-[slow dramatic music playing] -[distant birdcalls]
[crossing bell dinging]
[Ryan Merritt] What I do know about gold is it's in the ground...
[chuckles] ...but I'm having a hard time getting it out.
I have all my money invested in this mine.
We're trying to find gold and we can't pay our bills and this stresses me out.
My boy, Nolan,
he's real green.
He likes to get his hands dirty.
Alls he wants is a career in gold mining.
Once you see that first glimpse of gold,
you're kinda already hooked.
[Ryan] I'm doing the best I can to try to teach him the ropes,
but I'm learning a lot as we go as well.
It would be my dream to pass this mine on to Nolan
and let him take control of it one day.
[Nolan] I sacrificed my day job to come up here,
and I'm really excited to start my next journey
and try to pursue a gold-mining dream.
[Ryan] This is the last season
we're gonna be able to be up here if we can't make it and find gold.
And that's gonna be a real hardship for my boy.
And I don't want to let him down.
I'm his dad, so...
it's pretty... It hits home.
[Freddy] Let's make some gold, guys.
[narrator] Freddy Dodge...
There's no guarantees in gold, buddy.
[narrator] ...and Juan Ibarra...
All right. Well, let's do it, huh?
[narrator] ...have mastered the art of getting gold out of the ground...
[Juan] Look at that.
[narrator] ...in the most rugged places on Earth.
[Juan over radio] I'm feeling a little sick, Freddy.
[narrator] Now, they rescue struggling miners.
Ooh, that's not good.
[narrator] ...who risked it all to be rich...
[man] Whoa, whoa, whoa! Shut it down!
[narrator] ...but are about to lose everything.
[man] Eyeballs.
[narrator] To revive these failing mines,
Freddy and Juan engineer the impossible...
[man] Well, I've never heard of an undersluice before.
[narrator] ...deliver some hard truths...
This material you're digging now is totally worthless.
[narrator] ...and track down the gold.
That's what dreams are made of right there.
[narrator] But if they don't at least double the miners' gold recovery,
they won't take a dime in return.
-Collected ten times the amount of gold. -[man] That's awesome.
[all laugh]
[humming]
-Thanks for the coffee, bud. -No problem, buddy.
I'm sorry I'm not gonna be
-much help this week. -No worries.
I'm sitting there looking at it.
It's really not that noticeable.
That little support thing you've got going on.
No, you know, you barely see it.
I tore my shoulder up pretty bad.
So I'm not supposed to lift anything with this hand.
Just move it.
[Juan] It's a good thing that Travis and Alex are here to give us a hand.
Yeah. I got one good arm to hug you with, buddy.
[both laughing]
[narrator] Freddy and Juan are in Baker County, Oregon,
heading for the Mammoth Mine,
a 13-acre claim owned by Ryan Merritt.
Historically, one of the richest
hard-rock mining areas in the region.
The site is six miles outside the mining town of Sumpter,
famed for producing millions of dollars'
worth of placer gold annually
in the early 1900s.
[Freddy over radio] It's good to be back here,
but, you know, this area's been hit pretty hard.
A lot of the gold that was around here is in somebody else's bank account now.
So what do we know about Ryan, Freddy?
Well, he bought this property up here
and he said his recovery system,
he thinks it's pretty lacking, but we'll see when we get here.
[truck horn blares]
[birds chirping]
-[Juan] Good morning. -[Ryan] Freddy. Juan.
Wow. We're very glad to see you guys.
-How's it going? -[Ryan] Good.
-Nice to meet you. -What's your name?
-Nolan. -Nice to meet you, Nolan.
It's good to meet you guys.
It's a beautiful spot you guys got out here.
-[Ryan] Thank you. -How long you been out here?
About the last three years we've been actively mining it.
Okay. So what's the relation?
-So this is my boy Nolan. -[Juan] Okay.
Yeah. He really wants to be a gold miner.
Sure, if it's profitable and I can make a living out of it.
Is that your end goal then, to one day take this over, then?
Yeah. Hopefully upgrade my wash plant so I can run more material
and be profitable.
[narrator] Two years ago, 22-year-old Nolan Merritt
quit his pressure washing business in Central Oregon
to join his dad and follow his dream
of gold mining.
[Nolan] Leaving my day job to come up here,
and you're basically gambling, essentially.
I'm not an expert by all means,
but I'm hoping to get a future in this industry.
[speaking]
But the main problem is we're finding very minimal gold.
[narrator] Two hundred miles from his home,
the lack of gold is taking its toll.
[Nolan] I'm bringing in no money.
I've got bills to pay
and, I mean, it's an expensive world
for a 22-year-old to grow up in.
I kind of grew up my whole life being told, "Never work for free,"
so now I'm working for free and, uh...
it's kind of hard to wrap my head around.
I'm just gonna keep chipping away
and hopefully start seeing some color.
[Ryan] We actually have a hard-rock pit over there.
I've heard from all the local people in town
that the values of the ore in there
were some of the richest around.
So it would be really neat trying to get the trommel
to make enough money that we can actually go underground someday.
That gets expensive fast.
[Ryan] Yeah, that does.
[Juan] Yeah. A whole different animal.
So how's your season gone so far then?
[Ryan] We're not doing real hot.
I mean, we're roughly getting about a tenth of an ounce a day right now.
-[Juan] Ooh. -It's just not covering the costs.
Yeah, 150 bucks a day, 170 bucks a day?
Yeah. A couple of 100 dollars a day isn't doing it for us.
That's not enough to cover the fuel.
-Fuel. Exactly. -[Nolan] Mm-hmm.
[Ryan] The last three years, the best season,
it's been $5,000.
-Yeah, it's not good. -[Juan] Mm-mm, it's not.
Realistically, what do you need daily
to be able to make this work?
About an ounce a day, really, is what we need.
-[Freddy] I can see that. -Yeah.
So if you can't make enough gold here, then what are you gonna do?
You know, if we can't make something happen this year,
then this'll probably be the last season we mine.
It's a dream to me to watch my boy be able to carry on the tradition of mining,
and it would be a real kick in the gut
if, you know, I couldn't watch him carry that on.
So it's kind of a legacy thing then?
-Yeah, building one, for sure. -[Nolan] Yeah.
-Well, we're here. -Let's watch it run.
-See if we can help you. -Yeah.
[dramatic music playing]
[distant bird cawing]
[narrator] The Mammoth claim is staked over
a number of ancient river channels near Bear Canyon.
Although this land has been mined before,
Ryan hopes, with modern machinery,
he can retrieve the gold they left behind.
-A four-hour test? -Yep.
The timer's going.
Let's go.
-First bucket, Juan. -[Juan] First bucket.
[dramatic music continues]
Hopefully, I can haul some good pay here.
[narrator] Nolan drops pay through grizzly bars
into an 11-foot hopper,
which funnels down into the rotating trommel,
where a spray bar washes gold off the rocks,
to be caught in the 10-foot sluice.
Look at that sluice box, Fred. That's not good.
