[phone rings]
[Juan] Hey, buddy.
- [Freddy] Hey, you got a minute? - [Juan] Yeah.
[Freddy] You wanna meet me down at my truck?
[Juan] Yeah, I'll meet you down there in a second.
Hey, Freddy.
[Freddy clears throat]
- You doing all right? - [Freddy blows raspberry]
[Freddy] No, I'm not feeling good.
I just gotta get home and get to the doctor.
[narrator] It's the first day of a new rescue.
And Freddy Dodge faces a serious health crisis.
Well, do you want me to stay here and help these guys?
Yeah, we've got to.
- All right, I'll do that then. - [Freddy] Okay.
Once I'm done here, I'll head down to Colorado.
- Come see you. - [Freddy] Okay.
All right, brother. Love you.
[Freddy] Ditto, Juan.
[Freddy sniffles]
- [Freddy speaking] - [Juan] I know, buddy.
Go home.
I'll take care of this.
- All right, buddy. - Juan, I hate letting you down like this.
You're not letting me down.
You're not letting anybody down.
See you in a bit.
- I'll see you soon, bud. - [Juan] All right.
[Freddy sighs heavily]
[Juan] No one ever likes to see their friends be hurt or sick and...
[sighs softly] especially knowing how Fred...
Fred's the type of guy that he just goes and goes and goes.
You know, it doesn't matter what's going on and, uh...
For him to say that he's gonna go home and...
and take some time off, you know,
he's gotta really not be feeling right, so.
It's a tough spot to be in.
We'll do what we can.
[narrator] On this episode of Freddy Dodge's Mine Rescue,
[Mark] We'll go fire it up.
[Juan] [bleep] Hey, Rick. [bleep].
That's not good.
This is a big treasure hunt.
The bond of military brother to brother,
it's always there.
[Mark] Montana weather is always a challenge throughout the year.
There's so much to do.
I'm trying to do it all on my own.
We need help.
It's just gonna be a long night.
[Juan] I got a huge favor to ask.
I could really use your help.
[horn honks]
[Juan] Hey, guys, my reinforcements are here.
I'm a little stressed, you know?
I worry for Fred.
This is serious. This is not a joke.
This is the first time I've done something like this without Fred by my side.
I'm confident in my abilities.
I know I can get this done.
This one's for Freddy.
[narrator] Juan wheels his way
through Lewis and Clark County, Montana,
en route to the remote Birds Eye Mine.
If the name sounds familiar,
Dave Turin and his crew...
We got water.
[narrator] ...fought tooth and nail here in 2019...
and recovered more than 200 ounces in ten weeks.
[man] Tons of gold!
- [man 2] Yeah! - [man] Man.
- [man] Yeah. - [man 2 laughs]
[man 3] All right, man!
[narrator] Today, two miners struggle to pick up where Dave left off.
You know, I've actually been out here once before
when Dave-- Dave was mining out here.
And, uh, helped him out.
Freddy filled me in a little bit.
Both are vets.
So, uh, we feel like, uh,
you know, we own 'em something.
[Juan] Gentlemen, I'm Juan.
- [Juan] Mark's your name? - Juan, it's an honor to meet you, man.
[Juan] Nice to meet you, Mark.
- Rick. Pleasure. - [Juan] Rick, nice to meet you.
Unfortunately, Freddy had, uh...
some personal things he had to take care of.
So, uh, he-- he's not gonna be able to make it.
But, uh, you got me.
[Rick] Half the crew is still just as good.
- Yeah, well, yeah. - [Juan laughs]
- Yeah. - [Juan] We're gonna-- we're gonna give it hell, so.
[Rick] Absolutely.
How long have you guys been mining here?
Uh, I've been mining here approximately three years.
- [Juan] Three years, okay. - [Mark] Mmm-hmm.
Is this your full-time job,
- or do you guys have full-time jobs, or? - [Rick] No.
[Rick] No, we-- we both have full-time jobs with the Army Reserve.
[Juan] Oh, okay.
[narrator] In 2017,
Iraq veteran staff sergeant Mark McDonough
transferred to an army base in Montana,
working as a military instructor.
[Mark] When I got to Montana,
I found an army in it that I've...
loved ever since.
[Rick] I met Mark through work.
Since we work in the same building,
we get to see each other a lot.
[Rick] You're looking really good on the tailings, bud.
Sounds good.
I've been prospecting and mining
since approximately 2014.
I started out in Nugget Lake, Wisconsin.
Eventually, uh,
I realized, you know, I like to see bigger gold.
And the best way to see that
is to go where the gold fields are,
in Montana.
In the long run,
Rick would like to work with me more
and I'd want him to.
It would help not just his family,
but hopefully, we can make this sustainable
where it's profitable for everybody.
[narrator] While serving together in Montana,
Mark and Rick cemented their ultimate goal.
To make a living mining full-time
once they leave the military.
Do you have any of the gold that you've recovered from here?
[Mark] I do, and I'd like you to look at this.
This is, uh, this total season right here.
