[dramatic music playing]
[Freddy] People often ask me
why we do what we do.
Is it for the love of gold?
Sure.
[man] That looks real good.
[Freddy] Do I like helping people?
Let's get them some more gold.
[Freddy] Definitely.
[man 1] Woo! [laughs]
[man 2] Yeah.
[Freddy] But why I love rescuing struggling miners...
is to help them achieve their dreams.
[man] Look at that.
-[laughing] -[woman] I got to hug you again.
[Freddy] And at the very core,
every miner we come across
are doing it for their family.
[Juan] Family is everything.
It's why we go out and put it in the hard hours.
[man] First one, only about 6,000 more to go.
[Juan] With the hope of making life better for them.
[indistinct chatter]
[Juan] At the end of the day,
we all want one thing,
to leave a lasting legacy.
This changes our life.
Thank you.
[car honking]
[Juan] Freddy, what's going on, buddy?
[Freddy] How's it going, bud?
Good to see you. Come here.
-Let's do it? -[Freddy] All righty.
[narrator] On this episode...
Hey, good to see you guys.
[narrator] Freddy and Juan reflect
on last year's most pivotal rescues.
I'm really excited
and think we can have an amazing year.
[narrator] As well as their biggest challenge yet.
They're the first ones that have beat us.
[narrator] As they check in with the miners themselves.
Need to get quite a bit of gold is what we're asking.
-Yeah. -[laughter]
[narrator] To find out who is closer
to achieving their golden dream.
This is a 400% increase in gold.
-[crowd cheering] -[man] Holy smokes.
That's what I'm talking about.
[narrator] For themselves and their families.
[Juan] I'm proud of that, Freddy.
-Right on, buddy. -Nice job, bud.
Likewise.
You know, Freddy, over the years,
we helped quite a few families,
a lot of miners, and, uh...
A lot of memories, good and bad.
Well, you know, and for us,
we've been working together for going on nine, ten years.
-Yeah. -Almost a decade.
But right off the get-go, me and you kind of teamed up
because we have the same mindset...
-[Juan] Mmm-hmm. -you know?
-Same mentality in a lot of things. -[Freddy] Yeah.
-A lot of skillsets that are the same. -Yeah.
And our stupid humor's the same.
-[laughs] -Uh-huh.
-Couple of dumbasses. -Yeah.
[laughter]
But, you know, last year, there was a lot of challenges,
you know, between roads that we were on
and coming up with, uh, creative fixes on the fly.
-We didn't give up, though. -[Juan] No.
There's no give up in you or me, Fred.
-There was that big family that we helped, the Adams. -The Adams.
Yeah. They sold everything.
That's gold.
-[Heidi] You betcha. -[Matt] There you go.
[boy] It's gold.
-I got gold. -My goodness.
[Juan] They sold their businesses,
their homes, everything.
They wanted to start this new life as a family.
-[Freddy] Bought that property there. -[Juan] Yeah.
-Hey, guys. -[Rodger] Hey.
-How you doing? -[Juan] Good. How you doing?
-Juan, I'm Rodger. -Rodger? Nice to meet you, Rodger.
-You too. -Matt.
[Juan] Matt.
[narrator] With a collective dream to leave the nine
to five grind, mine gold,
and live off the same remote land,
Rodger Adams and his 13-member family
took their chance.
I just decided to sell my business and go gold mining.
Might be crazy, but that's what we're doing.
A lot of us don't have jobs anymore
and we're banking on this entirely to be our future.
Well, it's a pretty cute family.
You know, getting there
and houses are all half built,
and they're still living in campers, you know?
They wanted to pretty much live off the land.
[country music playing]
Well, this is just the little beginning
of our garden area.
It's gonna be about four times this size
when we get it all ready here.
But, for this year, this was a good start.
-[Juan] They wanted to have it all. -[Freddy] Mmm-hmm.
And they'd never mined gold before.
-[Juan] None of them. None of them. -[Freddy] Yup.
-[Juan] And, uh, I'd be scared, you know, to death... -[Freddy] Yeah.
-[Juan] about it. -[Freddy] Yup.
You know, 'cause I know a lot of them had a bunch
of little kids as well.
It was a huge step.
[narrator] For the Greenhorn miners,
including sons, Keiran, Tristan, Taylor,
and Matt, success depends on keeping their plant
running without breakdowns.
We picked up this conveyor
that's actually been a little bit of a fight for us
and I'm sure you guys will hate it as much as we do.
[Juan] I'd love to start a four-hour test run
and we'll go from there.
Let's do it.
[Juan] First bucket.
You know, as we went in there,
all the material favored the one side
-of the sluice box, so it was running super heavy. -Yup.
[Rodger] No bueno.
We'll have to get away to get that material evened out.
Remember all the material that conveyor
was throwing on the ground?
-Yeah. Yeah. -You know, tons of material.
[Freddy] I don't like the look of that.
When it's too wet, stuff sticks to it
and then it, uh, it dribbles off as it comes back.
And that's what caused our pile of stuff up there.
