[Todd] Well, for our first fire up, I think it's pretty good.
Can't get any better than that.
[narrator] Just two weeks after setting foot in Alaska,
the Hoffman crew is on the gold.
-Whoo! -[man] I swear.
[Todd] This is the biggest cleanup we've ever had.
[narrator] But with both wash plants running pay dirt
from the Lost Cut...
they'll soon pocket every ounce
from their most profitable site.
I'm gonna just do everything I can
to figure out our next move.
[narrator] With time running out,
third generation miner Hunter Hoffman
must combine his own experience with alternative methods
to have a chance at finding their next big hunting hole.
[Hunter] My grandpa, me and him around here
in the middle of nowhere,
hunting for treasure.
[narrator] And he's ready to improvise...
[Todd] Is it gonna run, Hunter?
We're gonna make it run, yeah.
[narrator] ...for a giant pay day.
[Todd] I'm looking for that five pound nugget, buddy.
[man 1] Hey, isn't this a beautiful [bleep]?
[man 2] Yeah, it's amazing.
Yeah.
[laughing]
This year already feels like a better vibe.
Uh, Black Pearl's looking good.
The Holy Roller's runnin' nice.
-Dakota, how's it lookin'? -[Dakota] Looks good.
[Hunter] And so far the Lost Cut is looking really good.
This year everybody feels like we're more of a team
and me and my dad haven't started screaming at each other yet.
You doin' really good today.
-[Todd] You're doin' good. -Yeah.
-No, you're doin' good. -[Todd] Let's go.
So this year we gotta stay ahead of the game.
The Lost Cut is awesome.
It looks like it's gonna pay off
like we thought.
But it's only gonna be about half the season.
We need to send Hunter out to... to prospect
and find new pay dirt.
And then we gotta bring in a test plant
to run all the samples that he brings back.
We know that there's gold here.
We know it's in that cut.
If we do everything right and nothing goes wrong,
we're good.
We're gonna probably have the best season we've ever had.
[Jack] Yeah, it'll be high out there.
Hey, Grandpa.
I wanna show you somethin'.
-[Jack] Oh, okay. -Out here.
Bein' my grandpa's last season,
I want us to get
as much gold as possible so that...
you know, he can head outta here
and feelin' like, uh, we had a win.
[Jack] What do you got?
[Hunter] I got these drill maps.
-Keener's drill maps. -[Jack] Yeah.
-[Hunter] From last year. -[Jack] Yeah.
Now that we're runnin' the Lost Cut...
-Yeah. -...it's lookin' like...
Keener's drill maps are actually...
more accurate than we thought.
[narrator] Twenty-five years ago, geologist Jeff Keener
did extensive research
on the land at the Mammoth Valley mine,
creating maps and soil analysis reports.
[Jeff] This is my map.
What, 25 years ago just about.
So this map shows
the claim configuration at the time...
and then all the drill holes that I drilled out here.
[narrator] His research was critical
in leading the Hoffmans to the Lost Cut.
You guys might be in for a real treat here.
I hope you are.
-Yeah. -So, basically, what I'm trying to do is...
get ahead of the game a little bit.
-Yeah. -And so when we run out of pay...
-Yeah. -...in the Lost Cut...
-Yeah. -...we kind know where we wanna go.
By the time they have all the pay out of the Lost Cut,
I wanna have our second option
kinda ready to go.
Time is of the essence.
And, uh, I'm gonna do a little bit a...
a little bit a mapping and... and run point
out in front of everybody
and see if we can find another area that has crazy gold.
So now that we're getting some gold,
I can kind of break away...
-Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm. -...and then maybe you even go with me.
We go kinda poke around and see...
Yeah, I'd love to do that.
...what else we can do.
I'd love to go prospecting with you. Yeah.
We just gotta figure out, you know, where can we go
in the time that we have.
-Yeah. And time is running out. -So...
There is ground here
that goes up to 77 ounces a hundred.
That's unheard of.
I already know
that Hunter will find it this season.
And I'm not gonna miss the opportunity to go with him.
You know, I'm on my way out.
Todd doesn't realize it that he's gettin' closer to that.
Hunter is the future.
[Hunter] Maybe we'll find the mother lode together.
[Jack] I think we're gonna do it.
[Tater] All right. We gotta put some dirt in here.
-She's ready. -Perfect.
I'll grab dirt.
You guys get out of the way.
You tell me when to load it.
We're good. Let's rip.
[Andy] So, so far so good. The Lost Cut.
You know, it's been paying really good.
The ground's good.
We'll just keep running the dirt till we can run,
nice and slow and steady,
and, uh, hope for the best.