That's the worst sluice box I've seen. [scoffs]
Now, that's a gold-losing sluice box,
-that's for dang sure. -Yeah.
-It's like it got ran over by an excavator. -[chuckles]
I'd be embarrassed to take that in for scrap iron. [chuckles]
[Juan] I can see why they're only getting a 10th of an ounce.
I'm gonna look at that box real quick.
Freddy and Juan aren't gonna like that sluice box.
Feel that nugget riffle up top right here.
Half the riffles are popped up.
None of the riffles are touching.
That hold-down system is not good at all.
I can just imagine what they're thinking of that sluice box right now.
I've always had an infatuation with digging in the dirt,
and I always wanted to buy a mine.
And ended up up here with the realtor
showing us around some properties,
and they said this is for sale
and there's rumors that
there's really good gold, so we jumped on it.
[narrator] Inspired by stories of huge gold hauls,
Ryan subsidized the mine with his construction business.
But now, the falling market has changed his luck.
I have a construction company in Central Oregon.
Times are very slow right now, as far as construction goes.
There's been a lot of hardship.
We're not guaranteed anything right now.
To be able to pay my bills and get out of debt,
for the last three years,
we decided we were gonna hit this mining operation hard.
[narrator] Originally a weekend mine,
it's now become his lifeline.
This doesn't give me enough money to pay our bills.
I have a family counting on me to find gold,
especially my boy, Nolan.
I really want to watch my kid prosper.
I want to pass this mine on to Nolan
and let him take control of it one day.
But we can't find gold.
This is a big, big week.
Freddy and Juan coming up is gonna
either make us or break us.
We got a problem here.
[dramatic music playing]
It's just boiling over. Nolan, get that bar.
[Nolan] Whoa!
Not good. We've got a rock plugged in there,
jammed stuck. It's overflowing with water.
Looks like it's clogging up our trommel.
It's not getting down in there.
[narrator] If the jammed rock isn't dislodged in time,
gold could be lost over the side of the hopper.
[Ryan] There it goes, there it went.
Yeah, you got it.
[metal clanging]
[Juan speaking]
Juano!
[Ryan] I was pretty sure we had a gold nugget
stuck in there for a minute, but it ended up being a rock.
[Nolan] Getting ready to run again.
That was a bit scary for me.
What I want to do is, I want to grab a handful of that material
coming off the end of the trommel,
pan it and see what's in it.
You know, it seems to me that there's a lot of material coming out
that should be getting down into the sluice box and getting recovered.
[suspenseful music playing]
Oh. [bleep] Juan's got a gold pan in his hand.
That makes me nervous.
[Juan] The reality is, out of one pan,
all that material should have gone into the sluice box
to get recovered.
I don't see any gold though.
I didn't have any gold in the pan, but still,
if we're losing that much material,
there's a chance we're losing gold.
I took a pan out of the tailings,
coming off the end of the trommel.
There was a lot of fine material, but there was no gold.
How about off the sluice?
I haven't done that yet, but I want to take a pan from the pay.
-[Freddy] It doesn't look good to me. -[Juan] Yeah, it doesn't.
Doesn't look like anything spectacular.
[narrator] Panning the pay should show gold is going into the wash plant,
even if it's being lost out the other end.
[Freddy] What are you seeing, Juano?
[Juan] Nothing yet, Fred.
[suspenseful music playing]
Nothing to speak of.
[Freddy] That's not good.
Let's go look at their pay where they're digging it.
[narrator] With two hours still left on the test,
Freddy and Juan need to track down the pay.
-[Juan] Nice old boiler. -[Freddy] A lot of history here.
-[Juan] Oh, yeah. -[chuckles]
[Freddy] That's where he's getting it from.
No wonder they're only getting a 10th of an ounce a day.
This is all garbage. It's all tailings.
Every bit of it's tailings.
Yeah. Let's see what you get in this pan.
[Juan] There'll be nothing in it.
[Freddy] This creek is completely mined out.
-Nothing. -[Juan] Not a speck.
It's pretty consistent ground.
Pretty consistent garbage.
-That's not good, Freddy. -What do you think?
Should we stop 'em?
-I think you shut 'em down. -Shut 'em down.
Yeah, he's just burning fuel.
Let's just call it.
-[suspenseful music playing] -[distant birdcalls]
It's not worth running.
No, it's mined out. It's weird that they didn't see that.
But, you know, they haven't been around like us, you know.
[narrator] In the Beaver State of Northeast Oregon,
Freddy and Juan face a mining nightmare.
[Freddy] Well, right now, we're in a dilemma.
We panned out of their pay pile,
that they're calling their pay pile,
which is actually a garbage pile
because it's already been run.
This whole creek's been mined out,
and they're just digging tailings and running them.
So they're out of business here.
[Freddy] Hey, Nolan.
-[Nolan] Huh? -Last bucket.
[Ryan] What the...
[Nolan] We've got to shut it down.
[narrator] After just two hours,
-Freddy and Juan pull the plug. -[motor stops running]
[Freddy] The reason why we shut you down at two hours instead of going four...
-Right. -Everything here's tailings.
It's not virgin. It's been run multiple times.
This whole 13-acres as far as placer goes...
-It's dead. -It's dead.
-Nothing. Yeah, not even worth it. -[Freddy] Mm-mm.
The hill you own over there, that's all tails.
-Yeah. -[Freddy] On the lower part of it.
Everything. Everything here is tailings. It's all been run.
They hit her side to side and upside down.
We hate to be the bearer of bad news.
-[Ryan] Yeah -But the truth is, right now it's not worth it.
[Ryan] Yeah, we want honesty.
Definitely not what we want to hear.
Kind of like a kick in the gut.
We don't have good ground.
There's nothing we can do about it.
[Nolan] My father's invested a lot of money and time to come up here
and try to get things going for me,
and he tries to hand it off to me,
but if there's nothing to hand off, then, um,
there's no sense in being up here and wasting my time.
[Freddy] What's your thoughts, Juan?
Well, Freddy, you know, that ground is completely played out.
-[Freddy] Mm-hmm. -You know, and we took pans
and, uh, not a speck of gold.
-It was all tailings. -Every piece of it.
I think it had been run more than once.
That sluice box is probably the worst we've ever seen.
-[Freddy] It's a disaster, that sluice box. -[Juan chuckles] Yeah.
[Freddy] The bottom of it's shaped like a banana.
You can't hold the riffles down.
Even if there was gold there,
the gold would just shoot right under the riffles.
Oh, this is the first sluice box we've ever seen
where the riffles are actually just for show.
-They're not doing anything. -[both laugh]
-Show riffles. [laughs] -Yeah.
Yeah, Well, all we can do is put our heads together and figure this out.
-But I think we're in a pretty tough spot here, bud. -I agree.
[distant birdcalls]
[pleasant music playing]
[distant bird cawing]
Good morning, guys.
-Good morning. -[Freddy] How's it going?
That's the flattest spot I could find to weigh it.