Well, conveyors can either
be a blessing or a curse.
You can't move material cheaper
than the conveyor can.
But at the same time, conveyors can have issues
and theirs was full of issues.
[suspenseful music playing]
[machine crashing]
[man] Hey.
[Freddy] The conveyor shut off.
[Juan] Shut down.
[Freddy] Whoa, whoa, whoa. Shut it down. Shut it down.
[Juan] Hey!
Don't start the conveyor. It's bound up.
All this stuff that's coming down,
built up under here.
-We should've realized. -[man] It sent the belt off track and now it's jammed in.
If we keep on running, we run the risk
of losing the $5,000 belt.
[narrator] To get this family back on the gold,
Freddy and Juan moved the conveyor
closer to the plant.
Attach an innovative one of a kind wiper
to the base of the belt to prevent pay
from jamming underneath
and install a V chute
to evenly disperse pay and increase their recovery.
We built that wiper out of parts that we had.
-Double wiper... -Yeah.
and a broom. And a broom.
-And springs off your RC car. -[laughing]
The car weighs quite a bit.
-My baby, Freddy. -I know.
I still need springs, Freddy.
You still haven't got me any springs yet.
But you still have my RC car that you took.
We'll just call it even then.
-I'll get you springs. -[Juan] Okay.
[laughter]
Compress those springs up quite a ways
-kind of like I've got it here. -Oh, yeah. Yeah.
[Freddy] Holy freak, holies.
-What do you think? -[man] Looks good.
[Matt] Yeah. This is great.
[Juan] Well, let's start the test, huh?
-Let's do it. -Let's do it.
[narrator] With a modified sluice box
and fixes to the conveyor complete...
-[Juan] Yeah. Fire it up. -[Rodger] Yes, sir.
All right.
[narrator] Freddy and Juan run a final test
to see if they've helped secure
the family's homesteading dream.
[Juan] That's working damn good up there, Freddy.
[Freddy] Perfect. That's running good.
I like the sound of that.
[Freddy] That's four hours.
That should be the last bucket.
[Juan] Now we run a full four hours.
-Smooth. -[Juan] Flawless smooth.
Yup.
[upbeat music playing]
[narrator] The four-hour test must deliver
at least 1.25 ounces.
[upbeat music playing]
[Freddy] Well, guys...
1.93.
-[man] Hey. -[Matt] Great. That's better.
-[Freddy] Almost two ounces. -All good. That's better.
-[man 1] Yeah. -[man 2] [indistinct] Yeah.
-Damn good. -[man 2] Nice.
And I'm really hoping that they're still mining
-and making money. -[Freddy] Yeah.
Well, let's give them a shout.
Yeah, let's give them a call.
How you guys been?
It's been good.
How did those fixes work out for you guys?
Everything seems to be working real well.
[Rodger] The V chute is just working fantastic.
We have a nice even flow to the sluice box here.
On this side, we have the conveyor,
which we were having quite a struggle with previously.
And this year, it's been way better.
[Keiran] It's really helping us produce more.
Here's some gold from the last couple weeks.
You guys were able to meet your, uh, your goal?
Our goal was like a hundred ounces or whatever.
-[Freddy] Yup. -And, uh, we ended up with 103.
Yes. Whoa.
[Keiran] Bowl full of gold.
-[Rodger] We've done it. -[Tristan] That's awesome.
I can't believe we did it.
-For our first season, I think we did really good. -Yeah.
We're really happy with all of that, so.
-Yeah. -Um, you know, the fixes that you did,
basically allowed us to do that.
-Yup. Well, that's good. That's what we're doing. -Yup.
Trying to help more people.
[Rodger] And we've got a second operation
to the south.
We're excited to see what we can do this year.
How's the family... The rest of the family doing?
More kids on the way?
Well, yeah, there are more kids on the way for sure.
-[laughter] -[Matt] Um, yeah.
-That's homestead life. -[Matt] Yeah.
[Juan] That's awesome.
[Rodger laughs]
Well, that's exciting, guys.
How's the homestead coming along?
Are you guys just about complete with it?
You know, it's coming along.
So this is a new addition to the homestead.
This is kind of our shop, uh, work area.
Gold cleaning room, storage, all of that kind
of thing for now.
Tristan here, I think he's working
on a little bit of a cleanup.
We'll see how it's coming along.
Any gold in there?
Great. I see a little bit of gold in there.
[Tristan] Right here.
We were fixing up the skid shack to, uh,
to move into and a skid shack is just about done,
so we can pull in there pretty soon.
[Juan] Happy to hear that.
You guys are great. You work your butts off, you know?
So I know it was a pleasure helping you guys out.
Bye. Thanks for the help.
-[Juan] Take care. -Thanks so much.
Well, the homestead boys, Freddy,
that's pretty dang good. There's a lot of mouths to feed.
A lot of families, new babies.
-They're gonna need more gold... -[Juan] Yeah.
the way the kids are flying in there.
Those double sleeping bags are causing problems in there.
