Hoffman Family Gold (2022) s02e03 Episode Script

1
Two weeks into gold season,
the Hoffman's are behind
with only 76 ounces.
We've kind of fallen back,
but we're going forward.
Now they must average
92 ounces a week
to hit their 1,000
ounce benchmark.
We haven't seen
rain in a long time.
But extreme weather threatens
to bring a sudden end
Super worried about the water. If we
can't sluice, we can't catch the gold.
As drought conditions
We could use a good rainy day.
Turn to heavy rains
Look at it. My gosh.
Everybody shut down.
All hands on deck.
That threaten to
wipe the mine
All the water is just
pouring down doll!
Off the map.
A month and half worth of
work right down the drain.
It's all hands on deck for a
battle of biblical proportions
We got a situation!
Where everything is on the line.
If this water gets into
that cut, we're screwed.
Last year we had
unseasonable rain.
Highest amount
of rain on record.
This year is just the total opposite.
We haven't seen rain in a long time.
Now we've got
fires coming through.
And, there's a beautiful
mountain range over there,
but you can't see it
because of all the smoke.
Most of our foliage is pulled back,
away from our domes and everything,
so we're okay if the fire
should come through.
I really hope it doesn't
happen, 'cause that's a bad day.
My only fear is, is that we
won't have enough water.
We're running out, real quick.
There is rain in the
forecast, but it's a ways out.
And, boy, we could use
just a good rainy day.
The river is way down.
And I'm a little worried
this is, this is only July,
and we've got a long ways to go.
I'm super worried about the
water. We've got a drought going on.
I am running. It is,
it's hot and dusty,
but how long we
can run? I don't know.
We don't have
enough water to sluice,
and if we can't sluice,
we can't catch the gold.
This new pay is
gonna go so fast.
It's dry. It's running quick.
I've never seen it like this.
Usually it's raining.
With the black Pearl
still disassembled
and weeks away
from being operational,
Todd will keep the holy roller
going until they run out of water.
I really want to get
a thousand ounces.
The holy roller is running
two eight-inch suctions,
with an eight inch out
to the manifold system.
That pump in itself will probably
move about 3,000 gallons a minute.
That is a ton of water.
This truck holds a
thousand gallons.
Now imagine moving this
truck every minute, three times.
So we're trying to pull water
from everywhere we can.
This water that I'm getting today
is going on the roads of camp.
The roads are as
dusty as can be.
So we need to keep that dust down so that
we don't have any silica dust in our lungs.
But I had to come
to the river to get it,
because there wasn't enough
in the doll to fill the tank.
This drought is serious.
Where I'm standing at right now, I would
have been 15 feet underwater right here.
But not this year. This year,
we're only at four feet. It's ridiculous.
I'm a little worried that we're gonna
have water to make it through the year.
We have one of the finest
trommels I've ever seen.
But, if we don't have any
water to run through the sluices,
or enough water to
run through the sluices?
We can pack it up and go home.
No water? No gold.
Here we go.
Now that I've got the
thousand gallons of water,
add in an extra 8,000 pounds
and I've gotta get it up the hill.
We all woke up this morning to the
smoke that blew in from the forest fire.
And you're breathing
it all day. It's not easy.
But there's absolutely
nothing that's gonna stop me
from working on the black
Pearl and getting it running.
Hunter recently purchased a large
wash plant he nicknamed the black Pearl.
In order to haul it to the mining
site, he had to cut it into three pieces.
The base, the trommel,
and the hopper.
Now, hunter and sparky must refurbish
each part before they can reassemble it.
- What's up, my brother?
- What's up, g?
So after we've
cleaned up these rings,
maybe we can fix that support
beam where the old guys up bad.
- Dude, that's so fricking bent.
- Yeah.
Some of the older guys came in,
for whatever reason, they felt like it was
their job to unload all of our wash plant.
- Whoa!
- Hold on!
- Whoa!
- Stop!
I can't even look at this!
- Hang on!
- - Hold on and we'll get that!
How are we going to
weld it back together,
- when you're dragging it on the ground?
