Gold Rush: Dave Turin's Lost Mine

It's a big day.

Probably one of the biggest days of my mining career.

Those hummocks are what brought us here.

And by God, I'm gonna mine 'em.

This is the first time in my career

that we beat the old-timers to it.

And now I want it.

It's our gold, and we're gonna go get it.

Got the permits.

We're legal to do it.

The neighbors aren't gonna be happy,

but I've gotta do it for my crew.

I gotta do it for Jesse, his family.

And I'm tired of living in fear.

I gotta get that gold out of those hummocks

before winter hits.

Looks like the belt got caught in the hopper.

It's ripped back here in the hopper.

It's ripped?

Yes, sir.

For sake.

Morning in Box Creek, Colorado.

As the team prepares to mine the long awaited hummocks,

a new challenge threatens to derail their plans.

Okay. Reverse it.

It's just spinning.

Rocks have jammed the hopper

feeder's conveyor belt

for the second time in a week.

Put it on kinda slow.

Okay. Stop, stop, stop, stop.

See, like, the roller is stuck

between the top and the lacing.

We brought this hopper down from Montana

to increase our production,

and it's done nothing but give us problems

since it got here.

A month ago, Dave installed

a hopper feeder to speed up production

and grade the Rocky Mountain pay dirt

before it hits The Roach.

But the belt has already been replaced,

a costly and time-consuming fix.

You can't even drop the roller down, Nate.

With tons of gold-rich dirt

expected to pile up from the hummocks

within hours, they must quickly get

the feeder back on line.

Well, it looks like the lacing got caught

on the bottom of the hopper.

It's caused the belt to tear,

so we're trying to figure out how the heck

we're gonna do this.

Okay. Reverse again?

Yeah, reverse it.

Nothing.

It's gonna take a while to fix this again.

Is it worth it?

I don't know.

You know, we should replace this belt on it.

You know, it's $4,000.

I don't know if we're gonna be able to fix it.

Yeah, it helped production,

but when we have breakdowns like that,

we'll lose that 20% real quick.

Well, Nathan's a very good mechanic.

He understands that when something breaks,

it's on him.

I hate equipment breakdown

because it's out of my control.

I get impatient. I'm like,

"Come on. Let's go. Fix it."

And he's like, "Just take your time.

Let's do it the right way."

So sometimes Nathan's a lot better

at breakdowns than I am.

I think it's more efficient now.

Let go ahead and pull it out. And let's run

with the excavator the rest of the time we're here.

I mean, seriously. I mean, this is twice now

it shut us down. I know.

I'll get the 220. I'll get it back up there.

- Okay. - And Chris goes back to his parts.

Yeah. It.

We tried it.

It worked good for a little bit.

But, not enough to repair it again.

And this ain't cost-efficient for us to run.

This ain't worth it. This ain't worth it.

If you're just putting a Band-Aid on it

and you break that scab again,

then you gotta fix it again, and you gotta constantly...

And it takes time.

And it takes away from, you know, sluicing.

We're doing good with the excavator.

Let's load the plant and just move on.

What the crew now lack

in processing speed

they bank on more than making up for

by mining the richest ground

they've ever encountered.

It's been two months since Dave

was denied access to the hummocks.

This land is off limits.

That's the reason we came up here.

But last week, he made a last-ditch plea

to the local county...

It's me with five other guys,

and it's basically trying to support our families.

Finally winning permission to access

the virgin ground that brought the team

to Colorado.

In a couple of days, we'll be able to mine it.

- Damn! - I know. There we go.

- All right! - Dave, thank you.

Whoo!

Hey, Case.

Welcome to the upper hummocks, brother.

It's our new home for however long

they let us stay here.

Holy crap.

I can smell the gold here.

This is where we show the old-timers

of the past what they missed out on.

Now, with their gold total

sitting at 255 ounces,

the hummocks could be the answer

to their 400-ounce prayers.

Hey, Dave. You made it to the promised land.

- How's it going? - So what's the plan, Dave?

Let's walk up this valley.

That's where you found the good pans.

I wanna start there and work our way up.

Let's take a look.

Yeah. Okay.

Millions of years ago,

a giant ancient glacier carves up the landscape,

leaving undulating hills called hummocks.

Rain and melting ice wash gold

from the mountains above Box Creek

into the valley, where the hummocks

become a natural sluice box,

trapping gold in the lowest spots

between the mounds.

At the start of the season, Dave prospected a draw

between two large hummocks

and discovered a concentrated strip

of gold-rich ground.

It's this draw

Jason and KC will target first.

You know the number one spot

I'm interested in is right there.

Yeah, buddy.

The best pan I've ever done in the lower 48 states

was right there, and it's all of this material

coming down into this valley.

I wanna know how far up.

I think that you can see it here.

Yeah, right in here?

I think it might be this pay zone,

but we gotta just pan the hell out of this

and see what's good and what's bad.

You know, you'll find out where the pay zone is.

All right, Dave. Looks good.

However, it's a two-mile round trip.

Are you gonna fix the road?

Nope.

There's a $20,000 bond to mine this.

Anything we disturb, we have to reclaim it.

The minute we walk these machines in here,

everybody knows we're here.

We've gotta get the gold,

reclaim it and get the hell out of here.

Jason will work up the draw

from the test holes with minimal disruption

to the land and constantly pan ahead

to keep on the gold.

With a road not an option,

KC must drive the 40-ton rock truck

over rough terrain

on a two-mile round trip to the plant.

Without you dozing the road,

I can just imagine any bit of snow or water,

it'll turn into a nightmare.

We need to be mindful, though, that I'm gonna have

a hard time keeping up with Chris on the plant.

That'll slow our production time down tremendously.

If I bring rock in, build you a nice road,

I gotta pull the rock out.

Rather than off

the neighbors because we're tearing stuff up,

drive on the sagebrush and we don't even have

to reclaim it.

Give it your best shot, see what happens.

Okay. All right.

- Let's move some dirt. - Get some gold.

We're mining the hummocks.

And now we have to perform.

Jason's gonna have to find the best gold

up that valley,