Gold Rush

Narrator: On this "gold rush"...

Parker: Every day he's not sluicing,

it's costing us 20,000, 30,000 bucks.

I don't want you guys following me right now.

I don't even wanna hear it. We need it running.

It really feels like mine right now.

Shut it down! Shut it down.

What the hell's he doing here?

Todd: Coming to oregon wasn't the right move for us.

I am tired of feeling like a fricking loser.

captions paid for by discovery communications

another day, another 2,500 yards of dirt.

Narrator: At scribner creek,

parker schnabel is running 250 yards of pay dirt an hour

through his wash plant, sluicifer.

Parker: There's lots of ground open.

So tyson and I should be able to keep motoring

on our own for quite a while.

That's the plan, anyway.

Narrator: Two-thirds of the way through the season,

parker is less than a third of the way

to his 4,000-ounce, $4.8-million goal.

Rick and the rest of the boys are down in indian river.

Narrator: Parker is depending on rick

by opening up a second operation.

Parker: Now I'm waiting for rick to be ready

to start sluicing down there

'cause we're burning daylight and burning it fast.

Every day he's not sluicing,

it's probably costing us 20,000, 30,000 bucks.

And it's not two operations

until there are two wash plants sluicing.

Narrator: Five miles west at indian river,

foreman rick ness has been struggling for nine weeks

to get his operation up and running.

He's finally stockpiled over 10,000 yards of pay dirt.

And he's determined to be running by the end of the day.

The one things that's bringing indian river to life

is just perseverance.

It's something that my grandpa taught me.

In fact, the name of his boat was perseverance.

That's why I've got this tattooed on my hand.

And that's the biggest reason why indian river's

going online today is 'cause I never gave up on it.

Narrator: The heart of rick's operation

the wash plant that, in three seasons,

sluiced over $5 million worth of gold for parker.

But it's stood abandoned for the past year.

How are you liking having everybody's hand-me-downs?

This is kind of like having a bunch of big brothers

that you get all their old worn-out clothes.

Except I'm older than the person

I'm getting all this hand-me-down from.

Rick's right-hand man, brennan ruault,

is smoothing the rim.

It's a lot more lighter of an atmosphere down here.

Everybody just comes to work, gets their job done,

and, you know, have a little bit of fun in between.

And it's great. That's how it should be.

Ness: Last year, we weren't using big red at all,

nor did we have any plans to.

So we started cannibalizing it.

Big red's kind of like humpty dumpty's wash plant here.

And now, I've got to try and find all the parts and pieces,

try and get 'em all back together again.

Give me a little boom down.

Good! Careful with her! It's the only one we got!

Right on the money.

Good. It's on to the next step.

Narrator: To feed big red,

rick's hired a 40-foot hopper feeder from a neighbor.

All that's left is for rick to haul the 10,000-pound load

up the ramp to the plant.

Please have the clearance.

Really steep, really muddy.

I don't wanna do it.

Oh, man.

First gear, diff's locked.

All right. Enough thinking about this hill.

I'm just gonna give her.

This thing slips back, I'm pretty much screwed.

I'll have no way to stop it.

All right. Just get through this muddy part, baby.

oh

come on, baby.

Don't spin. Don't spin.

We're spinning.

way too muddy.

Hey, brennan. Can you help me out?

Ruault: Move the whole thing?

Let's give her.

I'm sick of screwing around.

Bucket to bucket, bro.

Is that looking good?

Feels like the ass-end of my machine's

coming off the ground a bit.

oh, that's teamwork.

Teamwork.

Oh, that's a long unit.

There you go.

Perfect.

That's good!

Whoo!

blaschke: You try and get 1,000 ounces

starting halfway through,

that's a pretty big disadvantage.

All we need's 1,000 hours of run time.

Of all the wash plants I've seen,

this is the wash plant-iest.

Dun, dun, dun, dun.

no, I can't believe what's happened this summer.

Narrator: Two weeks ago, todd hoffman's crew quit,

leaving just his family and old friend jim thurber.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hole.

And I got all this equipment leased.

But I have a little bit of fuel in the tank.

At this point, I really don't have any other choice.

We're gonna run the mine.

Narrator: At the start of the season,

todd set a $6-million, 5,000-ounce season goal.

Twelve weeks on, he has a disastrous 206 ounces.

Todd: Feel like we did all the right things.

Those old-timers didn't leave us much.

You know, maybe coming to oregon wasn't the right move for us.

Narrator: Todd is loading trucks with dirt,

desperate, hoping to hit another pocket of gold.

Todd: Looking back on this whole season,

and I'm thinking to myself, you know,

"how did the train get so far off the tracks?"

right now, todd is -- he's acting scared, you know?

And that's not what I raised.

And he's gonna have to trust god on this one.

That's all there is to it.

Hunter: You know, I know my dad's re

just seems like a big failure.

But it's not his fault.

Hey. How you doing, dad?

I think I'm at the end of my rope.

Let's just try to stay positive.

I don't know, man. I'm just sorry.

I don't know. I don't know what else to say.

Maybe I'm just fooling myself.

Well, I don't know. Whatever happens,

I'm just here with you and grandpa.

Narrator: At the end of the day,

the hoffmans shut down monster red

to check if they are on the gold.

Grandpa, you wanna kill the blade mill?

Blade mill going off!

How's it look, hunter?

I don't know.

It doesn't look very good to me.

Another downer.

Oh.

Here's the deal, guys.

I'm scratching and biting for pay that's --

that andy missed.

Jack: He didn't miss much. No, he didn't.

You know, I mean, there's a little dinky bit there.

But it's just not enough.

I don't know what to do about it.

It's up to you.

Thurber, let's go down in there.

Let's see if we can find some other pay dirt.

Let's see what we come up with.

Narrator: After seven weeks at the buckland,

moving over 400,000 yards of dirt,

todd has only managed to find 68 ounces,

worth just $80,000.

We need to find a pocket of something, thurb.

Well, dude, that looks promising right there.

We'll pan it.

We're gonna pan around, see if andy left any spots

back here on top of bedrock.

Nothing in that stuff at all.

Really?

Not even a speck.

Right there.

See that, that little river gravel?

Yep.

Well, he left it for some reason.

We'll see.

It's weird not having the guys here, huh?

Thurber: I know. It's just so quiet.

You don't hear the machinery running, nothing.

Todd: Anything?

Not yet. I haven't seen anything.

We're the last four original guys on my team.

And, uh...What it looks like is we started together

and we're gonna finish together.

Look at that. That was laid in there.

Streambed. Yep.

Yep. That's definitely stream-borne there.

Yeah? Yep.

That looks more like it.

You know, this is some better-looking stuff.

This here's, you know,

it's all been running down the stream.

Yeah. That looks way more -- that looks more like it.

Yeah. We'll see.