Gold Rush

On this gold rush...

Whoa, shut down the plant. Fred, shut it down, bud!

With the season more than half way over...

Babe, we have a huge problem.

The Lewis crew morale takes a nose dive.

John, shut the up!

Just face it and shut your fat mouth.

Tony beets reaches the end of his honey hole.

This is crunch hour.

I'm always nervous leaving. It just seems like that's when we have problems.

And rick ness puts his crew in charge.

Karl, we got a big hole in the conveyor here.

Stop. Stop! Whoa!

Hurry up back there. Let's go!

At elkhorn creek, rookie miner Fred Lewis is fighting.

To get his mining season back on track.

The goal is to get as much pay dirt through the plant.

And pull all that gold out of the ground.

The crew is running pay dirt from the liberation cut,

With best gold he's had so far.

It's all coming together finally.

Got to keep working hard at this liberation cut.

Make sure we could find as much pay as possible.

Fred sunk his last $20,000 into the elkhorn claim.

With the hopes of paying his team in gold.

Babe, we have a huge problem.

We're almost broke again.

But more than halfway through the season,

He's banked just 1.1 ounces of gold,

Worth only $2,100.

And he's running up debts fast.

We need more gold or we need more money.

If we had the money, we can get more gold.

We have a laundry list of debts to pay right now.

And we we don't have enough.

In the account to cover the balance due.

Actually, I think the only way we'll be able to do this.

Is with an outside investor.

But we need to show gold to get an investor.

Or somebody I know that trust me.

Got a buddy, Karl.

If we can give him a good enough deal,

Might be worth it.

Karl and I, along with Stefan, have been through.

One of the toughest times in the military I've been through.

A firefight in Afghanistan, lasted almost 48 hours.

Since he got out, he's been investing a lot in military drones.

That did really well, so I know he's good with money.

I'm kind of hoping this could be his next investment.

- Karl. - Hey, what's up?

I know you're busy. I know you got a lot of stuff going on,

But I want to know if you would maybe be interested.

In investing in my gold mine in Oregon.

Wow. Do you do that? That's a big ask right there.

Dude, I think really the only way I'm gonna be able.

To actually show you is to get you out here.

Yeah, I could make it out there.

I definitely want to see what you got going on.

Sweet. Glad you're interested.

I'll send you over the information of where to travel.

And then let's go from there, bro.

That sounds great, man.

Well, karl's agreed to come out to the claim,

Which is fantastic.

But if he doesn't like what he sees.

And doesn't agree to invest, could be the end of the elkhorn.

In the liberation cut,

Special forces master sergeant Stefan generally digs pay dirt with the 400 excavator.

And I know Karl. Known him for years.

We were on the same a-team together.

And I can tell you, he's going to want to see.

A cohesive, well-oiled machine of a team before he agrees to invest.

I can't blame him.

In the 225, sergeant Stuart Mckenzie feeds the plant.

The amount of problems that we've had,

It is astronomical.

Fred has just talked to an investor, which, at this point in time,

In dire need.

We need more money up here, and we need it quick.

Hey, looks like there's something wrong.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, guys, shut down the plant.

Fred, shut it down, bud!

Screen deck is out.

Holy.

We lost one, two, three, four, five of these bolts.

The lower screen deck is secured by 16 carriage bolts.

Held in place by half-moon washers and nuts.

The vibration of the deck has rattled the bolts loose.

Without them, the ancient wash plant could shake itself apart.

These vibrations are so violent.

It's loosing itself, and the bolts.

And half-moon washers are falling down into the sluice.

And going over into our tailings, so they're lost forever.

I clearly see the problem here, but what's our fix?

Our fix is to get the correct carriage bolts,

- Nuts and washers. - You're talking all of them that are gone?

Yes, every single one of them.

These washers were fabricated by Freddie and Juan.

We need to order them in.

It means more down time.

But we'll be able to run longer in the long term.