[Todd] So we don't know how long
the Lost Cut's gonna actually last,
but when Hunter brings his prospecting pay back,
we can't run it on one of our big plants.
It'd probably cost us $2,000 an hour.
So Tater's bringin' in my dad's wash plant
which is this little plant that he's been working on for years.
My dad built it by hand.
It's not only gonna be a great plant for my dad,
but also for Hunter,
when he finds small amounts of dirt, we can test it.
And boom, we can get an accurate count on the gold.
[narrator] Unbeknownst to Jack,
Todd arranged to deconstruct his dad's wash plant
and ship it over 2,000 miles
from Jack's front year in Sandy, Oregon.
After two weeks on a barge to Nome, Alaska,
they split it on the two trucks
for the final 80 miles to the Mammoth Valley mine site.
Now, if Todd's crew can put the pieces back together,
Jack's hand built wash plant from the 1990s
could run pay for the first time ever.
[Todd] Here it comes, guys.
-Hey, slow down! -[man laughs]
That's not a hot rod. Come on.
All right, guys. What do you think?
Yes or no? Is it gonna run, Hunter?
-We're gonna make it run, yeah. -[Todd chuckles]
Doesn't look like much, but it's gonna actually raise
our odds of finding enough pay dirt
to get out of here with a win.
Tater, Ron, how'd it go?
-[Andy] Good. -[Tater] We made it.
[Todd] All right, guys.
That's Jack's first conveyor belt ever.
-Let me call him. -[radio beeps]
Hey, Jack, Jack. This is Todd.
[Jack on radio] Yeah, just, uh, up here.
Hey, you wanna come down to the lay down yard?
I got something down here to show you.
Well, yeah. Yeah, I'll come.
-You wanna go? -Yeah.
[Jack] All right.
So it's a big surprise for Jack.
It's gonna be fun to just see how he... how he looks,
'cause he literally never thought
he was gonna get a chance to run this plant.
I don't even know how he built this by himself, to be honest.
He just kept pluggin' away at it.
I, like, left at, like, 6:00 in the morning one time,
and he's just out there in the rain, just grinding.
All right. Here he comes.
[man] Uh-oh.
-[Todd] Hey. -Hey.
-[Todd] Hey, Jack. Look what we got. -[Jack] Oh, my God.
-What the heck? -[Todd] Surprise!
How did this get here?
[Todd] We shipped it up, man.
Your wife said, "Get rid of all that junk
-out in the front of the house." -[Jack] Oh, God.
-[Todd] And I said, "All right." -All right she did.
-No, she didn't. -Here it comes. [chuckles]
Wow.
I'm excited to have this plant goin'.
It was a pipe dream, you know?
Now it can be a test plant
for Hunter prospecting and, hopefully,
it gets him a lot of gold.
You know, some old guys at your age,
-you know what they do? They make bird houses. -Yeah.
-Yeah. It's my birdhouse. -You're out here doin', uh...
Yeah. [chuckles]
[laughing]
[Todd] Andy, where are we gonna put it?
I think we put it out on the North Fork.
-Huh. -[Andy] We could suck right out of the main pond
and we got a... a pond that we built
-we can discharge right into it. -Heck yeah.
-[Jack] All right. -[Todd] Well, first of all, did you name it?
Well, I call it Shaky Jake.
-[Todd] If there's no job-- -I was also thinkin' the Jackrabbit.
[Jack] Okay.
-[Todd] Let's put everything together. -Well, this is cool. Thanks.
-Thanks, Dad. Yeah. -[Jack] Appreciate it.
-Thanks for, uh... -[Jack] Hey.
-Oh, man. Yeah. -[Hunter] This is cool.
All right. Let's look around at this thing
and we'll see what we gotta do, huh?
-Okay. -[Jack] All right.
Yeah.
[Hunter speaking]
[Todd speaking]
I think the sluice needs to be right here, Dad.
-Yeah. Yes. -'Cause I gotta dig this down.
Then we're gonna put some steel down there.
-[Jack] Yeah. -[Todd] Where's your conveyor go?
Goes right off this end, right here.
Okay.
The neat thing about it is,
I've got multiple generations here.
You know, I got my son, I got my grandson.
And, uh, that's... that's cool.
I just wanna see it work.
I wanna see it get goin'.
How do we wanna rig this thing?
-[Jack] Yeah. -[Tater] Looking at it,
it looks like, Jack, are these the pick points?
[Jack] Yes, they are.
-Right here? -[Jack] Yes, they are.
