We’re uh behind on a lot of fronts.
Both just ground on pay… and gold in the box.

I have no interest in running out of money or anything like that.
And so… we need to get more gold coming in.

29-year-old Parker Schnabel is struggling.

Nine weeks into the season, Parker has spent two and a half million chasing Dominion Creek gold —
but so far, he’s only brought in just over a million dollars’ worth.

To dig himself out of his Dominion Creek hole…
Parker’s going to do something he’s never done before.

00:45
Run three wash plants simultaneously.

He’s sending a third wash plant — and an additional crew —
to raid the piggy bank at Ken and Stewart’s on Indian River,
hoping to score two and a half million in just three weeks.

“So, you know, when we have three wash plants running…
that’s uh… what it’s going to be all about.
You go to that uh gold weigh at the end of the week,
and we should have, you know, a good result from each one of those wash plants.
It’s going to be a hell of a lot of gold.
It’s going to put a lot of stress on everybody…
but it’s the only hope I see for getting anywhere close to 10,000 ounces this season.
That’s for damn sure.”

At Dominion Creek, Parker already has wash plant Rock Sand running pay dirt from the Long Cut.
A mile and a half away, Big Red is churning through the top gravels in the Bridge Cut.

Now Parker plans to fire up the forty-five-ton shaker deck called Bob.

From his Dominion yard, his crew will haul it twelve miles down narrow, winding dirt tracks —
through a twenty-five-foot-wide creek —
to its new home at Damian’s Cut on Ken and Stewart’s ground.

To help transport Bob, Tyson Lee has brought in his mentor and haulage expert, Mike Tupper.

“Yeah, let her rip, Ty.”

Who’s previously trucked a similar plant to Ken and Stewart’s.

“Up a bit, Ty? Hopefully it doesn’t fall off. If it falls off, we got problems.
Lift. Come in a bit and lift. Done.
Now for the hard part. You gotta try and spin it. Okay, watch out, guys.
Okay, pull it. We don’t have much to play with here.”

“Yep. Stop it there. Go to the front. Pull that corner. We’re done.”
“Set. Disconnect.”

Tupper can now haul out.

“We’re on the road.”

With Tyson scouting ahead in a pilot truck.

“We’re ready to roll. Get in. You ready, T?”
“Let’s do this. Let’s get down there in one piece.”
“Copy that. Here we go. Liftoff.”

“Oh, we’re trimming trees. Oops.
So right now we’re coming up to the creek crossing. That looks deep.”

“Hey, Tupper, just try and get through this.
We have no equipment around to pull us out.
If we get stuck… we’re on our own.”

“All righty, Tupper. Here we go. These creek crossings are so unpredictable.”

[Music]

“All righty, I’m through. You’re next.
It was a little soft there… and a little rough… so slow and steady.”

“All right.”
[Music]

“Well, here we are. Tupper, Ken and Stewart’s.
Here’s Damian.”

“What’s up, fellas?”

“We got you a wash plant.
If you wouldn’t mind rattling your excavator up there
so we can get Bob unloaded — get it put together before the day is out.”

“Yeah, man.”
“There it goes.”
“Yeah. Send it.”

“That looks like about as good as she’s going to get.”
[Music]

“Everything’s looking good. Once we hit this button…
there should be nothing stopping us.”

“Here we go. 10… 20… 45… 50… 58.85 — worth $147,000.”

“Well, that’s not good.
This is making me like think, oh, you know… the Indian River wasn’t so bad.”

“All right, let’s see what we got. Roxan for the week.”

“All right.”
“Oh, there we go.”

“I’m liking that. Unless you really are getting good at fooling us here.”

“20… 40… 50… 60… 80… 90… 110… 120… 150… 160… 185.65 —
worth $464,000.”

“There we go.”
“Not bad at all. I tell you what, you keep that up,
and that’s going to be a tremendous boost.”

“5… 10… 30… 40… 45… 50… 58.45 — worth $146,000,
bringing the season total to 1,117 ounces.”

“That’s embarrassing.
That is a lot of work for 300 ounces, though.”

“Yeah. Yeah. We would have done that with one plant last year in the Money Pit.”

“This is bad.”
“Yeah. We’re uh… we’re in trouble if we don’t change something.”

“We got… we got a long row to hoe.”
“Well, we got three wash plants.”
“Well, we got three wash plants. Three big wash plants — rolling away —
and they’re finding less gold than one plant was finding last year.”

“Insult to injury, right?”
“Sorry to be the Debbie Downer.”