♪u know, I had a guy tell me early on in my career,
"You’re gonna spend the rest of your life
working your idea, or working somebody else’s.
You gotta decide what you wanna do."
All of us work for mining companies all of our lives.
Now we’re working our idea.
- [Narrator] In Bear Gulch, Montana,
on the 9,000 foot high slopes of the Tobacco Root Mountains,
there’s a network of long, abandoned mines
where no one’s found gold in decades.
But veteran miners, the Dale Brothers, just bought them all.
- [Tad] We’d walked over all these claims
since we were little kids,
but we didn’t own them.
And now we own ’em.
- [Narrator] They grew up here,
and they’re convinced that the old timers
who gave up on these mines
missed one of the largest untapped gold structures
in the lower 48.
- [John] The past generation left
a lot of gold in these mountains.
- [Kitt] Tens of millions of dollars,
even after all the investment.
- [Narrator] Reaching the deep ore will cost a fortune,
but the Dales have an ace in the hole.
They’ve guarded a family legend for three generations,
of a rich gold vein hidden near the surface of the mountain.
And only they know where to find it.
- If we could get to that, life changing.
- [Narrator] Now, to launch a family empire...
- [Man] Radio check.
Do you copy?
We’re headin’ in.
- [Narrator] They’re betting everything-
- Good luck.
- [Narrator] That the legend they believed all their lives-
- [Rick] And I’ll betcha...
That’s the hard stuff.
- [Kitt] Look at that.
- [John] This could be it.
- [Narrator] Is true.
- [Marty] Three, two, one-
- [John] Here we go.
- [Marty] Fire in the hole.
(explosion booms)
Holy (bleep).
(dramatic music)
♪ Hi, ho
♪ Nobody home
♪ Yet I will be merry
♪ Hi, ho
(bird caws)
(dramatic music)
- [Kitt] Yeah, but it’s not 100 feet, it’s not 60 feet,
unless going down.
- [Paul] Good morning, everybody.
- Hey, Paul.
How’d the old gal run?
- It came right up the hill.
- [Kitt] All right.
- Just like she always does.
- Except when it doesn’t.
- [Paul] Except when it doesn’t.
- We were just talking about what we want to do
as a group of brothers.
We’ve got these mining properties that we acquired.
Let’s talk about what we can do with our limited budget.
- Well, the biggest deal would be to open up the mountain.
- [Narrator] Rick, John, Tad, Paul, and Kitt Dale
have a lot on their table.
After 40 years working for
mining companies around the world,
they’ve come home to Bear Gulch, Montana,
and pooled their life savings
to purchase over 60 abandoned mine claims here.
(tense music) (bird caws)
The Bear Gulch mines are over a century old.
Born of a gold boom that brought
thousands to Montana in search of fortune.
The old timers pulled millions out of this mountain.
But in World War II, the Strategic Minerals Act
sent the price of gold spiraling,
and the mines have been shut down since.
- We researched all the historical information,
built models, and identified
what we believe is another ore body
that was never developed.
- There were early mines all over the mountain
that had very rich veins of gold.
Small, but extremely high grade.
And like fingers on a hand,
those come back to a feeder system.
The deep ore, the feeder system,
it’s worth tens of millions of dollars.
But it takes a lot of money to get that out.
- [Narrator] The Dales estimate it will cost
half a million dollars to reach the deep ore.
Money they don’t have.
- We all know that mining is capital intensive,
and we have the resource, we have the property.
What we don’t have is a big pocketbook of money.
We combined our assets,
and actually had to mortgage
some of our properties and homes.
So, we have a finite budget that we’re working off of.
- If we can get a showing,
and get a little money in the kitty, you know,
then we could start looking at bigger things.
- So, the best story as we all know is always gold.
- Well, now that the family
has acquired these patented mining claims,
we have a long range plan.
The first part of that is to look for Oly’s gold.
(tense music)
- [Kitt] Over a hundred years ago,
a Norwegian miner happened upon
a rich gold vein in these mountains.
He was grubstake by a local mercantile,
and he was getting part of the profits,
but not what he considered to be the fair share.
So, he decided to conceal it
and return later in life to pursue it for himself.
Oly died before he had an opportunity
to go back on his own and get that.
Oly was a friend of the family.
Before he died, he passed along the location
of this gold deposit to our grandfather,
and to our father, who knew these mines well,
and they in turn passed it along to us.
- [Tad] We’re trying to prove out
one of these family stories.
Is it true?
- [Narrator] Their father, Dick Dale,
was obsessed with the idea of Oly’s gold,
but was cheated out of his chance to buy the claims
when they were last up for auction 70 years ago.
- It was in number 5.
As far as we understand, right at the turn,
and that’s how dad passed it on to us, you know?
Half a set to the right of number 5.
- So, I’ve got the inset from that map here, Rick, and look.
Mom wrote that.
"Dick’s dream."
Which has to be Oly’s parallel lead.
- Mom certainly believed it.
- So, from what we always heard,
that Oly’s discover was, I don’t know, 60 feet in or...
- [Kitt] That ain’t far.
- That’s a good target.
That’s a great target.
- I think that’s the best prospect.
- Well, I haven’t been on that place
for a long time,
and I think we need to have a look.
- [John] Let’s all go take a look, and we’ll regroup,
and put a plan together.
- So, now we’re the gold barons, so let’s get some gold!
(Tad chuckles)
- [Narrator] Their target is in a cluster of 7 mines
in the steep upper slopes of the gulch,
collectively referred to as the "Pete & Joe" claim.
According to legend, Oly’s gold vein
is hidden somewhere in the Pete & Joe number 5,
at an elevation of 9,000 feet.
- Wow.
Quite a view.
- [Paul] This is a nice trail.
- Yeah.
This is a little game trail right here.
- Trying to think of the last time I was up here
was probably hunting grouse.
- [Tad] A long time ago.
- [Paul] Well, here’s number 5, I guess.
Somewhere.
- I thought it was gonna be more clear cut than this,
but it’s so jumbled here.
- This almost looks like it was just squashed down.
- [Narrator] A century ago,
there was a full scale mining facility here,
built around an 8 foot wide tunnel in the mountain.
But a landslide has demolished the facility,
and hidden the tunnel’s entrance
somewhere under a 200 foot span of rubble.
- Mother Nature and gravity have done
an amazing recovery job at this point
on all of the mining activity
that’s been going on up here.
We’ve got our work cut out for us.
- We don’t know where the old portal was,
so we’re gonna have to do the best job we can
of using the clues that are on the ground
to see if we can find evidence of an old opening.
So, this was the portal shack.
- This looks like the corner of a building.
- [Kitt] I’m guessing this was the shop,
because it looks almost like a workbench.
- Kitt, look at this.
- Oh!
Hey, look at this.
A sack, an ore sack.
- Hey!
That’s where they bagged up their samples for shipment.
Wow.
- [Tad] There’s the lack guy that sacked ore.
(laughing)
- Is there a hand in it?
- Didn’t have any fingers left.
- Good find. - Good find, there.
- [Narrator] The brothers identified
the number 5’s workshop,
and the portal shack where Oly and his partner slept
when they worked the mine.
The portal’s entrance is likely somewhere between the two.
- We’ve zeroed in on probably a 75 foot wide area,
and we know the elevation,
because we have the elevation of the dump.
- Okay, there’s a couple targets.
Somewhere on this number 5 dump is Oly’s gold.
Either there, there, or there.
We’ve got a mystery on our hands here.