(bird calling)
So, this mucking machine, the hydraulic hose had gone bad.
So we had to fix that leak.
- All I need is luck.
- This is just the steering cylinder in it.
- A steering cylinder, that’s all we got.
- [Paul] Marty had his mechanic with him,
the little, skinny guy that could get in
and replace the hydraulic hose on that mucking machine.
- All right, well, let’s give her a check.
(machine chugging)
Come on, pop, pop.
(machine starting)
I think it’s all right.
(dramatic music)
(machine stopping)
Goodnight, Irene.
- [Paul] So you made good progress on
gettin’ it mucked out.
- [Marty] Yeah, we’re into the rock.
I think what we should do is stop
and start putting portal timbers in.
If that does come,
that’s 100 feet up there that it can roll down on.
That’d bury all of us.
So are we in agreement?
- Yes. - All right.
Well, let’s do it.
- [Narrator] While Paul and Marty charge ahead
on the number five, down in the lower valley,
oldest brother Rick joins the hunt for proof
that the Gulch is still rich in gold.
- As we work through our plan here,
what we’re thinking is developing information
on other potential mining opportunities.
This mountain range and adjacent mountain ranges
are full of old mines.
Part of our objective is to branch out from here,
sample a lot of these old mine dumps
because sometimes the mine dumps carry enough value
to process for the mineral themselves.
What I’m looking for is the site of an old arrastra mill
that my brother told me about.
- An arrastra is a primitive mill.
It’s really a tub made of stone
with a pivot point in the middle.
And other stones are drug around and around in that.
And you introduce the rock and it grinds it up
and liberates the gold.
So the gold had to be quite rich for those to be functional.
But those were the earliest mills around here
that didn’t ship something somewhere.
- Okay, this is it.
This is where they got the water out of the creek,
diverted the creek.
I can still see the remains of their dam up here.
The place I think the arrastra was was right there.
This one was definitely either
one of the stones they drug around, or.
You can feel how smooth,
especially this part right here is.
Well, I’m kind of excited about this.
What I would really like to find now is some tailings.
Who knows what I’ll find here.
This is a special treat prospecting to see
if there was any placer gold.
Think I better run that before I do anymore.
(serene music)
This spiral is just something somebody developed
to replace hand-panning everything.
So it saves a lot of time and a lot of effort
by being a way just to process more material
without hand-panning it.
The heavies will drop into this cup
as they work their way up the spiral.
And then, eventually,
have a very small amount of concentrate to look at.
So, now,
I’m hoping we’ll at least find some gold.
Now, at some point in history,
there were expensive samples taken around
but that’s lost to history.
Okay, what was the mineral in this location?
What was the grade?
I am seeing a couple of real fine pieces of gold in there.
And they’re hanging right at the back
of this tail of heavy material.
I want to collect what I’ve concentrated here
with this, where I don’t lose it.
What this tells me is it’s a pretty good indicator that
there was lots of high-grade around the head of this Gulch.
What I found here is a real hook for me to come back.
So that’s what I’m gonna do.