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00:00:00What I do know about gold is it's in the ground, but I'm having a hard time getting it out.
00:00:21I have all my money invested in this mine, trying to find gold.
00:00:26We can't pay our bills, and it stresses me out.
00:00:31My boy, Nolan, he's real green.
00:00:33He likes to get his hands dirty.
00:00:36All he wants is a career in gold mining.
00:00:40Once you see that first glimpse of gold, you're kind of already hooked.
00:00:46I'm doing the best I can to try to teach him the ropes, but I'm learning a lot as we go as well.
00:00:52It would be my dream to pass this mine on to Nolan and let him take control of it one day.
00:00:59I sacrificed my day job to come up here, and I'm really excited to start my next journey.
00:01:04I'm trying to pursue a gold mining dream.
00:01:08This is the last season we're going to be able to be up here if we can't make it and find gold,
00:01:12and that's going to be a real hardship for my boy, and I don't want to let him down.
00:01:17I'm his dad, so Freddie hits home.
00:01:28Let's make some gold, guys.
00:01:30Freddie Dodge.
00:01:32There's no guarantees in gold, buddy.
00:01:34And Juan Ibarra.
00:01:36All right, well, let's do it, huh?
00:01:38Have mastered the art of getting gold out of the ground.
00:01:41Look at that.
00:01:43In the most rugged places on Earth.
00:01:45I'm feeling a little sick, buddy.
00:01:47Now they rescue struggling miners.
00:01:51That's not good.
00:01:52Who've risked it all to be rich.
00:01:55Whoa, whoa, whoa, shut it down.
00:01:57But are about to lose everything.
00:01:59Eyeballs.
00:02:00To revive these failing mines, Freddie and Juan engineer the impossible.
00:02:05I've never heard of an undersluice before.
00:02:08Deliver some hard truths.
00:02:10This material you're digging now is totally worthless.
00:02:13And track down the gold.
00:02:15That's what dreams are made of right there.
00:02:17But if they don't at least double the miners' gold recovery, they won't take a dime in return.
00:02:24That's ten times the amount of gold.
00:02:26That's awesome.
00:02:39Thanks for the coffee, bud.
00:02:40No problem, buddy.
00:02:41Sorry I'm not going to be too much help this week.
00:02:43No worries.
00:02:44I'm sitting there looking at it.
00:02:45It's really not that noticeable.
00:02:46That little support thing you've got going on.
00:02:48No, you can barely see it.
00:02:49Tore my shoulder up pretty bad.
00:02:51So I'm not supposed to lift anything with this hand.
00:02:53Just move it.
00:02:54It's a good thing that Travis and Alex are here to give us a hand.
00:02:56Yeah.
00:02:57I've got one good arm to hug you with, buddy.
00:03:02Freddie and Juan are in Baker County, Oregon.
00:03:05Heading for the Mammoth Mine.
00:03:08A 13-acre claim owned by Ryan Merritt.
00:03:11Historically, one of the richest hard rock mining areas in the region.
00:03:16The site is six miles outside the mining town of Sumter.
00:03:20Famed for producing millions of dollars worth of placer gold annually in the early 1900s.
00:03:27It's good to be back here.
00:03:29But, you know, this area's been hit pretty hard.
00:03:31A lot of the gold that was around here is in somebody else's bank account now.
00:03:35So what do we know about Ryan, Freddie?
00:03:37He bought this property up here and he said his recovery system, he thinks it's pretty lacking.
00:03:42But we'll see when we get here.
00:03:53Morning.
00:03:54Freddie.
00:03:55Juan.
00:03:56Wow.
00:03:57Freddie, glad to see you guys.
00:03:58Nice to meet you.
00:03:59How's it going?
00:04:00Good.
00:04:01Nice to meet you.
00:04:02What's your name?
00:04:03Nolan.
00:04:04Nice to meet you, Nolan.
00:04:05Good to meet you guys.
00:04:06How long you been out here?
00:04:07About the last three years we've been actively mining it.
00:04:09Okay.
00:04:10So what's the relation?
00:04:11So this is my boy, Nolan.
00:04:12Okay.
00:04:13Yeah.
00:04:14He really wants to be a gold miner.
00:04:15Sure, if it's profitable and I can make a living out of it.
00:04:18Is that your end goal then, to one day take this over then?
00:04:20Yeah, hopefully upgrade my wash plant so I can run more material and be profitable.
00:04:26Two years ago, 22-year-old Nolan Merritt quit his pressure washing business in central Oregon
00:04:32to join his dad and follow his dream of gold mining.
00:04:37Leaving my day job to come up here and you're basically gambling essentially.
00:04:42I'm not an expert by all means, but I'm hoping to get a future in this industry.
00:04:49But the main problem is we're finding very minimal gold.
00:04:54200 miles from his home, lack of gold is taking its toll.
00:04:59I'm bringing in no money.
00:05:01I've got bills to pay.
00:05:02I mean, it's an expensive world for a 22-year-old to grow up in.
00:05:05I kind of grew up my whole life being told never work for free.
00:05:08So now I'm working for free and it's kind of hard to wrap my head around.
00:05:15I'm just going to keep chipping away and hopefully start seeing some color.
00:05:19We actually have a hard rock pit over there.
00:05:22I've heard from all the local people in town that the values of the ore in there were some of the richest around.
00:05:29So it'd be really neat trying to get the trommel to make enough money that we can actually go underground some day.
00:05:36That gets expensive fast.
00:05:37Yeah, that does.
00:05:38Yeah, a whole different animal.
00:05:39So how's your season gone so far then?
00:05:41We're not doing real hot.
00:05:43I mean, we're roughly getting about a tenth of an ounce a day right now.
00:05:46It's just not covering the cost.
00:05:48Yeah, 150 bucks a day.
00:05:50Yeah, a couple hundred dollars a day isn't doing it for us.
00:05:53Yeah, that's not enough to cover the fuel.
00:05:55Fuel, exactly.
00:05:56The last three years have been the best season. It's been $5,000.
00:06:00Yeah, it's not good.
00:06:02Realistically, what do you need daily to be able to make this work?
00:06:06About an ounce a day really is what we need.
00:06:08I can see that, yeah.
00:06:09So if you can't make enough gold here, then what are you going to do?
00:06:12If we can't make something happen this year, then it'll probably be the last season we mine.
00:06:18It's a dream to me to watch my boy be able to carry on a tradition of mining.
00:06:23It would be a real kick in the gut if I couldn't watch him carry that on.
00:06:27So it's kind of a legacy thing then.
00:06:29Yeah, building one for sure.
00:06:31Well, we're here. Let's watch it run. See if we can help you.
00:06:37The Mammoth Claim is staked over a number of ancient river channels near Bear Canyon.
00:06:43Although this land has been mined before, Ryan hopes with modern machinery he can retrieve the gold they left behind.
00:06:53Four hour test.
00:06:54Yep.
00:06:56Timer's going.
00:06:58Let's go.
00:07:03First bucket won.
00:07:04First bucket.
00:07:05First bucket.
00:07:11Hopefully I can haunt some good pay here.
00:07:16Nolan drops pay through grizzly bars into an 11-foot hopper, which funnels down into the rotating trommel,
00:07:24where a spray bar washes gold off the rocks to be caught in the 10-foot sluice.
00:07:32Look at that sluice box, Fred. That's not good.
00:07:34That's the worst sluice box I've seen.
00:07:37Yeah, that's a gold-losing sluice box. That's for dang sure.
00:07:39Yeah.
00:07:40It's like it got ran over by an excavator.
00:07:43I'd be embarrassed to take that in for scrap iron.
00:07:46I can see why they're only getting a tenth of an ounce.
00:07:50I'm going to look at this box real quick.
00:07:53Freddy and Juan aren't going to like that sluice box.
00:07:56Feel that nugget ripple up top, right here.
00:07:58Half the ripples are popped up.
00:08:00None of the ripples are touching.
00:08:02That hold-down system is not good at all.
00:08:06I can just imagine what they're thinking with that sluice box right now.