- Don't worry about it.
Now we have to
take more work time,
more time that we could have
been building on this frame.
- Building that divider that we need to do.
- Yeah.
Like, and these guys, like, it felt
like they didn't care about our stuff.
Like, I genuinely
don't appreciate that.
Well, I already
brought it up with them.
And I already expressed to them
how I feel about them doing this.
And it is what it is. It's like, we're
just gonna fix it. And, you know.
The victory is
going to be sweeter.
Nobody on our entire
crew, not my dad, not Andy,
not any of these guys, they've
never taken a trommel this size,
cut it completely apart, trucked it all
the way out to the middle of nowhere,
reassembled it, and
gold mined with it.
And that's what I'm about to do. So
I can't wait to see this thing running.
Dude.
You know, I prayed about things.
I said, "god, we need water."
Now I'm having to say, "god,
turn it off, please." You know?
Right now, we've
got too much water.
As the storm builds,
the fear of potentially not having
enough water to run the mine
quickly turns to anxiety
that there's too much water.
Yeah, I got a copy.
Is it really that much
water coming down?
Okay, everybody shut
down. All hands on deck.
Todd knows that too much water
can end the season in an instant.
He mobilizes all crew members.
I just got a call from Andy, he says
all the water is just pouring down doll.
The ancient river
bed is flooding.
We're gonna go up there
and just see what we can do.
Look at this. It's already
come up at least a foot.
It hasn't even begun.
And we've got two
inches of rain coming.
So what happens if doll
creek, I use that term loosely.
That's a river. It's gonna
be a river in a minute.
What happens if that
breaks into that pay dirt?
It's gonna dilute it. It's gonna wash
most of it downstream, dilute it all out.
Put mud in on top of it.
We go to four to five ounces a hundred
to, I don't know. An ounce, half ounce?
All we can do is, start
putting in overflows.
Whatever we've gotta
do to save the cut.
Dang. We go from
drought to tropical rains.
It was Jack's fault. He
started praying really hard.
Yeah, maybe tell him
to back off a little bit.
I'm gonna have him
back off on those prayers,
because if this water gets
into that cut, we're screwed.
We need to get more
berms. Put in some overflows,
and if you need help, we'll put all
hands on deck and let's just fight for it.
Okay, we've got our
work cut out for us.
All right. Good luck.
Stay in touch on me.
All right.
You know, Todd has put a
lot of responsibility on me.
I don't know how
to do everything.
There's a lot of things I get in
and start doing and I figure it out.
This is one that could
be way over my head.
With the floodwaters rising,
Andy has his hands full trying
to protect the ancient riverbed.
I don't know how high up
the water level is gonna go,
so I'm gonna put some dirt on these
berms, try to get them a little bit higher.
And hope for the best.
If floodwaters wash
into the ancient riverbed,
their one thousand ounce
gold may wash away with it.
What are you gonna
do, pack it in there, Andy?
Yeah, we'll get these
things built up as best I can.
With the team spread out, the
holy roller remains shut down,
and Todd moves further behind.
They move quickly to save their
water system and their season.
All we wanna do is
build these berms up,
because if we get a
flash flood down here,
it's gonna go up
over the top, boom!
If this sucker runs over
into that cut right there,
we might as well just
pack up and go home.
It's a lot of weight
on Andy's shoulders.
I've gotta make sure
this stuff is done right.
So Andy's dipping into some
of our best pay dirt right there,
to actually go and put it on the
berm, because it's actually waterproof.
Yeah. This stuff's
fresh, but it packs good,
so we'll use it to save the
cut. We can get it back later.
I can't believe we're using this
rich pay dirt right here for the berm,
but, I don't know. I think it's
the less of two weevils, bud.
Got it? All right, good,
because I don't want to put
any more of that pay dirt on there.
Everything is about
water. Managing water.
Keeping dirty water
here. Clean water here.
And no water in the cut.
And right now, I'm not so sure
we're gonna be able to pull this off.
I don't know, dude. Can
we do it? Are we gonna do it?