[laughs]
[narrator] Coming up...
[Juan] Once you kind of get the hang of how the controls
in that excavator work,
it's actually pretty simple to run.
Okay.
[narrator] Juan checks if his teaching skills
made the grade.
I just wanted to check up on my student
and see how she was doing.
[narrator] And Freddy and Juan revealed
what went wrong on their trickiest rescue yet.
You're the first ones that have beat us.
-Yeah. -Sorry about that.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] In Nevada...
You're the best guy on the computer.
I don't know about that, Fred.
[narrator] Freddy and Juan reconnect
with last year's miners
to see how their fixes have paid off.
You know, Freddy, I guess it strikes
a chord with me when it...
The whole family aspect comes into it.
You know, when you see a father out there struggling
and working his tail off
to make a living for his family,
-it hits home, you know, 'cause... -Mmm-hmm.
-[Juan] that's what we both do. -Well...
-[Juan] Yeah. -they're trying to feed their family.
One that kind of stands out is Chad.
-Chad Marmolejo. -[Freddy] Yeah.
[dramatic music playing]
As a father, you want to provide
the best you can for your family.
And it's been very difficult here.
[narrator] Last year...
-Morning, I'm Chad. -[Juan] Nice to meet you.
[narrator] Freddy and Juan answered a call
from father of two, Chad Marmolejo.
To be honest, last couple of years were horrible.
-Okay. -Between breakdowns
and the time that I could actually run, it was...
It's very disheartening.
This is absolutely the make it or break it year.
2008, the housing crashed, forced my company to fail.
I was like, man, you know, what the heck
am I gonna do now?
And I was like, you know, I grew up in gold country.
I think I had to give that a whirl.
[Juan] He was living on site.
[Freddy] In a tent.
He had a little wall tent out front.
Eating hot dogs.
[Juan] You don't have any power out here, huh?
My existence up here while I'm mining is definitely
very primitive
and it's hard living in the tent.
To me, if you've earned it
and if you earned it hard that way,
-you appreciate it that much more. -[Freddy] Mmm-hmm.
Like I lived in my car when I was 16 years old,
-so nobody gave me anything. -[Juan] Yeah. Yeah.
[narrator] Making barely enough to keep
the operation going,
let alone live on,
Chad has turned to his best friend
of 30 years, Terry Larimer,
for a financial lifeline.
[Larimer] I'm just trying to decide
how big of an investment do I...
Do I wanna have in this at this point.
So you know how things happen when a friend
loans a friend money and then there's a lot of trust
that can be broken or, you know, money to be made?
[Freddy] Do you have any gold we can look at?
Actually, Terry has it because I've had to sell it
-for fuel and parts and... -[Freddy] You bought his gold?
He did. Yup.
And retired looking for an investment, right?
Yeah. One investment is not a glass jar.
Let's fire up a plant.
[narrator] During the first test...
[Freddy] We'll start a timer.
[narrator] Freddy and Juan quickly realized
the challenge ahead.
Spray bar broke off 11 seconds in.
It definitely seems like if
it's not one thing, it's another.
You can see that material that's coming off the end
of the trommel and it's still really dirty like that,
we know we're losing gold.
And he had a problem with clay, right?
He wasn't breaking it up.
He was losing a lot of that gold
-out the end of the trommel because... -[Freddy] Mmm-hmm.
-it wasn't getting properly scrubbed. -Yup.
Remember that grain separator screen...
-Oh, man. -shaker, whatever it was from the 1930s?
Remember it's plugged with rocks and it was...
It wasn't gonna last long.
That thing was so dang loud.
You could hear it on the dark side of the moon.
[narrator] Freddy and Juan's fix,
replaced the shaker deck with a rock scrubber
made from repurposed pipe,
fitted with steel rods
to break up the clay covered gold rich material.
[Freddy] That scrubber.
[Juan] I thought it was actually pretty decent.
-I would've liked a bigger piece... -Oh, yeah.
you know, but use what you got sometimes.
[narrator] But Chad's greatest obstacle
lies at his deep cut,
two miles from his wash plant.
Well, he was trucking material in
from down the road quite a few miles, right?
It's exciting stuff, but also it's a lot of work
and the trucking, the overburden, uh,
you know, the reclamation side of it.
But this is the spot that gold fever first bit me.
[Freddy] So this is your deep cut, huh?
[Chad] Yeah.
This is promising material.
Sure it's pretty in the pan, but it costs you two dollars
to get one dollars' worth of gold.
[narrator] Each week, Chad spends most of his time
stripping overburden
and trucking pay to his plant,
leaving him just two days to run.
Freddy's fix, search for pay in an old cut
just a few hundred feet from Chad's plant.
[device beeping]
No human's ever seen this dirt before.
[device beeps]
[suspenseful music playing]
And I got something in the pan.
Hopefully it's not a hunk of iron or something.
Oh, there it is.
That's a nice little nugget.
Really nice actually.
Hey, Chad, you got a second?
[Chad] Yeah.
[Freddy] I went up in your hole next to the plant...