And it's 16th of an ounce.
- That's your season? - [Mark] That's it.
[Juan] That's it?
Between the work,
the weather can also be a-- a factor out here.
And breakdowns are continuous.
So I think maybe 40 days.
So you kind of have a limited season?
Yeah, absolutely.
[Juan] So what do you got invested into this operation?
- [Mark] Almost $30,000. - [Juan] Wow. Okay.
[Juan] That's a big chunk of money.
What do you need to make it profitable for you guys?
Five ounces a season.
You know, one thing that, uh,
that Freddy and I, we've always told people is,
we come in,
we can assess what you guys got going on,
your plan and everything else,
but we can't put gold in the ground, right?
Absolutely.
[narrator] Mark currently mines just two days a weeks.
But he hopes to go full-time.
Each mining day,
he must recover at least .12 ounces of gold
to hit his five ounce season target.
That would give him the potential to upscale production,
and make at least $36,000 a year.
A healthy addition to his retirement fund.
[Juan] You guys haven't seen that at all yet.
[Mark] I definitely need help.
I've actually stayed out here overnight just to
conserve travel cost to and from the mine.
I spent all my money. gold mining for nothing.
So it's serious?
- It's very serious. - [Juan] Wow, this is--
[Mark] The stakes are high.
At this time, the mine is definitely unsustainable.
I could use all the help I could get.
[Juan] Well, do you want to show me your plant, Mark?
Let's fire it up and see what she does, huh?
- All right, let's do this. - Let's do it.
[Juan] All right.
[motor whirring]
[Mark] There we go, there we go.
You have it.
We got it.
[narrator] The Birds Eye Mine sits on an 18,000 acre claim on Silver Creek.
Six miles from the historic Drum Lummon mine.
Discovered in 1876,
Drum Lummon was mined until the 1950s,
producing a million ounces of gold.
Today, worth around $1.8 billion.
[Mark] The gold here at Birds Eye Mine is very sporadic.
It's hard to read the ground.
Where you think there's gold, the gold's gone.
And sometimes, where there's no gold,
you're getting gold.
We're gonna run the first test run here.
We're gonna throw the first bucket in,
and once he does, I'm gonna start the timer.
[Mark] First bucket, Rick!
[narrator] Mark's small wash plant was Macgyvered
by a fourth-generation gold miner back in the 1980s.
Now, Juan's four-hour test
will determine its efficiency.
The name of the plant is Spruce Goose.
Hopefully one day it'll fly,
but right now, it's just weighing me down.
[narrator] The only machinery Mark has on site
is a 61 horsepower skid-steer
which he uses to load dirt into the hopper.
It's like a video game where you gotta shuffle the bucket.
Back and forth, up and down.
If too much goes in at one time,
it'll unbalance the whole system.
[Juan] To move a mountain of dirt like that
- with a little, tiny skid-steer, - Oh.
[Juan] that's quite the task.
[narrator] The material is then washed by two-inch spray bars
before it heads through the 20-yard long trommel
and into the 12 foot sluice box,
where the gold should settle in the riffles.
Hey, Mark, everything's looking pretty good.
I'm liking the feed rate.
That looks good. We'll let this plant eat.
[narrator] While Mark loads just a quarter bucket at a time,
Rick's job is to check it can eat what it's fed.
Slowing down a little bit.
[narrator] But the low power trommel is easily overloaded.
Uh, my electric motor is kind of worn out.
I can't get the amount of pay I want through the plant
to get the yardage.
[Juan] They got a lot of problems.
One of the biggest issues he has
is that trommel drum, it's not perfectly round.
So what it's doing, it's actually separating away from the cog.
And when it does,
that's causing that trommel to slip.
We'll have to keep an eye on it.
[Rick] You know, all the amount of hours that he sacrificed on this,
- just unbelievable. - [Juan] Yeah.
You know, a lesser man would come out here after about two days,
- be done with it. - [Rick] Yep. Be done.
[Rick] I'm glad I can come out here and help him with it, too.
[Juan] Well, you're a good friend.
[Rick] Well, that's what it's all about, you know?
We're brothers in arms.
We fight in wars together and...
come out here and we always do things together.
- [Juan] That's awesome. - [Rick] That's what it's all about.
[Juan] That's what it's about.
[Rick] I got injured in Iraq in 2003 and...
over the years, it's gotten worse.
It makes everyday work a struggle, for sure.
But what am I gonna do when I retire?
I can't just sit around. I'm not that guy.
[Mark] Stakes are high.
It's very important that I am able to keep mining
and if I can't do that,
my dream to sustain a retirement,
it's just dying.
[Rick] There's a lot on the line.
Mark spent a lot of money.
If this doesn't work, what do we do?
We're still gonna have bills at the end of the day.
[man 4] I'm 100% here to help Rick.
[Mark] Rick has his wife, Ashley, and has his four daughters.
[Rick] Mark doesn't have a lot of family.
And we try to be his family for him.
We celebrate thanksgiving together every year.
