- [Tad] So what’d you think about that trip yesterday?
- Generally, I thought, holy crap, there’s work to be done
before we go back in there very much.
- It looks pretty spooky back in there.
- Oh, that’s heavy ground.
When you see a treated tie like that crack like that.
- Doubled up.
If it came down at once, you’re dead.
- But if we rehab number three,
then we can have a backdoor up to number five
and get back to where Ole found that vein.
- [Narrator] Finding Ole’s gold vein is a dream
the Dale family has chased for three generations.
Over 90 years ago, a miner named Ole Fosness claimed
he found a rich gold vein in this mountain.
He hid it from his partner so he could take it for himself,
but died before he got the chance.
Ole told the Dale’s grandfather that the gold vein
was hidden behind a timber set,
60 feet inside the Pete & Joe No. 5.
Their father, Dick Dale, tried to buy the claim
so he could get Ole’s gold,
but was cheated out of his chance.
Now, 50 years later, his sons finally own the mine.
And they’re gambling everything to prove the legend is true
and collect a payout worth millions.
But six days ago, disaster struck.
- Let me go rev it up
and I’ll just crowd this down here tight.
Holy (bleep). (earth falling)
Holy (bleep).
- The whole damn bank came in.
(bleep) man.
- [Narrator] The number five’s entrance collapsed.
And the slope above is primed to slide
if they dig any further.
- Mama said there’d be days like this.
(loudly sighing)
- [Narrator] But the number five isn’t
their only path to Ole’s gold.
70 feet below is the Pete & Joe No. 3.
And according to the maps,
120 feet past the number three’s entrance
is a climbing tunnel called the raise
that connects to the number five.
If the raise is still intact, the brothers could use it
as an inside track to Ole’s gold.
But that’s a big if.
- [John] We don’t even know if the raise is open.
- Well, there’s if to the fifth power.
But it’s a dream and I think we oughta follow it.
I’m saying, screw this.
I’d rather double shift number five than monkey with three.
- [Narrator] Youngest brother Kitt, wants to keep
their limited resources focused on the number five.
They’ve hired contractor, Marty Soluso,
to dig a new portal there,
through 50 feet of virgin soil and bedrock.
It’s safer than braving the depths of the number three.
But it will take at least five weeks to dig.
And with winter around the corner,
they may not have that kind of time.
- It’s already October.
- Yeah, and one big storm
and we won’t be able to get to number five.
- We need to continue with number five.
We know we got a good start there
and we know where we’re going.
And that’s a fresh start.
But we need to do this work, too.
- But this work is for nothing
if we don’t know where we’re going.
I mean-- - But that’s the thing.
We don’t know until we get there.
- [Kitt] But we can’t do all this work just to get there.
I mean, that’s--
- That’s the nature of the beast, though.
- So we’re gonna go two directions.
As hard as we can on five.
And then we will do the work on three.
- As much as we can. - Get as far as we can.
- We got two paths to Ole’s gold.
Both going at the same time.
- We need timber first, timber and caps.
And we’re probably gonna have to double timber
all the way through, I think.
(upbeat music)
(bird calling)
- [Narrator] To implement their two-pronged approach
to Ole’s gold, the Dales need timber, and a lot of it,
They figure it will burn too many days
to harvest and mill themselves.
So bookkeeper, Tad, gives the green light to dip
into their limited budget and buy the wood they need.
- Hey John, how you doing today?
- Good.
How are you today? - Great.
Hey, we ran out of some timber sets
and I need to come and place an order.
- [Narrator] Tad orders timber for 16 sets,
spending $20,000 of their budget.
It will take two days to mill the timber,
five times faster than if they did it themselves.
- [Tad] I love it.
I’d stand here all day.
- [Narrator] With winter coming fast,
Tad considers it money well spent.
- We’re looking forward to a few more weeks
of really nice fall weather.
But we never know because when that weather changes,
we can get a heck of a dump of snow overnight.
It can change within hours.
- [Narrator] Heavy snowfall is more than
just an inconvenience for the Dales.
The Pete & Joe mines are 9,000 feet up
on the steep slopes of Bear Gulch.
And when the snow piles up here,
avalanches become a constant threat.
It’s a danger the Dales are well aware of,
thanks to another family legend about the famous Ole.
- Around right where we’re working,
they do call it, historically, Snow Slide Canyon.
And in 1920, that avalanche that Ole was involved in
happened right there on that very dump.
- He and the crew were eating lunch
at the portal of the number five.
And Ole had an eye for snow.
He tried to convince the crew to come sit in the portal,
just in case anything went amiss.
Most of the crew disregarded the warning.
But one younger guy went with Ole
and they sat inside the portal and that snow slide broke.
(dramatic music)
And it swept the cabin and the miners
off the dump and down the hill.
He and the kid tried to find anybody or do anything.
But it was a fairly large snow slide.
And they didn’t have any luck.
So Ole strapped on his skis
and made what is considered a record run to town.
Got a crew, they came back.
Got everybody dug out, but they were all dead.
- Four men died.
So the weather can really change quickly.
And we’re hoping that, the weather’s been nice,
but we don’t want to have conditions like that again.
- [Narrator] While they’re in Twin Bridges,
Kitt and Tad stop by the historical society.
Tad got a tip from a friend that they have
a newspaper article on the avalanche
that Ole survived 100 years ago.
And any information they can learn about Ole
could help them find his gold.
- [Kitt] Have you been in here before?
- [Tad] No, I’m sad to say I haven’t.
I’ve been meaning to get in here and haven’t.
Because Dennis told me that there was an article
and it mentioned this avalanche
that we’ve been trying to track down.
I wrote a book report on it when I was in high school
and I can’t find it.
Hi, Sheila. - Hi, guys.
How’s it going? - Hey.
Good to see ya. - Yeah, you, too.
- We’re gonna be interested in 1920 newspaper articles,
if we have.
- We have the Twin Bridges Independent 1920.
- Well, maybe we’ll go dig through this.
See what we can find here.
(dramatic music)
- Fatal accident in Bear Gulch.
Four killed and one injured as a result of a snow slide
at the Pete & Joe mine in Bear Gulch
at 12:30 o’clock, Saturday afternoon.
- 100 years ago.
We were just on that dump this week.
- Yeah.
The dead, all of whom made their homes and bridges
are Orin Stone, Edward Glass, Oscar Burger and Mark Miller.
Johnny Prichett, who was the sixth occupant
of the sorting shed, escaped by jumping into an ore tunnel.
Word of the accident was sent to Twin Bridges
and a rescue party, headed by Bert Page
and Dr. Le Clare set out at once.
The slide came like a lightening flash
and none of the men had a chance for their lives.
- So nothing about Ole?
- Not a word about Ole.
- Isn’t that strange?
That’s not the story that our parents passed down to us.
- [Kitt] Well, that is a conundrum and a correction.
- Yeah, I was waiting for his name to pop up
when you’re reading that article and it didn’t come.
He’s still a mystery to us.
Makes you stop and think.
(birds calling)