00:08:11I've always had an infatuation with digging in the dirt, and I always wanted to buy a mine,
00:08:17and ended up up here with a realtor showing us around some properties,
00:08:21and they said this is for sale, and there's rumors that there's really good gold.
00:08:25So, we jumped on it.
00:08:27Inspired by stories of huge gold hauls, Ryan subsidized the mine with his construction business.
00:08:34But now, the falling market has changed his luck.
00:08:38I have a construction company in Central Oregon.
00:08:41Times are very slow right now, as far as construction goes.
00:08:45There's been a lot of hardship.
00:08:48We're not guaranteed anything right now.
00:08:49To be able to pay my bills and get out of debt for the last three years,
00:08:53we decided we were going to hit this mining operation hard.
00:08:56Originally a weekend mine, it's now become his lifeline.
00:09:01This doesn't give me enough money to pay our bills.
00:09:05I have a family counting on me to find gold, especially my boy, Nolan.
00:09:11I really want to watch my kid prosper.
00:09:13I want to pass this mine on to Nolan.
00:09:15Let him take control of it one day.
00:09:17But we can't find gold.
00:09:19This is a big, big week.
00:09:22Freddy and Juan coming up is going to either make us or break us.
00:09:29We've got a problem in here.
00:09:34It's just boiling over.
00:09:36Nolan, get that bar.
00:09:38Oh!
00:09:40Not good.
00:09:42We've got a rock plug in there or something.
00:09:44It's overflowing with water.
00:09:46It looks like it's clogging up our trommel.
00:09:48It's not getting down in there.
00:09:50If the jammed rock isn't dislodged in time,
00:09:53gold could be lost over the side of the hopper.
00:09:56There it goes.
00:09:58There it went.
00:10:00Yeah, you got it.
00:10:02It just took a little persuasion.
00:10:04We've got to get this up, though.
00:10:06Juan-o!
00:10:09I was pretty sure we had a gold nugget stuck in there for a minute,
00:10:13but it ended up being a rock.
00:10:15Getting ready to run again.
00:10:17That was a bit scary for me.
00:10:20What I want to do is I want to make sure that we've got all the gold in there.
00:10:24I want to make sure that we've got all the gold in there.
00:10:27I want to make sure that we've got all the gold in there.
00:10:30What I want to do is I want to grab a handful of that material coming off the end of the trommel,
00:10:34pan it, and see what's in it.
00:10:36It seems to me that there's a lot of material coming out
00:10:38that should be getting down into the sluice box and getting recovered.
00:10:51Oh, ****. Juan's got a gold pan in his hand.
00:10:54That makes me nervous.
00:10:56The reality is out of one pan,
00:10:57all that material should have gone into the sluice box to get recovered.
00:11:01I don't see any gold, though.
00:11:03I didn't have any gold in the pan, but still,
00:11:05if we're losing that much material, there's a chance we're losing gold.
00:11:09I took a pan out of the tailings coming off the end of the trommel.
00:11:13There was a lot of fine material, but there was no gold.
00:11:15How about off the sluice?
00:11:17I haven't done that yet, but I want to take a pan from the pay.
00:11:19It doesn't look good to me.
00:11:21Yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't look spectacular.
00:11:23Panning the pay should show gold is going into the wash plant,
00:11:27even if it's being lost out the other end.
00:11:31What are you seeing, Juano?
00:11:33Nothing yet, Fred.
00:11:39Nothing to speak of.
00:11:41That's not good.
00:11:43Let's go look at their pay, where they're digging it.
00:11:46With two hours still left on the test,
00:11:48Freddy and Juan need to track down the pay.
00:11:52Nice old boiler.
00:11:54A lot of history here.
00:11:56Oh, yeah.
00:11:58That's where he's getting it from.
00:12:01No wonder they're only getting a tenth of an ounce a day.
00:12:03This is all garbage. It's all tailings.
00:12:05Every bit of it's tailings.
00:12:07Yeah. Let's see what you get in this pan.
00:12:09There'll be nothing in it.
00:12:11This creek's completely mined out.
00:12:14Nothing.
00:12:16Not a speck.
00:12:18Pretty consistent ground.
00:12:20Pretty consistent garbage.
00:12:22Yeah, that's not good, Freddy.
00:12:24What do you think? Should we stop them?
00:12:26I think we shut them down.
00:12:28Yeah, it's just burning fuel.
00:12:30Let's just call it.
00:12:32It's not worth running.
00:12:34No, it's mined out.
00:12:36It's weird that they didn't see that.
00:12:38But, you know, they haven't been around like us, you know?
00:12:41In the beaver state of northeast Oregon,
00:12:44Freddy and Juan face a mining nightmare.
00:12:47They have to find a way to get to the river.
00:12:50They've been looking for a way to get to the river for a long time.
00:12:53They've been looking for a way to get to the river for a long time.
00:12:56They've been looking for a way to get to the river for a long time.
00:12:58Freddy and Juan face a mining nightmare.
00:13:02Well, right now we're in a dilemma.
00:13:04We panned out of their pay pile that they're calling their pay pile,
00:13:07which is actually a garbage pile, because it's already been run.
00:13:12This whole creek's been mined out,
00:13:14and they're just digging tailings and running them,
00:13:17so they're out of business here.
00:13:21Hey, Nolan!
00:13:23Last bucket!
00:13:25What the...
00:13:26Do you want to shut it down?
00:13:28After just two hours,
00:13:30Freddy and Juan pull the plug.
00:13:37The reason why we shut you down at two hours instead of going four...
00:13:40Right.
00:13:41Everything here is tailings.
00:13:42It's not virgin.
00:13:43It's been run multiple times.
00:13:45This whole 13 acres as far as Placer goes...
00:13:48Dead.
00:13:49It's dead.
00:13:50Nothing, yeah.
00:13:51Not even worth it.
00:13:52The hill you own over there, that's all tails.
00:13:54Yeah.
00:13:55On the lower part of it, everything, everything here is tailings.
00:13:57It's all been run.
00:13:59And they hit her side to side and upside down.
00:14:01We hate to be the bearer of bad news.
00:14:03Yeah.
00:14:04But the truth is, right now, it's not worth it.
00:14:05Yeah, we want honesty.
00:14:09Definitely not what we wanted to hear,
00:14:10kind of like a kick in the gut.
00:14:13We don't have good ground.
00:14:15There's nothing we can do about it.
00:14:18My father's invested a lot of money and time
00:14:20to come up here and try to get things going for me,
00:14:22and tries to hand it off to me.
00:14:24But if there's nothing to hand off,
00:14:26then there's no sense of being up here and wasting my time.
00:14:33What's your thoughts, Wanda?
00:14:35Well, Freddy, you know, that ground is completely played out.
00:14:38You know, and we took pans, and not a speck of gold.
00:14:41It was all tailings.
00:14:42Every piece of it.
00:14:43And I think it had been run more than once.
00:14:45That sluice box is probably the worst we've ever seen.
00:14:48It's a disaster, that sluice box.
00:14:50The bottom of it, you know,
00:14:51the bottom of the sluice box,
00:14:52the bottom of it's shaped like a banana.
00:14:54You can't hold the riffles down.
00:14:56Even if there was gold there,
00:14:57the gold would just shoot right under the riffles.
00:14:59Oh, this is the first sluice box we've ever seen
00:15:00where the riffles are actually just for show.
00:15:02They're not doing anything.
00:15:04Show riffles.
00:15:06Yeah, yeah.
00:15:08Well, all we can do is put our heads together
00:15:09and figure this out.
00:15:11But I think we're in a pretty tough spot here, bud.
00:15:13I agree.
00:15:22Morning, guys.
00:15:23How's it going?
00:15:25About the flattest spot I could find to weigh in.
00:15:28To get a true read on the ground,
00:15:31Freddy and Juan want to weigh the two-hour test cleanup.
00:15:35How are we looking?
00:15:37Well, it's a little light.
00:15:40A little light?
00:15:41I don't think there's much but fly poop in there.
00:15:44That's all pyrite.
00:15:45Yeah.
00:15:46That's a nightmare.
00:15:47Yeah.
00:15:48That is a nightmare for us.