I hope so. It's all we
can do. I don't know
what else to do. Berm
it up? I don't know.
We'll just see how
much rain comes tonight.
We're ready as good as we can.
Hey, keep your radio
on. We'll just monitor it.
It goes up a couple more
feet, we might be in trouble.
We can't always
pick our weather.
- No.
- Hey, at least we got rain.
I just hope the rain doesn't destroy
what we've got cooking here, you know?
Yeah, for sure.
- All right, good job. Let's go.
- All right.
While Todd and Andy
monitor the ancient river cut,
flipping soaking wet.
Earlier, it was pouring down.
Hunter starts working on
the black Pearl's hopper.
- I might flip that hopper over right now.
- Yeah.
I'm gonna come in
here with the excavator,
and I'll pick that up,
bring it over here,
tip it over and then
we'll rig it, pick it up,
and crib underneath, so that
we get those legs off the ground.
And I'll just start going on it.
Using chains, hunter and sparky
will attempt to carefully tilt the hopper
onto its back, so they can
repair the bent support legs,
before reassembling
the entire wash plant.
This is a lot of work for
two guys to do in the rain,
that I've never
done this before.
Yeah, stay back a little bit, I'm
gonna see if I can get it off the ground.
Working in the rain makes
everything much more difficult.
On top of that, it's just miserable.
You're soaked to the bone.
Makes everything much more
hazardous and much more difficult.
But right now, we
don't have a choice.
I'm gonna just keep
it low to the ground.
I'm gonna set it
down right here.
I want you to throw a chain,
see that little, that little ring
that's welded on that left? Yep.
- Throw that chain in there.
- Gotcha.
Hunter wants to lay the hopper
on the most level ground possible,
and it's sparky's job to rotate
it into just the right position.
Okay, go around
that way, sparky.
Go around that way
and see if it'll spin.
It's a little heavy!
I can set it like this too,
and we'll tip it this way.
Pull it as far as you
can and I'll drop it.
And this will help, you ready?
Let's pull the chains off.
I'm going to use the
bucket. I'm going to tip it.
Just gonna tip this
hopper forward.
The chain's gonna
be a safety catch.
Go for it?
I think go for it.
Stay back. It's gonna
get a little squirrelly, man.
I'll lift those legs up, and we'll
shove those big timbers underneath it.
Okay.
That's plenty.
- Is that enough to slide those under?
- Yeah.
Right now, I'm not gonna let anything
stop us getting this plant running.
You know, it's pouring down rain,
but there's a lot of work to be done,
so we're just gonna
work through it.
We have to keep
plugging away on this plant.
And, you know, if we can get it running,
I think we're gonna make a lot of money.
- Ready?
- Keep going, keep going.
Try to get that other one
in. I'm not gonna move.
It's plenty.
We've just dropped
the hopper on its side,
we're going to put some cribbing
underneath it for safety precautions.
Other than that, we can
attack this project now.
- I like this.
- Yeah, this is sick.
How I wanted it to go.
Instead, it went not good.
- That's money.
- Money, exactly, dude. Money.
This is a prime example of
be careful what you pray for.
We've asked for rain
and god has provided.
Unfortunately, now
we have a bit too much.
Our pond system has
completely filled up.
The pump has now died.
The pump has been placed
at the edge of the pond,
to prevent the rising water from
washing out the mine's main road.
Losing access to the road
would bring the mine to a standstill.
It would be a very,
very bad thing.
So Randy must save the
pump in order to save the road.
Why did you stop?
The reason why this
pump's not running
is the fuel suction is here and the fuel
level has dropped below the suction line.
So now I need to get
this pump back to normal,
so that the fuel pickup
can pick up the fuel.
Hey, who's in the, 490
over here by the Pearl?
Tater, can you
bring that over here?
I need the assistance
immediately.
If this breaks this little
barrier and floods our road,
eventually it'll find
another path and it'll
slowly wash out the
dirt and rock of the road.
And then we've gotta rebuild
the whole entire road system.
Once we bring this back
down, then this road will be fine.
But we cannot lose the road.
Here comes tater.
Just push down on that tongue.