[narrator] To get a true read on the ground,
Freddy and Juan want to weigh the two-hour test cleanup.
[Juan] How are we looking?
[Ryan] Yeah, it's a little light.
-[Freddy] Little light? -I don't think there's much but fly poop in there.
[Freddy] That's all pyrite.
-[Ryan] Yeah. -[Freddy] That's a nightmare.
[Ryan] Yeah, that is a nightmare for us.
[Freddy] There is 10-cents worth of gold, 20-cents worth of gold.
Yeah, right.
So there's no use weighing that.
I don't think my scale can even weigh it.
This will be the first cleanup we don't attempt to weigh,
-because this scale here... -Won't weigh that little.
[Freddy] No.
But right now, you just got to stop.
[Ryan] Okay.
I don't know what to do. Yeah.
You guys can tell us what we should do.
You know, this may not be the property that you're gonna be on forever.
-Right. -[Juan] So, let's put our heads together
and come up with a game plan and we'll go from there.
[Ryan] Thinking of that, it doesn't make me feel very good.
And I feel like I've let my kid down.
Back to square one, starting over again.
Freddy and Juan said that's the worst they've ever seen,
which is definitely not what we wanted to hear,
but what we've seen now,
after doing cleanups, there's nothing here for us,
so we've got to pursue something different.
[narrator] With one of the worst gold results on Mine Rescue,
they have just four more days to take the Merritt mine
from zero up to one ounce to keep their dream alive.
[Freddy] It's a tough one, Juan. This may break 'em from gold mining.
I hope not. What are your thoughts?
My thoughts, I'd go prospecting.
Well, really, I honestly think
-that's the best use of your time here. -Yeah.
If you can go out and start doing some prospecting, help them out,
-that's gonna be first and foremost. -Yeah.
One of the things we can do, Juan, is,
-you know, teach Nolan. -Yeah.
-Give him our experience and our knowledge. -For a young guy,
-Nolan's heart's already set on being a miner. -Mm-hmm.
So let's at least give him some of the tools
-that he's gonna need to be able to do that. -That's right.
-Yeah. -We didn't know there was no gold here.
No, and...
We kind of walked into a hornet's nest is what we did.
[suspenseful music playing]
[narrator] First lesson for greenhorn Nolan,
learn how to prospect.
[Freddy] So even without seeing your cut up here,
-I knew it was all tailings. -[Nolan] All right.
[Freddy] Looking at the tree growth,
everything we're walking on, everything you see here has been ran.
Well, how can you tell by the tree growth that it's been mined?
[Freddy] Because all the trees in the valley here,
where the placer gold was,
-they're all younger trees, you know, 30, 40 years old. -Right.
You've got old growth up on the hill
where they didn't mine the gold, right?
And there's probably trees up there that are a 100 years old.
-[Nolan] Right. -[Freddy] But not down in the valley. Yep.
So, you can see, this is where your cut was the other day, right?
[Nolan] Yeah.
[Freddy] Why don't you grab the trackhoe
and let's dig a little trench right here?
Okay.
[narrator] A trench will expose
the geological timeline of the ground
and show if it's been previously mined.
[Freddy] Nolan!
Come on down here, buddy.
You guys thought it was virgin ground.
[Nolan] Up here, right.
Right. No, it's... It's not.
So, if it was virgin material,
you'd have layers of material, right,
that have rhyme and reason to them.
Your flat rocks would be laying flat from water, right?
Because when they get in water, they're gonna lay flat, right?
Like my hand. They're not gonna lay like that, right?
-And it's gonna be tight-packed. -Okay.
[Freddy] You see how water is running through it?
-[Nolan] Yeah. -[Freddy] If it was tight-packed,
-it'd running on the surface. -[Nolan] Okay.
And you're gonna have different layers from different eras.
-Right? -[Nolan] Right.
The stream flowed here, slow for a while, you get a sand layer.
It's faster, you've got more rocks in it.
They're just all jumbled up
-and you see how easy it is digging. -[Nolan] Right.
They had hundreds of thousands of years to become a puzzle, all locked together.
Now the puzzle is just in pieces everywhere,
and all the gold taken out of it.
-But right now, this is just pure tailings. -Right.
And I bet the old-timers probably hit it in the 1800s.
But somebody else has mined it since then with heavy equipment,
probably in the 1980s, looking at the trees.
But what we could do is we could knock this tree down here,
get a chainsaw and look at the rings in it.
[dramatic music playing]
[tree creaking]
[Freddy] Perfect, bud. You wanna go grab a chainsaw?
[Nolan] Yes, sir.
[chainsaw buzzing]
[Freddy] You see how easy that fell over?
-[Nolan] Yeah. -[Freddy] 'Cause there's loose soil, right?
[Nolan] Right.
Perfect. Let's bring it out here in the sun and count rings.
-Forty-four. -Forty-four years ago.
-Yep. -That was when it was last done.
Well, that's when that tree started growing,
probably a few years after they were done mining when it started growing.
So, you know, 44 years...
-Nineteen... -'79, let's call it?
-Yeah. -1980.
-I was guessing 1980s, so right in there. -Yeah.
But whoever mined it did a good job.
They stripped it pretty clean of gold.
The only gold they lost was the hardest-to-catch gold.
[narrator] With their placer mining dead in the water,
Freddy explores their only other option on this land.
Hard-rock mining.
[Freddy] I've seen a vein over here when I was wandering yesterday.
We can look at it because that's your only shot here.
-[Nolan] We'll go up over this way. -[Freddy] Okay.
[narrator] Hard-rock prospecting
involves searching for underground veins
rich in deposits of high-grade gold.
It's a prosperous but perilous form of mining.
With miners digging deep shafts,
then punching tunnels into the mountainside
to chase the gold-bearing veins.
[Freddy] You can tell the old-timers punched into the mountain here,
-and they didn't do it for their health, right? -[Nolan] Right.
[Freddy] So they found something on the surface,
and then they started in to see if it was gonna be good enough gold.
Did they mine it out?
-Or is there a whack of gold still living in there? -Yeah.
-There's only one way to find out. -Right.
Have a look at it.
-[grim music playing] -[birds chirping]
[Freddy] I don't know, Juano. It's not good.
[Juan] No.
[Freddy] They are screwed as far as the placer goes.
[narrator] At Ryan Merritt's Mammoth Mine...
[Juan] It's in somebody else's bank account now.
[Freddy] Mm-hmm.
[narrator] ...the placer deposit has played out.
So Freddy is on the hunt for hard rock,
and the flooded shaft might be the answer.
So how the old-timers would find the hard-rock gold,
which can be the richest,
they'd start with the placer gold
and they'd pan their way up a creek valley,
and then when it ended, they'd back up,
and then they'd start looking up the mountain for the hard rock.
There's a reason they stopped mining it, though, right?
Was that because gold prices went down?
Was that because the claim owner passed away?
Or maybe they got to a depth where the ore played out, you know.
There could be a lot of factors.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] To find out more...
Well, thanks for driving for me.