00:15:50Yeah, there's 10 cents worth of gold, 20 cents worth of gold.
00:15:53Yeah, right.
00:15:55So there's no use weighing that.
00:15:57I don't think my scale would even weigh it.
00:15:59This will be the first cleanup we don't attempt to weigh
00:16:02because this scale here...
00:16:04Won't weigh that little.
00:16:05No.
00:16:07But right now, you've just got to stop.
00:16:09Okay.
00:16:11I don't know what to do.
00:16:13Yeah, you guys can tell us what we should do.
00:16:15You know, this may not be the property that you're going to be on forever.
00:16:18Right.
00:16:19So, let's put our heads together, come up with a game plan,
00:16:22and we'll go from there.
00:16:26Thinking of that, it doesn't make me feel very good.
00:16:29I feel like I've let my kid down.
00:16:32Back to square one, starting over again.
00:16:36Freddy and Juan said that's the worst they've ever seen,
00:16:38which is definitely not what we wanted to hear,
00:16:40but what we've seen in the past,
00:16:42definitely not what we wanted to hear,
00:16:44but what we've seen now after doing cleanups,
00:16:47there's nothing here for us, so we've got to pursue something different.
00:16:51With one of the worst gold results on Mine Rescue,
00:16:55they have just four more days to take the Merritt mine
00:16:59from zero to one ounce to keep their dream alive.
00:17:04It's a tough one, Juan.
00:17:05This may break him from gold mining.
00:17:07I hope not.
00:17:08What are your thoughts?
00:17:09My thoughts, I go prospecting.
00:17:10Really, I honestly think that's the best use of your time here.
00:17:13If you can go out and start doing some prospecting, help them out,
00:17:16that's going to be first and foremost.
00:17:18One of the things we can do, Juan, is teach Nolan,
00:17:21give him our experience and our knowledge.
00:17:23For a young guy, Nolan's heart's already set on being a miner,
00:17:26so let's at least give him some of the tools that he's going to need
00:17:28to be able to do that.
00:17:30We didn't know there was no gold here.
00:17:34We kind of walked into a hornet's nest is what we did.
00:17:41First lesson for Greenhorn Nolan, learn how to prospect.
00:17:46So even without seeing your cut up here, I knew it was all Kalins.
00:17:50All right.
00:17:51Looking at the tree growth, everything we're walking on,
00:17:53everything you see here has been ran.
00:17:55Well, how can you tell by the tree growth that it's been mined?
00:17:59Because all the trees in the valley here, where the placer gold was,
00:18:03they're all younger trees, you know, 30, 40 years old.
00:18:06Right.
00:18:07You got old growth up on the hill where they didn't mine the gold, right?
00:18:09There's probably trees up there that are 100 years old.
00:18:11Right.
00:18:13But not down in the valley.
00:18:14Yep.
00:18:18So you can see, this is where your cut was the other day, right?
00:18:20Yeah.
00:18:21Why don't you grab the traco and let's dig a little trench right here.
00:18:24Okay.
00:18:26A trench will expose the geological timeline of the ground
00:18:30and show if it's been previously mined.
00:18:33Come on down here, buddy.
00:18:37You guys thought it was virgin ground.
00:18:39Up here, right.
00:18:40Right. No, it's not.
00:18:43So if it was virgin material, you'd have layers of material, right,
00:18:47that have rhyme and reason to them.
00:18:49Your flat rocks would be laying flat from water, right?
00:18:52Because when they get in water, they're going to lay flat, right?
00:18:54Like my hand, they're not going to lay flat.
00:18:56So you'd have layers of material that have rhyme and reason to them.
00:18:59Your flat rocks would be laying flat from water, right?
00:19:02Like my hand, they're not going to lay like that, right?
00:19:04And it's going to be tight packed.
00:19:05Okay.
00:19:06See our water's running through it?
00:19:07Yeah, that's fine.
00:19:08If it was tight packed, it'd be running on the surface.
00:19:10Okay.
00:19:11And you're going to have different layers from different eras, right?
00:19:14Right.
00:19:15Stream flowed here, slow for a while, you get a sand layer.
00:19:17Faster, got more rocks in it.
00:19:19They're just all jumbled up.
00:19:20And you see how easy it's digging.
00:19:22Right.
00:19:23They had hundreds of thousands of years to become a puzzle all locked together.
00:19:27Now the puzzle's just in pieces everywhere and all the gold's taken out of it.
00:19:31But right now this is just pure tailings.
00:19:33Right.
00:19:34And I bet the old timers probably hit it in the 1800s,
00:19:37but somebody else has mined it since then with heavy equipment,
00:19:40probably the 1980s, looking at the trees.
00:19:42But what we could do is we could knock this tree down here,
00:19:45get a chainsaw and look at the rings in it.
00:19:55Perfect, bud. You want to go grab a chainsaw?
00:19:57Yes, sir.
00:20:01See how easy that fell over?
00:20:02Yeah.
00:20:03Because it's loose soil, right?
00:20:04Right.
00:20:06Perfect. Let's bring it out here in the sun and count rings.
00:20:1644.
00:20:1744 years ago.
00:20:18Yep.
00:20:19That was when it was last done.
00:20:21Well, that's when that tree started growing.
00:20:23Probably a few years after they were done mining when it started growing.
00:20:26So, you know, 44 years.
00:20:281979, let's call it.
00:20:301980, I was guessing 1980s, so right in there.
00:20:33But whoever mined it did a good job.
00:20:35They stripped it pretty clean of gold.
00:20:37The only gold they lost was the hardest to catch gold.
00:20:41With their placer mining dead in the water,
00:20:44Freddie explores their only other option on this land,
00:20:48hard rock mining.
00:20:50I've seen a vein over here when I was wandering yesterday.
00:20:53We can look at it.
00:20:54Because that's your only shot here.
00:20:56We'll go up over this way.
00:20:57Okay.
00:21:01Hard rock prospecting involves searching for underground veins
00:21:05rich in deposits of high-grade gold.
00:21:08It's a prosperous but perilous form of mining,
00:21:12with miners digging deep shafts,
00:21:15then punching tunnels into the mountainside
00:21:18to chase the gold-bearing veins.
00:21:22You can tell the old-timers punched into the mountain here,
00:21:25and they didn't do it for their health, right?
00:21:27So they found something on the surface,
00:21:29and they started in to see if it was going to be good enough gold.
00:21:32Did they mine it out, or is there a whack of gold still living in there?
00:21:36There's only one way to find out. Have a look at it.
00:21:55Don't know, Wano. It's not good.
00:21:57No.
00:21:58They are screwed as far as the placer goes.
00:22:01At Ryan Merritt's mammoth mine...
00:22:04It's in somebody else's bank account now.
00:22:06Mm-hmm.
00:22:07The placer deposit has played out,
00:22:10so Freddy is on the hunt for hard rock,
00:22:13and the flooded shaft might be the answer.
00:22:16So how the old-timers would find the hard rock gold,
00:22:19which could be the richest,
00:22:21they'd start with the placer gold,
00:22:22and they'd pan their way up a creek valley,
00:22:24and then when it ended, they'd back up,
00:22:26and then they'd start looking up the mountain for the hard rock.
00:22:28There's a reason they stopped mining it, though, right?
00:22:30Was that because gold prices went down?
00:22:32Was that because the claim owner passed away?
00:22:35Or maybe they got too adept with the ore played out, you know?
00:22:37There could be a lot of factors.
00:22:43To find out more...
00:22:44Well, thanks for driving for me.
00:22:46Oh, not a problem, man. I'm sorry you're hurt.
00:22:48Freddy seeks out some local knowledge in nearby Sumter.
00:22:52Right here, isn't it?
00:22:54Yeah, this is it.
00:22:59How's it going, Greg?
00:23:00Hey, Fred. How are you?
00:23:01Appreciate your time.
00:23:02Hey, thank you.
00:23:03Ex-mayor Greg Lucas has access to the county records,
00:23:08so is the go-to guy for the mining history of the area.
00:23:12Sounds like you probably know more about it than anybody in town.