Yep, back her down.
Okay, hold that. I'm gonna put
some rocks under the back of it.
Come on, baby.
Come on.
Go ahead and slightly
let up. See what that does.
Come on, baby.
Beautiful!
That sumbitch just went on!
Hopefully this will hold.
- Look at this!
- Holy.
We need an excavator down
here really quick to cork this,
right by the orange farm, quick.
Despite Randy's best effort to
stop water from flushing out the road,
additional rain is
overwhelming their pump.
Okay, what do you wanna
do? We got a situation.
I think we ought to cut
the road, but your call.
I think we'll just
cut it into this ditch.
Drain the water out. I stopped
everything from coming into our system.
So it should the pump
should start catching up.
If we cut a hole over here, this water
will hopefully relieve itself over here.
And then we're gonna have
to build our dam back up here.
To keep the overflowing pond
from washing away the entire road,
Andy digs a narrow trench
to contain and control the flow.
Luckily, this didn't happen
during the middle of the night,
or we would have woke up to
every cut flooded, our berms all gone.
A month and a half worth
of work right down the drain.
So, we're just gonna stop mining,
we're just gonna let the water go.
I think we're gaining on it,
Andy. I think we're gaining on it.
It's not getting
deeper down there.
It's dropping up here too.
With the overflowing pond
being safely shunted
through the temporary channel,
Andy turns his attention
back to the ancient river cut,
where additional rain overnight threatens
to wash out their richest pay dirt.
I guess you gotta be careful
what you wish for around here.
You wish for rain, you
might get too much.
We had a lot of rain last night.
We've got all of our pond system and
everything set up to get a lot of water.
We were just in a drought a few days
ago, and now we've got water everywhere,
so we're really close on
the berms being blown out,
so we're just trying
to fix everything.
This creek is moving in a hurry!
This is, yeah, pretty intense.
Tater's up here plugging it up,
putting the dam
up a little bit higher.
And I think we're gonna be okay. Then I'm
gonna stick this culvert in the crossing,
because the culvert that's there is not
taking enough water, so we're gonna fix it.
We're not mining today. This is critical
and crucial. We can't mess this up.
While most of the crew
scrambles to control the water,
hunter is determined to forge ahead on
the black Pearl, which remains in pieces.
- I wish we didn't have to do this.
- Yeah, me too.
I wish Andy didn't drag it, or
else we'd have a cross member.
The legs on the
hopper are bent from,
you know, the way it was
offloaded, so it's gonna take more time
to get them straightened
back out and get them correct.
Otherwise, when we go to
mount it, nothing's gonna line up.
There's a lot of work to be done, and
if we don't get the black Pearl running,
I don't see us reaching
a thousand ounces.
With the holy roller being
shut down with the flooding,
time is of the
essence right now.
I'm going to torch these off.
I'm going to get this thing leveled.
If we're not welding
out here in the rain,
this thing's never
going to get done,
I'm never going to get any gold,
and everything we've done up
until this point is for nothing, so
We messed up a lot of
our support beams here,
so I've gotta just cut
'em off and start fresh.
You know how to bevel that?
Not really. I was hoping you'd
do it, 'cause you're the master.
Gotcha.
You don't wanna
cut too far back.
We just want enough meat to where
we can grind in there, make it perfect,
seat it, so this thing's
not freaking falling apart
when we're feeding
fricking rich gold in there.
Sparky's taught me a lot about
fabricating, cutting, welding.
So we're just, like,
feeding off each other.
You know, the holy roller
is a brand new wash plant.
It's been worked on for
months inside of a shop.
Everything is brand
new, fresh paint.
And the black Pearl's
been around since the 80's.
It's older than me
and sparky. It needs an
insane amount of work,
especially for two kids.
I've never done
anything like this before,
but we're gonna keep
going until we get it right.
There's not a single
guy here that was ever
doing what we're doing
right now at our age.
That's a fact.
Dude, I used to fricking deliver
bounce houses for a living, dude.
Now I'm out here, and
kicking it with this guy.
We're freaking kicking ass
and taking names, dude.
