Gold Rush: Mine Rescue with Freddy & Juan (2021) s05e03 Episode Script
Blue Channel Gold
1
We have color.
My wife and I have got
a little bit of gold fever.
You sure it's not pyrite?
No, it ain't pyrite.
It's gold.
We work this place
every day of our lives.
[Sheri] Gold mining
is what brought us up here.
We moved up here
to follow our dreams.
But it's all up
in the air right now.
I have this stack of bills.
It's scary. You feel like
you're drowning.
[Charlie] The old-timers took
gold out of the ground here.
So we got to
get deeper than that.
There is gold here
on this site,
but we just need to
see more of it.
We're $750,000 into this,
into debt.
The payments
have to be made
or we lose our mine site,
we lose the house,
we lose our equipment.
So everything
that I have sweated
blood, sweat and tears over,
we all lose.
[narrator] Freddy Dodge
I'd rather have gold
in the bank
than gold in the mountain.
and Juan Ibarra
Not bad
for built-in-the-field.
want to make you rich.
It turns your dream out here
into a reality.
[all laughing]
[narrator]
In the past five years,
the value of gold has doubled.
There's a $3,000 nugget
right there.
Whoo!
[narrator]
But rookie miners
[man] Whoa, whoa, whoa!
find it more elusive
than ever.
If we don't recover more gold,
then we could lose everything.
[narrator]
But there is hope
Miracles, they do happen.
to turn desperation
into fortune.
Freddy and Juan
have one week
What you just did is genius.
to deliver a golden payday.
They have a future,
and they know
what they need to do.
[Juan over radio] You know,
this part of Oregon, Fred,
has been hit pretty hard.
There's been a lot of mining.
You know, there's been
a lot of gold as well.
Well, this area had a
gold rush in the 1860s, Juan.
There would have probably been
thousands of prospectors
and thousands
of claims out here,
and then started
runnin' big equipment.
Those dredges was
the best they had at the time.
[narrator]
In northeastern Oregon,
Freddy and Juan journey
to the Briscoe Mine,
where a husband-and-wife team
work a 12-acre claim
in the historic gold-rich
Sumpter Valley.
In the early 1900s,
huge floating wash plants
known as dredges
mined 125,000 ounces
of gold in Sumpter,
worth more than $250 million
at today's prices.
The Briscoe Claim is covered
in the by-product,
known as tailings,
that the dredges left behind.
Yeah, even
up and down this highway,
you can see
all these tailings, Fred.
Everywhere.
They didn't wash
these rocks for nothin'.
There's been a lot of gold
pulled outa here.
[narrator] The Briscoes
may have an innovative idea
to get to the gold
the old-timers left behind,
but lack the know-how.
How's it goin', guys?
[Sheri] Good. How are you?
Welcome to our mine.
-Yeah.
-Hopefully, we can get
some answers out of you guys.
We are sittin' on a gold mine.
You can tell that.
But somebody else
has already mined most of it.
-Yeah.
-Yeah.
[Charlie]
The dredge went through
this valley three times.
[Freddy] Yeah.
So, is that what you guys
are strictly running
-is dredge tailings? 100%?
-No.
Dredge tailings
doesn't pay enough.
I'm actually deeper than
what the dredge did.
When we first started,
I actually was
in some virgin ground
that the dredge
didn't even touch.
We made money there.
Like, a 30-ounce payday.
But other than that
here lately,
it's been a hit-and-miss.
So how deep are you
in your cut right now?
We're at least
5 to 6 feet down
past where the dredge was.
[narrator] Charlie's cut
in the valley floor
is clear of tailings
and beneath the reach
of the old dredges.
[Charlie]
And it's a blue channel,
an antique river channel.
It's virgin ground,
never been mined.
[narrator] The Old Big Blue
is an ancient river channel
and a hotspot of Oregon's
1860s gold rush,
made up of gravels
that cemented together
over millions of years.
It runs from Montana
down through Oregon.
[Charlie]
It's harder than hard
about where
I set a tiger teeth out
on that excavator in
about 40 hours.
So what was your gold total
for last season?
We got about 5 ounces.
[Freddy] What are
you looking for this year?
About 60.
[Juan] Oh.
Do you--
There's a big difference?
[Freddy] 12 times.
-[Juan] Yeah.
-Yeah.
And gold prices are up
high enough now
to where
we're going to try to
make this a really good go.
[Sheri] That's right.
Gold mining is-- is
my passion.
I was out
playing with a gold pan
at the age of 12.
I was an agriculture engineer.
However, Sheri and I,
we decided that we wanna do
something for ourselves.
So we're gold miners.
[Sheri] I am very lucky to
be here with Charlie.
We've been together 17 years.
He does everything.
We built the house.
He has built
every piece of machinery.
He's built it
all from scratch.
I do everything I can to help.
I drive dump truck
when we're hauling.
I pay the bills and take care
of all the administration.
I love it.
I love this lifestyle.
But everything's
on the line right now.
[Charlie] I'm worried
about this season.
This is the year
it has to come together.
Hopefully it's in
Juan and Freddy's answers.
I have a lot of faith
in these guys.
This is our golden opportunity
to make this mine work.
[Juan] Now, what kind of gold
are you gettin' now?
-Is it pretty chunky or--
-No, it's actually fine gold.
[Freddy] You got some of it?
It's some pretty gold.
Yup.
[Charlie]
It goes 95%-97% pure,
but it's as light as paper.
Catching it with
just a typical sluice box,
I haven't had luck with that.
Let's do a 4-hour test.
See how much gold you get.
-Okay. Perfect.
-Awesome.
-[Sheri] Let's do it.
-Let's do it?
Charlie and Sheri
have a lot on the line here.
You know, they've got
just so much money invested,
so much time invested,
that every speck of gold
they can catch,
they can put in
their bank account, right?
[narrator] Virgin pay
from beneath the old dredge
is loaded
into a vibrating hopper,
which feeds into
a tire-driven trommel.
Gold-bearing material
is washed out through screens
and is recovered
using a spinning centrifuge,
instead of
a traditional sluice box.
Fine tailing leave
the end of the trommel
on a slick plate chute.
And the larger tailings
are removed
on a 50-foot-long conveyor.
[Juan] Looking at the cut,
I'm not real sure
how deep that dredge went.
But, you know, typically,
they go, what, 15-20 feet?
You know, a lot of times,
those dredges,
you know, they get into
that hard material,
and instead of
beating the dredge up,
they just skip over
the top of it.
That was the problem
with the dredges.
They couldn't see underwater.
But, you know, who knows
what's underneath there?
That's right.
You know, they really could
be in a channel there
where it's really rich.
You just gotta get to it.
That's exactly right.
If you look in here
you can actually
see all that material
that's on
the side of the belt.
That's all fine material
that should be going
down to the sluice box
and getting sluiced,
but it's not.
Realistically, you could be
probably losing 5%-10% gold
just because of that.
You know, basically,
you've got all that material
coming through
into a trommel to
get screened,
but there's nothing
to recover anything on it.
Nope. They never have.
-[Freddy] Never will.
-Nope.
One little bitty color
right there, Juan.
[narrator] No riffles
on the discharge chute
means gold is being lost
in the fine tailings.
[Charlie]
We get the issues of putting
too much material
in the hopper
and then it
overflows my trommel
and it slows it down.
[Freddy] Whoa.
Tire's spinnin', Juan.
[narrator] When the tire
driving the trommel slips,
it overstrains
the drive chain.
[Juan] Well, that tire
is a little bald
and there's no traction, so.
It's spinning out
when he's overloading it.
I just got
a little excited right here
and dumped a little bit
too much in the hopper
all at one time,
and that's not a good thing.
That's one
of the trouble spots.
The drive for the plant,
if it gets overloaded,
all you do is
start breaking that chain.
And when it breaks, you're
down for two to three hours.
The whole wash plant
is my design.
We built the centrifuge.
Homemade.
[narrator] Often used
for catching flat gold,
a centrifuge is
a powered drum on its side,
which spins quickly.
Pay moves through the barrel
and the heavier gold
gets stuck to
the inside of the plant
by centrifugal force.
I built this for about $3,000
and the regular one's 50.
So, we did good.
[Freddy] Well,
we did find gold,
you know, in the tailings.
You know, it's not
scrubbin' it
and washin' it
quite good enough.
There's still
a lot of material left
on those bigger rocks
comin' out.
Yeah. You know, and the
other issue that we really saw
was that drive system he has.
You know, the unreliability
is kind of what's killin' him
on his runtime.
Yeah, it's stoppin' him
during the runs.
-Last bucket.
-Last bucket.
We're cleaning out
this centrifuge.
So how long
does this process take you?
Forty-five minutes
to an hour.
Really? Wow.
[narrator]
The motor-driven centrifuge
that Charlie
uses to catch fine gold
must be shut down by hand.
[Freddy] I don't know.
I'm thinking that centrifuge
is time-consuming.
He got a neat plant here.
It's just got a few, uh
few little quirks in it
that are slowin' him down.
But we're gonna do the best
we can while we're here
to help him
catch that extra gold.
There's a lot ridin' on this.
Trying to make sure
Sheri and I have got a future.
Stakes are high.
[narrator] Coming up
[Juan]
I don't think it's movin'.
[Charlie] She won't move.
Plan B.
We're [bleep].
No questions, please.
Seriously.
-Let's see what it is.
-[Freddy] The moment of truth,
eh, Juan?
