I don’t know what the fun is in having a dirt-moving company
if you can’t have new equipment.

Gold-mining mogul Parker Schnabel
is sitting in the driver’s seat.
Just three weeks into the season
he’s banked more than $2 million in gold
from his Dominion Creek claims.
Now he’s eager to find out
if the gamble he took at Sulfur Creek
will pay out.

We ordered oversized buckets
and I’m not sure how it’s going to like this.
They just started hauling pay out of the pit
here at Sulfur
and I’m just making more room
for stockpile.

The thing is pretty sweet
but that’s a six-and-a-quarter-yard bucket
which is huge for this size machine.
The bigger the bucket
the better.
Absolutely chewing through the ground.

Basically
we’re under the gun for time.
The water license here at Sulfur
expires soon
and I don’t want to be put in a position
much like Rick Ness is right now
where we’re desperately waiting
and hoping for a license we need
in order to do what we want to do.

Mined since 1898
Sulfur Creek’s gold is legendary
with stories of nuggets
sitting on the creek bed.
To date
it’s paid out between $1.2 and $2 billion
and Parker’s praying
there’s still big gold in the ground.

I’m definitely worried.
Sulfur is a really tricky piece of ground.
Are we doing all of this on Sulfur
at the cost of getting Dominion done?
That’s the question
that haunts me.

Beautiful new toy.
That only took me 30 seconds.
So far
it’s handling this bucket really well.
It looked like you were full extension there.
I was like
“Wow, dude.
Look at how wide it is
compared to the 480.”
That’s insane.

Yeah.
Nice purchase there, boss.
Man, special delivery.
Thank you.

At Sulfur Creek
Brennan and Mitch
have identified what they believe
are gold hot spots
and stockpiled the pay dirt.
Now
it’s finally time
to start sluicing.

Well
we’re ready to haul rock sand
down to Sulfur
so we’re going to go
build us a wash plant.

Early in the season like this
the roads are in the worst shape
of the whole year.
Oh come on, baby.
Come on.
Come on.

This is the sketchiest thing
we have done in a long time.
We got soft road
a wash plant that’s top-heavy
and we’re in a rush.

The 25 miles of dirt road
from Dominion to Sulfur
is closed all winter
opened just six weeks ago
and it’s still thawing out.

Oh
you almost hit that tree.

Rock Sand is big and robust
and we throw rocks at it all day long
but we’re clipping trees
and all it’s going to take
is grabbing onto some wiring or a hose
and we’re going to have a wash plant
that’s not going to want to do
what it needs to do.

Check this branch out.
I think we’re taking some risks here.

Oh no.
No no no no no.
Oh
there went our internet.
Our wash plants have internet on them
which is very handy.
This one now does not.

We’re too remote here
to have the radios reach back to camp.
We are going to need a new dish here.
We’re going to build a little pad
and pull this thing off
as quick as we can.
We just got to get her off
in one piece.
Standing up straight.
I like it.
Looks good.

Next
Mitch collects the plant’s sluice runs
from Dominion.
The purpose of the sluice runs being wide
is you put more through the wash plant
faster.
Problem with that
is when you have to move it
you can see I’m having to drive
down the middle of the road.
If something’s driving the other way
we’re going to be in trouble.
Last thing you want to be doing
is backing up on these roads
for miles.

Just got to slow down here.
So narrow here
and these trees are big
and this thing is clipping things
on the sides.
Can hear the branches breaking behind us.
Here we are
just threading a needle right now.

Yeah.
Oh
we got something coming off the back there.
These roads are so rough
this trailer’s vibrating so much.
We’re not stopping
in the middle of these hills.
We’ll have to go back
and get it.

Jacob
you got a copy?
Yeah
go ahead Jacob.
We are missing some of the iron
and some of the carpets.
See what you can find.
Load all these guys up.
Don’t have to go that far.
Get them back as fast as possible.
Just put them back in the runs.
Right on buddy.
Give her.
It’s just going to pull
the sluice runs off here.

Build wash plant.

Well man
we’re looking pretty good here.
What do you say
we bring in the next piece of the puzzle?
Yeah.
Yeah
we got clearance here.

Right now
we got our hopper feeder
and the conveyor in place.
The plant’s leveled.
The sluice runs are set.
We just got to hook up our water line here
and we’re going to be ready
to start sluicing.

Here we go.
We got Rock Sand
firing up right now.
This is our first scoop
going in here.
And we got three wash plants
up and running.

What’s up?
How are we looking?
Good.
Nice job
making that work in time.
I was like
there’s no way
this is going to work.
I mean dude
it came together pretty nice.
Good job.

This project
was supposed to be 1,000 feet.
Now it’s 2,000 feet.
There’s more to go.
So yeah
3,000 more.