The biggest wash plant they've
ever seen, in the history of their lives.
Like the flooded
road by the pond,
a crucial section of road by
doll creek has also been flooded,
and in this case,
completely washed away.
It must be fixed before
mining operations can resume.
It's still running through
there like a freight train.
So doll creek is running
really hard right now.
We are currently isolated
because of this hole in the road,
and half of the mine and half
of our equipment is on one side,
and the other half is on the other side.
So we can't do anything till we fix this.
We're gonna have to
drop another culvert in.
And, to do that right, right now,
it's gonna be a temporary culvert.
To do it right, you've
gotta pack rocks in there.
You can't do that when
there's water flowing around it.
So hopefully we can do
this. It's like doing surgery,
while everybody's still awake.
So Todd, what we're thinking is,
is that I dig this back a little
bit, and then put a berm
Yes, yes.
To keep the water
out of that side,
and then we can lay the culvert
and put some water over it.
Yeah, I like it. Dig the berm over there,
get the whole river going over there.
Come back here, dig our culvert,
pack it in tons and tons
of rock and then shut it off.
The plan is to dam up the creek
with a berm just downstream
of the break in the road,
then the crew will install a
new culvert to go under the road
that will be laid on top of it.
Once those are in place,
the berm will be removed
and the water can safely flow under
the road, through the new culvert.
Hey, let's get this in.
All right, a little left, a little
left. Right there. Thank you.
So the bank is slowly giving
away, with the berm in the creek
just enough to get inside there and
do this ditch, and get the culverts in.
It'll have to go
your way a little bit.
- That good?
- Heck yeah. Right on the money.
We're trying to get
them as close as we can.
We don't have banding,
which normally you do.
We need that fabric down there.
But what we're gonna do is
actually put fabric over the top,
and that's gonna hopefully keep
a lot of that rock and sediment
from going down into that culvert,
filling it up, and then becoming useless.
Hey, tater, you
wanna get in here?
If you want me to, I'll dig it.
Tater's the better operator than
me, and I think this kind of situation,
we need to get him in
the seat instead of me.
The bucket's coming off. Yeah.
Just turning my bucket around
backwards on my machine,
so that I can reach
out and sprinkle rock
where I wouldn't have
been able to reach.
These creek changes
are pretty sick?
Dude, that is bad
ass, brother. Bad ass.
Okay, heads up, heads up.
We're trying to pack it in, in
layers. Layer by layer, pack it in.
If you just dump it and Bury it, it's gonna
get washed out, so we're packing it in.
A little bit more,
put a little bit more.
Pack it in, pack
it in, pack it in!
Now I've gotta
carefully break this open,
and we're gonna take all the
river right down this new culvert.
- So far it's handling it.
- Seems to be taking it.
So far so good. I think we're
gonna have a win on this one.
We had to build these roads,
you know, and it's tough.
Like, you're hemorrhaging money.
So what I'm hoping is that we're
gonna make it up in the gold.
That this is worth it. Otherwise we
built, you know, a bridge to nowhere.
Gonna run up here, I'm
gonna take a look at this berm.
Hopefully it, has held up.
After flash floods
threatened to wash out
the ancient river channel
and its rich pay dirt,
Andy has returned to inspect
the dirt berms he built to protect it.
If that berm was not
there, we would have lost it.
So we can't afford
that at this point.
We're already late. I don't
need to be losing cuts to flooding.
Yesterday, you know, we lost
20-30 thousand dollars, probably.
We can't afford to
do that anymore.
The holy roller stop-down means
the Hoffman's one thousand ounce gold
is slipping further away.
I'll tell you what, I see the water
going down, my berm is still there.
There's no water in there and I
can see the pay dirt, so, hallelujah.
But the good news is,
they've managed
to save the pay dirt
that has the potential
of getting them there.
I found this ancient river
channel seven months ago,
and I've been thinking
about all winter digging it
that mother nature comes in, torrential
downpour, rain, waters coming up,
if it would have blown this thing out,
it would have taken all this material,
covered the whole thing.