And it's, you know,
there's a bond there that can't be broken.
Just a little bit more than I wanted to go into it.
[Juan] Hey, Rick. That's not good.
Got the sprocket, just sitting there, running.
Not turning the trommel.
[Rick] She's doing all right, bud.
You just dumped her a little heavy is all.
[Juan] It happens every time you over fill the trommel.
It starts slipping on that sprocket,
and it does nothing.
So, uh, we'll try to correct that issue.
[narrator] The trommel isn't Mark and Rick's only issue.
[Juan] Every one of these dribbles all the way up the box,
it's completely packed solid.
So there's really no where for that gold
to be able to go in and get stored.
So I got a pan full of material coming off the sluice box.
I'm gonna see what lives in there.
[narrator] Gold coming out of the end of the sluice
means Mark and Rick are in trouble,
If you're gonna work that hard to get the materials to the plant and run it,
you wanna catch as much as you can.
And right now, we got about three pieces in that one pan.
So, uh, that's not good.
[Juan] Hey, Rick.
- You wanna call last bucket? - [Rick] Yeah, Juan?
- Last bucket, last bucket. - Okay.
[Juan] We'll shut it down,
take a look at the sluice box, and go from there.
[Mark] Well, hopefully we got something. [sighs]
[Rick] Yeah, let's check her out.
Well, let's clean it up and we'll go from there.
- [Rick] All right, it's a good plan. - Awesome.
Beautiful view up here, guys, holy cow.
- [Mark laughs softly] Yeah. - It's, uh...
It's top of the world.
Well, you wanna pour?
- It's your gold. - [Mark] Sure.
[Juan] Pour right here.
[narrator] After the benchmark test
on Mark McDonough's Montana plain,
he and Partner Rick need this gold to weigh to deliver .06 ounces.
Well, that's .037.
You know, that's about 60 bucks worth of gold.
Yep.
[narrator] This first test delivers only half the target amount.
[Rick] We need help. [chuckles softly]
[sighs] Barely covers, uh, the fuel let alone the cost
- of running. - [Rick] Yeah.
[Juan] Let me sit down for a minute.
Let me come up with a game plan.
- And, uh, we'll meet back up at the plant. - [Mark sniffles]
- Awesome. - [Mark] Okay.
- [Rick] Thanks, man. - [Mark] All right.
- See you in a bit. - [Rick] Thanks again, Juan.
It's very important that, you know,
we drive the gold up for our accounts.
And that way, we can actually make this a sustainable operation.
I have full faith in Juan.
I believe in the end, we'll have more gold.
[Rick] It's frustrating to see that.
Mark spent a lot of money to get to this and...
it's really hard for a guy to make a go out at it.
You can't cover fuel.
And-- and I'm really hoping that we can increase it.
[Juan] I did notice a lot of the things that needed to be repaired.
One of the biggest problems that he has
is the drive system.
That actually slows it down to the point
where it actually starts skipping the chain.
And the rollers that he has for the trommel,
they're positioned wrong.
The sluice box is completely wrong.
And-- and on top of that, to add to my list,
really, I would like to take a look at the ground.
Usually Freddy and I, we divide and conquer.
You know, he'll focus on one thing,
and I'll focus on the other.
I'm a little overwhelmed right now
just because Freddy is not here to help them.
You know, usually we have, you know, two guys on the ground.
But now I got double the work and just one guy, so.
[Juan] Hey, guys.
- [Mark] Hey, Juan. - [Rick] How you doing, Juan?
- Absolutely. - [Juan] Kind of wanted to go over just a few things.
- [Mark and Rick] Sure. - Um,
[Juan] there's a lot of things I really wanted to do with the plant.
With ground that's marginal,
the key is, get as much ground through it as you can.
- Right. - [Juan] And we can't do that
when we're constantly worried about
- the-- the plant. - [Rick] Yeah.
So if we can set it up where you can just feed
as much as you want through it,
then-- then we don't have to worry about that.
- [Rick] That's huge. - That-- yeah, that's beyond huge.
[Juan] That sluice box, your riffle system,
you know, they're set up for-- for really coarse gold.
So what-- what I wanna do is
build a new box, put new riffles in it.
Tailor it for-- for fine gold and coarse gold.
So that's the first fix.
That gear box, your assembly there.
It's just completely worn out.
That motor, that's probably from the '60s.
We're gonna build a new drive system.
- Okay. - You'll be able come over here
and just start it right up.
Sounds good. I'm excited to see how this is gonna turn out.
Realistically,
what we just talked about in material alone, we're gonna be...
probably close to $4,000.
But...
Freddy feels terrible that he's not here.
So Freddy and I wanna pick up the entire tab on this.
We're not gonna charge you guys a dime.
That is awesome.
- Yeah, thank you so much. - [Juan] You know we wanna... We wanna do it.
That is beyond awesome. I appreciate it.
[Juan] Between the three of us, it's a lot of work.
Really, we have no time to waste, we should probably get going on it.
If you guys wanna start getting some of this stuff ripped apart.