-Intended with a hook, or... -[Jack] Listen,
I welded those, so...
-So when I pick it, don't be near it. -[Jack speaking indistinctly]
Is that what you're saying?
So don't, like, get underneath it.
-We could hook back here to these. -[Jack] Yeah. Yeah, we could.
-[Todd] Yeah. -With those big...
I brought the big chains 'cause they're long.
[narrator] To reconstruct Jack's wash plant...
Todd plans to lift the plant
on a four chain system attached to the bucket
of the 650 excavator,
a machine capable of lifting 25 tons.
[Todd] This is what's called four part, here's...
You got four separate chains coming off of a main hook.
Kinda spreads the weight around.
Hopefully, we can dangle this thing.
Get it set just right.
Hunter, come here.
The way it's built,
it's kinda skinny and can tip over, so...
You take that one.
We don't wanna mess it up.
[Tater on radio] What do you guys want me to do?
[Todd] Come far left first, get us around it.
Next thing you know, you drop it...
and then we spend the rest of the week
trying to fix the mess up.
Far left and then far right.
We just take our time and do it right.
Hopefully, our chances of bending it are lot less and...
We've been a lot of stuff out here.
[Hunter] I'll do this.
I've watched my grandpa put,
you know, hours and hours and months into this plant,
you know, building it all by himself by hand, so,
I'm hopin' nothing happens
to Jack's plant here, but...
Anytime you're pickin' anything...
you never know what's gonna happen.
[Todd] Let's try that, Tater, real slow.
[tense music playing]
[Tater] I mean, it's gonna be a little jerky.
[Hunter] It's gonna wanna spin.
[Todd] Oh, my gosh.
[Todd] Whoa, whoa. Set it down.
[Andy on radio] Can I move my truck out of the way?
-[man 2] There you go. -[Todd] It hits that truck, it's game over.
Put it down. Stop! Let it go.
-Stop. -[Todd] Tater!
[Todd] Oh, my gosh.
-[Hunter] It's gonna wanna spin. -[Todd] Whoa, whoa.
Set it down.
-[Andy on radio] Can I move my truck out of the way? -[Todd] If it hits that truck,
it's game over.
Put it down.
[Andy] Tater, down!
[Todd] Come down, Tater. Come down.
-[Andy] Down! -[Todd on radio] Down, down, down, down.
[Todd] Down. Right there. Stop.
[Todd] Now, touch... touch and just let...
Do you have a tag?
You got a tag line, Ron?
I wanna move my [bleep] truck. [chuckles]
[all laughing]
[Andy] Here, tie that on there.
So far nobody is injured and the plant's still together, but...
You just gotta be calm and keep an eye on everything.
[narrator] With 32,000 pounds suspended by thin cables,
one wrong move could send Jack's plant
crashing to the ground.
[Tater] We got this, Jack.
-Yeah, I think so. -[Tater] We'll... We'll get it.
Now that he's got a tag line on it,
we're gonna go ahead
and try and swing it into place.
Everybody look out. We're coming through here.
[Tater on radio] Go easy. I have to go really slow.
Don't get excited.
I'm trying to go very easy and not hurt anybody.
[Todd on radio] We appreciate that.
Keep it low.
[Todd on radio] Tater, keep it low.
Ten-four.
Here comes the Jackrabbit.
Keep goin'.
So far so good.
You haven't dropped it yet.
What're you thinkin'?
[Todd] Track, pull it a little bit more.
[on radio] I think that's pretty good.
Just touch the wheel.
There you go, pull.
[Hunter] And they're down.
Okay, hold right there.
[Todd] Hold up, hold up.
Ten-four.
Does it look all right?
[Jack] Yeah, perfect.
[Todd] Okay, we're gonna unhook.
So far so good.
[narrator] Wash plants have three basic parts.
The hopper, the sluice box and the conveyor.
Though Jack's plant has all the necessary components,
because of its size,
it's built to run less pay and act as a test plant.
[Jack] Keep goin'. Keep goin'.
[Todd on radio] Hang on, you're good. Hang out.
-[Andy] You like that? -[Jack] Yes.
[Andy] Quite the engineer, Jack.
-I like this thing. -[Jack chuckles] Yeah.
It should work.
-[Hunter] Yo. -Hey, man.
-[laughs] We finally get to go exploring. -[chuckles] I know.
Got another map here.
-[Jack] Praise your maps, uh-huh. -[Hunter] So we can kinda get
-a better idea, so... -[Jack] Yeah, okay.
-That one trench that we were lookin' at... -[Jack] Yeah.
-...that's supposedly 70 ounces a hundred... -[Jack] Yeah.