Ordering all those parts gonna take two days.

It's getting to a point now where if we don't run now,

There's no chance of this season being salvaged.

This thing is bouncing rocks all day.

We've got to fix it long-term.

No, I get it. But, you know, the plant's never been 100%.

I feel like we should be running.

Right now, we go for that long-term fix.

I love your enthusiasm, but I just want to make sure.

That we're doing things as solid as we can.

Okay.

What I find so amazing.

Is somebody so keen and happy to shut down all the time.

That's the stupidest thing in the world not to run for it.

Hey, Fred.

Kendall doesn't care.

It doesn't feel like he cares if you fail or not.

- Or if you pay back your debt. - I do care.

There's plenty of other broken-down pieces of equipment around here.

We'll go find them.

- Maybe at least come look. - I'll look at them.

If Stuart can salvage the right washers from the bone yard,

They can get the plant back up and running.

We got these ones right here and then on the other side,

I saw some, too.

Just take a stack of those.

Maybe even go look over around here.

But there is here that we can use.

- I like this. - Okay.

Worth a shot while we're sitting around.

I know. That's exactly what I'm saying.

I like your way of thinking.

Right now, we're few washers short.

The easy solution is to call somebody to have him make them,

And wait two days to have it be made.

Stuart was right, we don't have time for that.

If we're going to try to prove ourselves to an investor,

We really have to be running.

I'm gonna put these washers on and try and bend it into place.

Push.

Just a kind of brute strength and turn it into a shape we need.

Stewart bends the salvaged flat washers into a half moon.

We needed a half moon, so made a half moon.

- You bet those washer is in there? - Yeah.

We still get all fired up, to solve problems, so right now,

It's looking like he may have done it.

We have so many down days, and so many days where something breaks.

If we have water, we have a capability of a running plant.

We have gas in the excavator, we should be running.

All right, so we're ready to test this bad boy out?

Johnny, you ready?

Now to find out if stewart's bush fix has worked.

All right, fire it up.

It's fantastic.

It's gone on okay, basically taking the bolt.

You know, when it comes down to the part.

If no one else wants to do it, then I guess I got to fix it my self.

I don't think that's a permanent fix.

I don't, but it's working.

It's working well right now, so I'm not gonna want to with it.

Now, I let kendell as the one to make decisions,

But if somebody comes to me with a better one,

We're going to go with that. Good call by Stewart.

I'm pretty happy with the way things are going right now.

The plant is styled in, everything's running nice and smooth.

Unfortunately, just like every other season, though,

There's been some major bumps along the way.

And that's caused a gaping hole in my pocket right now.

More than halfway through the season,

Rick ness has banked over 500 ounces.

He needs around 70 ounces a week to hit his $1,000 season goal,

But now he needs to pay an overdue fuel bill to carry on mining.

I gotta go and sell some gold so I could pay these bills.

I'm always nervous leaving.

It seems like that's when we have problems.

There he is.

- Ricky. - Well, I just want you guys to know.

That I got to go sell some gold to keep fuel truck coming in.

So it's gonna be up to Karl to keep things moving while I'm away.

Yeah, you better, yeah.

Like when he's asking you to do a certain thing,

He has that authority, you listen to Karl.

- Perfect. - And that being said,

We're over 1,800 bucks an ounce.

Where that's really going to add up is when you guys get bonus, right?

The more gold we get, the more gold you guys get.

Hopefully I can get back before any real happen.

- Okay. - Yeah?

- I'll get up there. - Let's do this.

- Okay, man. - You good?

All right. Yeah.

I'm always a little apprehensive of leaving the mine.

I don't really have a choice.

I've got a lot of big bills right now.

Pretty sure karl's got it handled.

While rick's away, it's mechanic Karl rosk's job.

To keep wash plant rocky running a hundred yards of creek cut every hour.

I take care of things for rick when he's not around,

And he trusts me, right?