Oh, not a problem, man. I'm sorry you're hurt.
[narrator] Freddy seeks out some local knowledge in nearby Sumpter.
Right here, isn't it?
Uh, yeah, this is it.
[Freddy] How's it going, Greg?
-Hey, Fred. How are you? -[Freddy] I appreciate your time.
Hey, thank you.
[narrator] Ex-Mayor Greg Lucas
has access to the county records,
so is the go-to guy for the mining history of the area.
[Freddy] It sounds like you probably know more about it than anybody in town.
So what information can you help me out with on this mine route?
It was actually founded
through the placering process, about 1872.
-Okay. -They were working their way up the creek,
they got to a point where there was no more placer gold.
-Mm-hmm. -Backtracked,
and that's where they found the hard rock.
-Yeah. -The original founder was James Reilly.
Um, he had some partners.
They worked the lode
and got what was easily available.
But that mine has had boom and bust over the years.
[Freddy] From what I can tell,
the placer has been completely mined out on that property.
When was the last time the hard rock was mined on it, do you know?
My best guess is
-back in the 1930s. -Yeah.
-Before World War II. -Yes.
There's about 300 feet of tunnel,
-almost all of them filled up with water. -Mm-hmm.
When I was a kid, it wasn't full of water.
Okay.
There's at least two shafts in at least two levels.
And they discovered another vein
that ran about 200 feet, 18 inches
into the rock from the main tunnel.
So the potential is there.
It's just that hard rock's an expensive game.
-It is. -Especially on one that's been full of water
for a long time and everything else.
-Yeah. -All we can do is have a look in there.
-Yeah. -See what it looks like.
-See if it's not caved in or anything and then... -Mm-hmm.
And then maybe try to get that water out of there.
[Greg] Yeah.
[Freddy] Well, I sure appreciate your time, sir.
-[Greg] You're welcome, Fred. -Have a great day.
[Greg] Good luck.
[Freddy] That mineshaft is the last chance for this piece of property.
From the surface, it's a guessing game.
What's in there?
I wanna see underground.
[birds squawking]
[birds chirping]
-[Freddy] Thanks for coming up. -My pleasure.
-Let's go over and... -It's pretty cool to see this.
Well, let's hope we can find something for you.
[narrator] To explore the flooded mineshaft,
Freddy calls in some high tech.
[Tristan] So this here, we've got our underwater ROV.
And on the front, we've got a 4K camera.
Along with a sonar on here as well.
We've got six thrusters, two on the top to bring us down
and then four on the side so we can move in any direction.
[narrator] Mountain springs have flooded the shaft
on the west of the Merritt's claim,
where there's an entrance
to an abandoned hard-rock mine,
first excavated in the 1870s,
with records suggesting a network of tunnels
stretching over 300 feet long
and on different levels up to 80 feet deep.
If structurally sound,
they could be pumped out and explored
for highly profitable hard-rock mining.
I'm excited about getting down in there
with the underwater drone
and seeing what could be under there, because that could be the future.
[Ryan] Find the gold.
[Freddy] There it goes.
How deep can you go down?
So this unit here will go down to a 1,000 feet deep.
So right now I'm just trying to find the access.
We're able to see that there is rock formation right there.
And then as we get closer to the walls,
we'll be able to see more.
[Ryan] I'm hoping to see at least an entrance
or some kind of timbering in there
that's gonna give us hope to, you know,
carry on our dream of mining up here still.
[Ryan] It's murky.
Yep, I was afraid of that.
But you never know until you try, right?
[Tristan] Absolutely.
We may be able to go a little bit deeper here.
[Ryan] Looks like we got something, huh?
[Tristan] Yeah, it looks like we've got something right in there.
[Freddy] That's pretty cool, huh?
Some timbers.
[Tristan] It looks like I can see the timbers right there.
[narrator] The timbers form the opening to an old-timer's tunnel.
[Tristan] We can see the entrance here. We just can't get in there.
Unfortunately can't get in.
Yeah, full mud, it looks like, huh?
It's definitely full of something.
Hopefully gold.
But you definitely are seeing some evidence of a tunnel.
It could be the original mine timbers in there still.
We're butting right up against it.
-There's no access. -Yeah.
Unfortunately, I think it's just caved in.
This is not good news.
[Freddy] That's a shame.
We'll have to hit it another direction.
[narrator] The tunnel opening is caved in.
Meaning it's inaccessible for Ryan.
His last hope is flooded out.
[Ryan] To pump the water out of the mineshafts underground,
it really is lots of money.
There's nothing we can do about it.
I got to try different avenues now, I think.
The hard rock they've got here,
it looks like it's a nightmare.
We couldn't get that ROV in the mineshaft
because it's evidently caved in,
so it's not the end of their dream.
At least I hope not.
-[grim music playing] -[birds calling]
-You know, this has been one of our nightmares, right? -Mm-hmm.
You know, coming up to a mine site where there's no gold.
[Freddy] It's a disaster.
They are screwed as far as the placer goes.
That ground is completely played out.
And the hard rock, it's just a nightmare
because it's caved in.
So we're really gonna have to come up with something to help him up.
[contemplative music playing]
[Freddy] What's your thoughts, Juan?
We're here, we need to take advantage of the time we have here.
Let's fix the plant.
So that when he does move to the next spot, he'll have the plant.
-To be able to run that ground. -Mm-hmm. I agree.
[narrator] In Northeast Oregon,
with no mineable ground left on the Merritt's claim,
Freddy and Juan hatch a plan.
[Juan] What I'd like to do on the wash plant,
-I want to build a straight... -[Freddy] A whole new sluice.
-A whole new sluice. -That's garbage.
It's completely bowed.
It's got problems. So let's build a whole new sluice.
-Get rid of those riffle system... -Yeah.
-...they got in there. -Get proper riffles in it.
And then, on top of that, over here on the trommel,
he's got a spray bar that comes in
and it's just shooting one little spot on the bottom
-that the material is not even getting hit. -Mm-hmm.
So what I'd like to do is build a proper spray bar for it as well.
Yeah, I agree. We're here. He asked for our help.
He's gonna have to move.
So, we've got to get out and find them some better ground.
Maybe not on this piece of property, but...
It won't be on this property, but they're great guys,
and I totally respect what he's trying to do.
So as far as cost goes, I don't want to charge him anything.
He's already hemorrhaging money.
Right now, he's spending a dollar to make a dime.
Yeah. He's already got a ton of money tied into this operation.
-I agree. -I think we just do this to help him out.
Hopefully, you know, he can keep on his legacy,
build his legacy and be able to do what he wants to do.
[narrator] With the hope of Freddy finding new ground to mine,
Juan will replace the spray bar with an angled system.
To better wash pay dirt off the rock,
and we'll cut away the existing buckled sluice
and replace with a new box and signature riffle systems.
[Juan] I came up with a few ideas.
The plant, there's a bunch of things that are just
completely wrong with it.
[Freddy] Fixing the plant up.
If you've got more ground later,
then you've got a plant that'll catch the gold.