...is somewhere in here.
Keener's map shows that west of North Fork
there's a ridge that has really rich gold deposits.
So we're gonna see if we can track it down.
If you could find that trench...
-[Hunter] Yeah. -...we could do a couple samples there.
As long as this thing doesn't break down.
Last time I drove it...
-it almost blew up, so... -Oh, ah. Old girl.
[Hunter] Yeah.
-[Jack] Okay. -[Hunter] We'll get out there
-and see what we gonna find. -[Jack] Here, I'll take those.
[Hunter] A lot of the reason why I'm back here this summer
is just to be on this gold adventure with my grandpa and...
You know, he loves this stuff and I love doin' this with him, so...
Me and him are out here
in this crazy old track vehicle
in the middle of nowhere,
huntin' for treasure, so...
That's pretty cool.
It's not the smoothest ride ever.
Oh, my gosh.
That's pretty steep.
[Hunter] Think I'm good?
[Jack] Yeah, I think so. Just take it slow.
-[Hunter] Holy [bleep]. -[Jack] That... No, no, it's okay.
Yeah, we're hittin'.
-But we just barely hit. -[chuckles]
[Jack] Yeah, we're good.
-[chuckles] -That was close.
Yeah?
[Hunter] Should be somewhere in here.
[groans] It's getting colder.
-Dude, this is treacherous. -[grunts]
-Yeah. -Okay.
Where do you think that trench is?
-[Hunter] This is where we're at. -[Jack] Yeah.
[Hunter] So I think it's just a little bit further that way,
along the edge.
-[Jack] Let's try to get there. -Okay.
We're close.
We're tryna put the pieces together
and figure out off a map from 25 years ago
where exactly they were diggin', so...
Treasure maps aren't always the easiest to read.
Might need to go this way a little bit.
[Jack] Yeah, I'll come over that way
after I get through here.
Just hard to pinpoint...
if we're in the right spot or not
and it's just so overgrown.
[Jack] But I think the trench is right here.
-Hunter. -[Hunter] Yeah.
Right here is where he was digging.
There's definitely been digging.
[Hunter] You think this is the hole?
This is the trench.
[Hunter] Where do you think we should pull from?
You think right here?
[Jack] I would go... Yeah.
-Down at the bottom, not at the top. -[Hunter] Yeah.
[Jack] Just throw all the big rocks out.
Yeah.
[Hunter] It's hard to tell for sure...
if we're in the right spot or not.
Right now it's really frustrating
to be out here with buckets and shovels.
Mining's evolved a lot over the last 25 years
and, so, there's a lot of tools that we could use
that I wanna bring in.
But we got a couple buckets of dirt.
We won't really know until we get it back to the cleanup room
and... and run it, if it's the hotspot or not.
[Jack] We made it out.
[Andy] Just keep comin' back straight and straight and straight.
Keep comin', keep comin', keep comin'.
[Andy on radio] Now turn to your right.
[Andy] Beautiful sunny day and we're sluicing, so...
what else can we ask for?
Hopefully, Hunter said he's up trying to prospect,
find some new ground.
Um, something that's thawed out.
That, uh, hopefully we can get access to
and that's got gold in it to get us through to the end.
You're always solvin' problems when you're mining,
but today we're digging pay dirt and sluicing dirt.
That's what we came here to do. This is how we make money.
Time to get to that 3,000 plus goal.
[narrator] While work at the main plants continues...
-[Todd] Morning. -[Jack] Yup.
[narrator] ...the Jackrabbit
needs one final component to make it operational,
a water pump.
[Todd] Let's get the pump.
[narrator] Todd and his crew
would draw water from the main pond
at the North Fork
near the Black Pearl and Holy Roller plants.
We got the plant all set up.
Now we're just gonna throw some water at it.
It's really exciting to, uh,
help jack get this thing up and running.
I think it's really cool. You know, he...
built this thing all by himself and we're gonna...
help him live out his dream of runnin'
his own wash plant.
[Todd] Here it comes. The other half
of this equation, water.
Can't sluice without water
and that's what we're about ready to do.
We're gonna try to put the pump in
and then we'll see what happens.
Framer!
-Where do you want it? By the water. -[Jack] Yeah. By the water.
-Okay. [chuckles] -[Todd] Wow. That's... That's, uh, different.
[Jack] That's a good idea.
[Hunter] Right there.
[Jack] What do you think?
-[Hunter] Nailed it. -[Todd] Nailed it.
Pump's in place.
We got one more fitting to put on.
You know what? You can work on this plant probably forever.