And I'm gonna start making some calls, getting some parts.
- I like it. - [Juan] All right guys.
[Mark] Let's get it started.
[Rick] Juan's gonna have a lot of good positive things
that he can change and help us out with.
I'm happy Juan's here. It's always great to have, uh,
a professional's eyes on the ground.
[Paul] Juan plans to increase runtime and volume through the plant.
The 60-year-old motor is underpowered.
And the worn out drive system is causing the chain to skip.
Juan will replace the old electric motor
with a new 420cc gasoline engine.
And he'll upgrade the drive system
so it can turn the trommel without skipping.
Mark's sluice is too small
and only set up for coarse gold.
Juan will build a bigger sluice box with adjustable legs,
to get the perfect pitch,
adding riffles specifically designed
to catch the fine gold Mark was losing.
[phone trilling]
[Fred speaking]
Hey, Freddy.
How you doing, buddy?
[Fred speaking]
Nah, shoot. Don't worry about that.
We did out gold weigh today. Uh, it wasn't great, Fred.
The ground's pretty marginal.
At least the stuff he's running right now, it is.
Between the plant issues and...
And everything else going on, I'm kinda limited
on what I can do as far as the time goes, so...
They're not doing too well financially
and I don't know there is a...
There's really a lot to spare to be honest with you.
I'm just gonna waive the fee.
[Fred speaking]
I agree.
I'll make a few phone calls, Fred. I'll keep you posted on what...
What we decide and we'll go from there.
All right, buddy. Talk to you in a bit.
- Feel better. Bye. - [Fred] Bye.
[Paul] Back at the wash plant,
Mark and Rick are getting started on the first fix,
replacing the old drive system.
Let's start with the motor. We'll get the motor out.
All right. Sounds good.
Look at that.
Chain off. Ta-da.
- How's your back, Rick? - Uh, getting a little sore.
But that's all right, bud. Gotta keep moving.
- Need a hand? - No, I'll be all right.
[Mark] As veterans,
it's very difficult to adjust back
and sometimes all it takes is a helping hand of a fellow veteran
who's been through the same exact stuff.
[Paul] For Mark, a profitable mine,
would be life changing.
[Rick] Having coping mechanisms
and... And different hobbies and such,
take your mind off of things.
We're taught how to be soldiers
we're not taught how to be human.
Right now this is the beginning
of the new sluice box for Mark.
What we're gonna do is, we're gonna actually make it 24 inches
of actual sluicing area, so we're gonna widen it out a little bit
to be able to accommodate more material.
- How's it going, Juan? - Hey, Mark. How you doing, buddy?
Oh, we're getting there.
Have you done much fabricating, Mark?
I've used a stick welder a few times.
Trying to keep the old plant together.
[Juan] Oh, yeah.
You wanna give it a shot?
- You wanna weld a little bit? - [Mark] Sure. Okay.
Easiest thing, Mark, scratch it.
Scratch it like you're starting a match.
[Mark] Okay.
[Juan] There you go.
Move a little faster, a little faster.
A little, a little... Okay, that's good, that's good, that's good.
[chuckles]
You know, if you're gonna have a mine,
you're gonna have to be able to weld well.
- Fabricate. Yeah. - That's...
- That's key... - Like I said,
my welds aren't the prettiest.
Aye, you know, they never are in the beginning.
Without a welder, without a fabricator, without a mechanic,
you don't have a mine-site.
Keep her hot. That's good.
So, how long have you been in the military, Mark?
Just shy of 23 years.
- Twenty three years. Wow! - Yup.
You've been a lot of places, seen a lot of things.
Oh, yeah. Uh, Kuwait, Iraq...
- Wow. - Had one of the longest deployments over there.
So, we were at about, uh, 22 months
is the record on that.
That's unreal. That's a long time.
Man, it shaped your world.
I bet it changed your outlook on a lot of things
[Mark] One of the biggest challenges,
is you need to fill the voids in your life.
Otherwise, you can kinda get just swallowed up.
You know mining for you is kind of a way to...
probably de-stress, huh?
Oh, yeah. For some people they like to garden.
For me I like to turn rock.
Yeah.
I'm a little concerned about the time that I have here.
The amount of work that the plant needs and then
on top of that we need to get up there and prospect a little bit of the ground.
Freddy can spot where the gold's great.
I'm not good at it. So I'm gonna see if there's a couple of people
that we can call in to give me a hand because,
Freddy not being here,
it's, it's gonna take some, uh, some help to be able to get this done.
Hey, what's going on?
Well, I got a huge favor to ask.
Are you available for a couple of days?
You are.
But only a couple of days.
Well, I could really use your help here in Helena, Montana.
Yeah, just grab what you need.
Yeah, bring him too. Perfect.
Appreciate it.
We'll see you in a bit. Thanks.
[Mark] This is perfect weather for welding.
I'd rather it be snowing than raining.
[Mark] True. [chuckles]
Montana weather's always a challenge throughout the year.