Yup.
[narrator] At the Briscoe Mine
in Oregon
Hi, guys.
-Hello.
-How you doin'?
Good.
the results are in
from the 4-hour test
on Charlie's wash plant.
-[Freddy] Got 'er all done.
-[Sheri] Here, Freddy.
Ooh, that's not much gold.
-Oh.
-No.
0.1, 0.2, 0.3.
0.04.
[Freddy] 0.04.
Yeesh. So
Can't forget
that zero in front of it.
$85-$90 worth of gold,
is all for four hours.
We didn't even pay for fuel.
-No.
-[Juan] No.
That's not good, guys.
We did notice a few things
that we can improve on
on the plant,
as far as recovery.
Uh, but I think a big part
of what we need to do here
is-- is your ground.
You do agree that's an
ancient river channel, though?
[Freddy] Right now,
we're guessin'.
We'd like to find somebody
that really
knows the area well
and pick their brain.
It'll give me
a lot better insight.
Yeah. Wonderful.
If it is an ancient riverbed,
you know,
that could be
your best gold there.
We'll come up
with a game plan as well.
-We'll come back
and talk to you guys.
-Talk to you soon.
-Thank you, guys.
-Here's your gold.
[Sheri] I was expecting
more than that.
Absolutely.
I'm not disappointed
in this pan
because
I've dealt with this before.
It is what it is, but, um
doesn't pay my bills that
I have on my desk.
We've got a multitude
of issues goin' on here.
Number one, is there
enough gold in the ground?
Yeah.
That's something we're gonna
have to go out and figure out.
Hopefully there's more gold
deeper in that blue channel.
[narrator] Working out
if there's more gold
in the old dredge channel
is critical.
But Freddy and Juan
must also fix
the problems with the plant.
We really need
to focus on that drive system.
He's got a real small chain
on there driving that trommel.
Yeah.
The trommel itself,
it's startin' to slip.
-Yeah.
-That's something we need
to focus on as well.
On his conveyor,
the tailings are comin' out.
He has an entire circuit here
that isn't
recovering any gold.
This all needs
to be riffled out.
-[Juan] Yeah.
-What do you think next?
You know, I know he
put that centrifuge in there
because he was worried about
losing fine gold.
-Mmm-hmm.
-But he's probably spending,
I bet
$15-$20 an hour in extra fuel.
Forget that centrifuge.
-Put it in the scrap iron pile
over there.
-Yeah.
[narrator]
To improve the reliability
and increase
the recovery of the plant,
Freddy and Juan will upgrade
the trommel's drive system
to a larger 80-gauge setup
and add
an expanded steel strip
to provide more traction
for the drive wheel.
Gold is being lost
out the end of the trommel
on unwashed rocks.
An extra spray nozzle
will blast pay
into the discharge chute,
where a new carpet and riffles
will recover gold
that would have been lost.
Finally, they'll remove
the inefficient centrifuge,
but keep the layout
of the plant
by replacing it
with an 18-foot sluice,
one of the longest
in ine Rescue history.
But all this lies
on their ambitious plan
to reach the potentially
gold-rich ground
in the Old Blue Channel.
Freddy and I,
what we think we can do
is make your plant
more reliable.
And catch more gold.
[Charlie] Okay.
Starting out with, uh--
one thing that you pointed out
was your drive system.
We're gonna go up
to that 80 size chain.
-Okay.
-And so we'll have to do
new sprockets on the drive
and also on the trommel side.
[Freddy]
Part of the drive system, too,
I wanna take a 3/4 flat
and expand it
and put a ring of it
around where your tire is,
so you're not spinnin' out.
For traction.
[Juan]
That's gonna cover the
reliability side of the plant.
The recovery side,
we noticed a few things.
You know, I know on that--
on the larger tailings
that you have coming out,
there's a lot of
fine material on it still.
So that means you're gonna
be losing gold as well.
[Juan] We wanna address that.
Now, on the other side
of the recovery system,
where you
have your centrifuge
I know you worked hard
on that centrifuge, Charlie.
You did
a great job building it.
But, honestly,
for the plant you have,
I think it's
just a bottleneck.
-It's costing you money.
-Yeah.
We would like to move
that centrifuge out of there.
Yeah, I built everything
that's out there,
including the centrifuge.
But
if it needs to go
to enhance the operation,
then let's do that.
Yeah.
Okay.
But what we wanna do
is we actually wanna put
a sluice run there,
set up for fine gold recovery.
[Freddy]
And recover more gold.
[Juan] We need
to focus on that cut
and try to figure out
what's down there.
[Freddy] Take your Track-O
down there
and just play with it
a little bit.
-Okay.
-[Juan] Yup.
Wear a set of your teeth out.
-Okay.
-[Juan] All that being said,
you know, what we kind of
figured on material on that,
for building a new box,
riffling it all up,
-the drive system--
-[Freddy] Carpets.
Carpets, nozzle,
everything else,
we're looking at about
$5,000 in material.
Okay.
On our labor, uh,
we're willing to
do all of it for free.
We know you guys
are in a tough spot.
So, how can Sheri and I help?
-Deal, then.
-Deal.
[Juan chuckles] Perfect.
-[Charlie chuckles]
-Thank you, Freddy.
-[Freddy] You're welcome.
-[Charlie] Deal.
[Juan]
I'm genuinely nervous here
because Sheri and Charlie
are losing money
and going broke.
The gold weigh was so low.
So, uh,
we're gonna do our best
and we're gonna throw in
the labor for free.
It's gonna be
interesting to see
what Freddy comes up with
in the hole, in the cut.
[Sheri]
That's what I'm excited about.
That-- that's the one that--
That's where it's at now.
But I'm really happy that
we're gonna get these problems
fixed on the plant
on the recovery side.
That's gonna be perfect.
We're gonna get ready
to cut out the boxes
for-- for Charlie here.
So, I got it
all programmed in.
I'm gonna get it, uh,
ready to start cuttin'.
[narrator]
Juan's plasma cutter
slices through steel
at 25,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
On Charlie and Sheri's plant,
they have a centrifuge,
and, unfortunately, it's
just not working properly.
And by going to
a regular sluice box,
we'll be able to increase
their throughput
and also their gold recovery
by at least 20%.
Are we ready?
[Charlie] Go ahead.
[narrator]
Charlie and Sheri remove
the inefficient centrifuge.
I've been runnin' loader
probably about five years now.
Just learned
how to operate 'em.
And watch
Charlie's hand signals.
We're a great team
and work well together.
[Charlie] You gotta get it
around this corner.
We're out of the hole.
All right. Success.
It takes a lot longer
to put it in
than it did
to take it out.
Good job.
So that's
the first hurdle over
so we can get the gold.
I'm going to see
a gentleman named Darold.
He's a local miner,
prospector,
historian type guy.
My goal is to find somebody
that knows the geology
of this riverbed.
So, hopefully,
he can help us figure out
a little bit more
about the area.
-Mr. Freddy Dodge.
-How's it goin', sir?
-Good. Glad to meet you.
-Glad to meet you.
Well
I came to pick your brain,
to be honest with you.
Well, we'll see
what's in there to pick,
-I guess. [chuckles]
-[laughing]
[Freddy] So you know Charlie,
I assume.
-Oh, yeah.
-Yeah, we're here
helping him out.
Got any maps of the area
we can look at?
Got some old ones.
Sometimes old ones
are the best ones.
-This is from 1900.
-Okay.
Basically, right here
all the way up
is where the dredge
dredges went.
This was a very rich valley
when they first discovered it.
So that's the Sumpter gold
you're after.
It's that flat, flat gold.
Now, that's
what the dredges got.
When I first moved up
in the area,
the guys would tell me
that they would
be running that dredge
and they'd
hit a pocket of gold
and them sluice boxes
would just turn yellow.
It only went 18 feet.
-That's it, huh?
-You just gotta get
down below that 18 feet.
Yeah.
You get down into
that virgin material.
So we did
a first test run there
and it was pretty weak.
-Yeah.
-So it's virgin material,
but it's a conglomerate.
It's really hard
older-looking material.
-That's interesting.
-All the rocks are gray.
Gray and blue.
That means you're into
the Old Blue Channel.
Um, the big Placer Mine
just up the road here,
well, the same thing.
They ran into
those blue gravels.
And when they got down
to the bedrocks,
they would find
balls of gold wrapped up.
-Hmm.
-And they would unwrap 'em
and they were gold ribbons,
about inch,
inch-and-a-half wide
and about 6 inches long.
[Freddy] Hmm.
[narrator]
Ribbon gold is rare
and can be very valuable
due to its high density.
Has he got down to
the actual bedrock itself?
-No.
-No.
Yeah, he needs to get down
to the actual bedrock.
Yup. Yup.
It shouldn't be real deep.
Might be 15-20 feet.
That would be my--
my guesstimation.
Well, we'll try to figure out
a way to find that out.
And then we just hope
that there's gold under it.
There's definitely gold
here in this Valley, Freddy.
[narrator] To have any chance
of hitting the mother lode,
Freddy needs to identify
the depth of bedrock
at Charlie and Sheri's claim.
Gold's goal in life
is to try to get to the
center of the Earth, right?
It's heavy and it sinks.
It could be a foot deeper
than we are now.
It could be 15 feet deeper.
I don't know.
You gotta try.
Right? Nothin' ventured,
nothing gained.
[Freddy] Your best gold's
on bedrock.
[Charlie] Right.
