Gold Rush

Tony beets moves heaven...

And earth...

To cash in on lost gold.

Rick ness follows a hunch...

If there's a pile of gold in there,

That right there wipes out my late start.

That will lead to ruin or redemption.

Whoa!

And fred lewis...

We're running pay!

With his crew of veterans, have their eyes on the prize.

It's been awhile, but this is it.

Whoo!

And now we can taste the gold.

Captions paid for by discovery communications.

Racing to catch up from his latest-ever start,

Tony beets has son mike running pay dirt.

From the 18-acre mega cut.

He's chasing a 3,000-ounce season goal.

But almost halfway through the short season,

Tony has less than 1/4 of his target.

Now he's determined to mine every piece of gold-rich ground.

He can find.

Last week, he tested tailings left by old timers.

At the bottom of the hill.

He ran them through his kiwi plant.

And got 4 ounces from just 400 yards.

That's very sluicible.

- Have you met me? - I'm fantastic.

Tony's bringing his 30-year-old screen deck wash plant.

Out of retirement.

The plant can chew through 200 yards an hour,

Twice as much as the one he used for the test,

And could earn him more than $80,000 a day.

But the screen deck currently sits on top of paradise hill.

Tony must transport.

The 50-ton cargo down a steep mine road,

Navigating a series of narrow sections and tight corners...

To a custom built pad beside the old-timer tailings.

At the foot of the hill.

To kickstart the project,

He brings in the 50-ton crane.

Nothing. What do you want me to do?

All right. The cable will be coming down.

First, he removes the 45-foot-long conveyor.

Then the 6-ton screen deck.

No, no, no. Too much, too much, too much.

The 5-foot-tall steel hopper above the screen deck.

Makes the plant top-heavy.

Usually, we take the hopper off. Makes it way more stable.

Tony decides to leave the hopper in place to speed up the move.

Let's get going.

Son mike brings in the oshkosh, a turbo-charged v-8 engine,

500-horsepower military tank transporter.

Now mike must haul the top-heavy wash plant.

Down the steep road to the tailings.

This is frustrating.

Okay.

Kevin must remove the bolts,

Securing the hopper to the frame.

It is welded.

I don't think these things slide out anymore.

Until they can cut the hopper off,

The wash plant move is at a standstill.

We're moving along really well.

We've all been hitting it with everything we got.

Rick ness started mining a full two weeks behind

Parker and tony.

He is now in the race of his life.

To get to his 1,000-ounce gold.

We finally got our hopper feeder in,

And I paid off troy his royalties for the year,

So that feels really good.

With all the gold that went up,

It's just gonna be really important to start.

Putting some back in the safe.

After barely breaking even last season,

Rick needs a big year, or his mining career is over.

Well, if we were in a competition.

To move the most dirt with no gold in it,

We would have won last year, easy.

For the last four weeks,

Rick has mined the cheap cut,

Where the gold-rich pay dirt is near the surface.

But now new recruit mark doverspike.

Is running out of cheap-cut pay to feed wash plant rocky.

Yeah, we've got about a day's worth of.

Cheap-cut pay left, so we're gonna change things up.

New ground.

Rick heads out to look for a new area to mine.

So, this is where we've mined the cheap cut up to.

You know, this ground has been paying really well,

And it's kind of got... it's given me a renewed interest.

To, like, investigate and search.

I'd like to think after eight years,

I'm starting to be able to read the ground.

I just get a feeling there's more gold here.

The way this material is piled up in here,

I think the best stuff that there is.

Could be at this corner.

On lower duncan creek 20,000 years ago,

A glacier pushed up a mound of rock and dirt,

Known as a moraine, on the edge of the cheap cut.

Rick believes the moraine has trapped gold washed down.

From the mother lode.

If the glacier made some kind of a hard stop here,

All that gold would have stopped in this corner.

It could be the best stuff we've seen all year.

And with gold price the way it is,

Like, the profit margins are big.

See what we got.

I need to see at least 15 to 20 colors in this pan.

To make it worth extending this cut.

Yeah, there's gold in here.

Look, guys, there's a whole bunch of fine gold.

Mixed in down there.

I like that.

If there's a pile of gold in there,

That right there wipes out my late start,

You know, due to the whole covid thing.

Hey, can you guys all meet me at the wash plant, please?

Hey, guys.

I've got a bit of a hunch on the cheap cut here.

And there's more ground to be had.

It's right in a corner.

There's not much overburden there.

Like, we could get in there and strip, you know,

A week's worth of pay in, like, one day.

You're the boss.

Hope your hunch is right.

Let's get the trucks fired up,

Get everything fired up here, and let's go get it.

- Okay. - Let's do this.

Rick gets the crew stripping the extension cut.

Gambling, they'll get to pay dirt.

Before the existing stockpile runs out.

It's no secret rick spent a lot of time and money.

Chasing after big nuggets last year on a hunch.

I hope this isn't last year all over again.

I don't need that.

I've got a really good feeling.

About the cheap-cut extension.

I know I made some mistakes last year, and I know.

The guys are skeptical, but this year is different.

I know things are gonna pay off.

Look out!

Holy!!

On rick ness's duncan creek claim,

Operator chris kruse has just rolled his rock truck.

While hauling overburden from the new extension cut.

Got to be kidding me. Stand back.

Rick's already battling a late start.

This season.

Now he could be down a truck, as well.

If we don't get there in a rush,

This whole thing's upside down.

Carl and the crew improvise to right the truck.

Using an excavator and webbing.

Up.

Up!

A rock truck flopped over,

And we're trying to flop it back over the right way.

Not the way you're supposed to park these.

We got it!

Sweet.

With the truck up and running, the team gets back.

To digging down to pay dirt in the new cut.

Nice job, guys.

Three hours later, the extension is stripped.

And ready to run.

Hell, yeah, we're already down to pay. I like that.

Feeling pretty good right now.

We're right where we need to be.

Rookie miner fred lewis has gambled.

His last $20,000.

Leasing a 36-acre claim in oregon's elkhorn mountains.

You know, last week was kind of tough.

We had to deal with a lot of msha compliances.

And kra compliances, but...

We stepped it up, got everything done.

We just got to put in the work and get on the gold.

Up to now, the team has only run their operation.

For a total of eight hours.

Now fred and his crew of veteran buddies.

Are racing to cash in on record-high gold prices.

Fire it up, johnny. Fire it up. Fire it up.

Water's coming!

. Here it comes!

Let's do this! Run some gold!

Former special forces master sergeant

Stefan generally digs pay dirt in the swamp cut.

With the 400 excavator.

My wife... she's never owned a house before.

Come out here, mine for gold, make some money.

Make one of my wife's dreams come true.

Sergeant kyle pletzke then hauls the pay dirt to the plant.

In a 988 loader.

Pretty much dead broke, so this has to be a success.

Or I'm going to end up living out of my truck for real.

And sergeant stuart mckenzie.