-[Juan] Yeah, sluice box is just trashed. -Yeah.
-[Ryan] Absolutely. -[Juan] We're gonna throw that away.
We're gonna build you a whole new one,
and we're gonna set it up properly to be able to catch the nuggets,
fine gold whatever you come into, we'll be able to catch it.
-And spray bar-- -Right now that spray bar you have on the end of it,
it's pretty much going into nothing.
Freddy wants to really spend some time
and go out and do some real prospecting.
If you don't have gold in the ground, the plant's no good.
-Yeah. -[Juan] So I think for the next few days,
the biggest push is to be able to go out there
and see if Freddy can find some decent ground.
Okay.
We know this is something that you guys want to really do,
and you guys already spent a lot of time out here.
And with the gold, the way we saw
you know, we don't feel right by taking any money.
-Wow -[Juan] So what we're gonna do,
we're gonna do 100% free.
We're going to do it for nothing.
-[Juan] Yeah. -Wow.
Just get it done for you guys.
-But if you guys are good with that... -We're awesome.
-Yeah. I mean-- -Appreciate it.
-That sounds-- -Let's get it done.
[Ryan] Yeah. Deal.
Them willing to make the fixes for free
is super, super awesome for my dad,
even 'cause, as you know, we're running out of funds.
So, yeah, that's gonna be super awesome.
Biggest thing is having a plant that we can go run,
you know, successfully.
Them willing to come up here and volunteer their time
and their own hard earned money to fix up our plant.
I think that's an amazing thing you for us.
[narrator] First up, Freddy must find ground
in this valley for the Merritt's to mine.
[Freddy] You know, this area's been hit pretty hard,
but there's still some good gold here.
You just got to search for it.
What we need to do is put our detective eyes on
and go looking around here.
Make some phone calls.
Now it's turned into more of a treasure hunt.
[narrator] Since 1862, the mountains of northeast Oregon
have witnessed thousands of prospectors searching for gold.
By 1913, massive floating dredges raked in
over 32,000 ounces of gold worth over 60 million dollars today.
But a patchwork of land ownership in this region,
has left specific areas less hit than others.
So Freddy hopes to track down one of these claims.
That still may have worth in the ground.
[Freddy] So the number one fix that we have to do for them
is to find them some more ground with gold on it.
If not, these guys are done.
[motor whirring]
[narrator] At the claim, Juan gets stuck into the old sluice
with helpers Travis and Alex.
[thuds]
[Alex] That was a rock.
-[Juan] You all right, buddy? -I'm good.
It's just my bad knee.
You know, it would looked bad
before when it was on the plant.
Now that we got it off, it looks really bad.
[chuckles]
[narrator] Seven miles south,
Freddy's gold mining contacts might have struck it rich.
[Freddy] I just talked with a claim owner,
half hour from the mine
Over some ground. It's got a good gold on it that Ryan can lease.
So I'm going to see it with Ryan, right?
Because good gold is not what they have
up there on that 13 acers.
Once upon a time probably had good gold,
but it's been gone over with a fine toothed comb, and then some.
[narrator] Downstream from the Mammoth mine is a 70-acre claim
that Freddy is taking Ryan to.
Its owner is looking for a miner to install a wash plant
and line the ground season by season on a profit sharing lease.
The old timers hit this.
-You can see the tailings here. -Right?
[Freddy] So there's definitely gold here.
Let's hope they didn't get all of it here as well.
That's all we can hope for.
[narrator] If there is gold in this ground,
Ryan can move his upgraded wash plant here.
And give the owner a percentage of the gold he finds
each season as the leasehold payment.
-[Freddy] How's it going? -Good. How you doing?
-[Freddy] Doing all right. -[Ryan] How you doing?
-[imperceptible] -[narrator] Jim Eckstein's found gold on his land
and wants someone to mine it for him.
[Freddy] That's pretty gold.
-And you're wanting to lease your ground out. -[Jim] Yeah.
That's what we're looking for, right there.
Well, your property probably was like that before they mined all the gold out of it.
How many yards that come out of?
Uh, six tractor buckets?
So that's about 600 times better than your gold.
Let me show you where this came from, Freddy.
[Freddy] You have a beautiful place here, Jim?
[Jim] Uh, thanks.
I was digging a hole looking for water for my pasture.
-[Freddy] Okay. -[Jim chuckles] I found gold.
So how deep is the bedrock under here, Jim?
It's about probably, Freddy... [sighs]
Probably another four foot farther down.
[Freddy] Okay.
So most of this up here probably won't contain much gold.
Now we get farther down.
You see how we've got tight material, right?
Yeah. Compact.
So this is a whole different ball game compared to what you got.
Your deposit there's no rhyme or reason to it.
It's how it got put back by man.
-Not how it was left there by nature. -[Ryan] Okay.
[Freddy] You can tell this was left here by nature
and not put there by man.
It's compact, it's tight.
This is all virgin.
Yeah, after looking at this...
-[Freddy] Completely different. Yup. -[Ryan] Completely different.
-Mine is man-made. -[Freddy] Yep.
And I'm seeing it now.
-I wish you'd have known that months and months ago. -[Ryan] Yeah, that--
So it would have saved you thousands and thousands of dollars, right?
-[Ryan] Yes. Absolutely. -But if you come over here,
if there's good gold here, it's a second chance.
Proof's in the pan, right?
[Freddy] You've got lots of heavies in it.
-That can be a good sign or a bad sign. -[Ryan] Good sigh? Yeah?
[narrator] In northeast Oregon,
Ryan Merritt's gold mining future
rests on a pan from the new ground Freddy has found.
Well, I've seen a piece of gold there.
Look at that.
And a couple of them are decent size too.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Nine, 10, 11, 12.
-And there might be more. -[Ryan] What's that mean, Freddy?
-That means [bleep] mine it. -[Ryan] All right.
That's more gold in the one pan
than we did out of 30 yards at your mine.
-So look here. -[Ryan chuckles] Yeah.
-I like it. -[Freddy] I'm saying that's a good pan.
That's a dang good pan, right there.
The way the topography is here,
there could be a whack of it.
-[Ryan] Okay. -[Freddy] And this one's easier to get to
-than where you're at. -[Ryan] Absolutely.
-[Freddy] Right? -Yeah.
-I'd say... -[Ryan] You say mine it--
...say this is your future.
Seeing that gold in that pan puts a whole new perspective
on Ryan's future, is what it does.
Gives him a spot that he can mine.
All I can say is smiles, ear to ear.
Well, Jim looks like you got some mineable ground here.
-[Jim] Oh, good. -Are we in?
-Yep. -[Ryan] All right.
[narrator] In exchange for a percentage of recovered gold,
Ryan has new ground he could lease.
And a gold mining future for him and Nolan.
That's great news.
I mean, that's the best news I've heard all year. [laughs]
[Juan] Well, let's get to work.
[narrator] Back near the claim
Juan redesigned a new sluice run.
We're gonna build them 100% new sluice box.