[narrator] On the
Briscoe Claim in Oregon
You know, it's a tough one
'cause we don't know.
Is bedrock
20 feet? Is it 50 feet?
Is it 75 feet?
[narrator] Freddy
takes Charlie on a mission
to find bedrock.
Let's just dig a hole
and see what we find.
All righty.
Yeah, take a little out of the
bottom there, Charlie, and
put it over here,
and let's pan it.
Yes, sir.
[Freddy on radio] Thank you.
[narrator] Freddy's goal,
to determine
the richest layers of pay
in the ancient river channel.
[Freddy] Well, we still
wanna test our way down
because if this stuff
pays the same
as your first test, Charlie,
then you just gotta
get rid of it.
It doesn't need
to be wearing your plant out.
-Right.
-So
This becomes overburden.
It's just garbage.
Three little bitty colors.
It's no good.
No good at all.
Deeper we go.
-Yeah.
-Okay.
[Freddy]
Let's keep goin' down.
All righty.
[Freddy] Those three
little colors in that test,
I'm guessing that that
was probably
maybe 50 cents a yard.
Can't make it
on 50 cents a yard.
Nothin'.
Nothin' in the pan.
No gold.
[Freddy] Well,
we're as deep as we can get.
Nothin'.
Absolutely nothin'.
[Charlie] The proof is not
in the pudding.
[narrator] 18 feet down,
the excavator hits its limit,
but no sign of bedrock
or gold.
We punched a hole
and it was pretty depressing.
But he's got more land here.
Just because
there's no gold down there
doesn't mean
there's no gold over there
or over there
or over there, right?
You know, you might ask,
"How deep's bedrock here?"
Well, I have no idea.
And I wish I could
see through the rocks
and tell you
what's down there,
but I can't.
But I know a man who can.
[narrator] While Freddy
calls in reinforcements
in the critical hunt for
gold at bedrock,
Juan's focus is to upgrade
the plant to catch it.
I got all the pieces cut out
for the new sluice box.
This is the first run.
This is the 10-foot run.
And I have one more 8-foot run
that I'm gonna build.
All right, Charlie.
While you're doing this,
I'll start getting
some measurements.
If you wanna finish
that weld there
and start welding
the tops here,
the backsides of these.
Looking good, Charlie.
You know,
I'll be your assistant.
You can be the welder.
-Yep.
-You good with that?
All righty.
Over the years, I've had
people help me here and there.
But Charlie's one of
the few guys
that is
actually helping me that
really knows what he's doin'.
I think it's great
to see Charlie
working with Freddy and Juan.
They get along great.
And it's just really
cool to see
all three of
them working together
and just kind of
like a well-oiled machine.
Well, we're looking
really good, Charlie.
During that first test run,
the drive tire,
which is on the other side,
kept spinning out.
So what we're gonna do is
wrap this around here
like this, and you can see
that tire will
be able to grip this.
So it's just, uh
just for traction.
That's strictly what it's for.
But it'll work.
Well, what we're doing
is called hot tacking.
While the weld's still hot,
hit it with a hammer.
And then it smashes it down
and ties it together.
See? Now our gap's gone.
[narrator] For just $250,
Freddy fixes a major problem.
This may seem
like a simple fix,
but, uh
over time,
it's gonna make this plant
run a lot more hours, right?
And every hour
this plant's not runnin',
it's not makin' gold.
[narrator] At the trommel
All right, that's not movin'.
[Charlie] She won't move.
Juan's mission to increase
production and reliability
rests on being able to remove
and upgrade the sprocket.
Plan B.
[Freddy]
When you heat something up,
it expands, right?
So we wanna heat
that hub up
without heatin' the shaft up.
[Juan] How much has it
moved at all, Fred?
It hasn't.
So our job went
from tough to tougher.
[Freddy] We just gotta
put it back together, Juan.
I hate that.
I know, but [bleep].
[sighs] Ah, [bleep].
[Freddy] It's stuck.
We're [bleep].
No questions, please.
Seriously.
[Freddy] That gear box
is from the '50s.
[Juan chuckles] Yeah.
That's probably been on there
since it was new.
[narrator] On the Briscoe Mine
in Sumpter Oregon,
work hits a standstill.
[Freddy] She ain't comin' off.
[narrator] The trommel's
gearbox sprocket
is stuck fast on the shaft.
I hate to be all this way,
and not
at least try to fix it.
[Charlie] That sprocket's
gotta come off
if we're gonna make this work.
[Juan] Well,
let's loosen that box up.
Let's get it out,
and see if we can't
work on it out here.
[Charlie] We still gotta
get this sprocket off,
so we're gonna come in now
and pick this up
and get it out of here.
It wants to be stubborn,
but I think
we're gonna win this war.
[Juan] Ready to pull it out?
[Charlie] It's ready to
do something.
Come on in.
Come straight in.
Go that way a little.
Doing a good job, Sheri.
Keep comin'.
There you go. You're there.
[Freddy] Charlie and Sheri,
they're a great team.
They're the right hand
and the left hand.
They work together
extremely well.
[Charlie] There you go.
[Juan] Good job, Sheri.
Come up a little bit.
Tilt it back.
Keep goin'.
It's yours.
[Charlie] Take it over
some place where we care.
[Juan] We're out of
our element right now.
We don't have a press here,
so we kind of made
our own little press.
We're using the forks
of our loader
with a piece of beam on top,
a square tube and this plate,
and, uh, just a bottle jack.
You know, it's what we have.
We're gonna use it.
Hopefully
we can get this loose.
[narrator] Juan's bush fix,
use static loader force
and an iron beam
to act as a sealant.
A bottle jack pushes
the central shaft down
to release the gearbox.
[Juan] We've tried
a couple other things.
Nothing else
will get it loose.
[Charlie] There it goes.
[Juan] There it is.
[Charlie] It's gotta
be getting close.
[Juan] I would say so.
Oh, yeah. We're there.
There it is.
Success!
We won the war.
[narrator]
With the sprocket now free,
Juan can
upgrade the drive system.
We just gotta keep
our nose to the grindstone,
keep on working right now.
Uh, you know,
we're burning daylight.
So, we gotta keep at it.
We're going to take
this tire over here to Juan
so he can
rework that sprocket,
get the new sprocket
put on here,
so we can get
this put back together.
[Juan] So this gives you
a reference
of what the difference is
in the chain.
This is the chain
that Charlie was using before,
and this is what
we're gonna be using now.
What he's had in the past,
is this chain
gets a little sloppy
and it ends up stretching
and it'll break.
We're hoping,
by going from a 60 chain
to an 80 chain,
we'll be able to eliminate
those problems that
he's having.
Obviously, if we're going
from the lighter chain
to the bigger chain,
we're gonna have
to change the sprockets,
and that's why
we're doing all this work.
[narrator] Juan adapts
a sprocket to fit
the new drive wheel.
We already got
the wheel hub built for it.
This is gonna be the drive.
This is actually
what's gonna drive
the trommel now.
[narrator] And recycles
an old sprocket
from Charlie's boneyard.
Fortunately,
Charlie had a 32 sprocket
that we were able to use.
That is the right pitch,
the 80, number 80 chain.
So, I had to get the old hub
with the old sprockets.
I cut it all off,
and I reused that hub
and welded this sprocket
onto that existing hub.
So we'll be able
to put that on the--
The drive.
I feel confident.
Now, I know we can
give it done.
[Freddy] This is Freddy.
Oh, okay.
So you're on the mine side.
-[Dan] Yup.
-Okay.
You'll see
my, uh, welding truck.
[narrator] On the hunt
for gold-rich bedrock,
Freddy's special task force
arrives on site.
-[Freddy] How's it going?
-[Dan] Hey, Freddy.
How you doing?
-Doing all right. Dan?
-Yeah, Dan Kramer.
-Dan. Your name, sir?
-[Kurt] Hi.
-Kurt Kramer.
-Kurt. Nice to meet you, Kurt.
[narrator] Dan Kramer
and his dad, Kurt,
specialize in underground
geological mapping.
We're hoping
if we can find bedrock,
there's better gold
on bedrock.
But this isn't--
The surface of this
is not worth running.
[Dan] We can't tell you
how much gold there is,
-but we can tell you bedrock.
-Yeah.
We'll get you
some good data.
There's no--
-No question about it.
-Yeah.
-Thank you, guys.
-Yeah, absolutely.
-[Freddy]
I'll see you in a bit.
-[Dan] All righty.
[narrator] Using a process
known as seismic refraction,
the team can measure
the depth to bedrock
across Charlie's claim.
We're setting up
our seismic sensors.
They're called geophones.
We're hooking them up
onto our survey line.
We're gonna
hit the ground hard
to make a seismic noise.
Kind of like a shockwave.
-[device beeps]
-Yup.
-[device beeps]
-One more.
-[device beeps]
-Yeah, we got it.
That shockwave,
the time that it takes
to hit the bedrock
and bounce back up
to the seismic sensor,
we're gonna record that.
That's gonna tell us
the depth of bedrock.
Within one to three feet.
[narrator] Seismic waves
travel into the ground,
refracting off the bedrock
and bouncing back up
to the geophones
along the surface.
The data recorded will create
a two-dimensional
underground map
showing the depth to bedrock
on part of Charlie's claim.
[Dan] We're gonna take
all of that data.
After processing it,
this is for a different site.
But we're going to produce
an image like this.
A 2D cross-section
looking into the ground.