We have everything from
snow sometimes in July
to, uh, warm weather in January.
[Paul] With Freddy out of action,
Juan has just three days left to upgrade the wash plant
and find better ground.
But...
He has a plan.
- [engine whirring] - [honks]
Hey, guys. My reinforcements are here.
Whee. Nice.
Turino!
What's going on, Dave.
Good to see you brother.
I didn't expect snow and mud.
I told you, good time.
[Paul] Master miner and prospector, Dave Turin,
along with Juan's brother-in-law, Travis,
an expert mechanic
and longtime friend, Alex, a skilled welder,
give Juan some much needed reinforcement.
- Dave, Richard. - Richard? Nice to meet you.
[Paul] Four years ago,
Dave prospected and mined at Birdseye.
Gimme some gold.
[Paul] He pulled nearly 226 ounces of gold
worth over $400,000, out of the ground
from a cut just 100 yards from where Mark now mines.
[together] All in!
[Dave] We were a full season here.
Learned a lot about the ground. It's really hit and miss.
I don't know every spot you hit or...
- Yeah. - ...tested or dug, so...
That's a wealth of knowledge I need.
[Dave] Anything I can do to help out.
Freddy's got big shoes to fill.
- They're tiny feet but they're big shoes to fill. - [Dave] Yeah.
[all laugh]
You know, I know he feels a lot better
that you're here to help me out.
So, I can appreciate you making the trip out here, Dave.
- [Dave] You're welcome. - I really do. And you guys too,
Travis and Alex. You know.
[Alex] Any time.
We got the plant ripped apart.
I got boxes I gotta build, I got a drive system I gotta build as well.
And then also on top of that we got the ground issue.
I know what we're gonna do to the plant is gonna help him tremendously
but we need to find gold in the ground.
[Dave] It's why I'm here.
So what I'd really like to do is kinda divide and conquer.
You and Mark can go out and start prospecting
and find some better ground for him.
That's, uh, that's what I wanna do and then the rest of us, uh...
Rick, Alex, Travis and myself,
we'll get the plant up and running.
- Okay. - We only got a few days.
We gotta buckle down and get a lot of this done.
- [Mark] Sounds good. - [Dave] Sounds like a plan.
[Dave] Juan and Freddy have helped me many times.
And so, the least I can do is come out here, help him.
But I've only got two days
to help Mark find gold.
And find some good ground.
[Juan] I'm really happy Dave, Travis and Alex made it.
You know, uh, if anyone knows this property, it's gonna be Dave.
Right now, we don't really have a lot of time. We had to divide and conquer.
Dave can help me out on the prospecting side
and I can concentrate on the plant.
[Dave] Let's see what you've been doing.
Was this your cut here? Where you been...
[Mark] Yeah, right in here. We got a sand layer on top if it.
[Dave] This is kind of an interesting
geology, because this, it looks to me, like...
Probably some type of, uh, glacier.
Because you got some, like, clay.
You've got some washed rocks.
[Mark] Yeah the gravels are mixed all throughout it.
Could definitely have gold in it.
Right. And tests have proven there is a little bit.
[Dave] The problem with it and you probably know this,
is this got some serious clay in it.
That starts to ball up.
Lot of times those travel down to your sluice box
it collects gold.
This is about the level that we were running here, Mark.
- [Mark] Okay. - [Dave] I think we oughta run a test.
- Sample some of this. - [Mark] Okay.
You know, maybe run five yards of it.
The other spot that I was thinking, Mark,
is over there where we left off.
Yeah, I've never touched it over there.
So, that's all new to me.
We were just running outta time and running outta weather.
Uh, we never really finished this area up.
I think there's a possibility of some good gold under there.
I think what we ought to do,
is run two tests.
- Okay. - Let's run five yards
of what you were mining.
We'll do the upper gravels.
And then we'll go to where we ended,
do another sample and see if we can find
some gold the old timers left us.
[Paul] Dave plans to run two five yard tests
to see which has a higher yield in gold.
The first, from Mark's existing cut.
The second, from untouched ground
next to where Dave finished mining in 2019.
[Dave] We ought to bring
excavator in here and...
pull some samples, check it out.
[Juan] Everyone's doing something.
Hopefully we get it done in time.
[Paul] At the trommel,
Juan needs to find a solution
to the drum's irregular spinning
and the skipping sprocket.
So, what I'm doing, is I'm going in there
and I'm adjusting it. I'm gonna shim it away from the, the drum.
So that way it's as close as it can be
to the sprocket, so that way it doesn't have any separation.
We're gonna eliminate the chance of it slipping.
Yeah, this'll be a great fix, Juan.
You know, when Freddy and I do these, uh,
type of repairs, he's kind of, uh,
the voice of reason.
[Rick laughs]
Me by myself, I wanna take it all on.
- But, uh... - [Rick laughs]
I get it, big man.
[Juan] He has to ground me sometimes.
[Rick] I get it.
- [Juan] I'm happy with that. - [Rick] Tell you what, Juan,
that is way better.