00:23:15So what information can you help me out with on this mine we're at?
00:23:19It was actually founded through the placering process about 1872.
00:23:25They were working their way up the creek.
00:23:27They got to a point where there was no more placer gold,
00:23:31backtracked, and that's where they found the hard rock.
00:23:34The original founder was James Riley.
00:23:38He had some partners.
00:23:40They worked the load and got what was easily available.
00:23:45But that mine has had boom and bust over the years.
00:23:50From what I can tell, the placer's been completely mined out on that property.
00:23:54When was the last time the hard rock was mined on it, do you know?
00:23:57My best guess is 1930s.
00:24:01Before World War II.
00:24:03Yes. There's about 300 feet of tunnel.
00:24:06Almost all of them filled up with water.
00:24:08When I was a kid, it wasn't full of water.
00:24:11There's at least two shafts and at least two levels.
00:24:15And they discovered another vein that ran about 200 feet,
00:24:1918 inches, into the rock from the main tunnel.
00:24:23So the potential is there.
00:24:25It's just that hard rock's an expensive game.
00:24:28It is.
00:24:29Especially on one that's been full of water for a long time and everything else.
00:24:32All we can do is have a look in there, see what it looks like,
00:24:35see if it's not caved in or anything,
00:24:37and then maybe try to get that water out of there.
00:24:40Yeah.
00:24:41Well, I sure appreciate your time, sir.
00:24:43You're welcome, Fred.
00:24:44Have a great day.
00:24:45Good luck.
00:24:47That mine shaft is the last chance for this piece of property.
00:24:50From the surface, it's a guessing game what's in there.
00:24:54I want to see underground.
00:25:11Thanks for coming up.
00:25:12My pleasure.
00:25:13Let's go over and…
00:25:14It'd be pretty cool to see this.
00:25:16Well, let's hope we can find something for you.
00:25:19To explore the flooded mine shaft,
00:25:21Freddy calls in some high tech.
00:25:24So this here, we've got our underwater ROV.
00:25:27And on the front, we've got a 4K camera along with a sonar on here as well.
00:25:32We've got six thrusters, two on the top to bring us down,
00:25:35and then four on the side so we can move in any direction.
00:25:38Mountain springs have flooded the shaft on the west of the Merritt's Claim,
00:25:42where there's an entrance to an abandoned hard rock mine,
00:25:46first excavated in the 1870s.
00:25:50With records suggesting a network of tunnels stretching over 300 feet long
00:25:55and on different levels up to 80 feet deep,
00:25:58if structurally sound,
00:26:00they could be pumped out and explored for highly profitable hard rock mining.
00:26:07I'm excited about getting down in there with the underwater drone
00:26:10and seeing what could be under there, because that could be the future.
00:26:14Find the gold.
00:26:15Here it goes.
00:26:24How deep can you go down?
00:26:26So this unit here will go down to 1,000 feet deep.
00:26:31So right now, just trying to find the access.
00:26:35We're able to see that there's rock formation right there.
00:26:39And as we get closer to the walls, we'll be able to see more.
00:26:44I'm hoping to see at least an entrance or some kind of timbering in there
00:26:48that's going to give us hope to carry on our dream of mining up here still.
00:26:55It's murky.
00:26:56Yep, I was afraid of that, but you never know until you try, right?
00:27:00Absolutely.
00:27:01We may be able to go a little bit deeper here.
00:27:07Looks like we got something, huh?
00:27:09Yeah, looks like we've got something right there.
00:27:11That's pretty cool, huh?
00:27:15Some timbers.
00:27:16Looks like I can see the timbers right there.
00:27:19The timbers form the opening to an old-timer's tunnel.
00:27:23We can see the entrance here, we just can't get in there.
00:27:25Just the cordula can't get in.
00:27:27Yeah, full mud it looks like, huh?
00:27:29It's definitely full of something.
00:27:31Hopefully gold.
00:27:35But you definitely are seeing some evidence of a tunnel.
00:27:39Could be the original mine timbers in there still.
00:27:41We're butting right up against it. There's no access.
00:27:46Unfortunately, I think it's just paved in.
00:27:49This is not good news.
00:27:51That's a shame. We'll have to get it another direction.
00:27:55The tunnel opening is caved in, meaning it's inaccessible for Ryan.
00:28:02His last hope is flooded out.
00:28:07To pump the water out of the mine shafts underground, it really is a lot of money.
00:28:13There's nothing we can do about it.
00:28:15Got to try different avenues now, I think.
00:28:17The hard rock they've got here, it looks like it's a nightmare.
00:28:20We couldn't get that ROV in the mine shaft.
00:28:22We couldn't get that ROV in the mine shaft because it's evidently caved in.
00:28:24We couldn't get that ROV in the mine shaft because it's evidently caved in.
00:28:26We couldn't get that ROV in the mine shaft because it's evidently caved in.
00:28:28It's not the end of their dream. At least I hope not.
00:28:40You know, this has been one of our nightmares, right?
00:28:42You know, coming up to a mine site where there's no gold.
00:28:44It's a disaster.
00:28:46They are screwed as far as the placer goes.
00:28:48That ground is completely played out.
00:28:50That ground is completely played out.
00:28:52And the hard rock, it's just a nightmare because it's caved in.
00:28:54And the hard rock, it's just a nightmare because it's caved in.
00:28:56So we're really going to have to come up with something to help them out.
00:28:58So we're really going to have to come up with something to help them out.
00:29:20What's your thoughts, Juan?
00:29:22We're here. We need to take advantage of the time we have here.
00:29:24Let's fix the plant so when he does move to the next spot,
00:29:26Let's fix the plant so when he does move to the next spot,
00:29:28he'll have the plant to be able to run that ground.
00:29:30he'll have the plant to be able to run that ground.
00:29:32I agree.
00:29:34In northeast Oregon, with no mineable ground left on the Merritt's claim,
00:29:36Freddie and Juan hatch a plan.
00:29:38Freddie and Juan hatch a plan.
00:29:40What I'd like to do on the wash plant, I want to build a straight...
00:29:42A whole new sluice.
00:29:44A whole new sluice.
00:29:46That's garbage.
00:29:48A whole new system he's got in there.
00:29:50Get proper riffles in it.
00:29:52And then on top of that, over here on the trommel,
00:29:54he's got a spray bar that comes in,
00:29:56and it's just shooting one little spot on the bottom
00:29:58that the material's not even getting hit.
00:30:00So what I'd like to do is build a proper spray bar for it as well.
00:30:02Yeah, I agree. We're here. He asked for our help.
00:30:04He's going to have to move.
00:30:06We've got to get out and find him some better ground.
00:30:08Maybe not on this piece of property.
00:30:10It won't be on this property, but they're great guys.
00:30:12I totally respect what he's trying to do.
00:30:14So as far as cost goes,
00:30:16I don't want to charge him anything.
00:30:18He's already hemorrhaging money.
00:30:20Right now he's spending a dollar to make a dime.
00:30:22Yeah, he's already got a ton of money tied into this operation.
00:30:24I agree.
00:30:26I think we just do this to help him out.
00:30:28Hopefully he can keep on his legacy,
00:30:30build his legacy, and be able to do what he wants to do.
00:30:34With the hope of Freddy finding new ground to mine,
00:30:36Juan will replace the spray bar
00:30:38with an angled system
00:30:40to better wash pay dirt off the rocks
00:30:42and will cut away the existing
00:30:44buckled sluice
00:30:46and replace with a new box
00:30:48and signature riffle system.
00:30:54I came up with a few ideas.
00:30:56The plant, there's a bunch of things
00:30:58that are just completely wrong with it.
00:31:00Fixing the plant up,
00:31:02if you've got more ground later,
00:31:04then you've got a plant that will catch the gold.
00:31:06That sluice box is just trashed.
00:31:08We're going to throw that away.
00:31:10We're going to build you a whole new one.
00:31:12We'll be able to catch nuggets,
00:31:14find gold, whatever you come into,
00:31:16we'll be able to catch it.
00:31:18Right now, that spray bar you have on the end of it,
00:31:20it's pretty much going into nothing.