So, imagine the line
along the top of the
ground surface here.
We're looking down
into the ground.
Bedrock is here.
And these are
softer soils above it.
Kurtis Kramer has
such a good swing, my dad,
because he's been logging
for 81 years.
And he can swing the hammer
like he's still 20 years old.
Go ahead.
-[device beeps]
-One more.
Like a shotgun.
Thank you, Dad.
[Juan] Good job, Sheri.
Over there.
[narrator]
Freddy and Juan's fixes
are ready to be installed,
starting with
the new drive chain.
[Freddy]
Oh, look at that, Charlie.
[Charlie] Line up perfect.
[Freddy]
That's the dog's notch
right there, bud.
It's brilliant
to see this come together.
This is where Charlie's
oversized material
was going down.
And we've got
this chute right here
that we can catch gold in.
We'll riff one up
and make it into
a gold catcher,
not a chute.
[narrator] Adding riffles
to the slick chute
should mean more gold.
[Freddy] Getting the
wedge system in here
with wood, wood wedges.
So it will really
lock that down tight
so it pushes them
into the carpet,
so that gold can't get
underneath these riffles.
[narrator]
An extra spray nozzle
will mean more gold
will be washed off the rocks.
Come down
a little, Charlie.
I'm vertically challenged.
[narrator] Finally,
to try and catch
Oregon's flat gold,
one of ine Rescue's
longest ever sluice boxes
is lowered into place,
ready for riffles.
Yeah, Charlie.
-She looks good, Charlie.
-Looks good to me.
Let's do
a four-hour test run
and see how much
gold we get, huh?
[Charlie] All righty.
[Juan] Well, let's
light it, Freddy.
-There it is. Let's do it.
-There it is.
[narrator]
While on the job,
Juan's family
make a surprise visit
for his daughter Aiden's
fifth birthday.
All right,
let's go cut this up on
the back of the truck.
-You want a big piece, Aiden?
-[Aiden] With a bunch
of frosting on it.
[Juan]
The whole thing is frosting.
Here you go, little Freddy.
-[Freddy] There's a mess
waiting to happen.
-[Juan] Oh, yes.
-Big Freddy.
-Thank you, Juano.
-[Aiden] Thank you.
-I got frosting
all over my face.
[woman]
Like father, like son.
-Freddy and I should
probably get back to work.
-[Freddy] Yup.
-[Juan] All right.
-Thank you, Daddy.
-Double thank you.
-[Juan] You're welcome, kids.
All right, knuckles,
buddy. Ah!
-Bye, kids.
-[Freddy] Bye, kiddos.
-[Aiden] Bye, Dad.
-[Juan] Bye.
[speaking Spanish]
[in English]
Thank you, buddy.
-You're good.
-We're good to go.
Water on.
[narrator] On the Briscoes'
Eastern Oregon mine,
the upgraded wash plant
is loaded up
with virgin pay
from the working cut.
You wanna
fire up that trommel,
-see what it does?
-[Freddy] Yeah.
[narrator] Running the same
material as test one
will show if the fixes
have improved recovery.
Looking good.
-Looks good.
-[Freddy] Stop, Juano.
Let's make
some gold, Charlie.
First bucket.
Here it goes.
[narrator] In five days,
Freddy and Juan have revamped
the Briscoes' wash plant.
-That feels good, Juan.
-[Juan] That feels real good.
[narrator] To catch
Oregon's flat gold,
they've installed a custom
18-foot long sluice box
[Juan] Look at the chain.
It doesn't vary at all.
and the new drive chain.
So that means we were able
to get them centered
pretty good.
[Freddy] This side,
feed it a little bit faster.
-I think we can
get away with it.
-Okay.
[Freddy]
That expanded metal
on those tires.
Before, it couldn't run
any more material,
or it'd spin out, right?
There'd be so much weight
in the trommel.
But since
we put that on there,
he's got more traction.
[Charlie] We're putting
quite a bit of rock
through it,
and everything is handling
the load that we're giving it.
Because I guarantee you,
it wouldn't have
done it before.
[narrator]
With a stronger drive system,
Charlie can feed
almost double the pay
into the plant per hour.
-[Freddy] That rock's
a lot cleaner now, Juan.
-[Juan] Yup.
That spray bar
right at the end
really helped.
[narrator] An additional
spray bar ensures
all gold
is washed off the rocks
and caught in the
newly riffled up chute.
All in all, I'm really happy
with what we did here.
The plant's more reliable.
It's gonna be catching
a lot more gold as well.
-I'm proud of it.
-[Juan] Me, too.
[Freddy] That's it.
Last bucket, Charlie.
-I'm kind of anxious
to hear what they got to say.
-[Sheri] Me, too.
[Charlie]
'Cause how good our ground is
is whether or not
we're gonna make it
or we're gonna lose it.
-[Juan] We're back.
How we looking?
-[Freddy] Well?
[Charlie] It looks better,
but have we got the results
from the surveyors?
Yeah, just got them.
Me and Juan looked at 'em.
[narrator] The results
from the seismic test
will tell Charlie
how viable it is
to search for gold
at bedrock.
[Freddy]
Here's what you got here.
So you can see bedrock,
right here is where
we were digging.
-We dug that
20 foot hole right there.
-[Charlie] Right.
That's 30 feet to bedrock.
[narrator]
To reach bedrock,
Charlie would need
to clear tailings
across the claim,
then dig a 30 foot deep cut.
And who knows if there's
anything down there.
[narrator] A huge cost,
with no guaranteed gold
at the bottom.
Yeah, it's not worth it for us
to dig another 30 feet
to bedrock.
We hate being
the bearer of bad news.
-Yeah, but it's the truth,
and the truth means a lot.
-[Freddy] Yeah.
We needed to know.
-Pour it, Juano?
-[Juan] Yeah, I'll pour it.
[narrator]
Now, the Briscoes only hope
rests on Freddy
and Juan's fixes
making their existing pay
profitable enough
to continue.
Let me pour it, Fred.
I pour heavy.
[Sheri]
Yeah, pour heavy, Juan.
[Charlie]
Just passed last time.
-[Juan] That was
last time's right there.
-[Sheri] All right.
[Juan].04. Still more.
Well, there it is.
[Freddy] That's.15.
[narrator] Worth $345.
That's better than
what we had before.
-Three-and-a-half times.
-[Sheri] Absolutely. Yeah.
We went
above and beyond the gold
-that we were trying
to achieve on that part.
-[Juan] We did, we did.
All in all,
I think the fixes worked well.
-You can see right there.
-[Charlie] All positive.
[Juan] The proof's
right there in the pan.
[narrator]
In their current cut,
the upgraded recovery
would give the Briscoes
a 20-ounce season.
Far short of their
60-ounce season target.
But you guys said
when we first got here,
good, bad or indifferent,
let us know what we think.
So, my recommendation is
find some other ground.
There's quite a bit
of ground around here.
It just won't be
next to your house.
-[Sheri] That's convenient.
-[Juan] Separate work
and home
-if the thing works.
-[Charlie] Mm-hm.
You're right.
You have to commute
a little bit every day.
[Juan] But instead of you guys
just chasing your tailing
and wasting your money,
call it a year
and find a different
piece of property.
All the guesswork now
is out of this.
Totally.
I'm not out there digging,
hoping to get somewhere,
-you know?
-Yeah.
-Spending money we can put
toward something else.
-[Sheri] Yeah.
The truth is,
now you got a plant
that you know
that runs properly,
and that actually
catches the gold.
So, when there's
gold in the ground,
we'll have lots of gold
in that sluice box.
-Let's hope so.
-Yeah, you should.
Now, we talked about
the $5,000 for the material,
-we're gonna go ahead
and just call that.
-[Freddy] Yeah.
[Juan] You know,
we wanna cover
all of it, so
-[Charlie]
We appreciate that.
-That's really nice.
Thank you, Freddy.
-[Freddy] Welcome.
-[Sheri] Appreciate your time.
-Thank you, Juan.
-Charlie, you guys
are a pleasure.
Don't spend it all
on one place.
-Dinner.
-[Freddy] There you go.
[Juan] It's a decent
dinner, though.
-Take care, guys.
-Have it good now.
-[Charlie] Bye.
-Thank you. Travel safe.
It's disappointing,
but I like knowing the truth.
It stinks,
but it's nice to know.
Future is
what you make of it.
[Sheri] Yes, wise one.
[Juan] That particular
piece of ground is not
worth mining.
They have a plant.
The plant's properly tuned,
it's running right.
It's recovering gold.
Uh, well, they're better off
for us coming still.
[Sheri]
Those fixes to the plant,
they're incredible,
and that's gonna
really help us in the future,
wherever we decide to go,
'cause we will continue
to be gold miners.
The dream is not over.
Chasing my--
My rainbow is still there.
We're still gonna do this.
Charlie and Sheri's
future in gold mining
may not be one step out there
for it to work.
Maybe a mile from here,
maybe five miles,
or maybe ten miles.
But I guarantee you,
there's no give up
in these guys.
If there's gold in the ground,
they're gonna make success
out of it.
Good morning,
Freddy and Juan.
Thank you so much
for all your time,
and knowledge and wisdom
and friendship.
We are taking your advice
and moving on.
[Charlie] It's time
for the wash plant,
now that it's dialed in,
to uproot it
and capture plenty of gold.
We are off
to find our new pot
at the end of the rainbow,
as Charlie says.
And we are off to Nevada!
