All right.
Hey, man.
We’re almost out at Rally Valley Dirt.
So, you know how good it’s been.
Make sure you get every last bit.

Back at Duncan Creek,
Rick is on the brink of a massive payday,
sluicing the last piles of pay dirt
to come out of the richest pit he’s ever mined —
Rally Valley.

In just two weeks,
it’s already delivered nearly 500 ounces of gold
worth $1.25 million.

After Rick taps out Rally Valley,
he needs a new spot to keep the gold coming in.

The plan is to move over back over the bench,
which we started last year.
Um, Buzz is heading up there right now.

Rick’s master plan to smash through his season goal —
head half a mile north of Rally Valley,
across the creek,
to the bench cut with its easy-to-access gold.

Last season, in just five weeks,
he hauled 450 ounces of gold
out of the seven-acre cut.
Now he wants to start digging the pay
out of a five-acre extension they stripped last year.

Rick sent me up here to the bench pad — my second home.
I get down the pay rock,
touch up here and start hauling the rock
just to get a nice stockpile there,
so you’re ahead of the game.

Foreman Buzz LGO needs to stockpile bench cut pay
next to Rick’s second wash plant, Rocky,
ready to run as soon as Rally Valley’s pay pile ends.

Last season,
the bench progressively got better as we went along.
Surefire way of hitting our season goal —
build up that chest,
just in case our water license comes in.
Maybe hit that 1,500-ounce minimum.

Frozen crossover here in this spot.
So that’s kind of sure we can try to fight our way through it,
but… that’s a problem.

I’m going to go try over on this other side,
see if this is open or frozen, or what the hell is going on.
Go again. Sink.

Looks like the entire bench is still frozen.
Rick a call and let him hear the bad news.

Hey, you got coffee on me, man.
[Music]

All frozen right to bed.

We stripped this last year.
Yeah. How long?
’Cause it’s still frozen.
[Music]

Over winter,
the bench cut was exposed to sub-zero temperatures.
The ground is frozen solid.
Rick has massively miscalculated
how long it would take to thaw.

This sucks, man.
This is a disaster.
I mean, I don’t have a second option.
I have to come up with something.
And right now, I have no clue what it is.

At Duncan Creek,
Rick’s crew are nearing the end of the Rally Valley pay pile.

Pay right now is looking pretty slim,
and just a handful of buckets left.

And the pressure is on Rick
to find a new hot spot to mine.

You know, the season’s got to go on.
We do have to hit our season goal.
So, we need ground, and we need it fast.

Hey man.
So, I’ve been doing some thinking,
and been doing some looking.

With no guarantee of a water license next year,
Rick’s now focused on bringing in as much gold as possible this season.

There’s just a lot of things in the air right now,
especially with this water license the way it is.

So, this is all frozen here on the bench.
Right through the middle here,
there’s a spot where we stripped the top off of it,
and then we mined up to it.
Um, and it wasn’t that great.
But we’re pretty desperate for ground right now.

Mhm.

So, I think that maybe we go over there and look at that.

We’re here to mine, right?
So, let’s make it happen.
[Music]

I’m just going to dig a little test hole here,
and see if it’s thawed down in there.
Well, it’s thawed quite a bit,
but still not enough.
Yep. Try one more spot.

Kind of chasing our tails here,
trying to find some good slot ground to get into.
Hopefully we can get something going up here.

Check the farthest limit here.
We got these young poplar trees and willows behind me.
That indicates that there’s some good thawed ground in that area.

Yeah, totally thawed.
This area definitely looks like good stuff.

If we can pull some gold out of this,
run it to the plant,
that means we can keep going right now.
So that’s all that matters.
We just need some dirt with gold in it.

I really hope there’s some gold in this dirt.
[Music]

It’s there.
See that?
There might be fifteen, twenty colors in there.

Hey.
Yeah. Right on there.
Right on there.
It’s fine.

It’s very, very fine,
but we can catch that fine gold.
It’s there.
It’s worth running.

Yeah. I’d say let’s —
as soon as you get a little bit more of that stripped off,
let’s get the truck over here and start hauling that day.

Yeah, nice job, Buzz.
432.17 ounces.

Awesome.

Jeez Louise, man.

Worth just over $1 million,
Rick’s biggest ever gold weigh,
making his grand total out of Rally Valley this season
929.75 ounces —
over $2.3 million.

That — that’s the highlight for me
of thirteen years of mining.
And the fact that we did it with just seven of us —
like, that’s honest to God,
I can’t thank you guys enough.

Like, this — this is the reason we come up here.
And when we put up numbers like this,
we all go home real happy.

I feel very thankful for you guys.
The last two years have really been a game changer for me.