sir.
Freddy runs three yards through the high banker
to concentrate the pay before he pans it.
- Now let's see what's in it, huh? - Yeah.
Hopefully there's some gold in it.
Yeah, hopefully there is.
Yeah.
Hmph.
It's 10 colors.
And it's not good.
Well.
I don't know what to do now.
I was hoping to see like $5 worth of gold in the pan there.
No.
25 cents worth of gold was in that pan.
That's not enough.
I have mixed emotions, you know, I got insides
just... are you making the right call going further?
Where I draw the line is I'm very close.
We're two years into this.
Literally, we're going down Bankruptcy Road.
So basically we're back to square one.
There was a tremendous amount of gold produced here.
You can see it without somebody telling you,
the amount of work they did in these valleys
wasn't for nothing.
There was gold here and there's still gold here.
How much is left and where the [bleep] do we find it?
We're running out of time here, I'll tell you that.
It's a beautiful place, but at the same time,
you got to put food on the table.
Freddy hits the hills of Montana around
the Dietz mine in a last ditch attempt
to find the brothers some good ground.
Kevin's put a lot of his finances on the line here
to mine gold and I've seen his emotions roller coaster
the past couple of days.
Found gravels that should have good gold in them.
Not enough gold, so I watched him go
off the cliff.
Most important thing in my mind right now
is to find what gold's left on their property.
The old timers hit it hard.
On the ground up there, you know,
you can see a couple benches.
It's an inside bend on this creek,
that side is, which is good for gravel benches.
There's one spot up there that I want to look at.
We're just trying to pick through
and find what the old timers couldn't get to.
Water flows faster around the outside of bends
and rivers and creeks.
The extra force of the water eats away at the bank
at an increased rate.
Gold bearing benches on this side of the river bank
will be eroded over time and their gold washed away,
but the benches on the inside are more likely to stay intact
with their gold still trapped within.
It's kind of like that sluice box down there.
The water is shooting wide and the material stays
on the inside.
I just got to keep looking around and hopefully find something.
One of the issues that we're having is
the heavier material is coming down the sluice here
and we're getting a lot of water here.
So what we want to do is make sure that
it's an even feed across the sluice box.
Juan strips the sluice box and attacks the issue
of uneven flow.
So we're going to force all the material to get concentrated
into about an eight by ten chute and then what it'll do
is once it hits that little concentration point,
it'll fan out and then it'll actually have a more even feed down the sluice box.
At the end of the day, the more even of a feed
that we have on the sluice box,
the better chance that we have of catching a lot of that finer gold.
So it's something simple, but it'll help the recovery.
I'm going to get up to the cut table,
get it all cut out and then we'll get it installed.
I've got all the little pieces of design that we need
to cut out.
That'll work.
- That flat back from your plant... - Yeah.
looks like nobody's messed with it.
Really?
What I was thinking, Kevin, is get up in here
and punch a couple holes.
Freddy thinks he's found an untouched bend
on the inside of an old meander.
I think we should punch some holes and check it out, yeah?
Let's get the tracko and hopefully, we have more success
than our last one.
Well, right now I'm seeing some rounded rock.
We found a layer, if it's got decent gold in it,
that's about three feet thick here.
So we'll see what's in it.
Could you take handfuls of the brown and throw it in the bucket
- and take it down and pan it? - Okay.
- That ought to be enough. - All right, I'll run down and test that.
- That bucket. - All right, perfect.
- All righty, thank you. - I'll be back in just a bit.
Okay.
I'm doing a little panning just to see if there's something in here.
It's showing some pretty good color right off the bat.
- I got those results, Freddy. - How's it look?
Not so bad.
There was some jumps in it.
Yep.
This single pan from the new test hole produces
three times as much gold as Freddy's previous bulk test.
The old timers missed it.
- We found it. - You found it, Freddy.
- We found it. - I can't, well, I'm glad to say
we, but I'm saying you found it.
You guys want to start getting pay down,
so we can run a second test here.
- Yeah? - I guess time will tell how much gold's in it.
Freddy, he's so knowledgeable.
Rich and me, you know, Freddy and Juan could
help repair our relationship, and that's worth...
more than gold would give you, for sure.
