Gold Rush

I can also try and pushing on it, Jordy,

if you don't want to pull.

Yeah.

It's a monumental day

for 28-year-old Parker Schnabel.

After throwing everything he's got

at stripping Dominion Creek's 40-acre Money Pit,

his crew are on the brink of sluicing.

I can't go anymore this way.

And Parker...

...will see if his $15 million gamble

is a bonanza or a bust.

Our deck rail's gonna catch,

just go three inches or so.

Try that.

But first, wash plant, Big Red, must be moved 15 miles

to the Money Pit.

Gotta get Big Red up to Dominion.

It's gonna be running

hopefully by the end of the week.

Running out of days of the season

and we still have a lot of ground to get through.

So, you know, that's a lot of pressure

put on the crew this year.

And even more pressure on Parker.

Tyson, just a bit.

Nailed it.

Let's go.

Have fun, Jordy.

You know, we're almost at the point

where basically every penny that we've ever made mining

is now back in the ground.

And the stripping

and the equipments and whatnot,

you know, we can't afford anything to go wrong now.

Halfway through the season,

Parker has hauled in just 1,274 ounces

of his 5,000-ounce target.

Right now, we're very spread out

and working in three different areas.

It's definitely causing a fair bit of issues, um...

but...

we're here now and we just have to suck it up and deal with it.

Parker's put nearly everything

into opening Dominion

and is stretched to the limit

with skeleton teams working his other two claims.

One crew brings in gold from the El Dorado Cut

at Ken and Stewart's.

While another strips ground at Australia Creek.

But the key to his make or break season

is seeing a return on his Dominion Creek purchase.

We're very close

to being ready to sluice here at Dominion.

Um, we'll see if the Money Pit is, uh...

You don't name that because it has lots of money in it

or because it's gonna cost us lots of money.

They're just coming in now.

With Big Red now at the Money Pit,

foreman Mitch Blaschke needs to move

the 50-ton wash plant onto the pad.

Are you ready to get your baby in place?

Yeah, I'm ready to see this thing wash some rocks, man.

It's been sitting way too long.

You just kind of want to guide me here.

I'll try and swing it out a ways

and then cut her back.

But this is really soft on the edge, so.

Right now, I'm trying to get Big Red

up this ramp here, but the one side of it

is wanting to dig in really harder

and that's making the wash plant

wanna lean here a bit.

It's all about just getting the plant

onto some firm ground here.

You don't want it to be uneven here

because that's when it starts tipping.

Well now, it's up to the wash plant

where it's level is where it's gonna sit.

You feel like a pirate up there,

just in the lookout with your range finder there?

Land, ahoy!

Hopefully, there's some gold ahoy out there.

We've got the shaker deck in place, now it's time for the sluice run.

So we're gonna grab those couple conveyors

and hopefully have the Money Pit

actually making some money here.

We'll just get you right up against that guardrail there.

Good, stop.

I feel good how it's all come together though.

-I mean, didn't take much... -Yeah.

...to get it all back looking like a wash plant again.

Well, there's a lot of stress and I mask a lot of that,

but it affects me just like anybody else.

Because I've already got three-quarters of a million dollars invested

just in running costs.

And it's, uh...

We're sure as don't have three-quarters

of a million dollars of gold yet.

100 miles away at Duncan Creek,

Rick Ness is making a comeback.

But so far,

he only has 203 ounces

of his 1,000-ounce target.

And the one cut he has open, the Bacon Strip,

is running lean on gold and is almost tapped out.

Uh, right now, I mean, the crew's running

the Bacon Strip, but, you know,

they are gonna fast run out, so.

We need to have this dirt from the...

From the Bench Cut at the plant ready to run.

And, um, if I don't get this done in time,

then we're gonna be sitting without running the plant

and that's just not acceptable.

You know, it's a short season,

we gotta be getting gold every day.

On a one-man mission,

Rick is stripping the Bench Cut

in the hopes of finding better pay,

leaving his crew to sluice the Bacon Strip.

From up here, I could just barely see the plant.

And I definitely can't be in two places at once.

So, it's...

You know, it's time to start putting a little faith in this crew

and see how they handle it.

You know, I've told Buzz he's in charge down there.

Just keep that plant running no matter what.

Um, I got complete faith in him.

If he could prove himself,

I'm thinking about making him my foreman.

Buzz Legault joined Rick's team

just eight weeks ago.

He quickly proved himself

and now Rick's testing him out as foreman.

Um, we're just gonna fire up the generator here.

Yeah, we're hoping we got a full day

of sluicing in here today.

Operator, Trey Charlie,

and camp cook, Travis Kinakin,

fire up wash plant Rocky.

Oh, I can smell some burning wire or something.

Like, there's a... Can you smell that?

Oh, yeah, I could smell that.

Doesn't smell too nice.

Do you idle this thing up yet?

No, I haven't.

Something's, something's .

See if she'll fire up.

Got nothing.

She's not working, but do you smell that? I'll go get Buzz.

Hey, I fired up with the generator,

flipped the breaker, hit the button, and nothing,

and you could smell, like, you know,

really strong burning wire.

Buzz believes Trey forgot to idle the generator

that powers the wash plant in his rush to fire up Rocky.

Hey, I think he had the generator running when I got here.

I don't know if he tried to start it before I got here or not.

I don't know what happened before I got here, but...

Yeah.

.

King of the Klondike, Tony Beets,

is fighting a war on two fronts.

At Paradise Hill, he's eager to sluice

the stripped super pit,

but first, he needs to build a new wash plant pad for his trommel.

Twelve weeks in,

Tony's chaotic start

has banked him only 343 ounces

of his 6,000 ounce gold.

40 miles south at Indian River,

daughter, Monica, wages another battle

keeping the family's only moneymaker,

the shaker deck, running.

It's nice to be sluicing

because we're actually making steps

towards the 6,000-ounce goal versus just doing nothing.

I mean, if Tony does wanna reach

this 6,000-ounce goal,

we need more than one plant going,

'cause this is the latest we've ever gone.

Uh, in my 20-ish years of working here,

just started sluicing.

Keep going the loader, get a scoop ready.

Sounds good.

Right now, I'm just kind of working

on moving the dirt that's over here

to the other side,

just so that I have a nice area to turn around

and back up after I dump it into the hopper.

New Beets hire, Chelsea March,

loads pay dirt into the wash plant.

I worked in civil construction for a bit

and I worked in a mine in Alberta,

so I'm kind of familiar with it.

Yeah.

As a woman, it's a little bit harder

to get into equipment typically.

It's just a nice step forward for sure.

It's really cool to see a bunch of women