This big boy
money maker.
So the pressure’s on
to get gold
’cause Mike is not around right now
so Jacob has taken over
a lot of responsibility.
It must be stressful for him.

The wash plant
really doesn’t sound good.
Something definitely wrong in there.
Shouldn’t be any sound like this.

J
I think I’m going to shut down the wash.
I heard a big loud noise in there.
Yeah
I heard it outside.

I have suspicions
it’s probably down here
where all the bolts
and everything’s bolted together.
Means I’ll have to crawl in here.
Hopefully nothing’s broken.

Ah
there’s our issue.
Everything is cracked.
That is not good.
We can’t run this at all.
This plant will just shake itself
into little itty-bitty bits
out the tail end.
Lucky we caught it when we did
before it got too bad.

Slide.
Lift it up
so we can get the chute out
’cause the chute is cracked as well.
Get this chute out
so we can have two welders
going at the same time.

All right
I’m just going to put my feet on it.
Woohoo
she’s heavy.
There’s our problem.
The bolt rattled out
and caused it to get violent
and crack.
Now
we’re going to have to take
the welders down here.

The sluice shaker deck
has two screens
that separate waste rocks
from gold-rich pay dirt.
The waste rocks move
toward a tailing chute
that funnels them to a conveyor
and ejects them
into a waste pile.
But some of the bolts
connecting the chute
to the deck’s steel frame
have fallen out
making it unstable
and letting the chute
slam against the deck
cracking the frame.
Jacob plans to weld the cracks
replace the old chute
bolt it back into place
and get the wash plant
up and sluicing again.

Where do you want it at to weld?
Like right here.
Looks perfect.
I noticed this crack here
another crack here
and here as well.
Couple of seconds man
and it could have been
a big change
in what we’re doing today.
Yeah
you’re lucky.
I’m going to actually do
an inside weld first
because then
when I grind
there’s my weld
and I get 100 percent out of it.

Just doing the last weld here.
All done.

Keith has the cracks
all done on the plant.
We’ve been down
for three or four hours now.
We got to put this chute on.
Got the cracks welded up on it.
Now he’s hitting it back in place.
Mason’s up there
putting the bolts in for me.
Here
I’ll come behind.

Getting there buddy.
Yeah
that’s the last bolt.
Tighten them up.
We’re good to go.

Tony just called.
He wants to know
if we will be here
in like 20 minutes
half hour tops.
You all done up there?
Yes sir.

Tony’s coming out here
so it would be nice
to have rocks coming out the tailings
and gold in the box
when he shows up.

I’m going to hop in the hoe
if you want to fire everything up for me.

It looks good now.
We can sort out a problem
without Tony being here.
I think it looks good on Jacob as well.
We’re solution.
We’re making money
and that means
everybody’s happy.

Everything went very well.
Everything is fixed
in a timely manner.
We’re back in action
and hopefully
we’re good from here on out.

Oh
having internet on the trucks this year
is like a lifesaver.
Except for me
when I need to get ahold—
like the other day
when I was trying to call you
and you didn’t answer
and I’m like
where is this—
it’s that look right there.

I had a dream last night.
I was telling Mitch
I was stressed out
I woke up sweaty.
He’s telling me about that dream.
His cheek was touching my face.
His stubble
was rubbing my face.
He almost caught me.

How does it feel
to make it into Brennan’s dreams?
Oh man
I want to haunt all four of you.

You know what it’s like
working for Parker?
Well
there’s the dreams
and the PTSD
but other than that
it’s great.

Three wash plants
up and running.
It’s Parker’s first
triple gold weigh
of the season.

KT
you ready?
We got Slifer here.
This is a two-hand.

See how the Golden Mile
did this week.
Last week
the Golden Mile produced
152 ounces.
Here we go.
Got 20
60
80
120
140
180.
Are we going to break two?
Two hundred.
Nice.
210
220
222.3
worth $778,000.
Sick.
That is nice.

Anyway
we got Mr. Bob.
Come on Brennan.
The Bridge Cut
is averaging $150 a week.
20
40
80
90
130
40
yeah
170.
Oh yeah
190.4
worth $666,000.
Sick.
Nice.

Finally
Parker will discover
if his gamble
to chase gold left behind
by the old-timers at Sulfur
will pay out.

We got to do Sulfur Mitch.
We need it.
We’ve been spending money
like it’s going out of style.
First run of Sulfur here.
We got 20
40
90
110
114.8.
That’s actually really good
for the hours you ran.
Yeah
we just got the plant set up
and that material
was like the first cut off.
Oh
I thought it was going to be terrible.
I thought you were going to have
like 20 ounces.
Wow
that’s a lot of gold
for one week.
Yeah
we had a really good week.
For this week
it was 527 and a half ounces
worth over $1.88 million.