00:31:22Freddy wants to really spend some time
00:31:24and go out and do some real prospecting.
00:31:26If you don't have gold in the ground,
00:31:28the plant's no good.
00:31:30I think for the next few days,
00:31:32the biggest push is to be able to go out there
00:31:34and see if Freddy can find some decent ground.
00:31:36We know this is something that you guys want to really do.
00:31:38You guys already spent a lot of time out here.
00:31:40We're not going to do it right by taking any money.
00:31:42What we're going to do, we're going to do 100% free.
00:31:44We're going to do it for nothing.
00:31:46Just get it done for you guys.
00:31:48But if you guys are good with that...
00:31:50We are awesome.
00:31:52Let's get it done.
00:31:54Deal.
00:31:56Them willing to make the fixes for free
00:31:58is super, super awesome, for my dad even.
00:32:00As you know, we're running out of funds.
00:32:02That's going to be super awesome.
00:32:04The biggest thing is having a plant
00:32:06that we can go run successfully.
00:32:08Them willing to come up here
00:32:10and volunteer their time
00:32:12and their own hard-earned money
00:32:14to fix up our plant,
00:32:16I think that's an amazing thing for us.
00:32:18First up,
00:32:20Freddy must find ground in this valley
00:32:22for the merits to mine.
00:32:24You know, this area's been hit pretty hard,
00:32:26but there's still some good gold here.
00:32:28Just got to search for it.
00:32:30What we need to do is
00:32:32put our detective eyes on
00:32:34and go looking around here.
00:32:36Make some phone calls.
00:32:38Now it's turned into more of a treasure hunt.
00:32:42Since 1862,
00:32:44the mountains of northeast Oregon
00:32:46have witnessed thousands of prospectors
00:32:48searching for gold.
00:32:50By 1913,
00:32:52massive floating dredges
00:32:54raked in over 32,000
00:32:56ounces of gold
00:32:58worth over $60 million
00:33:00today.
00:33:02But a patchwork of land ownership
00:33:04in this region has left
00:33:06specific areas less hit than others.
00:33:08So Freddy hopes to track down
00:33:10one of these claims
00:33:12that still may have worth
00:33:14in the ground.
00:33:16So the number one
00:33:18fix that we have to do for them
00:33:20is find them some more ground
00:33:22with gold on it.
00:33:24If not, these guys are done.
00:33:34At the claim,
00:33:36Juan gets stuck into the old sluice
00:33:38with helpers Travis and Alex.
00:33:42That was a rock.
00:33:44You alright, buddy? I'm good. Just my bad knee.
00:33:50You know, it looked bad before when it was on the plant.
00:33:52Now that we got it off, it looks really bad.
00:33:58Seven miles south,
00:34:00Freddy's gold mining contacts
00:34:02might have struck it rich.
00:34:04I just talked with a claim owner
00:34:06a half hour from the mine.
00:34:08There was some ground that's got good gold on it
00:34:10that Ryan can lease, so I'm going to see it with Ryan.
00:34:12Because good gold is not
00:34:14what they have up there on that 13 acres.
00:34:16It once upon a time probably had good gold,
00:34:18but it's been gone over with a fine-tooth comb.
00:34:20And then some.
00:34:22Downstream
00:34:24from the Mammoth Mine is a 70-acre
00:34:26claim that Freddy is taking
00:34:28Ryan to.
00:34:30The claim owner is looking for a miner
00:34:32to install a wash plant
00:34:34and mine the ground season by season
00:34:36on a profit-sharing lease.
00:34:40The old-timers hit this.
00:34:44You can see all the tailings here.
00:34:46So there's definitely gold here.
00:34:48Let's hope they didn't get all of it here as well.
00:34:50That's all we can hope for.
00:34:52If there is gold
00:34:54in this ground,
00:34:56Ryan can move his upgraded wash plant here
00:34:58and give the owner
00:35:00a percentage of the gold he finds
00:35:02each season as the leasehold
00:35:04payment.
00:35:06How's it going?
00:35:08Good. How you doing?
00:35:10Doing all right.
00:35:12Jim Ecksteins found gold on his land
00:35:14and wants someone to mine it for him.
00:35:18That's pretty gold.
00:35:20And you're wanting to lease your ground out?
00:35:22That's what we're looking for right there.
00:35:24Well, your property probably was like that
00:35:26before they mined all the gold out of it.
00:35:28How many yards did that come out of?
00:35:30Six tractor buckets.
00:35:32So that's about 600 times better than your gold.
00:35:34Let me show you where this came from, Freddie.
00:35:38You have a beautiful place here, Jim.
00:35:40Thanks. I was digging a hole looking for water for my pasture.
00:35:42Okay.
00:35:44Found gold, huh?
00:35:48So how deep is the bedrock under here, Jim?
00:35:50It's about, probably, Freddie,
00:35:52probably another four foot farther down.
00:35:54Okay.
00:35:56So most of this up here
00:35:58probably won't contain much gold.
00:36:00Now we get farther down,
00:36:02you see how we got tight material, right?
00:36:04Yeah, compact.
00:36:06So this is a whole different ballgame compared to what you got.
00:36:08Your deposit,
00:36:10there's no rhyme or reason to it.
00:36:12It's how it got put back by man,
00:36:14not how it was left there by nature.
00:36:16You can tell this was left here by nature
00:36:18and not put there by man.
00:36:20It's compact. It's tight.
00:36:22After looking at this...
00:36:24Completely different.
00:36:26Mine's man-made.
00:36:28And I'm seeing it now.
00:36:30I wish you'd have known that months and months ago.
00:36:32So it would have saved you
00:36:34thousands and thousands of dollars, right?
00:36:36But if you come over here,
00:36:38if there's good gold here,
00:36:40it's a second chance.
00:36:42Proof's in the pan, right?
00:36:52Yeah.
00:37:02We got lots of heavies in it.
00:37:06That can be a good sign or a bad sign.
00:37:08Yeah.
00:37:10In northeast Oregon,
00:37:12Ryan Merritt's gold mining future
00:37:14rests on a pan from the new ground
00:37:16Freddie has found.
00:37:18I've seen a piece of gold there.
00:37:20Look at that.
00:37:22And a couple of them are decent size too.
00:37:241, 2, 3, 4,
00:37:265, 6, 7, 8...
00:37:309, 10, 11, 12...
00:37:32And there might be more.
00:37:34What's that mean, Freddie?
00:37:36That means, f*** mine it.
00:37:38That's more gold in the one pan
00:37:40than we did out of 30 yards at your mine.
00:37:42So, look here.
00:37:44That's a good pan.
00:37:46That's a dang good pan right there.
00:37:48There could be a whack of it.
00:37:50And this one's easier to get to
00:37:52than where you're at.
00:37:54I say...
00:37:56I say this is your future.
00:37:58Seeing that gold in that pan
00:38:00puts a whole new perspective
00:38:02on Ryan's future, is what it does.
00:38:04Gives him a spot that he can mine.
00:38:06All I can say is, smiles ear to ear.
00:38:08Well, Jim,
00:38:10looks like you got some mineable ground here.
00:38:12We in?
00:38:14Yep.
00:38:16And for a percentage of recovered gold,
00:38:18Ryan has new ground he could lease
00:38:20and a gold mining future
00:38:22for him and Nolan.
00:38:24That's great news.
00:38:26I mean, that's the best news I've heard all year.
00:38:32Well, let's get to work.
00:38:34Back near the claim,
00:38:36Juan's redesigned a new sluice run.
00:38:38We're going to build him a 100% new sluice box.
00:38:40One thing that's kind of special about it
00:38:42is we're going to put ribs on it.
00:38:44If you look at the sluice box that they have,
00:38:46it's completely twisted. The bottom is not flat.
00:38:48And that's because it has no support.
00:38:50So right here, these are ribs.
00:38:52And these are going to go on the side
00:38:54and on the bottom to reinforce the bottom pan
00:38:56and the side wall, so that way we'll actually
00:38:58keep the bottom of the box true and flat.
00:39:02I'm going to hand them over to Travis and Alex.