One thing that's kind of special about it is we're gonna put ribs on it.
If you look at the sluice box that they have, it's completely twisted.
The bottom is not flat.
And that's because it has no support.
So right here these are ribs.
And these are gonna go on the side
and on the bottom to reinforce the bottom pan and the side walls.
So that way we'll actually keep the bottom of the box true and flat.
I'm gonna hand them over to Travis and Alex.
We'll get them all cleaned up so we can start putting this box together.
When you cut them on a plasma table,
you get a little bit of a ridge.
You just want to flat them off.
That way they're nice and flat and flush.
Trying to knock off all the big chunks.
It's easier for Alex to polish them up.
That was the last rib right there.
All the ribs are now polished.
The ribs need to be welded on.
Perfect.
All right, guys, we'll flip it.
Oh, yeah, it's only heavy.
[Juan] If I fully weld it before the ribs are in,
it sometimes has a tendency to move around a little bit.
So to keep it stiff
from shifting around, we'll put all the ribs in.
[buzzing]
We've got all the ribs in place where they need to go,
so we're gonna start getting it all welded up.
And I'll get it flipped around and do the full welds.
Juan's having me cut some carpets for this sluice box
and then some miner's moss.
So one more step closer to getting it installed.
When you weld, you get all these BBs here that are stuck to the floor.
So I'm just cleaning these up.
[Freddy] How's it going, Juan?
[Juan] Oh, we're just about done, Fred.
Looks good. It's a stout sluice box there, Buddy.
-[Juan] Come out pretty good. -[Freddy] Yeah.
Well, that ground we looked at at Jim's,
that uh, Ryan can lease.
Look good, took one pan of it is all.
But there was 12 colors in the pan.
[Juan] And that's what he needs, you know,
so he has other options.
You know, he can keep his dream alive.
Well, we're doing this one.
We're going to get a dump truck
and take a couple loads of that new material at Jim's...
-[Juan] Up to the plant? -...up to the plant.
-Perfect. -Yeah, and see what's in it.
That's a great idea.
I'll get this finished up and we'll get it up top.
-[Freddy] Got it. -All right, Buddy.
-See you in a bit. -See you in a bit.
I'm really excited for Nolan and Ryan with that ground.
And the sluice box set up properly, catching that fine gold.
Their dream is still possible now.
So I couldn't be happier.
[narrator] There's one final modification to complete the sluice box
before it goes to the claim.
[Juan] I'm gonna weld these jacks on the side of the sluice box.
I got the box at the right angle,
where we're gonna have it.
And then that way, when I weld these on, I can weld them level
so that with the jack legs coming down they're straight.
So if you look at it,
it's got the angle of the sluice box coming down.
But the jack, perfectly level.
If you put the jacks in wrong, it will actually want to push
or pull the sluice box away from the plant.
So this way we actually just lift up the front of the sluice box.
And we're not putting any unnecessary strain
on the pins or on the bolts.
Just ready to go.
All we got to do is load it up
and get it up to the mine site and get it in place.
[Freddy] While we're digging up the material
that we panned that looked good,
so we'll take some loads up and get it run through the plant
and see what kind of gold lives in it.
[narrator] To give Ryan and Nolan a better idea of the profit they could make.
The second test run will use pay from the new claim.
I'm excited to see it.
I'm excited as well, Freddy.
-I think it's, yeah it's out-- might be our future. -[Freddy] Excited to run this.
-Yeah. -[Ryan] It's on the line.
[laughs]
This is a good feeling, knowing that we've actually
got some material with some gold to ride.
Get that new sluice box on there.
Get your spray-bar cleaned up
and run this material, it's your future's probably here.
[Ryan] Cool, that's what we like to hear.
Our probability of catching gold, I think, just went up 100%.
We've got a full load.
Hopefully, there's gold in there.
[Juan] All right. You guys want to get it unstrapped.
Get it all rigged up, and let's walk it over and get it put in.
-[Travis] Sounds good. -[Juan] All right.
[narrator] To have any chance of catching gold.
Juan's 1000 pound sluice needs to be fitted
onto Ryan and Nolan's existing wash plant.
Lift up.
Go up just a little bit.
[thuds] There you go
Okay. Go down just a little bit, Nolan.
Good fit.
Right there.
The most important piece of equipment on that site
is that sluice box.
If that sluice box is not up to par,
you're gonna lose gold.
[honking]
[narrator] Sluice box on and with Ryan trucking pay.
Juan hits his final fix.
[Juan] The spray bar is just one nozzle, and that nozzle,
unfortunately, is pointing right at the bottom.
The material is off to the side.
So what we want to do is concentrate that water
on the material to be able to wash it properly.
And get that gold bearing material and gold
down into the sluice box.
I'm using PVC because I don't really want to put a bunch
of weight on it by putting a steel bar.
So by putting the PVC's it's going to be a little lighter,
we don't have to worry about this breaking or twisting off.
We want to try to keep all the holes in line,
so what we're gonna do is use the measuring tape as a straight edge.
What we'll do is we'll try to drill them at an angle.
The water's going to shoot that material back
and give them more time inside the trommel.
[whizzing]
Right there. It looks pretty good.
I think we should be set.
This sluice box will last the rest of your life.
-You've to take care of it. -Okay.
[Nolan] Freddy's gonna show me how to lay out a sluice box.
Something I've never done before.
So, I usually have my dad do all that work.
But that's probably why we're not catching gold out of the old sluice box.
I want to be up here finding that gold, [chuckles]
so it's going to be awesome to hear what he has to say.
[Freddy] There's our carpets, here's our riffles.
So I want you to take the green carpet
and run it all the way down.
Start from the top here?
But I'd start from the bottom.
[Nolan] Why?
Because how do the shingle s on a roof work?
-They overlap one another. Right? -[Nolan] Right.
[Freddy] So if you started your shingles at the top, it'd be wrong.
[Nolan] Right.
-And that one goes? -[Freddy] That one, right up here.
-Okay. -[Freddy] Yeah.
Then we'll leave it long, right?
-[Nolan] Right. -[Freddy] It doesn't matter.
So now let's put some miners moss up top.
What does this miners moss do?
Well, it's got a deeper loop to it.
So it'll help hold onto that gold.
So we're going to leave a little gap here.
[Nolan] For what?
-Well, it makes a change in the sluice box. -All right.
Change is good when it comes to gold,
So let's put our light expanded in the bottom.
-[Nolan] That's the smaller stuff here. -[Freddy] Yep.
-So you see how it's bowed? -[Nolan] Right?
[Freddy] So we want to have where it's bowed in the middle down, right?
That way when we put the boards down,
-it'll pinch it down. All the way through. -Okay
-This way? -[Freddy] Good.
Okay, let's grab our heavy expanded
and start at the top there, Nolan.
-[Nolan] Okay. -[Freddy] There you go.
Perfect.
Okay, now let's lay our boards in.
-[Nolan] These, a long one? -[Freddy] So-- Yeah, grab a long one.