It's now all hands on deck to fix the plant
and make sure Freddy's prospecting mission
delivers a punch.
So we got a broken feeder. We're not exactly sure what's wrong.
They can't even use it.
Got to lift it up and take a look.
So we got to get it apart, see what we can do with it.
heavy.
Juan's feeder fix will increase the amount of material
fed into the wash plant by a third.
Careful, guys. Don't trust it.
- How's it going, Juan-o? - Hey, Freddy. How you doing over there?
So those last tests we did on this bench over here.
- Yeah, how did it look? - There's gold in it.
- Is there? - Yeah.
We got the prospecting done, so I'm going to start working on
- that sluice box where you start it. - Okay.
- Yeah. Perfect. - I'll finish it for you.
- Let's do it. - Okay. Thanks, buddy.
What we're doing here is going to make wedges
to hold the riffles down in the sluice box.
The system they had definitely wasn't the greatest.
It was plugged up all the way down.
The new riffle system we're putting in is going to save them time.
The plant's not running. It's not catching gold.
Last one.
I was able to get it all taken apart,
and I got these links put back together.
That chain, that's what brings the material forward.
These paddles are welded onto the links,
and what happened was this side must have gotten caught up,
and it broke the links.
Bricks had a little section of chain left over,
so I would pull a few links off of it and repair it.
Welded this crossbar back onto the link.
Pretty much ready to go.
So what do you think of my new vest this year, Juan?
It's all right. It looks a lot like the one last year, Fred.
- No. That's when I had a zipper. - Yeah, I know.
- This one's Velcro. It's nice, though. - Yeah.
Oh. Oh, no. No, no, no. I need that.
This is my good vest.
- I'm going to buy you a new one, Freddy. - Here.
- Poor little guy. - You tore my Velcro off.
Why would you do that?
- It was already off there, Fred. - No, it wasn't off.
Did you hear it go...
- Yeah, it was ready to come off. - No, it wasn't.
- You still got one. - Now it's a safety hazard.
You still got a good one.
I'm done for the day.
I wasn't expecting to repair my Velcro up.
- Are you ready? - Yeah.
All right. Coming your way.
In western Montana, Juan leads the squad
as they finish the fix.
You're dead so far. Come on down.
I think it's in, Juan, on this side.
It's no showpiece, but look at that.
It's in. Perfect.
- How's it going, Juan-O? - Just got done with that hopper.
I know they're still getting pay down here,
so I guess wait for them to get all the pay down and we're ready to run.
- Yeah. - That's the best gravel we've seen.
Now we've got to run it and see if there's any gold in it.
I know Kevin and Rich were both extremely stressed out
about everything going on here,
but hopefully this will kind of alleviate some of that stress for them.
- I like these guys. - I do too.
Okay.
How's it going, guys?
- Hi. - Hi, guys.
Freddy and Juan spent the last five days overhauling
the Dietz brothers' operation.
So I say we run 80 minutes, which is twice what
we ran last time, so the math will be easy
and we'll see how much gold's in it.
- Let's fire it up. - Let's go.
- See what we got. - Sounds good.
Fire it up.
Before the hopper feeder was out of action,
Juan fixed the drive chain to allow more of pay through
the plant.
Material built up on one side of the sluice,
blocking the riffles.
Juan installed a chute that distributes material
across the full width of the box alongside
Freddy's rebuilt sluices with new riffles
and custom carpets.
But the new pay Freddy prospected
could be the key to keeping the brothers' mining dream
and their friendship alive.
- Hey. Going good. - Going good.
There we go. First bucket.
See if we can get some color here.
Nice to be running again.
- Yeah. - I hope there's gold in it.
First bucket's in, Juan. Water turned brown.
Well, we got a lot of changes in this box now, Juan.
- Yeah. - Before it was the same, the same, the same.
The same. Blob, blob, blob all the way down.
All the way.
A lot better.
- Lyn. - Yeah, go ahead.
How's it going up there for you?
Yeah, that material looks good.
I like it.
If you look at it from this angle,
you see how it's just coming.
I like that flow much better.
- Got a chance. - Yeah.
Yeah.
That looks very good dirt.
Way different than the stuff we've been running.
- A lot finer, isn't it? - A lot finer.