Not flapping all over the place.
Yeah. Everything's looking really good.
Making it a lot easier to turn, a lot smoother.
[Juan] You just lead, I'll follow.
Yeah, that looks straight.
Straight-ish.
We're dead nuts, right there.
[Paul] Juan welds a base for the new 420cc motor and drive system.
[Juan] So, this thing really wasn't designed to have this much weight
off to the side of it.
It's putting a lot of leverage.
It's actually pulling this gear away from the, the trommel.
So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put a few stiffeners in there
and just support it, so it doesn't rip itself off.
Perfect.
[Paul] The new motor will turbocharge the plant
allowing Mark and Rick to run twice as much paydirt.
- Well, that's it. - It's a hell of an improvement.
I'm really hoping that Dave's on the gold. Because really,
if we don't find the gold, all these repairs are for nothing.
Whoo! Rock and roll.
[Paul] Over at the cut,
Dave has called in a favor
to get the right tool for the job.
[Dave] The land owner, Towie, is a good friend of mine.
He's got an excavator he'll let us use.
- Hey, Mark. Good. - How's it going, Mr. Turin?
[Dave] Oh, man, this is quite a little unit here.
It's a road legal excavator.
On wheels.
We got teeth. We can dig now.
Well, we can certainly dig some holes.
[Paul] Dave first pulls five yards of dirt from Mark's existing cut.
[Dave] Right here, this,
should be virgin ground. It's...
It's sand, it's got some rocks in it.
I'm trying to go down to just above what Mark ran.
We'll run that as our first test.
[Paul] Dave then takes another five yards.
This time from untouched ground
under his old haul road.
All right, this will be exciting.
[Dave] There's your pay, right there.
Digging tight.
Big rocks.
That's what we're looking for, right there.
Good to go!
Start running some dirt.
[Paul] At Birdseye mine,
Dave Turin and mine owner Mark,
are ready to run back-to-back tests from two paydirt samples.
[Dave] Give it a little more water.
I brought The Beetle in.
Juan and I built that thing.
You know, a few seasons ago in the off season.
[Paul] The Beetle is Dave's custom-built test plant
designed for prospecting.
It gives a quick indication on the quality of material.
[Mark] It's exactly
what we need here.
I mean, what's the point of upgrading a plant
when we don't have dirt in the ground?
These tests are so important
to make sure I know what's in the ground.
Otherwise, I'm not gonna be able to sustain with the operation.
Right here,
where it dumps in, just keep an eye on it.
Sometimes it plugs up and it'll start overflowing.
Mark first run the upper layer of dirt from Mark's current cut.
I'm in my element right now.
I love this stuff.
You know, you got dirt, trucks and seams. What more could a guy ask for?
This is my last bucket.
And this could be the end of the first test.
And hopefully, we got some good gold here.
- Well, let's pull the mats. - Okay.
We'll just wash 'em out in the tub,
put 'em back in, and then we'll go for test number two.
[narrator] Next, through the Beetle,
the pay from the old hall road Dave never mined out.
I'm pretty confident in this one.
It was about this time we had to leave,
because it was starting to get froze out.
And we had to leave the haul road.
So hopefully that works out for Mark.
Right now, it's all hands on deck.
We have Dave,
Juan's steadily working on the plant.
And we're over here. We're testing,
But all this has to work together,
otherwise it's all for nothing.
Well, Mark, we're losing daylight.
Let's get this outta here,
and start panning the concentrates.
- Okay. - Let's get her done.
We've got it right there.
And then find the center, wherever that is,
and cut it in the center and we got both legs.
[narrator] At the Bird's Eye mine,
Juan and his A-team are under pressure to finish the fixes.
[Juan] I got the right team for the job.
Everyone's working hard.
Travis and Alex are working on riffles.
Rick and I are working on the sluice box.
We still got a ton of work to do.
If we don't hit it hard, this doesn't get done,
we don't have a final test.
We really don't have a rescue.
All we want to do is get the gold to find where it, like, so it sits.
Hopefully this block should have a nice, yellow color to it
- by the time we nick it. - I like it.
All we need is the gravel now.
Well, we're almost there, Mark.
This is, uh...
First pan.
[narrator] Dave has panned the concentrate from their two-five yard bulk tests.
Out of the top levels above the clay,
where we ran five yards through the plant,
that's this test.
Okay.
There's you know, three to four grams. I've done this quite a bit.
Three or four grams is gonna give you, you know,
- six to eight bucks a yard. - Okay.
[narrator] $6 per yard
is worth around $400 a day.
This pan was over there from the haul road?
Yeah.
There's five or six grams.
That's gonna run you ten to 12 dollars a yard.
Oh, wow.
[narrator] Paydirt from the haul road
could potentially deliver more than twice the gold Mark currently brings in.
[Dave] To me, it's pretty obvious.
I think you oughta go after the haul road.
I think we start hauling some dirt here.
- Yeah, let's get her done. - All right. Let's go.
[Dave] We had our chance. We're like the old-timers. We're gone, right?