00:39:04We'll get them all cleaned up so we can start putting this box together.
00:39:14When you cut them on a plasma table,
00:39:16you get a little bit of ridge.
00:39:18You just want to flatten them off.
00:39:20That way they're nice and flat and flush.
00:39:22I'm trying to knock off all the big chunks
00:39:24because it's easier for Alex to polish them up.
00:39:26That was the last rib right there.
00:39:28All the ribs are now polished.
00:39:30The ribs will be welded on.
00:39:34Perfect.
00:39:36All right, guys, we'll flip it.
00:39:38Oh, yeah.
00:39:40It's only heavy.
00:39:44If I fully weld it
00:39:46before the ribs are in,
00:39:48it sometimes has a tendency to move around a little bit.
00:39:50So to keep it stiff from shifting around,
00:39:52we'll put all the ribs in.
00:40:00We got all the ribs in place
00:40:02where they need to go, so we're going to start
00:40:04getting it all welded up and get it flipped around
00:40:06and do the full weld.
00:40:08Juan's having me cut some carpets
00:40:10for the sluice blocks
00:40:12and then some miner's moss
00:40:14so we're a little more step closer
00:40:16to getting it installed.
00:40:22When you weld,
00:40:24you get all these BBs here
00:40:26that are stuck to the floor.
00:40:28So I'm just cleaning these up.
00:40:34How's it going, Juan?
00:40:36Oh, we're just about done, Fred.
00:40:38Looks good. It's a stout sluice box there, buddy.
00:40:40Come out pretty good.
00:40:42Yeah. Well, that ground we looked at at Jim's
00:40:44that Ryan can lease
00:40:46looked good.
00:40:48Took one pan of it is all,
00:40:50but there was 12 colors in the pan.
00:40:52And that's what he needs, you know,
00:40:54so if he has other options, you know,
00:40:56he can keep his dream alive.
00:40:58Well, while you're doing this, Juan,
00:41:00we're going to get a dump truck
00:41:02and take a couple loads of that new material at Jim's.
00:41:04That's a great idea.
00:41:06I'll get this finished up, and we'll get it up top.
00:41:08Got it. See you in a bit.
00:41:10I'm really excited for Nolan and Ryan
00:41:12with that ground and the sluice box set up properly
00:41:14catching that fine gold.
00:41:16Their dream is still possible now,
00:41:18so I couldn't be happier.
00:41:20There's one final modification
00:41:22to complete the sluice box
00:41:24before it goes to the claim.
00:41:26I'm going to weld these jacks
00:41:28on the side of the sluice box.
00:41:30I got the box at the right angle
00:41:32so I can weld them level so that way
00:41:34the jack leg's coming down there straight.
00:41:36So if you look at it, it's got the angle
00:41:38of the sluice box coming down,
00:41:40but the jack,
00:41:42perfectly level.
00:41:44If you put the jacks in wrong,
00:41:46it'll actually want to push or pull
00:41:48the sluice box away from the plant.
00:41:50So this way, we actually just lift up
00:41:52the front of the sluice box,
00:41:54and we're not putting any unnecessary strain
00:41:56on the pins or on the bolts.
00:41:58It's ready to go.
00:42:00We're going to go ahead and load it up
00:42:02and get it up to the mine site
00:42:04and get it in place.
00:42:14Well, we're digging that material
00:42:16that we panned that looked good.
00:42:18So we'll take some loads up
00:42:20and get it run through the plant
00:42:22and see what kind of gold lives in it.
00:42:24To give Ryan and Nolan
00:42:26a better idea of the profit
00:42:28the second test run
00:42:30will use pay from the new claim.
00:42:32I'm excited to see it.
00:42:34I'm excited as well, Freddy.
00:42:36It might be our future.
00:42:38It's on the line.
00:42:42This is a good feeling
00:42:44knowing that we actually got some material
00:42:46with some gold to run.
00:42:48Get that new sluice box on there.
00:42:50Get your spray bar cleaned up
00:42:52and run this material.
00:42:54Your future's probably here.
00:42:56That's what we like to hear.
00:43:00Our probability of catching gold
00:43:02I think just went up 100%.
00:43:04We got a full load.
00:43:06Hopefully there's gold in this.
00:43:14All right.
00:43:16You guys want to get it unstrapped?
00:43:18Get it all rigged up and let's walk it over
00:43:20and get it put in?
00:43:22Sounds good.
00:43:24In order to catch gold
00:43:26Juan's 1,000-pound sluice
00:43:28needs to be fitted onto Ryan and Nolan's
00:43:30existing wash plant.
00:43:32Lift up.
00:43:34Go up just a little bit.
00:43:38Go down just a little bit, Nolan.
00:43:44Good fit.
00:43:46Right there.
00:43:48The most important piece of equipment on that site
00:43:50is that sluice box.
00:43:52If you don't get it on par, you're going to lose gold.
00:44:06Sluice box on.
00:44:08And with Ryan trucking pay,
00:44:12Juan hits his final fix.
00:44:14This spray bar is just one nozzle
00:44:16and that nozzle, unfortunately,
00:44:18is pointing right at the bottom.
00:44:20So what we want to do is concentrate that water
00:44:22on the material to be able to wash it properly
00:44:24and get that gold-bearing material
00:44:26and gold down into the sluice box.
00:44:30I'm using PVC
00:44:32because I don't really want to put a bunch of weight on it
00:44:34by putting a steel bar.
00:44:36So by putting the PVC, it's going to be a little lighter.
00:44:38We don't have to worry about this breaking or twisting off.
00:44:40We want to try to keep all the holes in line.
00:44:42So what we're going to do is use the measuring tape
00:44:44as a straight edge.
00:44:46What we'll do is we'll try to drill them at an angle.
00:44:48The water is going to shoot that material back
00:44:50and give it more time inside the trommel.
00:45:00Right there, it looks pretty good.
00:45:02I think we should be set.
00:45:10This sluice box will last
00:45:12the rest of your life if you take care of it.
00:45:14Okay.
00:45:16He's going to show me how to lay out a sluice box.
00:45:18It's something I've never done before,
00:45:20so I usually have my dad do all that work,
00:45:22but that's probably why we're not catching gold
00:45:24out of the old sluice box.
00:45:26I want to be up here finding that gold,
00:45:28so it's going to be awesome to hear
00:45:30what he has to say.
00:45:32Here's our carpets. Here's our riffles.
00:45:34So I want you to take the green carpet
00:45:36and run it all the way down.
00:45:38Start from the top here?
00:45:40I'd start from the bottom.
00:45:42Why?
00:45:44Because shingles on a roof work.
00:45:46They overlap one another, right?
00:45:48So if you started your shingles at the top,
00:45:50it'd be wrong.
00:45:52And that one goes right up here.
00:45:54And we'll leave it long, right?
00:45:56It doesn't matter.
00:45:58So now let's put some miner's moss up top.
00:46:00What's this miner's moss do?
00:46:02Well, it's got a deeper loop to it,
00:46:04so it'll help hold onto that gold.
00:46:06So we're going to leave a little gap here.
00:46:08For what?
00:46:10Well, it makes a change in the sluice box.
00:46:12Change is good when it comes to gold.
00:46:14So let's put our light
00:46:16expanded in the bottom.
00:46:18That's the smaller stuff here?
00:46:20Yep. So you see how it's bowed?
00:46:22So we want to have it where it's bowed
00:46:24in the middle down, right?
00:46:26That way when we put the boards down,
00:46:28it'll pinch it down all the way through.
00:46:30So this way. Good.
00:46:32Okay, let's grab our heavy expanded
00:46:34and start at the top there, Nolan.
00:46:36There you go. Perfect.
00:46:38Okay, now let's lay our boards in.
00:46:40Let's grab our long ones.
00:46:42Okay.
00:46:44Yeah, my dad always took care of this part.
00:46:46Well, it's up to you now.
00:46:48Right. Because you're the future.
00:46:50Yeah.
00:46:52So now grab some wedges.
00:46:54Here you go, buddy.
00:46:56We want those ripples tied into that carpet
00:46:58so that gold can't get underneath them.