The tailings aren't piling up as fast.
All that matters is that there's gold in 'em.
- Look at how round, that's river rock. - Truck on.
Oh, hey.
Look at that one. That's rounded.
- That's pretty good, bro. - That's a rounded one.
There's another one. Look at this one.
I'm going to get it.
Shut it down, guys. That's 80 minutes.
Twice what we did last time.
So we'll see how much gold we get out of it.
Okay, go ahead and turn it off, Kevin.
Shutting it down.
- How's it looking, Juan? - Looks pretty damn good, guys.
- Looks really good. - Look in there.
This whole riffle's packed all the way into this corner.
- Wow. - I can see it, yeah.
We've never seen gold in the...
- Look at that. - Yeah, We've never seen gold...
Look down here. Look at that.
- Holy cow. - Look down here.
If you guys want to start knocking the boards
- and pulling the riffles out of here. - Okay.
We'll do it.
- All I need is a hammer this time, Freddy. - That's it, man.
Look at that. No bolt.
No word. I find that wrench.
None of that. Look at that.
How happy am I?
Cleanup from the second test complete.
It's the moment of truth for the Dietz brothers.
- Gentlemen, how's it going? - Good, good.
- How you looking? - Good, good.
- Got her dried up? - I do.
- I'd like to see it. - Yeah.
Pour her, Juano.
The first test delivered 0.06 ounces from 40 minutes.
Because we ran twice as long, let's go 0.12.
If Freddy and Juan's improvements work,
this second test of 80 minutes should deliver more than
0.12 of an ounce.
Look how much is left in the jar.
The reality is that's what you're increasing.
- Wow. - Awesome.
Pour it out, Juano.
0.44.
Right there is $900 worth of gold.
- Wow. - Hey.
- That's amazing, isn't it? - Cool.
That's two ounces of 100 yards.
For the amount of time that was ran,
this is a 350 to 400% increase in gold.
And it's amazing. Look at all that fine gold that's in there now.
- Yeah, it wasn't there before. - We didn't have that before.
I couldn't be more pleased, guys.
What do you think, bro?
I don't know what to think. I'm speechless.
I mean, this is huge.
I'm totally grateful to them.
I can't explain what it means.
When there's still hope, then your attitude goes up,
your enthusiasm goes up, and your will to do it goes up.
- And your morale as a team goes up. - Yeah. Totally.
And you guys changed that.
Today was just totally amazing.
The sluice box worked perfect.
Fred, Freddy, and Juan, their improvements to the plant,
they did exactly what they said they were going to do.
Now we know that there's gold in the area.
We've learned how to look for it.
We can come back next year.
This has been huge.
Well, there's your gold.
- Wow, nice. Look at that. - Look at that.
- Guys, it's been a pleasure. - Okay.
- Get loaded up and get out. - Thank you so much.
- Oh, you're welcome. - I can't say how much I appreciate it.
- You're welcome. - Thank you.
- Thank you, guys. - Stay in touch, okay?
- Yeah. - You too.
- Thank you, guys. - Okay.
To see the pan of almost a half ounce
after we've ran for 80 minutes just blew me away
because that gold really came out of our land,
that's pretty exciting.
And on top of that, having a better relationship
with my brother, and then on top of that,
having some hope for next year,
it really puts it all into a complete circle
and really fits for this stage of our life.
So I'm very grateful for that.
Rich, we did this. So, you know, we could get a connection again.
It's important. It's--
I understand, it's been tough.
I'm sorry, you know, for things that happened
in the past and I just, you know,
we just got to learn to maybe live with each other
- just a little bit, okay? - I just...
I love you. I really do. I'm sorry.
I really am. I'm really sorry.
- I know it's hurting you. - Let's go.
- I'm going to show you that spot. All right. - Thank you.
Kevin and Rich, you know, you can tell they have a lot
of brotherly love.
I'm hoping they're on the same page,
so that way they can continue to move forward as brothers
and hopefully run a successful mine.
Before they didn't know what to do.
Now they know what material to look for.
They know some of the places to look for it.
Today's a good day for them.
Today's a good day for Juan and myself.
It's always good to see people smile.
Well, let's get on to the next one, huh?