Jack probably would love... love doing that, but,
whether it runs or not, uh, we're gonna find out.
[Andy] Can he walk out on that [bleep] or is it too soft?
[Todd] I don't know. It's... pretty soft.
[man] We can't get down to that water's edge.
Yeah! [bleep]
It's slippery down there.
[Todd] Careful.
Hey, everybody be careful down there.
[man] I can take this end, bring it around,
and load it up and let her...
-let her flip... -[Todd] Whoa, whoa!
-Ah, [bleep]! -[Todd] Help him.
-[Andy] Tater's in the water. -[Todd] Ah, dang it, Rob.
[man] Here, grab hold the hose.
-You get 'em? -[man 1] Hang on.
[Tater] I can't get my leg out.
Oh!
Yeah... [groans]
Give me a strap, Ron.
[Andy] You're gonna tear your knee up.
[Tater] Son of a biscuit.
-[Andy] Tater's in the water. -Help him, help him.
[man] Here, grab hold the hose.
-I can't get my leg out. -Yeah, give me a strap, Ron.
[Andy] You're gonna tear your knee up.
[Tater] Son of a biscuit!
-Here, here. Bring him up! -[man] Yeah, don't tear your knee up.
-[Todd] Here, give him this. -[man] Oh, Hunter's got a strap.
[Hunter] Huh? Oh, I'm just trying to fix the hose.
Oh, hang on, Tater. We're gonna pull you out.
We gotta get this hose out there real quick.
Since you're already there...
Whoa! Whoa, hang on.
-It looks like you're sinking. -[Micah] There you go.
-You're sinking. -[Todd] Are you going deeper?
Give me your helmet, I gotta send something back to your wife.
Hang on, Rob, we'll get you out in a minute.
[Todd] But can you get it out there, Hunter?
Throw it out there?
-[Micah] Yeah. -[Hunter] Try not to destroy it.
[Todd] All right, Tater. Fish it out there, Tater,
and let's get you the hell outta here.
Keep going. Keep going.
Everybody over here on this rope.
One, two, three. Go!
Oh, [bleep]. Pull.
[all grunting]
Keep pulling.
-Pull him. -[Tater grunts]
Hey, got my boot back.
-[Todd] You did? -[panting]
Okay, hold on, one sec.
[panting] Okay.
[bleep]
[grunts]
-Got it? -Yeah.
That wasn't muddy.
[Micah] You're not riding in my truck.
-[all laughing] -Mine either.
Thanks. Thanks for not taking a dinner break.
Anything for Jack's plant.
[Tater] I might need to change my pants.
-[bleep] -[all laughing]
Got it.
We got the dirt back to the cleanup room
and now we just gotta run it, pan it
and if it is the right spot,
we're gonna know right off the bat.
This just might be the thing that keeps us in the game.
We're gonna take bucket number one here.
Just screen off all the big rock
and then we'll start panning it and see...
see if it's got gold or not.
You know, I'm always looking for a nugget.
You know, chances of there being a nugget is...
probably pretty slim,
but all this ground has some gold on it.
Here's a scoop.
All right.
I'm doing a little bit of a faster pan just to see what we've got.
Wash off the lighter stuff.
And if the gold's the heaviest thing in here,
when you're doing this,
it should be going to the bottom.
There's definitely gold in here.
You seein' it? Okay.
If we've got 77 ounces,
you're gonna see some pretty positive gold in here.
-And... -You see those colors...
-Oh, yeah. I see it. I see quite a few. -[Hunter] ...on the top?
[Jack] Look at that.
That's not 70 ounces a hundred though.
[Jack] No. It's not.
-It's good minable dirt. -[Hunter] Mmm-hmm.
-But it's not your crazy load. -It's not good enough to
-jump ship and try to go all the way out there. -No.
[Hunter] So unfortunately, the ridge was a bust.
Right now it feels like we're wasting time that we don't have
using these old school methods to try to track down the gold.
When we were out there, I wasn't even sure if we were on the right spot or not.
So, it's frustrating.
If we ran all this, it's gonna take you for freaking ever.
You know, running this stuff with a gold pan.
-Yeah. -You just gotta get out there
run a... a bulk sample of 100 yards.
-You'll do it. You'll do it bud. -Love you.
-Let's get out of here. -Okay.
[geese honking]
Okay. How's prospecting going out there?
It's going okay, but it just takes forever.
I think that we should invest a little bit more into,
you know, finding new ground.
-Yeah. -I have a couple ideas I wanna try.
One of them is LiDAR,
-like ground penetrating drone... -Okay.
