Gold Rush

Todd: The materials stack up!

Shut it down!

Narrator: On this "gold rush"...

Creek's completely dried up now.

Without any freshwater, we're screwed.

Let's get the son of a gun unplugged.

Forget about it, freddy!

Freddy!

-Aah! -Freddy?

She's finally here! We can get some dredging goin'.

There's no millimeters.

There's no thousandths of an inch off.

It's gotta be dead center.

Are you kidding me?

Bit off more than I can chew.

Well, I think this plant's about ready to move.

Let's try to get this done as quick as we can.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

For sakes.

Blew my track in half.

Shut it off!

I don't have a plan. So stop asking me.

captions paid for by discovery communications

hey, can you ask brennan to grab another pipe?

Roger that.

Lookin' good, brohammer.

Narrator: It's 6 a.M. At scribner,

and parker's crew is already hard at work.

our strap just broke, so we'll have to grab another one.

We need another chain.

We're moving sluicifer today, which is never easy,

but hopefully we won't have as much of an issue.

In theory, it should go a lot better than long time.

Just throw this chain on. We'll get goin'.

Narrator: Parker is still almost 2,000 ounces short

of his 4,000-ounce season goal.

In an attempt to get back on track,

he's come up with a bold plan.

Parker: That creek diversion,

hopefully there's still a lot of good pay left in there.

We need it. So we'll try to make it work.

Narrator: Parker's abandoned the boundary cut extension.

Now, he needs to move sluicifer 2,000 feet

to a new pad beside the creek cut,

where he is pinning all his hopes

for a $4.8 million season goal.

We got a lot to do this morning.

Uh, we definitely weren't planning

on moving sluicifer again this year,

but just what we have to do. All right.

Well, I think this plant's about ready to move, isn't it?

Yeah, looks like it.

Let's try to get this done as quick as we can.

-Yeah, all right. -Back to sluicing.

I agree.

Narrator: Parker is losing $2,500

every hour he spends moving sluicifer

to the new pad.

When you're pullin' this thing, just nice and easy.

Okay. Got this yard on it?

-good luck, champ. -Thanks, buddy.

Narrator: It's brennan's first time

moving the $600,000 wash plant.

I was gonna drag it. But I'll let brennan do it

and see what he can break.

drop the bucket down!

Everybody's definitely feelin' the pressure today.

Uh, you know, we're tryin' to get this plant moved

as fast as we can and get everything set up

because, uh, we don't wanna lose any time sluicing.

-Come on, baby. -You're good, bud.

parker: I'm a little nervous.

So hopefully this baby makes it over there in one piece.

Sounds like it's rising up from hell.

Pretty impressive, really.

very cool.

Hey, brennan, I'd put that thing in low gear.

-It is! -Okay.

That's low gear? Seemed a little fast.

Easy, buddy.

nice and easy, buddy.

-Whoa! -Careful here.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

easy, easy, easy!

Aww!

Parker: Shut it off!

Just blew a hose, guys.

Why do I smell hydraulic oil?

Yeah, it looks like it's makin' oil to me.

I can't feel it, though, on the lines

but hydraulic oil everywhere.

Try hittin' that switch just real quick.

I don't usually like doin' this with the oil hot.

Narrator: To find the leak, parker needs to run the machine.

Don't get it in my face.

all right!

It's this one, yep. There's a fan.

It's a real nice spot.

-Bad timing. -All right, mitch.

Looks like we've had a hose blow that

goes to our cooling fan.

Now we got some room,

we can see what we're workin' on.

Okay, why don't you go ahead and pull that out, parker?

I'm fairly certain that's the one.

Well, that doesn't look good.

I don't know.

I don't have a plan, so stop asking me.

We're done.

We gotta get this machine back up and running.

Otherwise, we're not gonna have sluicifer moved over.

And I don't think this is the right one for that,

but it's the only thing that had the right --

even close to the right fittings.

Well, this is the one I was hopin' we had, premade.

-Looks a little longer, but... -No, that's fine.

They're gonna have to wait.

They're gonna have to learn some patience.

Ugh. It's just in a real tight spot here.

Do you see the end there? Tell me --

little bit more, push, push, push.

-Yeah, I'm tryin'. -Yeah, I got it.

-Okay. -Hardly see it,

barely reach it, not really fit in here.

There's a lot of hoses that could've blown

that would've been a lot more accessible.

But, of course, it had to be a bad one.

almost there.

Oh, yeah. That's what we wanted.

Go ahead and fire it up.

everything looks really good. All the lines are tight.

Nothing's leakin'.

See if we can't get sluicifer moved.

-Start draggin' it over. -We ready to roll?

-Don't break this one. -That fell apart on me.

- -it's your fault

for that stupid name you give that plant.

it's named sluicifer, cursed, buddy.

lookin' good, buddy!

Keep trackin' like that, you'll be okay.

-Beautiful! -Lookin' good!

Send her home, buddy! Almost there!

Shouldn't get excited so fast.

-Yep, that's it. -Ho!

We'll need to spin it this way.

We too far this way?

You pull it this way a little bit.

You can just climb up the bank and,

uh, pull this thing forward.

Tryin' to get that bucket underneath here.

-I -- I can't lift anymore. -Swing her this a bit.

It might reach right now.

Pull it forward about 8 feet.

I know.

that's good! You the man, sloth!

Whoo! We did it, son!

good job, guys!

-Hell yeah! -Well, got her in place.

Looks like a wash plant to me.

-Big cat! Nice work, buddy. -Whoo!

You've got a gold star.

yay!

That mean I get the day off tomorrow?

no.

No.

So we need a de-watering pump. We need water up here.

-Yep. -And we need power up here.

Yeah.

Dave! I'm gonna crank up the dirt.

Narrator: Todd hoffman is running two operations --

fairplay...

Sure lookin' good this morning, huh, fred?

It's a nice site, trey.

Narrator: ...And sacramento.

-How's that, dave? -Sweet!

Narrator: ...To help todd get to his new

1,000-ounce season goal,

sacramento's double trouble is hard at it.

How fast are we goin' right now, you think?

Gotta be 330 yards an hour.

Narrator: So far this year,

todd has 561 ounces of gold,

worth $670,000,

just over halfway to breaking even

and giving his crew a paycheck to see them through the winter.

We're just haulin' ass. I wanna help the team,

and I gotta get 1,000 ounces.

Let's see if we can keep it goin'.

Hunter, stop! Hunter, hold up! Hold up!

The dirt's pilin' up!

We got a jam-up!

The dirt is too dry. It's clogging everything up.

The biggest stack-up of dirt...

It's not goin' down that chute.

There's not enough water to push this rock

and dirt through the prewash!

Material's not goin' down that chute.

It's just not enough water pressure to push this through.

What do you think happened?

I need frickin' water to keep this goin'.