Yeah.
[Freddy] with a metal detector, there's one.
I'd run all this.
Okay. Sounds good.
But we found him material on the property
that wasn't as good a pay,
but it paid more because you didn't have to truck it.
First bucket, here we go.
[narrator] Fix is complete.
Moment of truth, Juano.
[narrator] Chad's future rests on the final gold wave.
They're running a lot more material
and it's a lot cleaner than it's ever been.
We're smoking it.
-[Juan] Hey, guys, last bucket. -[Freddy] Last bucket.
[machine whirring]
[suspenseful music playing]
Well, you guys ready to, uh, see what you got?
[narrator] For Chad to secure best friend Terry's
vital investment,
the upgraded plant must produce no less
than double the previous run.
[Freddy] Well, there's over a half ounce.
We're over 0.86 from last time.
And, uh, 1.68.
-[Larimer] Woo-hoo. -Oh, wow.
-[Juan] Double, I told you. -Hey.
-[man] Double. -Yeah.
-[Juan] Double. Double. -[man] That's awesome.
-[man] I know we want more than double. -Congrats, guys.
[Chad] I'm all in.
I mean, if you'll still have me
-as a partner on this deal... -[Larimer] Thank you.
[Chad] I'm all in. I'm ready to do this.
I'm really hoping that they're still
working together and they're making gold...
-Yeah. -making some money.
Yeah, me too.
How's it going, guys?
What's going on?
Chad, you got the whole Santa Claus thing going on.
It's looking good.
Thanks, man.
[Freddy] Yeah.
[Juan] Are you guys still at it and still partnered up?
Oh, yeah.
I'm still helping him get running this spring.
[Juan] That's great.
How'd your operation go after we left last year?
Pretty darn good actually.
We increased production.
I'd say we were right around eight ounces.
What did you do the year before?
-What did you do the year before? -Yeah.
Oh, gosh. Uh, maybe two?
-Nice. -Wow.
Awesome. Good for you.
The stuff that you guys did really helped the production
of the plant and definitely the recovery.
[Chad] Oh, yeah.
I'm really excited and think we can have an amazing year,
you know, and it's all right there next to the plant.
I'm just really wanting to make this work
for being able to provide for my family.
-Well, guys... -[Juan] Yeah, very cool.
it's been a pleasure.
I enjoyed working with you.
-All right. Thanks, guys. -You got it.
-Bye for now guys. -See you later, Chad.
To tell you what, that ground there
-testing around in there... -It's dang good.
-Yeah. I'd mine there. -Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Gold is money and money is gold.
Absolutely.
[wind howling]
[Juan] There's always something to learn, right?
We worked hard last year.
-You know, it's good... -Yeah.
-to see all the miners and how they've done and... -Mmm-hmm.
Well, what was your favorite part of last season, Juan?
Your favorite moment?
It's hard to really pick just one,
but I think the one that stands out right now
in my mind was Terry and Stephanie in British Columbia.
-Yeah. Mmm-hmm. -They're a really nice couple.
-And it was just Terry there in the beginning. -I know.
You know, they were small operation,
but I think honestly with what we did there,
it probably had one of the bigger impacts
-between a family, right? -Yeah.
-[Juan] Nice to meet you. Juan. -Juan, nice to meet you.
-Nice to meet you, Terry. -Freddy.
[narrator] On their 247 acre claim,
Terry Lind and wife Stephanie
watched their retirement evaporate
with all work and no pay.
I wanna know where the big guy
hit his jewelry box and I wanna dig it up.
[narrator] But so far, he was struggling
to run the mine on his own.
Took me all summer to go through,
I would say about 40, 50 yards of material.
-[Juan] That's all you've ran? -See...
That's all I've ran through this plant.
[Freddy] You're doing all this all by yourself, huh?
Yes, I am.
Remember him out there with pry bars and shovels?
-Oh, blisters everywhere. -Yeah. Yeah.
-Yeah. Bleeding. -Ah, he was bleeding too.
Yup. Yup.
[Lind] Now I gotta bang the side,
you know, just to keep the material moving.
[Freddy] How's it going, Terry?
[Lind] Terrible.
I'm working like a dog.
-Yeah, we try. -But this is what I do on a daily base
when I am out here.
Remember their material was so clumped
and so mudded up
that it wouldn't run through the hopper?
It was just a sticky mess.
It just gets stuck right on the sides there.
[Freddy] Pretty wet material, eh, Juano?
The only option we had in the time period
that we were there was to wind road
in that material and let the sun hit more of it, right?
And dry it out.
[Juan] Sometimes those simple fixes
are some of the most, uh, ingenious fixes
-that actually help a lot, right? -Yeah.
And it's free, the sun did it.
[narrator] Freddy and Juan also attached two vibrators
to the hopper to prevent it from clogging...
and add a heavier counterweight
to the pre-wash
to help get rid of any remaining pay.
Freddy, well, you and I both saw it, right,
-right when we got there. -Mmm-hmm.