00:47:00Okay.
00:47:04Don't hit your thumb.
00:47:06Watch your hands. I'd get your hand out of there.
00:47:08Let me show you something here.
00:47:10So you're holding right here, right?
00:47:12If you slip with that hammer, bam, broke thumb.
00:47:14So bang, bang, bang, bang.
00:47:16So just use your hammer
00:47:18to do what you were trying to do
00:47:20with your hand, right? Okay.
00:47:22Drive it in.
00:47:24So if you break your hand,
00:47:26then what? You're out of work, right?
00:47:28Yeah. Then you aren't making any gold.
00:47:30No, no gold. So use that tool.
00:47:32Use it properly.
00:47:34There you go.
00:47:36Tap those last four, and we're done.
00:47:38That's it.
00:47:42Well, let's make some gold, man.
00:47:44Yes, sir.
00:47:46It was great.
00:47:48Freddy taught me a lot.
00:47:50He even showed me some techniques on how to use a hammer.
00:47:52So that was super helpful
00:47:54and stuff I haven't learned before.
00:47:56So hopefully we can get that wash plant running
00:47:58and start washing some gold.
00:48:04Wow.
00:48:06That's an improvement.
00:48:08I think it looks like it'll actually catch some gold now.
00:48:10Yeah, and it's adjustable,
00:48:12so we put the trailer jacks on the end there
00:48:14so that way if we need to,
00:48:16we can adjust the pitch up and down.
00:48:18Okay.
00:48:20Five days ago,
00:48:22Freddy and Juan saw a wash plant
00:48:24that ran unemptied.
00:48:26But the real kicker?
00:48:28With no gold in the ground,
00:48:30it was on the ground.
00:48:32With no gold in the ground,
00:48:34it was game over.
00:48:36Now, the father and son team
00:48:38have hope.
00:48:40On top of that,
00:48:42what we did over here,
00:48:44we put a little spray bar in there for you.
00:48:46It's real simple.
00:48:48We just used some PVC in there.
00:48:50But before, you had that little fire nozzle,
00:48:52and it really wasn't washing the material.
00:48:54That looks awesome.
00:48:56We didn't do a whole lot to the plant,
00:48:58but the biggest thing we did
00:49:00because no matter what happens to your plant,
00:49:02if there's no gold in the ground,
00:49:04this piece of property is mined out.
00:49:06So the biggest thing that Juan and myself
00:49:08did for you guys, and you were involved in it as well,
00:49:10is tell you,
00:49:12you're done here,
00:49:14and let's go find some gold somewhere else.
00:49:16Absolutely, and it's a hard lesson.
00:49:18We found it.
00:49:20When we tested it, we found gold in it,
00:49:22so that pile of pay there
00:49:24that we brought from Jim's
00:49:26is probably your future.
00:49:28You're going to have to move your plant.
00:49:30Absolutely.
00:49:32Well, we're prepared to do that.
00:49:34Well, there's only one way to find out
00:49:36how much gold's in that dirt, huh, Juan?
00:49:38Let's do it. Let's do a test run.
00:49:40All right, let's do it.
00:49:42I'm really excited to start running.
00:49:44We got some new pay up here,
00:49:46so I'm hoping we can start washing some gold
00:49:48and make some money.
00:49:58♪♪♪♪
00:50:00♪♪♪♪
00:50:02♪♪♪♪
00:50:04♪♪♪♪
00:50:06♪♪♪♪
00:50:08♪♪♪♪
00:50:10♪♪♪♪
00:50:12Juan-O!
00:50:14First bucket!
00:50:16♪♪♪♪
00:50:18At Ryan Merritt's
00:50:20mammoth mine...
00:50:22Give her hell, Noah, and let's make some gold!
00:50:24The second test
00:50:26is underway.
00:50:28Running two hours like the first run,
00:50:30it will give
00:50:32Freddy and Juan a chance to see
00:50:34how their fixes have worked
00:50:36and whether the new ground really
00:50:38does have gold in it.
00:50:40This material's
00:50:42downstream quite a few miles
00:50:44from where we're at, right, that we're running right now
00:50:46in the second test. Well,
00:50:48guaranteed, if there is decent gold in there,
00:50:50some of the gold that we're running
00:50:52from five, six miles away
00:50:54came from this property
00:50:56before it was mined out years ago.
00:50:58So, uh,
00:51:00you know, that's pretty cool.
00:51:02♪♪♪♪♪
00:51:06This looks like some better pay dad
00:51:08brought me.
00:51:10You know, it worked with quite a few father
00:51:12and son operations over the years.
00:51:14These guys get along
00:51:16well. Yeah, they work great together.
00:51:18Yeah, they're a good team.
00:51:20Noah's a young man, but he's very respectful.
00:51:22He's a good man. Yep. He's not afraid to work hard.
00:51:24Nope. Works hard and he's respectful
00:51:26to his father. Can't ask
00:51:28for much more than that.
00:51:30Straight away,
00:51:32the new spray bar
00:51:34hits the mark.
00:51:36Look at that, Fred.
00:51:38Pretty darn
00:51:40clean. Yep.
00:51:42We can take that. Take that
00:51:44any day of the week, Juan. Yep.
00:51:46That's good. The rocks are hitting
00:51:48their hair wash now, not just their feet.
00:51:50Oh, it's going great.
00:51:52The spray bar that they installed, it seems
00:51:54to be washing the gravel. Awesome.
00:51:56I haven't seen any
00:51:58gold yet, but I know it's in the box.
00:52:00It'll be a good clean out today.
00:52:02♪♪♪♪♪♪
00:52:06It's a little lead on water.
00:52:08Not enough
00:52:10water in the sluice
00:52:12could reduce the amount of gold
00:52:14the mats can hold.
00:52:16Go down with it a little bit, huh?
00:52:18Let me get on that side
00:52:20real quick.
00:52:22Let's lower.
00:52:24One. One. Half.
00:52:26Freddy and Juan drop the angle of the sluice
00:52:28to increase the speed of water
00:52:30and help the gold get lodged
00:52:32in the mats below.
00:52:34Three. Three. Four.
00:52:36Four. Five.
00:52:38Five.
00:52:40That's better.
00:52:42About right there.
00:52:44Good.
00:52:46Look at the box, huh? Yeah.
00:52:48That feels really good, Freddy.
00:52:50Yeah. I like it.
00:52:52You know,
00:52:54it was a little lean on water,
00:52:56so we had to increase the pitch, but it feels
00:52:58really good. Yeah, for the amount of material
00:53:00he's running, it's running just fine. I like it.
00:53:02♪♪♪♪♪♪♪
00:53:04We can probably pick up the amount
00:53:06of material. We're running less
00:53:08material per hour now than the first run.
00:53:10Yeah. But, uh,
00:53:12everything's running good.
00:53:14I can smell the
00:53:16goldenness of what I've been
00:53:18waiting for.
00:53:20You know, we weren't able to do a lot here,
00:53:22but what we did is going to make a huge
00:53:24difference, Juan. Yeah, it will.
00:53:26You know, that sluice they had in here before
00:53:28was, uh, like I said earlier,
00:53:30was two steps below
00:53:32scrap iron. Yeah, it really was.
00:53:34Effective sluicing area
00:53:36in that entire box was probably only
00:53:38about a foot. I don't think
00:53:40it was even that. Yeah.
00:53:42This area here, they got a full 12 feet
00:53:44of effective sluicing area.
00:53:46Yep. Yep. And multiple changes
00:53:48in it. And this will be a sluice box
00:53:50that they can have for years to come.
00:53:52A hundred times better than it was before.
00:53:54I know the
00:53:56plants are covered in gold, but if
00:53:58there's not enough gold in that material we found,
00:54:00that's on me, because that's what I've
00:54:02spent my time here the past days
00:54:04doing. So if there's not enough gold in that
00:54:06dirt, that's my budget.
00:54:08After two
00:54:10hours... Hey, Nolan!
00:54:12One more! That'll be
00:54:14the last bucket!
00:54:16Freddy calls time on the test run.