I mean, we left outta here.
So if I can get it for Mark, I'm happy.
I don't have any regrets that we didn't get it. We gave it our best shot.
Let's jump in there and I'll give you an understanding of the excavator.
- Okay. I'm not gonna know unless I do it. - All right. Let's do it.
[narrator] To succeed, Mark will need to extract gold-rich
paydirt as quickly as possible.
So, expert operator Dave shares some nuggets of wisdom.
So that one you gotta pull up,
and this one wants to dig and dive.
So you're pulling both of them so you keep a constant flat.
Smooth altogether motion?
And then when you get ready to dig,
put your blade all the way down and it stabilizes you.
And then that way, you don't pull the machine into your hole.
Okay.
Play with it a little bit so you kinda get the feel for it.
Okay.
Now take your right hand and... Yeah.
Swing a little bit.
And this is exactly what Mark needs. He needs an excavator.
Spend some time in it, get proficient at it.
This could really help his operation out.
- How's that for a full bucket, Dave? - [Dave cheers]
Full bucket!
There's your pay.
[Dave] Obviously he's been around equipment a lot,
and I'm impressed.
Getting full buckets.
He's careful, he's smooth.
Doing good.
I believe this is the key to his success.
[Mark] Hi-five.
[Dave] All right. Good job.
[narrator] Masterclass complete,
Dave heads to the cut trailer for some final heavy lifting.
[Dave] That is a hell of a sluice box.
[Mark] Thanks, Dave. Came out nice.
You think Freddy would approve?
He probably wouldn't wanna give it to me, but he'd give me the seal of approval.
Mark's pretty fortunate to have you guys helping him out.
Yeah, you too.
It's really a big deal. I appreciate you coming out here giving us a hand.
You and Freddy have helped me out many times.
So the least I can do is pay back.
You know, when it comes down to it, the brotherhood of
miners is kind of a tight-knit group.
- It is. - We help each other out when we can.
Appreciate it, Dave. Let's jump on and let's get those moved.
[excavator backing up]
[narrator] Dave's discovery of high-grade pay and the drive system upgrade
will count for nothing if Juan's custom sluice box
isn't finished in time.
- That's perfect right there, Dave. - You good there?
Yeah, I like it.
All right. I'm gonna go dig.
Bye-bye.
We're in a hurry right now. It's getting dark.
We're gonna be working late. We got a lot to do.
And very little time to do it.
It's just gonna be a long night, but we'll get through it.
[Dave] Hey, Juan. Remember building this?
Yeah. I'm actually kind of excited to see you're still using it, Dave.
It's a great little plant.
You know, the only thing I don't really like about it is the name.
I like the Beetle, but we should've called it the Dung Beetle.
- Dung Beetle? - The Dung Beetle.
I think that would've been more fitting.
Yeah, because dung has a lot to do with gold.
Well, no. You know, a lot of times, we're going after the scraps, right?
Oh, I see. [all laughing]
It's a dung beetle.
[laughing continues]
[Juan] Guide me in right here, please.
[narrator] It's the final 24 hours at soldiers Mark and Rick's Bird's Eye mine.
Juan's crew rush to complete the fixes before their time here is up.
We worked late into the night last night. Honestly I didn't think we'd get it done.
But we're here, we got the motor mounted.
Put the sluice box in, so we're that much closer to running.
You know, better late than never.
We've had Juan building everything here,
and then we got Dave helping us find some new ground. I tell you what,
you combine those two things, we're gonna find some gold.
- That's pretty damn close. - Pretty close.
Hold on.
Pull Alex's side down or yours up.
Close enough.
Well, I'll tell you what, Juan.
You said it'd be in by two o'clock. I got 1:57 right now.
[narrator] The adjustable sluice is the final piece of the jigsaw.
Come up on it, guys.
Make sure it's one to one.
Two, three, four, five, six, seven,
- eight, nine, ten. - Right there is good.
Okay, okay. Good.
The whole trick to having a good sluice box, you wanna have it as level
and have the right elevation for it.
So we made it a 100 per cent adjustable so that way, on the fly,
we can make change it as we need it.
Well, we're adjusted.
Where we need to be.
I like it.
We're pretty much ready to run.
I have no words.
[Juan laughs] Well, hopefully it catches gold.
Hopefully somebody gets 'em on the gold so the gold isn't lost.
You know, when we came out here and Freddy wasn't feeling the greatest,
first guy I thought about was Dave.
So I'm really happy he was able to give us a few days of
- his time to come up, give us a hand. - You bet, you bet.
I appreciate it so much, Dave.
You're welcome, you guys. You know, Juan and I have talked.
We got a lot of respect for you guys.
You served our country.
You know, you're vets,
so whatever we can do to help,
we're all about that.
Helping each other out.
- That's it. - Thank you.
Well, now you know, you guys are in the brotherhood of miners, right?
Yea, we do.
What do you guys say? Let's run the plant?
- Yeah. Oh this is awesome. - All right.