We would have had a lot of
time and money and effort lost.
It's another good day.
Any day that you can win
in Alaska, mining, I'll take.
I'm gonna let Todd know
that the berm has held up,
and we can get trucks and stuff
back in there and we can get to digging.
Hopefully it's got
a lot of gold in it.
So, ancient riverbed,
it did not flood.
We were able to save the cut.
Having that river crawling right
along our cut? Man, it was scary.
And if it were would have flooded
into that, it would have been a disaster.
So, now we're gonna fire
up and get things going.
Here we go!
We'll let it warm
up a little bit.
Here we go!
It's almost turning.
All right, Randy, go
ahead and idle up.
Hey, it's working! It's turning.
Okay, here we go!
We're back rolling!
We're putting dirt
through the plant.
I think we got lucky.
I thought that flood was going to
take us out, but we got lucky this time.
Hopefully, that
doesn't happen again.
Muddy day.
It's going to be a pain in the ass
just because of how heavy this thing is.
I think we'll be able to
spin it good, but we'll see.
Hunter and sparky
are preparing to move
the massive base of the
black Pearl into position.
We've got our strongest
chain hooked up, so
It's not easy in the mud.
Everything's just way more
difficult when it's muddy.
Let's see if I can
slide it with this 490.
The goal is to connect
it to the hopper.
Honestly, this is the biggest
day we've had in a long time.
Me and sparky have been welding
on this plant for it seems like forever.
Just even getting
the plant to this point,
where we can start putting
it back together is a big deal.
It's going pretty smooth
right now, just me and hunter.
Nothing's broken
yet, so it's a good sign
we know what we're doing and
we're thinking things methodically.
You're doing a
great job, brother!
- You like it there?
- This looks pretty good.
In order to attach the
hopper to the frame,
they plan to use the excavator to
lift the hopper up over the frame.
Then they will carefully
lower the hopper,
until it's four support beams
match up with those on the frame.
Basically, we're welding all these tabs
to help align all of these beams together.
Once we go to place it, it's just
gonna be me and sparky doing this,
we're gonna put
a tag line on it,
and, if everything goes to
plan, it'll sit perfectly on here.
Whoo-hoo-hoo!
One wrong move can damage
both the hopper and the frame,
and cost the mine
more precious time.
It's critical that they slip
all four of the hopper's legs
over the tabs to
lock it into place.
Just bring her
this way a little bit.
We've been waiting a long
time for this moment right here.
Okay. All the tabs are in.
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold
on. One tab is out. It almost got in.
I think I might be able Might be able
to pull a chain on the other side of this.
- Okay, what do I do?
- Pick it up, pick it up.
There you go. There
you go. Hold on.
All right. Go ahead.
Drop her like she's hot.
Okay, hold it.
Hold it, hold it.
That's pretty good.
That was a good idea.
That was a damn good idea.
This feels good.
It's like a huge weight
off our shoulders.
Hey, every time it's just me
and you working on this thing,
it's like You
know what I mean?
This is sick, man, sick.
We've been out here
welding, cutting in the rain.
Even when we cut this thing
apart, it was a lot to take on.
So now that we're reassembling
it, it feels really good, man.
We see the vision.
Now it's happening.
- What do you think?
- That is huge!
- It looks good?
- Yeah.
We're trying to bring you some
crazy gold to the gold room.
This is absolutely fantastic.
What you did today is more than those
dudes over there done in about three days.
My god.
We appreciate you for
believing in this, Jack.
Well, you know, it's gonna
happen. Get her going, man.
I'm really happy my
little brother is up here.
Nobody I love
more than that guy.
Fresh tee, dude.
He's just so funny.
You know that smell?
You're a.
- Smell it.
- Weirdo.
- Smell it.
- No!
Ten-four.
There's nobody I love more
on earth than my little brother.
You know, he's never trying to get anybody
to like him, but everybody likes him.
I eat a pound of
goldfish a week.
I don't know what it is about him,
it's just, like, I just love the guy.
You know the smell, dude.
Nice.
For our second clean
up, thurber out here.