00:54:28Yeah, there's gold. I see gold
00:54:30there. I see more gold right there
00:54:32in dirty water than you had in
00:54:34that first pan. Oh, come on,
00:54:36Freddy. I'm not... Right there.
00:54:38Yeah, I know. Yeah. Into money now.
00:54:40Well, we'll see.
00:54:42Into some better ground, anyway.
00:54:44Look at that.
00:54:46****
00:54:48That's a nice
00:54:50lake. That's a nice little lake.
00:54:52So right there, that one piece
00:54:54right there, it's a thousand times
00:54:56the amount of gold you had the
00:54:58first two-hour run. Right. That one piece of
00:55:00gold right there. Wow. A thousand times. That's actually weighable.
00:55:02Yeah. Yeah, I can weigh that.
00:55:04Pack, pack,
00:55:06pack, pack. With gold?
00:55:08Yeah. Nice. Yeah.
00:55:10Oh, wow. That's a good one.
00:55:12That's gonna be a fine clean-up.
00:55:14From our first test run, it
00:55:16wasn't looking good, so I'm glad we found
00:55:18gold, so I'm excited about that.
00:55:20I think we found the silver lining,
00:55:22you know, at the end of the tunnel.
00:55:24In our case, the gold lining.
00:55:26Well, Freddy's a little hurt right now,
00:55:28so I had to bring a little extra muscle
00:55:30with me. Hey, Juanito,
00:55:32can you grab me my gloves?
00:55:34No problem, Dad.
00:55:36All right.
00:55:38I need my welding hood, please.
00:55:46Okay.
00:55:48I need my welding hood, please.
00:55:50Okay.
00:55:52I need my welding hood, please.
00:55:54What's
00:55:56taking so long, bud?
00:55:58Thank you, sir.
00:56:00It's on the top shelf.
00:56:02It's on the top shelf? It's a good thing you're taller than
00:56:04Uncle Freddy. I'm gonna go
00:56:06walk with Uncle Freddy because he pays
00:56:08better. What?
00:56:14How's it going, Juanito?
00:56:16Can I walk with you again?
00:56:18Can you work with me again?
00:56:20Well, you sure can.
00:56:23Let me pay you for yesterday.
00:56:25Come on, let's go to work.
00:56:46Have you panned much, Nolan?
00:56:48No, not much.
00:56:50To see an early indication on the run,
00:56:52Freddy has one last
00:56:54master class for Nolan.
00:56:56So I know it's a round pan,
00:56:58but I'm gonna call that the corner
00:57:00of the pan, right?
00:57:02We want that gold right in the corner of that pan.
00:57:08I've seen gold.
00:57:12What this pan's telling me is you guys need to move.
00:57:14Look at that, guys.
00:57:16Holy
00:57:18cow.
00:57:20Right on, Nolan.
00:57:22And that's a quarter of one pan.
00:57:24Wow.
00:57:26That's what we're looking for.
00:57:28That's more than I expected.
00:57:30I'm gonna pass out.
00:57:32Look at that.
00:57:34Wow.
00:57:36That's fun.
00:57:38That's the stuff dreams are made of right there.
00:57:40Just on from going broke fast
00:57:42to making a living
00:57:44is what you've done.
00:57:46Oh, man.
00:57:48I mean, I've never seen very much gold
00:57:50really physically in my life,
00:57:52so unbelievable.
00:57:54I'm itching to go get some more right now.
00:57:56That's just unreal.
00:57:58It's awesome.
00:58:00When I put that little bit of gravel
00:58:02that was in the mat in the pan
00:58:04and panned it, I couldn't have been happier.
00:58:06It looked good.
00:58:08So basically get it cleaned up now,
00:58:10get it on the scale, because one thing for sure,
00:58:12the scale doesn't lie.
00:58:16Yeah.
00:58:26How's it going, guys?
00:58:28Good. How are you guys today?
00:58:30Good.
00:58:32It's time to see if this father and son
00:58:34have a gold-mining future.
00:58:36Well, we got some stuff.
00:58:38That's about 1,000 times more than before, huh?
00:58:40Yeah.
00:58:42Or 100,000 times more than the first run.
00:58:44Ryan and Nolan need one ounce a day
00:58:46to turn a profit.
00:58:48But after a disastrous first cleanup...
00:58:50There's no use laying that.
00:58:52I don't think my scale will even weigh it.
00:58:54...finding new ground
00:58:56was key.
00:58:58Well, let's see.
00:59:00All right.
00:59:06You know, 0.14?
00:59:08Look at that.
00:59:10That's amazing.
00:59:12That's awesome. What do you think, Nolan?
00:59:14Yeah, I like that.
00:59:16Yeah, thank you.
00:59:18You're welcome.
00:59:20The result of the second two-hour run
00:59:22is equivalent to 3 quarters
00:59:24of an ounce of gold per day.
00:59:26But they need an ounce
00:59:28in their pocket to turn a profit
00:59:30and have to give Jim
00:59:32a percentage of recovered gold
00:59:34as part of the lease deal,
00:59:36which means they need
00:59:38at least 1 1⁄2 ounces of gold
00:59:40a day to have a future.
00:59:42But if you double your production,
00:59:44what's that gonna do?
00:59:46An ounce and a half a day, right?
00:59:48The thing is, if you were feeding it super slow...
00:59:50You could still run a ton more material through the box.
00:59:52The box can handle more.
00:59:54So you could have doubled your production, right?
00:59:56If not more.
00:59:58You can actually get to the point where
01:00:00you're making an ounce and a half a day.
01:00:02That's above and beyond
01:00:04what we would need to stay profitable
01:00:06and keep mining.
01:00:08I'm excited for Nolan and Ryan
01:00:10because that second goldway is where they need to be.
01:00:12Really the big win here is
01:00:14their dream of having a father-son operation
01:00:16is still alive and is possible now.
01:00:18So I'm extremely happy.
01:00:20It's really exciting for Nolan and I
01:00:22to be able to work together.
01:00:24He was thinking going home
01:00:26with his tail between his legs.
01:00:28I was thinking the same thing,
01:00:30thinking I was gonna let him down.
01:00:32So seeing this last goldway,
01:00:34that just brings a smile to everyone's face.
01:00:36I wasn't very happy.
01:00:38I was just wondering if I was wasting my time
01:00:40coming over here and trying to pursue a goldmine dream.
01:00:42But we found gold.
01:00:44So you know what?
01:00:46I think we've got a future here.
01:00:48We're scared to death.
01:00:50We're like, what are we gonna do?
01:00:52There's no gold here.
01:00:54We just went to Beck's Goldmine where there's no gold left.
01:00:56We're screwed.
01:01:00Really that's the best possible outcome
01:01:02we could have thought of.
01:01:04Pleasure.
01:01:08Ready? Thank you.
01:01:10Don't forget your gold.
01:01:16It's been a fairly difficult week.
01:01:18My shoulder hurts.
01:01:20The biggest thing though,
01:01:22beyond that was getting here and finding
01:01:24that there was no gold left on the property.
01:01:26It makes your mood go downhill fast.
01:01:28But if we wouldn't have came in here,
01:01:30they'd have been out of business pretty quick.
01:01:32So now they can mine some ground that's got good gold on it.
01:01:34So their future's bright.
01:01:36You know, just run, run, run.
01:01:38Put gold in your pocket.
01:01:48Hey, Freddy and Juan.
01:01:50We've got a chance to mine a little bit more
01:01:52of that pay dirt from Jim.
01:01:54We're doubling our production now.
01:01:56So we're getting up to an ounce and a half a day now.
01:01:58Oh yeah, the gold's in there.
01:02:00That sluice box you built so well,
01:02:02it might last my whole life.
01:02:04Without your guys' help,
01:02:06we would be dead in the water.
01:02:08But you know, you showing us some new ground
01:02:10and fixing up our plant and stuff,
01:02:12it's been really a blessing to us.
01:02:14Hopefully we have a future to work together.
01:02:16And you know, there's nothing better
01:02:18than having a family, someone that you can trust.
01:02:20Thanks, Freddy and Juan.
01:02:22You guys are awesome.