Hey, guys. I've gotta head out, you know.
I told you I had two days,
and my time's up.
I'd love to stick around and watch this thing run,
see the gold in the box, but I gotta go.
All right, Dave. Totally understand.
Thank you so much.
- Yeah, man. - Appreciate everything.
- Pleasure, thank you. - Thanks for coming out.
Thanks for your time. We really appreciate it.
- You're an awesome teacher, Dave. Really appreciate it. - Oh, [laughs]
All right, brother.
- All right, guys. Thanks. - Be safe, Dave.
[Juan] Well, gentlemen. I guess it's us.
Let's run it, huh? Let's get it going.
The final test run?
All right. You get that. I'll get the pump.
- Okay. - Fire her up.
[engine starts]
- We got the water. - You got water?
Let's throw some dirt.
[narrator] Juan's had five hard days without Freddy.
Battling Montana's snow storms and a lack of equipment.
Now it's time for the crucial second test.
Let's do it!
Mark's 12 foot-long sluice box was too narrow and set up for course gold.
Juan built a wider sluice box with adjustable legs to optimize pitch.
And added new riffles to catch both course and the previously lost, fine gold.
Mark's old motor and drive system was worn out,
and would regularly skip the chain.
Juan's powerful new gas motor and sprocket system
means the wash plant can process twice the pay without any stalls.
Finally, the upgraded wash plant will be fed
with the new paydirt Dave found, which could contain twice as much gold
as the pay from Mark's old cut.
First bucket going up the ramp.
- Start that timer. - Start!
- [Juan] What do you think, Mark? - [Mark] Good.
You see how all the material's getting tumbled right in the water?
Washing it really good.
Oh, that motor's great.
It works a heck of a lot better than the old one.
Up to my fourth bucket.
Everything's looking good right now.
Trommel's spinning faster than I've ever seen it spin before.
Probably five times speed than what I'm used to.
Box is looking great with those Hungarian riffles, we've removed those
for the fine gold.
We may have a fully operational plant that
produces a good amount of gold.
Yeah, I think she's looking really good, bud. I'm super excited.
Where we at? Four hours, huh?
Just hit four.
Well, let's call last bucket. That's the end of the run.
Hey, last bucket!
Awesome.
We'll shut the pump down, shut the trommel down. See what we got in the box.
You better come take a look at this real quick, Rick.
- What do you got, Juan? - Look at all that there. On the carpets.
All the way through it.
I've never seen it packed like that before.
Ever.
We ran the plant for four hours, the box looks halfway decent.
But really, we don't know until we dry it up and weight it.
This is pretty fast.
I don't think we're gonna have to worry about the box ever again.
No, I don't think we will, bud.
This could be your retirement right here, bud.
Well, we'll find out.
You know, I'm a little nervous about this gold weigh.
Because there's so much riding on it, right?
Yeah.
[narrator] The last gold weigh was 0.037 ounces.
To hit Mark's five-ounce season goal,
This four-hour test needs to deliver at least 0.06 of an ounce.
Well, guys. Travis, I'mma let you pour it.
Oh. Nearly...
Oh, look at that, guys.
Whoa.
0.54.
That's over half an ounce.
- We slammed it. - Yeah, in four hours.
[all laughing]
[narrator] 0.54 ounces. A massive increase
of 1300 percent on the first gold weigh.
- That's nuts. - Over half an ounce.
So on a four hour test, we did a little over half an ounce.
Now imagine if you did a full-day run, you know?
- Eight, ten, 12 hours? - Yeah.
You can actually make some real money with that.
Thank you. good meeting you, Mark.
[narrator] In a six-month season, Mark could net over a quarter of a million dollars.
More than enough to keep his dream alive of retiring from the military.
And mining full-time.
I've never seen that much gold.
We can have the brotherhood of mining.
You know, we go from combat vets into gold vets now.
This is life-changing.
And you guys deserve it for sure.
I know you guys have worked your butts off and sacrificed a lot.
Thank you, Juan.
- Thank you. - No problems.
I have gotten absolute confidence from working with Juan and with Dave.
I am beyond grateful. I will never be able to thank those guys enough for what they did
for me and Rick.
I am now in the position to retire,
and do this full-time.
You know, there's no words to describe how I feel right now. It was a great outcome.
[dialing tone]
[cell phone ringing]
- Hello? - Hey, Freddy. How you doing, buddy?
Doing all right. How are you, Juan?
Doing excellent. Hey, I just wanted to call you.
We just had our final gold weigh, Fred.
How'd it go, bud?
- It was damn good, Freddy. - No kidding, huh?
Yeah. Honestly, Freddy, I'm relieved, bud.
How you feeling?
Oh, doing all right. Starting to feel better.
Yeah, I went to the doctor. All the bloodwork and stuff came back okay.
Awesome. I'm happy to hear that.
- Drive safe, okay? See you soon. - All right, Freddy. Thanks.
Bye.
I'm happy that Freddy's feeling better.
It was a great week helping those guys out.
I'm ready to go home.