...that uses radar. And apparently that can tell
the depth of bedrock, if ground's virgin or not,
everything else. Kinda give us a picture that way.
And then just getting around takes forever.
So, I think it'd be a good idea to bring in a SHERP.
-You know, those off road, amphibious vehicles. -Oh, I know what they are.
'Cause then we can cruise around out here
and not get stuck.
You actually think there's one around?
Yeah. I got a lead on one that we could get up here
and at least have it for the rest of the summer.
It's gonna cost a little bit of money,
but as of right now, it's a lot of pressure
to figure out how we're gonna even run dirt the rest of the season.
-I know. I know-- -That's got what, two or three weeks?
There is pressure on you,
use technology, use whatever you can.
Try to keep it under 50 grand,
but if you... Hopefully, you can find us some pay dirt
otherwise we're gonna be going home
and we're not gonna hit our goal.
[Hunter] Okay.
You know, Hunter is feeling the pressure.
He's trying to find some pay dirt.
It's not an easy thing to do.
But if he wants to bring in some new technology,
he wants to bring in some new ways to get around,
hey, more power to him.
Any money that I spend towards that
is investing into the future of this mine.
[Todd] I like it.
Let me know what you need from me.
[Hunter] Okay. I will.
All right, bud. Good job.
[quacking]
[narrator] Back at the Jackrabbit,
with mechanical parts belted in place
and the electrical components powered up,
Jack prepares to test his make-shift wash plant
with water.
[Todd] I think you're good.
[narrator] Something he's never attempted
in the 30 years since he built it by hand
in his own backyard.
You guys good?
-[Jack] Fire it up! -You ready, Grandpa?
Yeah. Go ahead.
Pump coming on.
[on radio] Jackrabbit.
[Todd] To be honest with you,
I don't know if this thing will even run.
And we just wasted time, money and hope.
We're gonna find out. If it's ever gonna work, it's gonna work right now.
[engine starts]
[both] Here it comes.
[Micah] Heads up.
We're pushing water. There it goes.
Oh. [bleep]
Good.
[Todd] There you go. Now you're in the hopper.
[Hunter] We got water.
We got leaks.
[Todd] Dad, look at your hopper.
You have any adjustments anywhere?
Yeah. There's a couple valves back here.
Hey, Dad, you're getting a lot over here.
Hunter, grab the shovel.
[Jack] Got a big leak here.
[Todd] Leaking everywhere.
This is very wet.
We gotta get this water out, dude.
We're sitting in water.
There. Cut a ditch.
[Hunter] You gotta level the sluice.
Don't worry about that.
We've got other issues.
What is pouring out right there?
-Water... -It just tries...
-From where? -[Jack] The rubber is...
The rubber needs to be redone. Not that big a deal.
So, we finally got Jack's plant up and running.
He's never ran water in it before.
We've got a couple leaks,
a couple little things to address.
Nothing major.
Maybe in a day or two
we might have some gold in Jackrabbit.
Dad, you know where you gotta fix it?
[Jack] Yeah.
Actually, this side of the sluice box,
I need a little splitter there.
You know what I mean?
A diverter.
Yeah. Just run one side, you're saying?
-Yeah. -I think that'd be smarter.
[Jack] Well, you could do that.
[Jack] So, it works.
The only thing I have is a few little leaks,
down underneath here.
That's all very easily
taken care of with a piece of rubber.
[Todd] Okay. Well, let's get these leaks fixed.
Good job, everybody.
-Good job. -Yeah.
[Todd] You know what? There's some leaks,
there's some things that need to be fixed
but let me tell you,
everybody stayed late
and we almost lost Tater in the drink.
All my guys pitched in.
Nobody was, like, grumbling about it.
Means a lot to me.
Means a really, a bunch to my dad.
And here he is, man.
He's already planning, scheming.
He's up there trying to fix this thing.
These are the moments that mean a lot.
-I think it looks good. -[Jack] Anything pull up?
[all] Yep. Yeah.
Good job, Rob. Thank you, guys.
[Hunter] I just got a radio call.
Our all-terrain-amphibious,
crazy off-road tank vehicle showed up.
I followed some leads on some cool stuff
and I really need this SHERP to show up.
I can't believe it did,
considering where we're at.
-[door beeping] -We're gonna see what they're all about.
How's it going?
Hello, Hunter. My name is Gen.
-Gen, nice to meet you, brother. -Yeah.
-Nice to meet you too. -This is crazy.
-This is a SHERP. -There it is.
I've never really seen one in person.
Yeah. You have a chance to try it.
[Hunter] It's getting colder, the wind's blowing
and we're running out of time to find new ground.