Where our new homestead's
gonna be.
Hope to see you soon.
We have color.
My wife and I have got
a little bit of gold fever.
You sure it's not pyrite?
No, it ain't pyrite.
It's gold.
We work this place
every day of our lives.
[Sheri] Gold mining
is what brought us up here.
We moved up here
to follow our dreams.
But it's all up
in the air right now.
I have this stack of bills.
It's scary. You feel like
you're drowning.
[Charlie] The old-timers took
gold out of the ground here.
So we got to
get deeper than that.
There is gold here
on this site,
but we just need to
see more of it.
We're $750,000 into this,
into debt.
The payments
have to be made
or we lose our mine site,
we lose the house,
we lose our equipment.
So everything
that I have sweated
blood, sweat and tears over,
we all lose.
[narrator] Freddy Dodge
I'd rather have gold
in the bank
than gold in the mountain.
and Juan Ibarra
Not bad
for built-in-the-field.
want to make you rich.
It turns your dream out here
into a reality.
[all laughing]
[narrator]
In the past five years,
the value of gold has doubled.
There's a $3,000 nugget
right there.
Whoo!
[narrator]
But rookie miners
[man] Whoa, whoa, whoa!
find it more elusive
than ever.
If we don't recover more gold,
then we could lose everything.
[narrator]
But there is hope
Miracles, they do happen.
to turn desperation
into fortune.
Freddy and Juan
have one week
What you just did is genius.
to deliver a golden payday.
They have a future,
and they know
what they need to do.
[Juan over radio] You know,
this part of Oregon, Fred,
has been hit pretty hard.
There's been a lot of mining.
You know, there's been
a lot of gold as well.
Well, this area had a
gold rush in the 1860s, Juan.
There would have probably been
thousands of prospectors
and thousands
of claims out here,
and then started
runnin' big equipment.
Those dredges was
the best they had at the time.
[narrator]
In northeastern Oregon,
Freddy and Juan journey
to the Briscoe Mine,
where a husband-and-wife team
work a 12-acre claim
in the historic gold-rich
Sumpter Valley.
In the early 1900s,
huge floating wash plants
known as dredges
mined 125,000 ounces
of gold in Sumpter,
worth more than $250 million
at today's prices.
The Briscoe Claim is covered
in the by-product,
known as tailings,
that the dredges left behind.
Yeah, even
up and down this highway,
you can see
all these tailings, Fred.
Everywhere.
They didn't wash
these rocks for nothin'.
There's been a lot of gold
pulled outa here.
[narrator] The Briscoes
may have an innovative idea
to get to the gold
the old-timers left behind,
but lack the know-how.
How's it goin', guys?
[Sheri] Good. How are you?
Welcome to our mine.
-Yeah.
-Hopefully, we can get
some answers out of you guys.
We are sittin' on a gold mine.
You can tell that.
But somebody else
has already mined most of it.
-Yeah.
-Yeah.
[Charlie]
The dredge went through
this valley three times.
[Freddy] Yeah.
So, is that what you guys
are strictly running
-is dredge tailings? 100%?
-No.
Dredge tailings
doesn't pay enough.
I'm actually deeper than
what the dredge did.
When we first started,
I actually was
in some virgin ground
that the dredge
didn't even touch.
We made money there.
Like, a 30-ounce payday.
But other than that
here lately,
it's been a hit-and-miss.
So how deep are you
in your cut right now?
We're at least
5 to 6 feet down
past where the dredge was.
[narrator] Charlie's cut
in the valley floor
is clear of tailings
and beneath the reach
of the old dredges.
[Charlie]
And it's a blue channel,
an antique river channel.
It's virgin ground,
never been mined.
[narrator] The Old Big Blue
is an ancient river channel
and a hotspot of Oregon's
1860s gold rush,
made up of gravels
that cemented together
over millions of years.
It runs from Montana
down through Oregon.
[Charlie]
It's harder than hard
about where
I set a tiger teeth out
on that excavator in
about 40 hours.
So what was your gold total
for last season?
We got about 5 ounces.
[Freddy] What are
you looking for this year?
About 60.
[Juan] Oh.
Do you--
There's a big difference?
[Freddy] 12 times.
-[Juan] Yeah.
-Yeah.
And gold prices are up
high enough now
to where
we're going to try to
make this a really good go.
[Sheri] That's right.
Gold mining is-- is
my passion.
I was out
playing with a gold pan
at the age of 12.
I was an agriculture engineer.
However, Sheri and I,
we decided that we wanna do
something for ourselves.
So we're gold miners.
[Sheri] I am very lucky to
be here with Charlie.
We've been together 17 years.
He does everything.
We built the house.
He has built
every piece of machinery.
He's built it
all from scratch.
I do everything I can to help.
I drive dump truck
when we're hauling.
I pay the bills and take care
of all the administration.
I love it.
I love this lifestyle.
But everything's
on the line right now.
[Charlie] I'm worried
about this season.
This is the year
it has to come together.
Hopefully it's in
Juan and Freddy's answers.
I have a lot of faith
in these guys.
This is our golden opportunity
to make this mine work.
[Juan] Now, what kind of gold
are you gettin' now?
-Is it pretty chunky or--
-No, it's actually fine gold.
[Freddy] You got some of it?
It's some pretty gold.
Yup.
[Charlie]
It goes 95%-97% pure,
but it's as light as paper.
Catching it with
just a typical sluice box,
I haven't had luck with that.
Let's do a 4-hour test.
See how much gold you get.
-Okay. Perfect.
-Awesome.
-[Sheri] Let's do it.
-Let's do it?
Charlie and Sheri
have a lot on the line here.
You know, they've got
just so much money invested,
so much time invested,
that every speck of gold
they can catch,
they can put in
their bank account, right?
[narrator] Virgin pay
from beneath the old dredge
is loaded
into a vibrating hopper,
which feeds into
a tire-driven trommel.
Gold-bearing material
is washed out through screens
and is recovered
using a spinning centrifuge,
instead of
a traditional sluice box.
Fine tailing leave
the end of the trommel
on a slick plate chute.
And the larger tailings
are removed
on a 50-foot-long conveyor.
[Juan] Looking at the cut,
I'm not real sure
how deep that dredge went.
But, you know, typically,
they go, what, 15-20 feet?
You know, a lot of times,
those dredges,
you know, they get into
that hard material,
and instead of
beating the dredge up,
they just skip over
the top of it.
That was the problem
with the dredges.
They couldn't see underwater.
But, you know, who knows
what's underneath there?
That's right.
You know, they really could
be in a channel there
where it's really rich.
You just gotta get to it.
That's exactly right.
If you look in here
you can actually
see all that material
that's on
the side of the belt.
That's all fine material
that should be going
down to the sluice box
and getting sluiced,
but it's not.
Realistically, you could be
probably losing 5%-10% gold
just because of that.
You know, basically,
you've got all that material
coming through
into a trommel to
get screened,
but there's nothing
to recover anything on it.
Nope. They never have.
-[Freddy] Never will.
-Nope.
One little bitty color
right there, Juan.
[narrator] No riffles
on the discharge chute
means gold is being lost
in the fine tailings.
[Charlie]
We get the issues of putting
too much material
in the hopper
and then it
overflows my trommel
and it slows it down.
[Freddy] Whoa.
Tire's spinnin', Juan.
[narrator] When the tire
driving the trommel slips,
it overstrains
the drive chain.
[Juan] Well, that tire
is a little bald
and there's no traction, so.
It's spinning out
when he's overloading it.
I just got
a little excited right here
and dumped a little bit
too much in the hopper
all at one time,
and that's not a good thing.
That's one
of the trouble spots.
The drive for the plant,
if it gets overloaded,
all you do is
start breaking that chain.
And when it breaks, you're
down for two to three hours.
The whole wash plant
is my design.
We built the centrifuge.
Homemade.
[narrator] Often used
for catching flat gold,
a centrifuge is
a powered drum on its side,
which spins quickly.
Pay moves through the barrel
and the heavier gold
gets stuck to
the inside of the plant
by centrifugal force.
I built this for about $3,000
and the regular one's 50.
So, we did good.
[Freddy] Well,
we did find gold,
you know, in the tailings.
You know, it's not
scrubbin' it
and washin' it
quite good enough.
There's still
a lot of material left
on those bigger rocks
comin' out.
Yeah. You know, and the
other issue that we really saw
was that drive system he has.
You know, the unreliability
is kind of what's killin' him
on his runtime.
Yeah, it's stoppin' him
during the runs.
-Last bucket.
-Last bucket.
We're cleaning out
this centrifuge.
So how long
does this process take you?
Forty-five minutes
to an hour.
Really? Wow.
[narrator]
The motor-driven centrifuge
that Charlie
uses to catch fine gold
must be shut down by hand.
[Freddy] I don't know.
I'm thinking that centrifuge
is time-consuming.
He got a neat plant here.
It's just got a few, uh
few little quirks in it
that are slowin' him down.
But we're gonna do the best
we can while we're here
to help him
catch that extra gold.
There's a lot ridin' on this.
Trying to make sure
Sheri and I have got a future.
Stakes are high.
[narrator] Coming up
[Juan]
I don't think it's movin'.
[Charlie] She won't move.
Plan B.
We're [bleep].
No questions, please.
Seriously.
-Let's see what it is.
-[Freddy] The moment of truth,
eh, Juan?
Yup.
[narrator] At the Briscoe Mine
in Oregon
Hi, guys.
