Gold Rush

It's complacency, and I'm not gonna put up with that.

Narrator: On this "gold rush"...

-How's it goin'? -Great, buddy. We made it.

-Good to see you. -Nice to see you.

That thing broke.

get some oxygen, fella.

I don't need oxygen, dad.

They got me at claiming they're

expecting me to get gold. -You've gotta be kidding me.

I can't make gold in the ground, todd.

There isn't any gold in that box.

And tomorrow night, there better be.

It's nice to be actually making money with my cut,

with my plant.

What the ?!

captions paid for by discovery communications

hey, we got the pumps on?

Everything ready? Generator going?

Narrator: Todd hoffman is on his new mine in fairplay, colorado.

Let's go! Fire it up!

Narrator: Four months into the season,

he's already quit two claims in oregon.

But not before his whole team quit on him.

Todd: Let's do this. Let's get 1,000 ounces.

Narrator: Now, he's on the gold,

and his crew is back, needing to get paid.

At this point, just bust ass,

move a lot of dirt and let's get some gold.

Narrator: Todd has set a new 1,000-ounce goal,

the minimum he needs to pay his crew

for their season's work.

Right now, we're on the best ground we've ever mined.

And everything is just working out for us right now.

Todd: We just had the biggest frickin' cleanup of our season.

So, finally, after everything that's happened this season,

we're finally kicking some ass.

And it feels damn good.

Narrator: To hit his target, todd's doubling down

with a second colorado claim at sacramento creek

and a 60-year-old wash plant called double trouble.

It runs 400 yards of pay dirt an hour.

To keep up, todd's been forced to lease

a state-of-the-art feed system.

Todd: Yeah, this is our feeder. We call it maximus.

This is what it's gonna take to make it work.

Turin: This is gonna be pretty cool.

You can actually move the machine, remote control.

So now we got the maximus teamed up with the double trouble.

We've got about as new as technology

as you can get meets about as old as you can get.

Narrator: A single operator with a remote control

can drive the high-tech feed conveyor into place,

extend the 80-foot conveyor,

feed 350 yards

and hour into the wash plant,

and tip the grizzly bars

without leaving the comfort of his excavator.

Hey, dave, you want to fire up the trommels?

Comin' live!

We got water, todd!

It's comin'!

All right!

what in the world is goin' on?

Hmm.

The 1950s technology's going good.

But computer's not working so good right now.

All these frickin' electronics,

these young guys can have 'em.

-The high is green. -High is green.

-The low is still red. -Low is still red.

One green, one red.

These days, everything is all computerized.

And, uh, it's just a pain.

I hate computers. We live by 'em these days.

But I really hate 'em.

Both are red.

Thing's too high-tech.

Still, a low-voltage is red.

Turin: So wait a minute. If I unplug this...

oh! There it goes!

Whatever you did, we just got it.

How'd you fix it, dave?

I don't know.

All I did was pull this out and put it back in.

-is it workin'? -Yeah.

This thing was just a little bit loose.

I don't know what it's there for.

I'm a frickin' electrical genius!

You genius, you!

What do you think, dave?

Conveyor's coming on! Feed her!

There we go, boys!

Narrator: Todd has given dave turin

his own small crew to run sacramento creek.

Logan pierce digs pay dirt.

Hunter hoffman loads maximus.

Okay, hunter. Here we go. First bucket!

First bucket of gold coming at you! Whoo!

First dirt coming through the trommel!

And mechanic juan ibarra runs double trouble.

You got pay comin', dave.

Whoo-hoo! Finally, sacramento creek!

I don't know, uh, which plant's gonna come through in the end.

But we need 'em both.

We need both of 'em to come through.

It's gonna take two to get us over the hump.

It's gonna take two to get us profitable.

And if anybody wants to take a bunch of gold home,

it's gonna take two plants.

Parker: We're at the point now where boundary cut extension's

just really killin' us.

It's all right to go through some bad patches of ground,

but it's just been terrible the whole way across.

And we really haven't had one good cleanup.

Narrator: Parker schnabel is in trouble.

Three quarters of the way through the season,

he has less than half the gold he needs

to hit his 4,000-ounce,

$4.8-million goal.

Parker: There's no way in hell we're gettin' to 4,000 ounces

with sluicifer on the ground that's there.

Like, it's just not gonna do it.

And, uh, I don't know what to do.

Here's rick.

Hey, man.

So I don't know what to do

about this boundary cut extension

other than that just stop.

It ain't paying the bills.

Ugh.

I think we have to move the plant.

we've still got the creek cut.

I mean, if we're really gonna go

and get 4,000 ounces this year,

we've gotta do something pretty drastic now.

Well, we'll the plan, then.

I'm gonna go shut the boys down.

We'll get that pad built in no time.

We'll have the plant moved.

All right. If that's what you want.

-See you, rick. -Yeah.

Narrator: Parker is abandoning the 77-acre boundary cut.

Instead, he plans to mine around the diverted creek bed

he prepared last season.

But he needs to build a new pad

before he can move his wash plant, sluicifer,

and start running pay dirt.

All right. Let her run through.

And let's go ahead and shut her down.

Narrator: Every day that sluicifer

is shut down costs parker

around $20,000 in lost gold.

Well, that's it.

It was probably the biggest cut we've ever done.

Time to get out of here and get sluicifer set up

on its new pad.

You know, I'm getting used to these crazy decisions

that parker makes around here.

That seems be how we fly around here,

by the seat of our pants, you know,

and just friggin' do things on the fly

and hope to hell that they work.

Narrator: First, the crew must use three rock trucks

to build a 60-foot raised pad for sluicifer to sit on.

Hop up on this spot right here that I'm flattening off here.

I think, ultimately, that's gonna be our best option.

Rick has charged rookie miner kelly

with leveling off the pad in the d10 dozer.

I've been over here for the last few hours

watching and building the pad.

It should be flat.

And kelly just insists on cutting down.

And it infuriates me.

I was watching for the last couple hours.

And you're always going down.

And our way of doing it is to build flat, all right?

It's complacency. And we are not --

I'm not gonna put up with that.

Fediuk: Just a learning curve for all of us, I guess.

He wants done -- things done a certain way.

Yeah. Never too old to learn, that's for sure.

Ah, well, kelly's gonna spend the rest of the day

in a rock truck.

Being pulled out of a cat and put in a haul truck

is not a promotion.

That's a little bit of a demotion there.

What the is kelly doing?

damn it.

Ness: Not a good day for him.

parker: Every hour sluicifer's down,

we're losing over $2,000.

We have to figure out a better way

'cause this isn't cuttin' it.

yeah, hey. This is parker.

How are you?

That's good.

Look, we've got some stuff going on up here right now.

We had to shut our wash plant down,

and we're moving to a new cut, and a bunch of stuff's going on.

And I know you were hoping to make it up here this year.