The only way that operation was gonna be functional
if there was several people on the ground
-to actually work. -Yeah, at least two.
[Juan] Yeah.
[Freddy] Probably the...
-[Lind] Biggest. -biggest fix.
We'd like to get your wife introduced into being able
to help a little bit more.
You know, she loved going out there
and mining when it was just a pick and shovel operation,
but once he brought the Track-O in
and a little bit bigger plant
-and so forth and so on, she was intimidated. -Yeah.
Anything can go wrong.
I really don't feel I have a place down there
because I really don't know what to do.
And Terry, he was like, "Well, if you could do it,"
he's, "I'm all for it
because I've been asking her to do it for years
and she really was kind of reluctant to do it."
-Until you talked to her. -[Juan] Yeah. I know. It was--
You gave her just enough confidence to help.
[Juan] Once you kind of get the hang
of how the controls in that excavator work,
it's actually pretty simple to run.
Okay. I can try.
I'm not gonna promise anything but--
Well, that's all we can ask for.
I'm happy we were able to, at least, get her...
You know, get that little seed planted
-where she wanted to try to do it. -Yeah.
Okay. Ignition.
[Juan] Pull that throttle back just a little bit.
All right. Right there.
And trust me, I was nervous 'cause I'm like, man,
-she can go over there and smash... -Smash it.
that hopper in a matter of seconds, it' d be done, right?
-All right. -Okay.
[Juan] We'll just grab a bucket of dirt right there
out of that pile.
Other way.
You're fine.
It was definitely a gamble, Freddy,
you know, trying to get her involved.
[Stephanie] Straight back with the left hand.
Oh, big rocks.
Little nerve-racking still.
-That's pretty dang good. -Not bad. Not bad.
And it was really great to see her confidence start building.
-I mean, she did well. -[Freddy] Yup. She did well.
First bucket, Stephanie!
[dramatic music playing]
[Juan] You could see it, the material that's coming
-out the end of it, just clean. -[Freddy] Clean.
[Juan] And we're running three times
-as much material now too. -Yeah.
[Lind] I am so ecstatic.
Stephanie is actually feeding the plant
for the very first time.
This is absolutely unreal.
[Freddy] Hey, Stephanie.
Last bucket.
[Stephanie] Okay.
[dramatic music playing]
[Lind] My goodness. You were in the excavator.
-Yup. -[Lind] How you doing? You--
-I did it. -Yes.
Sure. Nervous, but I did it.
[Lind] Well, high five.
Great, hon. I'm so proud of you.
Juan's a great teacher.
He was very easy to follow.
No crazy commands.
That's good. So better him than me?
[Stephanie] Probably.
[laughs]
-[Stephanie] Yeah. -Yeah.
Well, there's definitely more gold there than there was the first time.
[Juan] A lot more fine gold too.
[narrator] For Terry and Stephanie,
to stand a chance
at recouping their investment,
they need to double their previous run.
Well...
-[Juan] Look at that. -[Freddy] 0.2 ounce.
-Awesome. -[Freddy] That's pretty good.
But I remember it was around 200% increase.
[Juan] That's a pretty dang good increase.
-That gamble paid off. -Yeah.
We're able to get in there, help her,
get her that confidence she needed.
Yeah. And we made it from a one-man operation back
-to a family operation. -Yeah.
Fingers crossed that they did well.
Well, hello, Terry.
[Juan] Hey, buddy. Good to see you, Terry.
You too, Juan. Good to see you too, Freddy.
I just wanted to check up on my student
and see how she was doing. [chuckles]
[Lind] She's been actually doing really well.
You know, her confidence level is slowly gaining.
Well, really? It's kind of nice to know
that Stephanie kind of stuck with it
and you're no longer a one-man band.
That is so true.
How did everything go after when we worked on your plant?
-Go okay? I was really happy
because it ran flawlessly, guys, you know?
It was really nice to sit there
and run material
and didn't have to worry about nothing binding up...
-Nice. -[Lind] and just a nice flow.
It's like a whole new plant, Freddy.
How'd you end up? Do you...
Were you able to put a little bit of gold away?
[Lind] Yeah. We did actually not too bad.
We were doing roughly two ounces of gold
out of 150 yards.
That's pretty good.
I'm really hoping to well exceed 200 yards
of pay dirt this year
and see what I pull out.
Well, you were...
You were great to work with. You and your wife.
-Yeah. -We had a lot of laughs.
-Oh, that we did. I really enjoyed working
with you, Freddy and Juan, you know?
It was awesome.
Terry, it was great to catch up with you.
We wish you the best of luck in this next season,
and, hopefully, you kill it out there.
Yup. Tear it up.
Get that gold.
I will do that, guys.
And you guys have a great season.
And go help a bunch of other miners how
to succeed their dreams as well.
-Well, thanks. -Appreciate it.
[Freddy] Thank you. Bye for now.
Awesome. Thanks, guys.
I'm proud of that, Freddy. And, hopefully, this year,
he gets out there and just kills it.
-Yup. -Right on, buddy.
