Yukon Gold

Coming up on Yukon Gold...

Holy. That's frozen.

Where's "El Nino" when you need him?

We've had a rough five years.

It's cost me money, and now I want it back.

Welcome to Winter Wonderland.

Holy! Shut down the three-inch?

We're so far behind the 8-ball

that we have to move as much ground as possible.

Come on! Get moving! It's freezing up.

-Turbo, shut the plant off. -Why?

Shut the plant off!

This is surely the most stressful time.

Andy! What's happening?

Winter has hit the Yukon early.

While some make tracks south...

...miners stay to fight, racing to get the last gold out of the ground

before Mother Nature...

...freezes them out.

Summer's over, man. Winter's here.

8:00 a.m. in remote 50 Mile Valley...

Is it snowing?

...miner Andy Tai and minehand Daniel

warm up the machines for a day of sluicing.

Is that all you got?

Man, this isn't snow. It's just hard rain.

Winter's here right now. You know, there's snow on the ground.

We're definitely sluicing on borrowed time right now,

but sooner or later it's going to shut us down.

46 ounces away from their 600-ounce goal,

Andy and the boys have to make every minute count

before winter stops them in their tracks.

It's critical to reach this goal as it's make or break.

If we don't reach our gold goal,

we don't have the money to come back here, and that's it.

Holy...

Andy's mining partner, Paul Joseph,

checks the water supply on his way to the cut.

It's hard, man.

Mining in these temperatures gets pretty tough.

It's getting cold. It's the end of the season.

It starts affecting a guy.

Guys get cranky and everybody's ready to go home.

- This is all thawed in here? -All thawed, man.

We're going to get at it, get to hauling pay.

-Where are we going to start? -Over there.

Maybe talk to Andy,

because he wants to take a foot off the whole thing.

Oh, my god. Andy.

Here, just look.

Are you trying to scrape a foot off, take a foot of the bedrock out too?

No, no, just this gravel right here.

Just look at the ground. This is all gravel.

I just don't want to waste an hour or fucking hours here

trying to scrape a foot off. I just think it's worth sluicing.

PJ wants to get sluicing right away...

Holy...

...but Andy thinks they should take the time

to strip off the gold-poor gravels before sluicing their last cut.

I like to be a little more methodical.

I like to plan things out and just kind of have a strategy.

It's really important that we get every ounce of gold out of this cut here.

What do you guys figure? What's the plan?

It's going to take Daniel all day to scrape a foot off this.

That's what I'm looking at, just our time here.

Winter's closing in, you're starting to hit borrowed time.

We know we're in our final stretch here.

-I just want to get these guys working. -Right.

I mean, I'll let you make the call.

I don't think it's the end of the world to take it all,

-if you think that's more efficient. -We might as well sluice this.

They go with PJ's plan and agree to sluice it all.

The stakes are really high out here.

We don't have time to sit here and fight,

so, you know, I have to trust him and he has to trust me.

I know these guys are itching to dig pay, so...

Let's keep rolling.

Hurry up! Trucks are coming!

I got this, man.

I can do this with my eyes closed, man.

The crew will have to work around the clock

for a shot at reaching their 600-ounce target.

Days are dying here. It's almost October. It's crunch time.

There's a lot of pressure and stress.

I know you got this, man.

Let's do it.

Welcome to Winter Wonderland.

9:00 a.m. on Indian River.

Was really cold this morning, like, -13, -14.

Yeah.

It's just the way it is in October. It's a bitch.

It's pretty frozen.

Holy fuck, that's frozen.

Big Al McGregor's plan to get sluicing is on ice.

It's not good.

We're finally hitting some decent gold,

but Mother Nature could say winter's here, instantly.

Normally we get this and it warms up again, right?

It's not looking like it so far.

With winter bearing down,

right-hand man Hiro and minehand Karl

have to get the plant started fast.

With all of this ice it gets more extra weight,

so that means it doesn't shake as it should.

We're going to have to knock off all the ice.

I'm going to just ask you guys to give it your best shot.

-Oh yeah. -Eh?

Well, like I say, this temperature we can deal with.

And, uh...

Yeah, if it doesn't get stupid.

It's going to get tougher, there's no doubt.

Al didn't start sluicing the camp cut until late in August,

putting him way behind.

Allen, he's really stressed.

He's exhausted. He hasn't taken any time off all season.

We'll have to torch it, too.

Still 258 ounces short of his thousand-ounce goal,

Al is running out of time.

Where's El Nino when you need him, for fuck sakes?

I don't know if we'll make it, but we'll see.

I think we're going to have to start the plant to shake off all the ice.

The plant is finally thawed.

You are fucking awesome, you know that?

And Al's back in the race to reach his goal.

Everything is a fight, fight, fight.

For five tough years, I've been trying to hit a thousand ounces.

We've got to push through.

Coming down to the bitter end.

You guys need electrical tape?

2:00 p.m. on Rabbit Creek.

Let's try it.

-Trevor's light towers. -Okay, give that a roll.

Rookie miners Ed Long and Riley Gibson

install light towers with help from minehand Trevor.

Fuck, how are we going to backfill the hole?

Just come around here with the loader?

The lights will allow them to work through the night

and double productivity.

Good! I like that, eh?

We're so far behind the 8-ball,

we have to move as much ground as possible.

That's the difference-maker for our season.

The first-time miners suffered through

a steep learning curve this season.

Finally, we have all the problems sorted out with the plant,

but we're really, really limited on how much time we have left.

We could be shut down tomorrow.

-Want to warm up this pump? -Okay.

So far, they've only scraped together 62 ounces of gold,

and the clock is ticking.

Winter is just around the corner.

Are we going to shoot it?

We're working 24 hours and doing whatever it takes

to make this work and get as much gold as we can.

Okay, we'll let this one warm up,

and this other one's priming the other one now.

They fire up the pumps to start sluicing.

I'm standing by to open the runs when you say.

Roger.

Ooh! Holy fuck!

Hey, you want to shut down the three-inch?

Shutting down the three-inch.

The water pressure blasted the hose right off its cap.

Son of a bitch.

Just about to open up that two-inch

to fucking release her, and boof! Blew it off.

Oh, it looks like we've got to put that on again.

You got your lube?

Okay...

Holy. That's some...

...torque.

-Holy... -Jesus, I...

Can't control this fucker, man.

Ohh, ohh...

-Ah, there you go. -That's it.

That clamp...

That was supposed to go on there?

You've got to put it on first? No.

Ed and his crew missed a step.

Oh, let's do it one more time, huh?

Everybody's tired and been working long days, long hours,

and sometimes you make mistakes.

Holy...

Never going to get that shit.

Just put it on, pump it out with the three-inch and blow it off?

Really?

Well, fuck, take two seconds.

If we turn on that water pump for a second, it'll blow that hose off there.

I'll flash up the six-inch.

There it is.

Whoo! That's it.

Sounded like a champagne bottle. We're good on that, Eddy.

Right, I'll come on back, over.

-You're smashing her on, Trotter? -Yeah.

Oh yeah.

There we go.

We have ignition.

Let's sluice!

We could be shut down tomorrow,

so this is the time to pull out all the stops.