So, my dad, he gave me the green light
to make some moves.
[narrator] Hunter's all new terrain vehicle,
the SHERP, is an ATV,
a snowmobile, a boat
and a hover craft, all in one.
[Gen] So it inflate the tires themself.
-The exhaust inflates the tires? -Yeah! Yeah.
[narrator] It's able to overcome obstacles over three feet in height
and can handle any terrain or weather.
Perfect for the treacherous, undeveloped Alaskan tundra.
[Hunter] Whoa. Okay, let's do it.
[Gen] All right.
[Hunter] I'm excited to get the SHERP out here,
the LiDAR drone and then I have the tools,
you know, that I need to go out and pinpoint, you know,
where the next pay should be coming from.
So, it's easy to inflate the tires.
You just need to switch on this switch.
And it'll just go to auto pressure.
Yeah. And you can see on the monitor how it works.
For swamp or snow or sand or dirt road or asphalt,
-or water. So you can-- -That's the pressure, tire pressure.
Yeah. Yeah.
-[Hunter] Okay, brake. -[Gen] Yup.
-[Hunter] Clutch. -[Gen] Yeah.
-Okay. Here we go. -Let's go.
You just cruising in the tundra.
[laughs]
-[Hunter] It's, like, relaxing. -[Gen] Yeah.
-Go all the way... -Oh, yeah.
-...out in there. -[Gen] Oh, yeah.
Find the new gold places.
Dude. That's what I'm talking about.
This is sweet.
-I like it. -[Gen] So it's simple,
and robust and reliable.
And will take you any remotest places.
This is exactly what I needed.
I love it.
We did it.
Good. You done well.
You done well.
-Here we go. -Thank you.
Thank you.
Gotta grab some gold.
[narrator] Back at North Fork,
work continues to get Jack's plant operational.
Using a rubber diverter, the team has blocked off one side of the sluice,
creating a more efficient water flow.
[Micah] Okay. Put a washer on it so it supports it better.
-All right? -[Jack] Yeah. Perfect.
[Todd] I don't know where it would leak.
[Jack] In theory, it's ready to go.
In actuality, I don't know.
I've never ran material on it at all.
I just wanna know if it works.
If it works, it's a great test plant.
[Todd] What the heck?
[Todd chuckles]
-Dude, I hope you rented that and didn't buy it. -[all laughing]
[Todd] Dude, no way!
Look at this thing.
-Dude, this is sick. -Isn't this thing crazy?
It's a lot better than the...
It's quicker, it's faster, you can go through the water,
it doesn't tear anything up.
[Todd] It's manual, little stick shift?
Yeah.
Yeah. Flip this down.
But yeah. Six, six speed manual, diesel.
It's nice to have around, I think.
Well, go find us some gold.
Okay. I'm gonna try.
As always, the time is tickin', you know?
I'm just tryin' to work a little bit smarter
instead of harder and so...
um, hopefully, in a couple of weeks,
I have our next place to pull pay out of
and hopefully save this season.
Okay.
[Todd] Dude, this is so wild.
This is like Star Wars.
[Hunter] Yeah. This is some Star Wars [bleep] right here.
[Todd laughs]
-We good, Jack? -[Jack] Yes, sir.
[narrator] After some fine tuning,
Jack's plant is ready for its final test.
Hunter will be running local rock instead of
the limited gold rich pay from the Lost Cut
to ensure the plant can clean and run rock efficiently.
[Jack] First bucket.
There she goes.
[Todd] Come on up, Jack. What do you think?
-[Jack] Looks like it's going down. Yeah. -It's moving.
[Jack] Yeah, it's movin'.
[Todd] Throwing rocks.
[Hunter] You know, I know my grandpa's excited
to see his plant running and...
He's just always excited to be gold mining in general.
You know, I'm feeding it just like any other plant.
It's washing, Jack!
Just watch your fingers over here.
[Hunter] So far it's actually doing pretty good.
So, I'm impressed.
[Todd] Well, for our first fire-up, I think it's pretty good.
It's working pretty dang good.
For a test plant, and something that
I just built in my driveway,
it's really washing the rock good.
The rock's going off the tail end
and you can just watch it pile up.
You want to call it a success, it's a success.
But can we find the next hot spot?
That's a big question.
[Todd] I'm looking for that five-pound nugget, buddy.
[Jack] Well, yeah.
[Todd] The five-pound nugget!
[Todd chuckles]
[man] What you... what you got here?
[Sterling speaking]
[man] Nobody else has one of those, I don't think.
I'm Sterling Anderson.