-Nice job, bud. -Likewise.
[narrator] This season, one of Mine Rescue's
biggest gold hauls.
We started running that stuff
that Freddy and I tested,
and it's better than anything we could have hoped for.
Holy.
That's unbelievable.
[upbeat music playing]
Of all the mines we helped last year,
which one do you think was the most emotional?
Well, you know, we had Rich and Kevin,
-the Montana boys, that we helped out. -[Freddy] The Montana.
Rich had sold everything
and he thrown every bit of his spaghetti
-at the wall that he had. -[Juan chuckles]
For Kevin and Rich, Freddy, it wasn't just about the gold.
It was about a brotherly relationship.
Yup.
[dramatic music playing]
This is the only thing I've got.
I've put everything into this.
I have $75,000 in cash invested.
Rich probably has three, four times that.
[narrator] Recently reconciled brothers,
Kevin and Rich Dietz,
sold everything they had
in a bid to rekindle their relationship
through mining.
How much gold did you produced last year?
We produced 5 ounces
and moved about 500 yards of dirt.
This year, we've moved about 700 yards of dirt
-and we've got about 3 ounces. -[Juan] Oh.
So you're not making money is what you're saying.
[Kevin] No. We're not even close.
We're in big trouble.
Right.
Well, remember, when we first got there, we...
Me and you both looked at the material they were running
and they only had some pay in it.
[Juan] Oh, it was... Yeah. It was bad material.
There's nothing to speak of.
[narrator] And this pressure only added
to their strained relationship.
From, what, the sounds of it,
they really hadn't gone long for a while.
Acquaintance, maybe a better word than brothers.
After I left home, it was roughly four decades
before Rich and I reconnected,
and we reconnected through gold.
Jerry. Jerry, you got a copy?
Kevin, we don't care about that.
[Kevin] That ain't gonna cut it, Rich.
It's a lot easier just to fast pan the stuff
and get all the refines into one.
And you'd be saving a whole lot of time.
[Rich] We're both stubborn and pretty pigheaded.
I don't know if it's gonna work out.
If the gold fails, I think--
Puts a lot of stress on relationship.
To keep them from spending more money...
-We shut them down. -we shut them down. We had to.
[narrator] The first test lasted just 40 minutes.
[man] We gotta shut them down.
[Rich] This might be the shortest run
of our history.
So this is what you're digging?
Yeah. This is the material right here.
I'm sure there's a tremendous amount of gold around here,
but this whole pit right here,
in my eyes, is played out.
So this is the retirement plan then?
I'm all in.
Ooh.
[chuckles]
Really, the big fix was that ground.
Oh, and I searched all over for gold,
trying to find stuff that the old-timers missed.
[narrator] For three days,
Freddy scours the claim looking for signs
of untouched pay dirt.
[Freddy] Now, let's see what's in it, huh?
[Rich] Yeah.
[Freddy] Tan colors.
That's not good.
[bleep].
-But it was a pain in the butt... -It was.
'cause I'm out prospecting all over, not finding much,
and I'm like, "We're running out of time here.
I'll tell you that."
But then we found that stuff that the old-timers missed.
This layer, from right here, looks promising.
You guys wanna start getting pay down
-so we can run a second test here. [man] Yeah?
-And it was good. -It was dang good.
-Yeah. Better than expected. -[Juan] Yeah.
[narrator] Gold-rich pay sourced,
Freddy and Juan run a final test.
[Kevin] I like that flow much better.
We got a chance.
Yup.
[Kevin] That looks very good dirt.
Way different than the stuff we've been running.
Shut it down, guys.
Shutting it down.
Pour it out, Juan-O.
[narrator] The test must deliver,
at least, $600 worth of gold.
-[Freddy] 0.44. -[Juan] 0.44.
[Freddy] Right there is almost $900 worth of gold.
-Dude. Hey. -[chuckles]
-That's amazing, ain't it? -There you go.
[narrator] An increase of over 500%
from the first test.
I love you. I believed you.
I'm hoping they're still at it
and I'm hoping they're making gold
to be able to keep that relationship strong.
I hope so too.
[Juan] Hey, good to see you, guys.
Great seeing you, guys.
-Nice to see you, guys. -Nice to see you, guys.
Hey, uh, so how'd it go after we left?
Did you get...
Did you run some decent gold through the plant?
We ran about 95 yards
and we got almost 2 ounces of gold.
-Oh, 2 ounces, a hundred. -[Juan] Wow.
[Freddy] Over 2 ounces, a hundred.
Congratulations, guys. That's sweet.
We got a lot there waiting to go still.
Well, that's good news.
Well, and it's gotta be exciting
that you know you got a property
that has gold on it now, right?
I'm excited about the gold that's there.
I mean, there's a lot of gold there,
so I thank you very much for that.
Now, don't get me wrong,
I'm really excited that you guys were able
to get a couple ounces out of a hundred yards,
but I really wanna know how is your guys' relationship?
Our relationship is on the right track.
