Gold Rush, S03E14, Bedrock Blowout

BEDROCK BLOWOUT

At the Indian River claim, in the Klondike. Dave and his team have an impressive 414 ounces of gold so far this season worth over $650,000, but they have just 3 weeks left of the mining season, to reach their 1000 ounce goal. Greg and Dave tries to figure out how they can get more pay dirt out of their bench cut. Dave wants them all down to bedrock, because that's the pay dirt which holds the most. 5 weeks ago, Dave and his crew opened up a cut on the bench, and last week they cleaned out a record 137 ounces, worth a staggering $220,000. Now the bench cut is down to the bedrock layer, this material contains large rocks, it should be full of gold but it could also block up their plant. Chris Doumitt feeds the first bedrock dirt into the wash plant. Dave and Logan watch for any problems, while Chris feeds the wash plant. Suddenly something jams, the crew rushes to stop the wash plant, it appears that bedrock jammed the feed chute, but Dave stepped in quickly to unplug it. The wash plant is running for now, but Dave is leaving the claim to head home and check on business, leaving Todd in charge of the whole operation. In the beginning of the season, Dave cleared a cut on the lower bench, now they're mining the upper bench. Todd thinks the key to success now is extending cut one. Todd and Dave disagrees on Todd's idea about extending the first cut, but they agree to talk about it when Dave gets back from his trip to Oregon. Todd states that he's not going to wait for Dave to come back, he says that Dave is still playing a 500 ounce game, but that he is playing a 1000 ounce game.

Down south at Porcupine Creek. The Dakota Boys have 117 ounces, worth over a $180,000, they're digging deeper than ever in the glory hole, to reach their 160 ounce goal. Fred and Dustin are fighting a constant battle against the ground water pouring into their 80 foot hole. To get down deeper than 70 feet, they're gonna have to move their pump down another 10 feet. Fred builds a road down as close as he can to the pump, but he's still stretching to reach it with his excavator. Dustin hooks the chain to the pump, and Fred lifts it up into the air. As Fred moves left, the intake hose gets snagged under water, leaving the pump dangling 20 feet in the air, Fred's excavator arm is at full reach. Dustin and Melody have to use their brute strength, and eventually they get the hose free and they re-locate the pump. Dustin rips the hard rocky ground with the "bedrock shark", while Fred moves the rich material out of the hole. Dustin's track suddenly detaches from the excavator, leaving the excavator literally dead in the water, to make things worse the pump isn't pumping, so the hole is now filling up with 1200 gallons of water a minute, the excavators engine could be under water and destroyed within an hour. Fred brings his 340 excavator to try and get the track back on, but he can't force the track back on, with no time to loose Dustin tries to lift it into place instead. Fred lifts up the track with the excavator, almost getting it into place, he then gives it a slam on the side, with the bucket of his excavator and the track finally comes on again. Fred slowly drives the excavator out of the hole and out of danger.

Across the creek at the Big Nugget Mine, Parker Schnabel has 135 of the 300 ounces he wants this season, he's on his new rich ground the Discovery claim. Parker struck out on both Smith Creek Hill and Emerson Trench this season, but last week Parker started digging new ground just up from Big Nugget, he ran his new dirt and got some of his best cleanups yet. Parker's crew now knows that they're on the best gold yet, they rush to run as much material as possible. The problem is that the new claim is up a dangerous two mile road, with a 300 foot drop to the creek on one side. Parker insists on loading and driving the pay dirt to the plant by himself. To keep the wash plant running at capacity and to maximize the gold take, Parker needs to haul 10 loads an hour. Suddenly Parker's back end slips and the bed of the rock truck flips over on the side. Parker's 330 excavator is strong enough to lift the bed of the rock truck when it's empty, but loaded with pay dirt is weighs 63,000 pounds, way more than the excavator is designed to handle. Parker manages to flip the bed of the rock truck back up with the excavator. Parker's rock truck is not badly damaged, but the accident on the road has left Parker rattled. Parker's crew is on their best gold of the season, this week alone Glenn has cleaned up 25 ounces out of the Discovery claim, but out of nowhere Parker calls a meeting. Parker decides to shut down the Discovery claim, with no good ground left to dig, Parker may be forced to shut down the Big Nugget Mine.

Back up at the Indian River claim, in the Klondike. While Dave is away on business, Todd and his night shift crew Mitch and Andy meet at the lower cut, the area that Dave did not want Todd to start digging. Mitch and Andy have to remove up to 30 feet of mud from a 72,000 square-foot area. Todd thinks that they can get down to pay dirt within 5-7 days. Mitch and Andy strip into the night instead of doing their night shift job, maintaining the wash plant. While Mitch and Andy open up the new lower cut, Todd runs the wash plant by himself, he's loading old bench cut bedrock at full speed, the same material that blocked up the plant on Dave's shift. Suddenly the wash plant get's blocked by bedrock again and Andy rushes in to help, large angular chunks of bedrock has once again blocked the feed chute, throwing water and pay dirt over the top of the wash plant. They quickly clear the blockage and restart the wash plant. To avoid another blockage Andy suggests that they run slowly, but Todd insists on getting the water and plant running again at full speed. The water is running at full speed, but Todd has forgotten to put pay dirt into the plant, clean water is rushing through the sluice boxes, washing out the gold. Because Todd didn't have his experienced crew at the wash plant, he may have just lost 4 days of Indian River gold.

Back down at Porcupine Creek in south-east Alaska, the Dakota Boys are running dirt dug from 80 feet down the glory hole, after 5 days of running they shut down and start the cleanup. The Dakota Boys needs an average of 2 ounces a day to reach their goal for the season, from this weeks cleanup they need at least 12 ounces. This weeks cleanup is at 22.4 ounces, they now have 139 ounces of gold worth close to a quarter of a million dollars, they're on track to reach their goal of 160 ounces.

The Golden Nugget:

Melody Tallis was raised in Fairbanks, Alaska. Before her passion for gold mining took hold she worked in a television repair shop and as a surgical scrub technician.

At Indian River, Todd is about to find out if he accidentally washed their best gold yet out of the wash plant the night before, the crew looks for gold in the sluices. Dave Turin is just back from Oregon, it doesn't take him long to see that the things aren't as he left them at Indian River. In the gold room, Jim Thurber is running the cleanup. The sluice box is designed to catch the gold in the first 8 feet of carpet, but for insurance it has an extra 22 feet, to catch any gold that is washed down by too much water, if Thurber finds a lot of gold in the bottom mats, they can be sure they've washed gold right out of the wash plant. Their worst fears has come true, there's about 2 ounces of gold in the bottom sluices, suggesting that they've washed gold right out of the wash plant. Thurber and Jack cleanup the rest of the carpets. The crew gathers by the fire to wait for Jack to finish weighing the gold. Despite their worst fears and loosing gold, the Hoffman crew has one of their biggest clean outs yet, the 107 ounce clean out brings their season total to 521 ounces, worth around $830,000. They're now just one big clean out, from $1,000,000 in gold.

Sunday, February 10, 2013