-Hello.
-How you doin'?
Good.
the results are in
from the 4-hour test
on Charlie's wash plant.
-[Freddy] Got 'er all done.
-[Sheri] Here, Freddy.
Ooh, that's not much gold.
-Oh.
-No.
0.1, 0.2, 0.3.
0.04.
[Freddy] 0.04.
Yeesh. So
Can't forget
that zero in front of it.
$85-$90 worth of gold,
is all for four hours.
We didn't even pay for fuel.
-No.
-[Juan] No.
That's not good, guys.
We did notice a few things
that we can improve on
on the plant,
as far as recovery.
Uh, but I think a big part
of what we need to do here
is-- is your ground.
You do agree that's an
ancient river channel, though?
[Freddy] Right now,
we're guessin'.
We'd like to find somebody
that really
knows the area well
and pick their brain.
It'll give me
a lot better insight.
Yeah. Wonderful.
If it is an ancient riverbed,
you know,
that could be
your best gold there.
We'll come up
with a game plan as well.
-We'll come back
and talk to you guys.
-Talk to you soon.
-Thank you, guys.
-Here's your gold.
[Sheri] I was expecting
more than that.
Absolutely.
I'm not disappointed
in this pan
because
I've dealt with this before.
It is what it is, but, um
doesn't pay my bills that
I have on my desk.
We've got a multitude
of issues goin' on here.
Number one, is there
enough gold in the ground?
Yeah.
That's something we're gonna
have to go out and figure out.
Hopefully there's more gold
deeper in that blue channel.
[narrator] Working out
if there's more gold
in the old dredge channel
is critical.
But Freddy and Juan
must also fix
the problems with the plant.
We really need
to focus on that drive system.
He's got a real small chain
on there driving that trommel.
Yeah.
The trommel itself,
it's startin' to slip.
-Yeah.
-That's something we need
to focus on as well.
On his conveyor,
the tailings are comin' out.
He has an entire circuit here
that isn't
recovering any gold.
This all needs
to be riffled out.
-[Juan] Yeah.
-What do you think next?
You know, I know he
put that centrifuge in there
because he was worried about
losing fine gold.
-Mmm-hmm.
-But he's probably spending,
I bet
$15-$20 an hour in extra fuel.
Forget that centrifuge.
-Put it in the scrap iron pile
over there.
-Yeah.
[narrator]
To improve the reliability
and increase
the recovery of the plant,
Freddy and Juan will upgrade
the trommel's drive system
to a larger 80-gauge setup
and add
an expanded steel strip
to provide more traction
for the drive wheel.
Gold is being lost
out the end of the trommel
on unwashed rocks.
An extra spray nozzle
will blast pay
into the discharge chute,
where a new carpet and riffles
will recover gold
that would have been lost.
Finally, they'll remove
the inefficient centrifuge,
but keep the layout
of the plant
by replacing it
with an 18-foot sluice,
one of the longest
in ine Rescue history.
But all this lies
on their ambitious plan
to reach the potentially
gold-rich ground
in the Old Blue Channel.
Freddy and I,
what we think we can do
is make your plant
more reliable.
And catch more gold.
[Charlie] Okay.
Starting out with, uh--
one thing that you pointed out
was your drive system.
We're gonna go up
to that 80 size chain.
-Okay.
-And so we'll have to do
new sprockets on the drive
and also on the trommel side.
[Freddy]
Part of the drive system, too,
I wanna take a 3/4 flat
and expand it
and put a ring of it
around where your tire is,
so you're not spinnin' out.
For traction.
[Juan]
That's gonna cover the
reliability side of the plant.
The recovery side,
we noticed a few things.
You know, I know on that--
on the larger tailings
that you have coming out,
there's a lot of
fine material on it still.
So that means you're gonna
be losing gold as well.
[Juan] We wanna address that.
Now, on the other side
of the recovery system,
where you
have your centrifuge
I know you worked hard
on that centrifuge, Charlie.
You did
a great job building it.
But, honestly,
for the plant you have,
I think it's
just a bottleneck.
-It's costing you money.
-Yeah.
We would like to move
that centrifuge out of there.
Yeah, I built everything
that's out there,
including the centrifuge.
But
if it needs to go
to enhance the operation,
then let's do that.
Yeah.
Okay.
But what we wanna do
is we actually wanna put
a sluice run there,
set up for fine gold recovery.
[Freddy]
And recover more gold.
[Juan] We need
to focus on that cut
and try to figure out
what's down there.
[Freddy] Take your Track-O
down there
and just play with it
a little bit.
-Okay.
-[Juan] Yup.
Wear a set of your teeth out.
-Okay.
-[Juan] All that being said,
you know, what we kind of
figured on material on that,
for building a new box,
riffling it all up,
-the drive system--
-[Freddy] Carpets.
Carpets, nozzle,
everything else,
we're looking at about
$5,000 in material.
Okay.
On our labor, uh,
we're willing to
do all of it for free.
We know you guys
are in a tough spot.
So, how can Sheri and I help?
-Deal, then.
-Deal.
[Juan chuckles] Perfect.
-[Charlie chuckles]
-Thank you, Freddy.
-[Freddy] You're welcome.
-[Charlie] Deal.
[Juan]
I'm genuinely nervous here
because Sheri and Charlie
are losing money
and going broke.
The gold weigh was so low.
So, uh,
we're gonna do our best
and we're gonna throw in
the labor for free.
It's gonna be
interesting to see
what Freddy comes up with
in the hole, in the cut.
[Sheri]
That's what I'm excited about.
That-- that's the one that--
That's where it's at now.
But I'm really happy that
we're gonna get these problems
fixed on the plant
on the recovery side.
That's gonna be perfect.
We're gonna get ready
to cut out the boxes
for-- for Charlie here.
So, I got it
all programmed in.
I'm gonna get it, uh,
ready to start cuttin'.
[narrator]
Juan's plasma cutter
slices through steel
at 25,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
On Charlie and Sheri's plant,
they have a centrifuge,
and, unfortunately, it's
just not working properly.
And by going to
a regular sluice box,
we'll be able to increase
their throughput
and also their gold recovery
by at least 20%.
Are we ready?
[Charlie] Go ahead.
[narrator]
Charlie and Sheri remove
the inefficient centrifuge.
I've been runnin' loader
probably about five years now.
Just learned
how to operate 'em.
And watch
Charlie's hand signals.
We're a great team
and work well together.
[Charlie] You gotta get it
around this corner.
We're out of the hole.
All right. Success.
It takes a lot longer
to put it in
than it did
to take it out.
Good job.
So that's
the first hurdle over
so we can get the gold.
I'm going to see
a gentleman named Darold.
He's a local miner,
prospector,
historian type guy.
My goal is to find somebody
that knows the geology
of this riverbed.
So, hopefully,
he can help us figure out
a little bit more
about the area.
-Mr. Freddy Dodge.
-How's it goin', sir?
-Good. Glad to meet you.
-Glad to meet you.
Well
I came to pick your brain,
to be honest with you.
Well, we'll see
what's in there to pick,
-I guess. [chuckles]
-[laughing]
[Freddy] So you know Charlie,
I assume.
-Oh, yeah.
-Yeah, we're here
helping him out.
Got any maps of the area
we can look at?
Got some old ones.
Sometimes old ones
are the best ones.
-This is from 1900.
-Okay.
Basically, right here
all the way up
is where the dredge
dredges went.
This was a very rich valley
when they first discovered it.
So that's the Sumpter gold
you're after.
It's that flat, flat gold.
Now, that's
what the dredges got.
When I first moved up
in the area,
the guys would tell me
that they would
be running that dredge
and they'd
hit a pocket of gold
and them sluice boxes
would just turn yellow.
It only went 18 feet.
-That's it, huh?
-You just gotta get
down below that 18 feet.
Yeah.
You get down into
that virgin material.
So we did
a first test run there
and it was pretty weak.
-Yeah.
-So it's virgin material,
but it's a conglomerate.
It's really hard
older-looking material.
-That's interesting.
-All the rocks are gray.
Gray and blue.
That means you're into
the Old Blue Channel.
Um, the big Placer Mine
just up the road here,
well, the same thing.
They ran into
those blue gravels.
And when they got down
to the bedrocks,
they would find
balls of gold wrapped up.
-Hmm.
-And they would unwrap 'em
and they were gold ribbons,
about inch,
inch-and-a-half wide
and about 6 inches long.
[Freddy] Hmm.
[narrator]
Ribbon gold is rare
and can be very valuable
due to its high density.
Has he got down to
the actual bedrock itself?
-No.
-No.
Yeah, he needs to get down
to the actual bedrock.
Yup. Yup.
It shouldn't be real deep.
Might be 15-20 feet.
That would be my--
my guesstimation.
Well, we'll try to figure out
a way to find that out.
And then we just hope
that there's gold under it.
There's definitely gold
here in this Valley, Freddy.
[narrator] To have any chance
of hitting the mother lode,
Freddy needs to identify
the depth of bedrock
at Charlie and Sheri's claim.
Gold's goal in life
is to try to get to the
center of the Earth, right?
It's heavy and it sinks.
It could be a foot deeper
than we are now.
It could be 15 feet deeper.
I don't know.
You gotta try.
Right? Nothin' ventured,
nothing gained.
[Freddy] Your best gold's
on bedrock.
[Charlie] Right.
[narrator] On the
Briscoe Claim in Oregon
You know, it's a tough one
'cause we don't know.