[Nolan] Okay.
Yeah, my dad always took care of this part, so.
-Well, it's up to you now. -Right.
-[Freddy] 'Cause you're the future. -Yeah
So now grab some wedges.
Here you go, buddy.
We want those riffles tight into that carpet
-so that gold can't get underneath them. -[Nolan] Okay?
[Freddy] Don't hit your thumb. Watch your hands, son.
I'd your hand out of there.
Let me show you something. Here. Here.
So you're holding right here, right?
If you slip with that hammer.
-Bam! Broke thumb. -Right.
So, bang bang, bang bang.
So just use your hammer
to do what you were trying to do with your hand. Right?
-Okay. -Drive it in.
Right.
So if you if you break your hand, then what?
-You're out of work, right? -Yeah.
-Yeah. Then you aren't making any gold? -No. No gold.
So use that tool. Use it properly.
There you go.
Tap those last four and we're done.
That's it.
Well, let's make some, man.
Yes, sir.
It was great. Freddy taught me a lot.
He even showed me some techniques. How to use a hammer.
So that was super helpful and stuff I haven't learned before.
So hopefully, I can get that wash plant running
and start washing some gold.
Wow.
That's an improvement.
I thing it looks like it'll actually catch some gold now.
Yeah, and it's adjustable.
So we put the trailer jacks on the end there.
So that way, if we need to, we can adjust the pitch up and down.
Okay.
[narrator] Five days ago, Freddy and Juan
saw a wash plant that ran on empty
but the real kicker with no gold in the ground,
it was game over.
Now the father and son team have hope.
On top of that, what we did over here.
We put a little spray bar in there for you.
-It's real simple. -Oh, wow.
-[Juan] We just used some PVC in there. -[Ryan] Yeah.
But before you had that little fire nozzle,
and it really wasn't washing material.
-No, that looks awesome. -Yeah, that's awesome.
-Oh God, you guys, did it really, really fast-- -We didn't do a whole lot
to the plant, but the biggest thing we did
was try to find your gold.
-Absolutely. -Because no matter what happens to your plant,
if there's no gold in the ground
-like this piece of property is mined out. -[Ryan] Yeah.
So the biggest thing that Juan and myself did for you guys
and you were involved in it as well
is to tell you, you're done here.
And let's go find some gold somewhere else.
-Absolutely. And it's a hard lesson. -[Freddy] So, and--
And we found it. When we tested it we found gold in it.
So that pile of pay there that we brought from Jim's.
It's probably your future.
So with what Juan's taught you
-and what I've taught you. -Yeah.
You're just gonna have to move your plant.
Absolutely. Well, we're prepared to do that.
Well, there's only one way to find out
how much gold's in that dirt, Juan?
-Let's do it. -Let's do a test run.
-Run it -All right, let's do it.
Fire it up.
I'm really excited to start running.
We've got some new pay up here,
so I'm hoping we can start
washing some gold and make some money.
[motor starts]
[Freddy shouts] Juan.
First bucket.
[narrator] At Ryan Merritt's Mammoth mine...
Give her hell, Nolan. Let's make some gold.
[narrator] The second test is underway.
Running two hours just like the first run.
It will give Freddy and Juan a chance to see
how their fixes have worked.
And whether the new ground really does have gold in it.
This material is downstream.
Quite a few miles from where we're at, right?
That we're running right now, in the second test.
Well I guarantee that there is decent gold in there.
Some of the gold that were running from
five to six miles away came from this property
before it was mined out years ago.
So you know, that's pretty cool.
This looks like some better pay dad brought me
[Freddy] You know, we've worked with quite a few father and son operation
over the years,
these guys get along well?
Yeah, they work great together.
[Freddy] Yeah, they're a good team.
Nolan, the young man has been very respectful.
-He's a good man. -Yup.
-He's not afraid to work hard. -[Juan] No.
Works hard and he's respectful to his father.
Can't ask for much more than that.
[narrator] Straight away the new spray bar hits the mark.
Look at that, Fred.
-[Freddy] Pretty darn clean. -[Juan] Yup.
We can take that.
Take that any day of the week, Juan.
Yep, that's good.
Freddy the rocks are getting their hair washed now,
not just their feet.
[Ryan] Oh, it's doing great.
Spray bars that they installed,
it seems to be washing in the gravel. Awesome.
I haven't seen any gold yet, but I know it's in the box.
And it'll be a good cleanup today.
[Freddy] It's little lean on water.
[narrator] Not enough water in the sluice could reduce
the amount of gold the mats can hold.
Go down a little bit, huh?
[Juan] I'll get on that side real quick.
-On four. One, half. -[Juan] One--
[narrator] Freddy and Juan dropped the angle of the sluice
to increase the speed of water and helped the gold get lodged
in the mats below.
-[Freddy] Three. -[Juan] Three.
-[Freddy] Four. -[Juan] Four.
-[Freddy] Five. -[Juan] Five.
Much better.
Spot right there is good.
-[Juan] Take a look at the box, huh? -[Freddy] Yeah.
That feels really good, right?
-[Freddy] Yeah. -[Juan] I like it.
You know, it was a little lean on water,
so we had to increase the pitch.
But it feels really good.
Yeah, for the amount of material is running
-in front is just fine. -I like it.
We can probably pick up the amount of material running less uh,
-material per hour now than the first run. -[Juan] Yeah.
[Freddy] But uh, everything's running good.
I can smell the gold in this what I've been waiting for.
[Freddy] You know, we weren't able to do a lot here,
-but what we did is gonna make a huge difference. -[Juan] Yeah, it will.
So, that sluice they had in here before.
It was like I said earlier, [chuckles softly]
-it was two steps below scrap iron. -Yeah. [chuckles]
It really was.
Effective sluicing area in that entire box
it was probably only about a foot.
-[chuckles] I don't think it was even that. -[Juan] Yeah.
At least here, they've got a full 12 feet
-of effective sluicing-- -[Freddy] Sluicing area.
-[Juan] Yeah. -[Freddy] Yep.
And multiple changes in it.
And this will be a sluice box
that they can have for years to come.
A 100 times better than it was before.
[Freddy] I know the plants are covering gold,
but if there's not enough gold,
in that material we found, that's on me.
'Cause that's what I spent my time here
in the past days doing.
If there's not enough, gold that dirt...
That's my butt.
[narrator] After two hours...
[Freddy] Hey, Nolan?
One more. That'll be the last bucket.
[narrator] Freddy calls time on the test run.
-There there's gold. -I see gold there.
[chuckles] I see more gold right there in dirty water
than you had in that first pan.
-[Juan] Oh, come on, Freddy. -[Freddy] I'm not [bleep]
-[Ryan laughs] -[Freddy] Right there.
-[Ryan] Yeah, I know. -[Freddy] Yeah.
[Juan] In the money now.
Well, we'll see.
[Ryan] It is a better ground anyway.
[Juan] Look at that.
[bleep]
[chuckles]
[Ryan] That's a nice hey... [chuckles]
[Juan] A nice little flake.