-Oh, good. -We've been talking
-and everything's good. -[Freddy] Good.
And it's my plan this year
is to do some prospecting
while Rich runs that mine and go from there.
You find what the old-timers missed,
you could, you know, put bank in your wallet,
get all the gold you can.
Well, perfect. We're excited for it.
-Yeah. -You guys really changed
our whole gold mining trajectory,
because we would have been digging to China
and wondering where all the gold went.
Well, the sky's the limit for you guys
in that canyon, I think.
Take care, guys.
Talk to you later. Bye.
Pretty cool, huh?
Yeah. That's really good, Freddy.
-You see a smile on his face now. -[Juan] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, that's definitely better than expected.
[Juan] Yeah. You know, over the last year, Fred,
there was a lot of challenges,
but, honestly, it really tested us.
What do you think the most challenging mine
that we helped was last year?
Well, with the Waits, we did quite a bit there,
-Freddy. -We did.
But, you know, at the end of the day,
a nugget screwed us.
[dramatic music playing]
-Freddy, nice to meet you. -Nice to meet you.
I'm Heidi.
[narrator] Lured by Montana's nugget country,
husband and wife team, Bryce and Heidi Waits,
turned their hobby mine
into a fulltime family business.
This is the American dream.
You know, if you want a good life,
you have to get it yourself, build it yourself.
A lot of people doubted us
when we're like, "We're buying a gold mine."
"Oh, I can't believe it."
And, you know, we'd love to prove them all wrong
and say, well, we made a life out of this.
They had issues from day one, especially with how spotty
-that ground was. -Mmm-hmm.
Of the last 30 pans I've done up here,
I haven't found one single speck of gold.
[narrator] With over 30 acres to work,
the claim's ground was hard to read.
[Freddy] What are you pulling out of here
for a two-day run, roughly?
[Bryce] It depends, because of the nuggets.
You know, we've had as low as five bucks a yard
all the way up to 50 bucks a yard.
And then on top of that, Fred,
you know, they had an issue with the excavator.
My little excavator that I run with now,
it is literally like digging with a teaspoon.
That's a huge limiting factor.
All right. Let's get some gold.
They really couldn't feed that plant consistently.
Oh, hey!
Get it.
We're all plugged up up here now.
That was it. Last bucket.
[Freddy] Well, let's weigh it up.
There's that big nugget.
But, remember, seeing that nugget
-in the first test run at the Waits? -Oh, I know.
Especially when he said, "This is the biggest piece
-of gold we've ever seen..." -[Juan] Yeah, I know.
"on the property."
So then it really threw off the scales.
That's exactly right.
Here we go.
0.62.
[narrator] Six-tenths of an ounce
worth over $1,100.
-It's a good run. -[Freddy] Yeah.
-That's not bad. -[Juan] That's a good run. A dang good run.
[narrator] A quarter-ounce nugget
is a welcome site for the Waits,
but rare and sets an unreliable bar
for the first test.
-Me and you were like, -"Uh-oh."
-Uh-oh. -Uh-oh.
[laughs]
-My heart sunk a little bit. -Yeah.
I was super pumped for them,
but I'm like that's gonna really throw us off.
[narrator] Coming up...
Freddy and Juan's fears come true.
-Not good, Fred. -Yeah.
[narrator] But they finally learned
if their fixes have turned fail to fortune.
Did you get quite a bit of gold is what we're asking.
[dramatic music playing]
Hey, Fred, come check this out real quick.
Got my new family wagon.
Well, that's nice, Juan.
Yeah. Dan and I can take the little kids out.
-[Freddy] Yeah. -They love to go riding
-all the time. -Yeah.
But don't feel left out, Freddy.
I got something special for you too.
-Come check this out. -Oh, great.
-[laughs] -[Juan] I know it's a little big right now
but you'll grow into it, all right?
-Yeah. -[laughs]
I don't know if I can get my feet
to the ground, Juan.
Is that for a little Freddy?
-Yeah. It's little Freddy's. -Smartass.
Short jokes never end, do they, Juan-O?
-No, they don't. -[laughs]
Let's go make some phone calls.
[narrator] In Reno, Freddy and Juan catch up
with the families who they helped last year.
You know, the Waits, when they said
it's the biggest nugget they've ever found
on that first test run--
We knew we had our work cut out for us.
[narrator] With the first weigh skewed by a nugget,
Freddy and Juan faced an uphill battle
to improve the Wait's recovery.
One of the big things we gave them
is the knowledge, how to prospect
-and investigate. -Yeah.
[narrator] To improve the odds on their spotty ground,
the Waits get a master class
in hunting for gold-rich pockets.
Okay. Let me show you guys.
This has been reworked.
[narrator] And Freddy builds them
a smaller prospector sluice
that can be easily moved around the site
to test pay dirt.
You're not miners anymore, right?
You're prospector miners
-on this property. -Yeah.
We did a lot of repairs.
And then we do the second test.
I'm like, "This is it. This is the one."
-Ooh. -Yeah.
Well, this is what we got, guys.