Is bedrock
20 feet? Is it 50 feet?
Is it 75 feet?
[narrator] Freddy
takes Charlie on a mission
to find bedrock.
Let's just dig a hole
and see what we find.
All righty.
Yeah, take a little out of the
bottom there, Charlie, and
put it over here,
and let's pan it.
Yes, sir.
[Freddy on radio] Thank you.
[narrator] Freddy's goal,
to determine
the richest layers of pay
in the ancient river channel.
[Freddy] Well, we still
wanna test our way down
because if this stuff
pays the same
as your first test, Charlie,
then you just gotta
get rid of it.
It doesn't need
to be wearing your plant out.
-Right.
-So
This becomes overburden.
It's just garbage.
Three little bitty colors.
It's no good.
No good at all.
Deeper we go.
-Yeah.
-Okay.
[Freddy]
Let's keep goin' down.
All righty.
[Freddy] Those three
little colors in that test,
I'm guessing that that
was probably
maybe 50 cents a yard.
Can't make it
on 50 cents a yard.
Nothin'.
Nothin' in the pan.
No gold.
[Freddy] Well,
we're as deep as we can get.
Nothin'.
Absolutely nothin'.
[Charlie] The proof is not
in the pudding.
[narrator] 18 feet down,
the excavator hits its limit,
but no sign of bedrock
or gold.
We punched a hole
and it was pretty depressing.
But he's got more land here.
Just because
there's no gold down there
doesn't mean
there's no gold over there
or over there
or over there, right?
You know, you might ask,
"How deep's bedrock here?"
Well, I have no idea.
And I wish I could
see through the rocks
and tell you
what's down there,
but I can't.
But I know a man who can.
[narrator] While Freddy
calls in reinforcements
in the critical hunt for
gold at bedrock,
Juan's focus is to upgrade
the plant to catch it.
I got all the pieces cut out
for the new sluice box.
This is the first run.
This is the 10-foot run.
And I have one more 8-foot run
that I'm gonna build.
All right, Charlie.
While you're doing this,
I'll start getting
some measurements.
If you wanna finish
that weld there
and start welding
the tops here,
the backsides of these.
Looking good, Charlie.
You know,
I'll be your assistant.
You can be the welder.
-Yep.
-You good with that?
All righty.
Over the years, I've had
people help me here and there.
But Charlie's one of
the few guys
that is
actually helping me that
really knows what he's doin'.
I think it's great
to see Charlie
working with Freddy and Juan.
They get along great.
And it's just really
cool to see
all three of
them working together
and just kind of
like a well-oiled machine.
Well, we're looking
really good, Charlie.
During that first test run,
the drive tire,
which is on the other side,
kept spinning out.
So what we're gonna do is
wrap this around here
like this, and you can see
that tire will
be able to grip this.
So it's just, uh
just for traction.
That's strictly what it's for.
But it'll work.
Well, what we're doing
is called hot tacking.
While the weld's still hot,
hit it with a hammer.
And then it smashes it down
and ties it together.
See? Now our gap's gone.
[narrator] For just $250,
Freddy fixes a major problem.
This may seem
like a simple fix,
but, uh
over time,
it's gonna make this plant
run a lot more hours, right?
And every hour
this plant's not runnin',
it's not makin' gold.
[narrator] At the trommel
All right, that's not movin'.
[Charlie] She won't move.
Juan's mission to increase
production and reliability
rests on being able to remove
and upgrade the sprocket.
Plan B.
[Freddy]
When you heat something up,
it expands, right?
So we wanna heat
that hub up
without heatin' the shaft up.
[Juan] How much has it
moved at all, Fred?
It hasn't.
So our job went
from tough to tougher.
[Freddy] We just gotta
put it back together, Juan.
I hate that.
I know, but [bleep].
[sighs] Ah, [bleep].
[Freddy] It's stuck.
We're [bleep].
No questions, please.
Seriously.
[Freddy] That gear box
is from the '50s.
[Juan chuckles] Yeah.
That's probably been on there
since it was new.
[narrator] On the Briscoe Mine
in Sumpter Oregon,
work hits a standstill.
[Freddy] She ain't comin' off.
[narrator] The trommel's
gearbox sprocket
is stuck fast on the shaft.
I hate to be all this way,
and not
at least try to fix it.
[Charlie] That sprocket's
gotta come off
if we're gonna make this work.
[Juan] Well,
let's loosen that box up.
Let's get it out,
and see if we can't
work on it out here.
[Charlie] We still gotta
get this sprocket off,
so we're gonna come in now
and pick this up
and get it out of here.
It wants to be stubborn,
but I think
we're gonna win this war.
[Juan] Ready to pull it out?
[Charlie] It's ready to
do something.
Come on in.
Come straight in.
Go that way a little.
Doing a good job, Sheri.
Keep comin'.
There you go. You're there.
[Freddy] Charlie and Sheri,
they're a great team.
They're the right hand
and the left hand.
They work together
extremely well.
[Charlie] There you go.
[Juan] Good job, Sheri.
Come up a little bit.
Tilt it back.
Keep goin'.
It's yours.
[Charlie] Take it over
some place where we care.
[Juan] We're out of
our element right now.
We don't have a press here,
so we kind of made
our own little press.
We're using the forks
of our loader
with a piece of beam on top,
a square tube and this plate,
and, uh, just a bottle jack.
You know, it's what we have.
We're gonna use it.
Hopefully
we can get this loose.
[narrator] Juan's bush fix,
use static loader force
and an iron beam
to act as a sealant.
A bottle jack pushes
the central shaft down
to release the gearbox.
[Juan] We've tried
a couple other things.
Nothing else
will get it loose.
[Charlie] There it goes.
[Juan] There it is.
[Charlie] It's gotta
be getting close.
[Juan] I would say so.
Oh, yeah. We're there.
There it is.
Success!
We won the war.
[narrator]
With the sprocket now free,
Juan can
upgrade the drive system.
We just gotta keep
our nose to the grindstone,
keep on working right now.
Uh, you know,
we're burning daylight.
So, we gotta keep at it.
We're going to take
this tire over here to Juan
so he can
rework that sprocket,
get the new sprocket
put on here,
so we can get
this put back together.
[Juan] So this gives you
a reference
of what the difference is
in the chain.
This is the chain
that Charlie was using before,
and this is what
we're gonna be using now.
What he's had in the past,
is this chain
gets a little sloppy
and it ends up stretching
and it'll break.
We're hoping,
by going from a 60 chain
to an 80 chain,
we'll be able to eliminate
those problems that
he's having.
Obviously, if we're going
from the lighter chain
to the bigger chain,
we're gonna have
to change the sprockets,
and that's why
we're doing all this work.
[narrator] Juan adapts
a sprocket to fit
the new drive wheel.
We already got
the wheel hub built for it.
This is gonna be the drive.
This is actually
what's gonna drive
the trommel now.
[narrator] And recycles
an old sprocket
from Charlie's boneyard.
Fortunately,
Charlie had a 32 sprocket
that we were able to use.
That is the right pitch,
the 80, number 80 chain.
So, I had to get the old hub
with the old sprockets.
I cut it all off,
and I reused that hub
and welded this sprocket
onto that existing hub.
So we'll be able
to put that on the--
The drive.
I feel confident.
Now, I know we can
give it done.
[Freddy] This is Freddy.
Oh, okay.
So you're on the mine side.
-[Dan] Yup.
-Okay.
You'll see
my, uh, welding truck.
[narrator] On the hunt
for gold-rich bedrock,
Freddy's special task force
arrives on site.
-[Freddy] How's it going?
-[Dan] Hey, Freddy.
How you doing?
-Doing all right. Dan?
-Yeah, Dan Kramer.
-Dan. Your name, sir?
-[Kurt] Hi.
-Kurt Kramer.
-Kurt. Nice to meet you, Kurt.
[narrator] Dan Kramer
and his dad, Kurt,
specialize in underground
geological mapping.
We're hoping
if we can find bedrock,
there's better gold
on bedrock.
But this isn't--
The surface of this
is not worth running.
[Dan] We can't tell you
how much gold there is,
-but we can tell you bedrock.
-Yeah.
We'll get you
some good data.
There's no--
-No question about it.
-Yeah.
-Thank you, guys.
-Yeah, absolutely.
-[Freddy]
I'll see you in a bit.
-[Dan] All righty.
[narrator] Using a process
known as seismic refraction,
the team can measure
the depth to bedrock
across Charlie's claim.
We're setting up
our seismic sensors.
They're called geophones.
We're hooking them up
onto our survey line.
We're gonna
hit the ground hard
to make a seismic noise.
Kind of like a shockwave.
-[device beeps]
-Yup.
-[device beeps]
-One more.
-[device beeps]
-Yeah, we got it.
That shockwave,
the time that it takes
to hit the bedrock
and bounce back up
to the seismic sensor,
we're gonna record that.
That's gonna tell us
the depth of bedrock.
Within one to three feet.
[narrator] Seismic waves
travel into the ground,
refracting off the bedrock
and bouncing back up
to the geophones
along the surface.
The data recorded will create
a two-dimensional
underground map
showing the depth to bedrock
on part of Charlie's claim.
[Dan] We're gonna take
all of that data.
After processing it,
this is for a different site.
But we're going to produce
an image like this.
A 2D cross-section
looking into the ground.
So, imagine the line
along the top of the
ground surface here.