Right there, that one piece right there.
-It's 1000 times... -[Juan laughs]
-the amount of gold you had the first two hour run. -[Ryan] Right?
-One piece of gold. Right there. -[Ryan] Wow.
-That's weighable. -Yeah.
-I think you can weight-- -Yeah, I can weigh that.
[all chuckling]
-[Juan] Pack. Pack, pack, pack. -[Freddy] With gold?
-Yeah. Yeah. -[Freddy] Nice.
Wow, that's a good one.
That's gonna be a fine cleanup. Nice.
From our first test run. It wasn't looking good.
So I'm glad we found gold, So I'm excited about that.
I think we found the silver lining,
you know, at the end of the tunnel,
in our case, the gold lining.
Well, Freddy's a little hurt right now,
so I had to bring a little extra muscle with me.
Hey, Juanito, can you grab me my gloves?
[Juanito] No problem, Dad.
All right. I need my welding hood, please.
What's taking so long, Bud?
-Thank you, sir. -[Juanito] It was on the top shelf.
It was on the top shelf?
It's a good thing you're taller than Uncle Freddy.
I'm gonna go work with uncle Freddy 'cause he pays better.
[Juan] What?
[Juanito chuckles]
How's it going, Juanito?
[Juanito] Can I work with you again?
Can you work with me again?
Well, you sure can.
Let me pay you for yesterday.
Come on, let's go to work.
Have you panned much, Nolan?
No, not much.
[narrator] Keen to see an early indication on the run.
Freddy has one last master class for Nolan.
-[Freddy] So I know it's a round pan. -[Nolan] Right?
[Freddy] But I'm going to call that the corner of the pan, right?
We want that gold right in the corner of that pan.
Hoo-hoo. Seeing gold.
What this pans telling me is you guys need to move.
Look at that, guys.
[all cheering]
-[Freddy] Holy cow! -[Ryan laughs]
-All right, all right. -[Freddy chuckles]
Look at that.
And that's a quarter of one pan.
-[Ryan] Wow! -[bleep]
[Ryan] That's what we're looking for.
-[Freddy] That's more than I expected that. -[Ryan] Was it?
-[Nolan] I'm gonna pass out. -Thank you, Freddy.
-Come on. -[Nolan chuckles]
-Look at that. -Wow!
[Nolan] That's fun.
Yeah, that's fun. I like--
-That's the stuff dreams are made of, right there. -[Ryan] Yeah.
[Freddy] You just gone from going broke fast.
To make a living, that's what you've done.
[Ryan] Absolutely.
[Nolan] Oh, man! I mean, I've never seen very much gold really physically in my life.
So, unbelievable.
I'm itching to go get some more right now.
That's just unreal.
It's awesome.
[Freddy] When I put that little bit of gravel
that was in the mat in the pan
and panned it, I couldn't have been happier.
It looked good.
So basically get it cleaned up now.
Get it on the scale.
Because one thing for sure, the scale doesn't lie.
[Freddy] How's it going, guys?
[Ryan] Good. How are you guys today?
-[Freddy] Good. -[Juan] Not bad.
[narrator] It's time to see if this father and son have a gold mining future.
[Ryan] Well, we've got some stuff.
-[Freddy] That's about a 1000 times more than before. -[Juan chuckles]
-[Ryan] Yeah. -A 100,000 times
-more than the first run. -Yeah.
[narrator] Ryan and Nolan need one ounce a day to turn a profit.
But after a disastrous first cleanup,
There's no use weighing that.
I don't think my scale will even weigh it.
[narrator] Finding new ground was key.
-Well, let's see. -All right.
[Freddy] 0.14.
[Juan] Look at that.
[whooping]
That's amazing. That's awesome. What do you think, Nolan?
-I say yeah. Thank guy's. Appreciate it. -Yeah, I like that.
-[Ryan] Thank you. -You're welcome.
You guys are amazing.
[narrator] The result of the second two hour run is equivalent.
to three quarters of an ounce of gold per day.
But they need an ounce in their pocket to turn a profit
and have to give Jim a percentage of recovered gold
as part of the lease deal.
Which means they need at least 1.5 ounces of gold a day
to have a future.
-But if you double your production one ounce a day. -That's enough. Yeah.
-Ounce and a half a day, right? -Yeah.
The thing is that you were feeding it super slow.
You can still run a ton more material through the box.
-The box can handle more -Right.
-So you could have doubled your production, right? -[Juan] If not more.
-[Ryan] Yeah. -You can actually get to the point where you know
you're making an ounce and a half a day.
That's above and beyond what we would need to,
you know, stay profitable and keep mining.
Yeah, that's all. Yeah. [laughs]
[Juan] I'm really excited for Nolan and Ryan
because of that second gold weigh is where they need to be.
Really, the big win here is that their dream of having
a father son operation is still alive, and it's possible now.
So I'm extremely happy.
[Ryan] It's really exciting for Nolan and I
to be able to work together.
You know, he was thinking, you know, going home
with his tail between his legs
I was thinking the same thing.
Thinking I was going to let him down.
So seeing this last gold weigh,
that just brings a smile to everyone's face.
After seeing that first gold weigh
I wasn't very happy.
I was just wondering if I was wasting my time coming over here
and trying to pursue a gold mine dream.
But we found gold.
So, you know what? I think we've got a future here.
We were scared to death.
We were like, "What are we-- What are we going to do?"
-There's-- There's no gold here. -[chuckles]
We just went to fix a gold mine where there's no gold left.
[all laughing]
We're screwed.
-You know, Juan. -Yeah.
Really that-- That's the best--
Best possible outcome we could have thought of.
-Yeah, I think so. -Yeah.
-[Ryan] All right. -Pleasure.
-Thank you. -Gentlemen.
-Hey, Thanks. -Freddy.
-Thank you. -[Ryan] Thanks a lot.
-All right, take it easy, Buddy. -Yeah.
Don't forget your gold.
[all laughing]
[Freddy] It's been a fairly difficult week.
You know, my shoulder hurts.
Then the biggest thing, though beyond that
was getting here and finding that there was no gold left on the property.
So It makes your mood go downhill fast,
But if we wouldn't have came in here,
they'd have been out of business pretty quick.
So now they can mine some ground that's got good gold on it.
So their future is bright.
You know, just run, run, run!
Put gold in your pocket.
[Ryan] Hey, Freddy and Juan.
We've got a chance to mine
a little bit more of that pay dirt from Jim.
We're doubling our production now.
So, You know, we're getting up to an ounce and a half a day now.
[Nolan] Oh, yeah, the gold's in there.
That sluice box was built so well,
it might last my whole life. [chuckles]
[Ryan] Without your guidance help, we would be dead in the water.
But you know, you showing us some new ground
and fixing up our plant stuff.
It's been really a blessing to us.
Hopefully, we have a future to work together
and you know, there's nothing better than having a family,
someone that you can trust.
-Thanks, Freddy and Juan. You guys are awesome. -Awesome.