I ended up here because Todd is my uncle.
It is a marathon here.
If you... You'll burn out so fast if you just,
like, pedal to the metal
all 18 hours a day, six days a week.
I just get into flow
and the next thing you know it's, like, 6:00 p.m.,
next thing you know, it's midnight
and start over.
I obviously do my thing. I don't know.
Little core, some push-ups.
I'm gonna get Cub working out too.
Well, Jack, your plant's running
and it's running in Nome, Alaska.
-[Jack] Yeah. -[all laughing]
When I built this plant, I built it in my driveway
and I didn't know if it was gonna get used or what.
I've said it over and over, you know?
No guts, no glory
and if you don't have the guts to run this thing,
you know, you're not gonna get
any glory about the whole thing.
So, it's here.
Hopefully, it can help
and maybe we'll hit our goal.
[Jack] Well, it's here, it's working.
Can't get any better than that.
Yeah. It's pretty cool.
[narrator] With both the Holy Roller and the Black Pearl
running Lost Cut pay all week,
the miners are hopeful they will meet or exceed
last week's weigh in.
[Hunter] You know, this is a place where you can make a lot of money.
If we can play our cards right,
if we can plan ahead,
we have a lot higher chance of getting our goal.
3,033 ounces, it's ambitious but I think it's better that we shoot higher than lower.
I wanna see everybody win.
I wanna see my grandpa happy
and I wanna see my dad get a lot of gold.
[Thurber] How much am I taking home?
[Sterling] Don't drop that one.
Make into a little burrito.
It looks good.
I'd like to see two ounces per hundred this time.
And considering the material that
we're sending to the plant.
It's real muddy and kinda has a lot of silt on the top.
So that's encouraging.
-[man 1] Yeah. -[Thurber] Look at that one.
[Sterling] [bleep] Yeah. Look at that!
Hey, boy.
Everything's looking pretty good so far.
Hope it's another good one.
[Sterling] What's the prediction today?
Old timers said it's bad luck to predict your own count.
[man 1] This is probably gonna be a good pull, dude.
Not to seem too optimistic about it.
-Hey, Tater. -[Tater] Yeah.
[Sterling] It's like half a pan?
-[Tater] Just out of the bottom? -[Sterling] Yeah.
[Tater] Oh, yeah. That looks pretty darn good.
Good job, guys.
Maybe we're back on track.
[Todd] Hey, Dad, we brought your plant in.
-Yeah. -What do you think about that, Dad?
You know, I, I made it not knowing if it was gonna get used,
but I'm glad that Hunter's using it
-and it's gonna be fun to see how it works. -It had a few leaks.
I mean, you never had ran water through it before.
-[Jack] Never. No. -So I think it'll work good.
Yeah. Good job helping out, everybody, on the plant.
[Micah] Yeah. It was pretty cool.
[Todd] Thurb, what's the total on the season so far?
We're at 192.7.
Almost 400,000 bucks.
[Todd] Not bad. It's a good start.
-Yeah. -[Hunter] Nice chunk of change.
-Yeah. -I feel like we have another big one coming. So...
Thurbs, give us the good news.
[Jack] Pour it out.
God. It feels more than the last one.
[Todd] Twenty...
[Jack] 40, 50, 60, 70, 80...
88, 90, 98, 100.
-104, 109, 110... -[Hunter] I knew it.
[Jack] 114, 116, 118, 119...
122.7.
No way!
[Sterling] All right. Big bother week.
[Todd] That's our second biggest cleanup ever.
-[boy] It's pretty good. -That's pretty good.
It's really good.
-[Todd cheers] -Yeah.
That cut, man, is... This is, this thing is money.
-Yeah. Hard work works, man. -Let's keep grinding.
Way to go, guys. Way to go.
[narrator] It's still early in the season,
but the Hoffmans have managed to get 315.4 ounces
of their 3,033 ounce goal.
This week's haul is worth well over $200,000,
but they still have 2,718 more ounces to go.
Whatever you're doing, Andy,
keep doing it, man.
-Triple digits. -Keep bringing dirt.
-We should just keep doing this every clean out. -Yeah.
At some point we're gonna need to find some more pay.
Right now, we've got all our eggs in one basket
and that's kinda scary.
Yeah. I'm kinda looking for a needle in the haystack, to be honest.
Gotta find something that's not frozen,
that we can actually get to
that's got good gold. So...
I'll just keep poking around and we'll see what we can find.
-[Todd] Do your best. Go from there. -[Hunter] Okay.
Let's grind it. Let's get going.
Let's get this thing, man.
[Jack] All right.