This is all ancient
river channel pay.
After only running for a total
of 20 hours due to the rain,
Todd and his crew pull
the holy roller's mats,
hoping they contain enough
gold to keep him afloat.
Well, we got, I don't know, 4,000
yards on the box. Not a lot. Not a lot.
So we'll see what happens here.
Dude, crazy week. Hard on
everybody. Water. Flooding.
I was actually pretty
dang scared this week.
It was less than a foot
from flooding the whole cut.
We got all the culverts in, got all the
water diverted. Got everything down.
And it's holding. We
should be good now.
- That could have went really bad.
- Yeah.
Speaking of bad, we almost
lost the ancient river bed
that we've been digging
and digging and digging.
Look at this. It's already
come up at least a foot.
If that dike had blown through, we
would have lost a third of our pay dirt.
Huge.
I was literally watching
the water come up.
And I just pull the road out.
And then framer and tater
came in and put a clank on,
set the culvert,
because it flooded.
Thank you, guys.
Seriously, though, the
experience that you guys have
from a past life came
in handy in this life.
Tater, he went ahead and
switched the bucket around.
That's kind of crazy. I
didn't know they did that.
I don't think that's
in the manual, tater.
No, no, that doesn't come
in any instruction manual.
That's hillbilly
construction right there.
Yeah.
Black Pearl, gimme an update.
It's taken a lot of time, but we're
just trying to do everything right,
so that when we get it together,
we're not gonna have it fall apart on us.
The rain's blowing sideways.
We're standing in a mud puddle.
All of our tools are caked
in mud. Our torch won't light.
We're caked in
mud, and we're just
We've been soaked to the bone for
days trying to get that thing together.
But it was a good moment
getting the hopper put on there.
At least you can kind of see it getting
assembled. So we're getting there.
We see the vision. We've been
talking about this since day one.
It's like, we're never gonna
stop. We're gonna keep on going.
There's gonna be a lot of walls in
front of us. But if we can find a window,
if we can find a door
and bust it open, onto
the next thing, you
know what I'm saying?
Nice. Nice. I like it. Keep it
up, man. I know it's hard, hunter.
I know you guys are struggling out there.
We see it. You know, we're all one team.
So, keep pushing hard. Get
the black Pearl running, man.
As of right now, the mine has
produced 76 ounces of gold,
with 924 more needed, to meet to
reach 1,000 ounces for the season.
To achieve that goal, they need to
average 92 ounces of gold per week.
I can tell by the way
you're dangling that thing,
that's not as
heavy as last week.
What do you think?
When you get the
little copper tray out
- Yeah, it's not good.
- You know it's gonna hurt.
What do you think?
- Here we go.
- I don't know.
I'm just gonna pour it out.
It was a hard week. I don't
even Man, just pour it out.
It's definitely, it's
definitely a gut shot.
Where you're at? Five. Six.
Twenty three. Twenty four.
Twenty eight, 30,
34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39.
39.2.
It's not even half of where
we're supposed to be.
Right.
That's still, what, 65,000?
Right? $65,000.
I mean, it's below what we need,
but we had a lot of issues that were out
of our control. I mean, it is what it is.
Last week we were at
76. This week we're at 39.
We've got a grand total of 115.
Now our average has to be 98
ounces a week, every clean up, so
The holy roller's third week cleanup
comes in at just over 39 ounces,
for a running total
of 115 ounces.
The Hoffmans now need
98 ounces of gold per week
to reach their season
goal of 1,000 ounces.
Well, the bottom line is, the challenges
are not gonna stop happening.
Yeah.
There's going to be
other stuff that happens.
We'll get flooded out again.
We're gonna break downs,
so that's even more reason
why we need the black Pearl.
We're behind our average here.
The black Pearl we're behind.
We're behind,
personally, in gold.
We've got to outperform
this in what we're doing.
Everybody does. So let us
know what we can do to help.
- Yeah.
- Once we get you online,
- it's gonna go up.
- Yeah.
Let's get some rest, guys.
Let's get rolling in the morning.
You guys get your
beauty sleep in.