We're looking down
into the ground.
Bedrock is here.
And these are
softer soils above it.
Kurtis Kramer has
such a good swing, my dad,
because he's been logging
for 81 years.
And he can swing the hammer
like he's still 20 years old.
Go ahead.
-[device beeps]
-One more.
Like a shotgun.
Thank you, Dad.
[Juan] Good job, Sheri.
Over there.
[narrator]
Freddy and Juan's fixes
are ready to be installed,
starting with
the new drive chain.
[Freddy]
Oh, look at that, Charlie.
[Charlie] Line up perfect.
[Freddy]
That's the dog's notch
right there, bud.
It's brilliant
to see this come together.
This is where Charlie's
oversized material
was going down.
And we've got
this chute right here
that we can catch gold in.
We'll riff one up
and make it into
a gold catcher,
not a chute.
[narrator] Adding riffles
to the slick chute
should mean more gold.
[Freddy] Getting the
wedge system in here
with wood, wood wedges.
So it will really
lock that down tight
so it pushes them
into the carpet,
so that gold can't get
underneath these riffles.
[narrator]
An extra spray nozzle
will mean more gold
will be washed off the rocks.
Come down
a little, Charlie.
I'm vertically challenged.
[narrator] Finally,
to try and catch
Oregon's flat gold,
one of ine Rescue's
longest ever sluice boxes
is lowered into place,
ready for riffles.
Yeah, Charlie.
-She looks good, Charlie.
-Looks good to me.
Let's do
a four-hour test run
and see how much
gold we get, huh?
[Charlie] All righty.
[Juan] Well, let's
light it, Freddy.
-There it is. Let's do it.
-There it is.
[narrator]
While on the job,
Juan's family
make a surprise visit
for his daughter Aiden's
fifth birthday.
All right,
let's go cut this up on
the back of the truck.
-You want a big piece, Aiden?
-[Aiden] With a bunch
of frosting on it.
[Juan]
The whole thing is frosting.
Here you go, little Freddy.
-[Freddy] There's a mess
waiting to happen.
-[Juan] Oh, yes.
-Big Freddy.
-Thank you, Juano.
-[Aiden] Thank you.
-I got frosting
all over my face.
[woman]
Like father, like son.
-Freddy and I should
probably get back to work.
-[Freddy] Yup.
-[Juan] All right.
-Thank you, Daddy.
-Double thank you.
-[Juan] You're welcome, kids.
All right, knuckles,
buddy. Ah!
-Bye, kids.
-[Freddy] Bye, kiddos.
-[Aiden] Bye, Dad.
-[Juan] Bye.
[speaking Spanish]
[in English]
Thank you, buddy.
-You're good.
-We're good to go.
Water on.
[narrator] On the Briscoes'
Eastern Oregon mine,
the upgraded wash plant
is loaded up
with virgin pay
from the working cut.
You wanna
fire up that trommel,
-see what it does?
-[Freddy] Yeah.
[narrator] Running the same
material as test one
will show if the fixes
have improved recovery.
Looking good.
-Looks good.
-[Freddy] Stop, Juano.
Let's make
some gold, Charlie.
First bucket.
Here it goes.
[narrator] In five days,
Freddy and Juan have revamped
the Briscoes' wash plant.
-That feels good, Juan.
-[Juan] That feels real good.
[narrator] To catch
Oregon's flat gold,
they've installed a custom
18-foot long sluice box
[Juan] Look at the chain.
It doesn't vary at all.
and the new drive chain.
So that means we were able
to get them centered
pretty good.
[Freddy] This side,
feed it a little bit faster.
-I think we can
get away with it.
-Okay.
[Freddy]
That expanded metal
on those tires.
Before, it couldn't run
any more material,
or it'd spin out, right?
There'd be so much weight
in the trommel.
But since
we put that on there,
he's got more traction.
[Charlie] We're putting
quite a bit of rock
through it,
and everything is handling
the load that we're giving it.
Because I guarantee you,
it wouldn't have
done it before.
[narrator]
With a stronger drive system,
Charlie can feed
almost double the pay
into the plant per hour.
-[Freddy] That rock's
a lot cleaner now, Juan.
-[Juan] Yup.
That spray bar
right at the end
really helped.
[narrator] An additional
spray bar ensures
all gold
is washed off the rocks
and caught in the
newly riffled up chute.
All in all, I'm really happy
with what we did here.
The plant's more reliable.
It's gonna be catching
a lot more gold as well.
-I'm proud of it.
-[Juan] Me, too.
[Freddy] That's it.
Last bucket, Charlie.
-I'm kind of anxious
to hear what they got to say.
-[Sheri] Me, too.
[Charlie]
'Cause how good our ground is
is whether or not
we're gonna make it
or we're gonna lose it.
-[Juan] We're back.
How we looking?
-[Freddy] Well?
[Charlie] It looks better,
but have we got the results
from the surveyors?
Yeah, just got them.
Me and Juan looked at 'em.
[narrator] The results
from the seismic test
will tell Charlie
how viable it is
to search for gold
at bedrock.
[Freddy]
Here's what you got here.
So you can see bedrock,
right here is where
we were digging.
-We dug that
20 foot hole right there.
-[Charlie] Right.
That's 30 feet to bedrock.
[narrator]
To reach bedrock,
Charlie would need
to clear tailings
across the claim,
then dig a 30 foot deep cut.
And who knows if there's
anything down there.
[narrator] A huge cost,
with no guaranteed gold
at the bottom.
Yeah, it's not worth it for us
to dig another 30 feet
to bedrock.
We hate being
the bearer of bad news.
-Yeah, but it's the truth,
and the truth means a lot.
-[Freddy] Yeah.
We needed to know.
-Pour it, Juano?
-[Juan] Yeah, I'll pour it.
[narrator]
Now, the Briscoes only hope
rests on Freddy
and Juan's fixes
making their existing pay
profitable enough
to continue.
Let me pour it, Fred.
I pour heavy.
[Sheri]
Yeah, pour heavy, Juan.
[Charlie]
Just passed last time.
-[Juan] That was
last time's right there.
-[Sheri] All right.
[Juan].04. Still more.
Well, there it is.
[Freddy] That's.15.
[narrator] Worth $345.
That's better than
what we had before.
-Three-and-a-half times.
-[Sheri] Absolutely. Yeah.
We went
above and beyond the gold
-that we were trying
to achieve on that part.
-[Juan] We did, we did.
All in all,
I think the fixes worked well.
-You can see right there.
-[Charlie] All positive.
[Juan] The proof's
right there in the pan.
[narrator]
In their current cut,
the upgraded recovery
would give the Briscoes
a 20-ounce season.
Far short of their
60-ounce season target.
But you guys said
when we first got here,
good, bad or indifferent,
let us know what we think.
So, my recommendation is
find some other ground.
There's quite a bit
of ground around here.
It just won't be
next to your house.
-[Sheri] That's convenient.
-[Juan] Separate work
and home
-if the thing works.
-[Charlie] Mm-hm.
You're right.
You have to commute
a little bit every day.
[Juan] But instead of you guys
just chasing your tailing
and wasting your money,
call it a year
and find a different
piece of property.
All the guesswork now
is out of this.
Totally.
I'm not out there digging,
hoping to get somewhere,
-you know?
-Yeah.
-Spending money we can put
toward something else.
-[Sheri] Yeah.
The truth is,
now you got a plant
that you know
that runs properly,
and that actually
catches the gold.
So, when there's
gold in the ground,
we'll have lots of gold
in that sluice box.
-Let's hope so.
-Yeah, you should.
Now, we talked about
the $5,000 for the material,
-we're gonna go ahead
and just call that.
-[Freddy] Yeah.
[Juan] You know,
we wanna cover
all of it, so
-[Charlie]
We appreciate that.
-That's really nice.
Thank you, Freddy.
-[Freddy] Welcome.
-[Sheri] Appreciate your time.
-Thank you, Juan.
-Charlie, you guys
are a pleasure.
Don't spend it all
on one place.
-Dinner.
-[Freddy] There you go.
[Juan] It's a decent
dinner, though.
-Take care, guys.
-Have it good now.
-[Charlie] Bye.
-Thank you. Travel safe.
It's disappointing,
but I like knowing the truth.
It stinks,
but it's nice to know.
Future is
what you make of it.
[Sheri] Yes, wise one.
[Juan] That particular
piece of ground is not
worth mining.
They have a plant.
The plant's properly tuned,
it's running right.
It's recovering gold.
Uh, well, they're better off
for us coming still.
[Sheri]
Those fixes to the plant,
they're incredible,
and that's gonna
really help us in the future,
wherever we decide to go,
'cause we will continue
to be gold miners.
The dream is not over.
Chasing my--
My rainbow is still there.
We're still gonna do this.
Charlie and Sheri's
future in gold mining
may not be one step out there
for it to work.
Maybe a mile from here,
maybe five miles,
or maybe ten miles.
But I guarantee you,
there's no give up
in these guys.
If there's gold in the ground,
they're gonna make success
out of it.
Good morning,
Freddy and Juan.
Thank you so much
for all your time,
and knowledge and wisdom
and friendship.
We are taking your advice
and moving on.
[Charlie] It's time
for the wash plant,
now that it's dialed in,
to uproot it
and capture plenty of gold.
We are off
to find our new pot
at the end of the rainbow,
as Charlie says.
And we are off to Nevada!
Where our new homestead's
gonna be.
Hope to see you soon.