0.31.
-Not good, Fred. -Yeah.
[narrator] An unprecedented 50% decrease
from the initial gold weigh.
Well, we knew we were gonna get beat
-sooner or later. -And we got beat,
-fair and square. -Exactly. Right. Yeah.
Remember what the Waits' main goal was for this season?
Yeah. Ultimately, they wanted to run more material
by having a bigger excavator, right?
I don't know if they did or not, Freddy.
Why don't we give them a call and find out?
Let's find out.
Fingers crossed.
-Hi, strangers. -[Juan] How's it going?
-It's good to see you guys. -Really good to see you guys, yeah.
Anyway, we wanted talk about your season
'cause you're the first ones that have beat us.
Yeah. Yeah.
-[laughs] -Sorry about that.
Hope... Hopefully, the last ones too.
-[Freddy] No, you won't be. -[Juan] Well, probably
-won't be, no. -[Freddy] No.
How'd you guys do
towards the end of the season last year?
Did you get quite a bit of gold is what we're asking.
-Yeah. -[laughs]
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. It got...
It only got better from there.
If you had been there a couple more days,
you'd have seen the improvement.
-[Juan] I see. -That's all it would've taken.
For sure.
[Heidi] All right, guys.
Show us what we got in the box.
[Bryce] Here at the top,
we got a couple nice little pieces.
Nice little nugget there.
Working down, there's a bunch here in the miners moss.
Since your sluice box setup made it so much easier
-for sampling... -Yeah.
you know, we just kept working our way up,
doing little 10-yard samples
until we hit stuff that looked good.
And right towards the end of the season,
we were pretty consistently
in $20 to $30-a-yard material.
-Nice. That's good to hear. -Yeah.
You know, I know last year you guys were talking
about one of your main goals
was to be able to get into a bigger excavator
to be able to run more material.
Were you guys able to do that?
[Bryce] We were. We did get a good deal
on a bigger excavator.
Well, that's good news.
[Heidi] Here's our new machine that we got this year.
And this is where we've been digging.
It's amazing
how much less time he spends digging
with a much bigger bucket.
Well, you guys are an absolute pleasure
-to work with. -[Heidi] Thank you.
If you guys are back in Montana, let us know.
We'll try and hook up. Have a beer.
-[laughs] Sounds great. -Take care, guys.
You guys take care. Thank you.
-See you, guys. -Bye.
That was good news.
That nugget won that battle
but it sounds like we won the war.
Well, Freddy, at the end of the day,
most of the people we helped last year,
they're continuing to,
you know, do what they wanna do and mine.
-Catching more gold. Yup. -[Juan] Catch more gold.
Oh, what do we got going on here?
We got the bosses coming in, Freddy.
Hello, girls.
Aiden, Addie.
Hi, Little Freddy.
Oh, he's got a lot bigger
since the last time I've seen Little Freddy.
[Juan] I just ordered his new welding shirt, Freddy,
and they're the same size as yours.
Yeah. One size bigger probably.
[Juan laughs]
Freddy, you know, it's...
It's getting harder and harder
to leave the house these days,
-you know, with the little ones growing up. -Mmm-hmm. I can see why.
But, you know, I know what... A lot of these families
that we're helping out,
they're trying to make a living for them and their families,
and I can appreciate that.
So it makes me wanna work a little harder
and do a little better for them.
-And I know you too as well. -Yeah.
[Juan] All right, little ones. We better get back to work.
-[Freddy] Kid stampede. -Yeah.
Well, let's finish packing up...
-[Juan] Let's do it. -and get on the road, bud.
[Juan] It's that time, Freddy. Let's get it.
[Freddy] You know, we learned quite a bit too, you know?
[upbeat music playing]
[dramatic music playing]
[Freddy] Let's roll some dice here.
[Juan] I'm from Nevada.
We like to gamble a little bit.
[Freddy] You know how it is,
everything's a flip of a coin.
[Juan] I feel pretty confident right now.
I'm willing to put our money where our mouth is.
[Freddy] Hey, Juan, let's do something we've never done before.
[Juan] Double or nothing.
[Freddy] Double or nothing.
[Juan] If we can't double the miner's gold,
we won't charge him a dime.
Well, I hate to bet against you but game on.
-Let's do it. -[Freddy] Let's catch some gold.
[man] Everything is on the line.
Literally everything.
[man] This is the biggest casino there is.
You have no idea if there's anything
beneath the surface.
I'm all in. It's a serious commitment.
[Freddy] Bringing a seismic crew in here.
[man] Holy cow.
[Juan] The rotating brush
is something we've never done before.
[Freddy] That's exciting.
[Juan] Our first attempt at solar.
Holy crap. That's hot.
Underground, everything wants to kill you.
[man] Out, out, out. We gotta go.
[man] We got forest fires nearby.
If we don't get 100 ounces this year, it's over.
Freddy and Juan are my last hope.
That's 10 times the amount of gold.
-[man] Woo! -Hey!
It turns your dream out here into a reality.
Woo!