Tonight's episode of "Gold Rush" titled "The Night Shift" finds the miners working hard to beat the season and deadlines. Last week, Todd's crew left Quartz Creek and are now competing for the work at Indian River as tempers are getting short. With only one month left of the season, it is all-out war on the land for their quota.
Todd tells Dave that he is going to have his crew run the night shift. The trammel was seven weeks late and could not make it through the rest of the season. Dave warned Todd not to break the only trammel they have. When the equipment runs 23 hours a day, something is bound to break. Now with bragging rights on the line, the night crew is getting busy. As the summer is ending, the nights are getting shorter. The hopper feeder belt seizes up by a large rock. Mitch breaks it loose, and they start rolling again. They got 200 buckets in the first shift and ran 1,400 yards through the trammel.
At Porcupine Creek, Fred is happy with his new equipment and hope to find an ancient waterfall where there should be a ton of gold. Melody found a large crack in the honey hole where Fred is digging. If there is a rock in the crack, there can also be gold. Melody checks and finds gold in the large crack, she suggests vacuuming the cracks to dredge for the missed gold. Fred wants to dig until he cannot dig anymore. To dredge these cracks, they must flood the glory hole and use a vacuum hose to suck out the rocks and gold in the cracks. Dustin decides to get a dredge there, it is his gold too.
At Indian River, the night crew dug so much that they nearly took the leg off the sluice box, leaving the day crew a tough situation. Now there is real friction between both crews. They must pack rock under the base to prevent the sluice from collapsing. As they try it out, it holds up. Too bad the day shift had to use half of their shift to secure the equipment.
At Big Nugget, Parker is ready to mine the Discovery Claim. Parker is $150,000 short of breaking even. After finding that Emerson Trench was a bust, Parker got to lease the claim and just hopes that it pays off. Parker's twenty-year-old rock truck makes the trip down to the mountain to drop off the dirt over the mountain. The tight road leaves very little room for any leeway. One side is jagged rock that could slash his tires, the other side is a 300-foot-drop, but he makes it just fine, even with an overloaded truck.
At Porcupine Creek, Dustin goes over Fred's head and gets dredging equipment. Better to seek forgiveness than ask for approval. Fred is not happy because he can no longer dig with the excavator. Dustin never used a dredge before and gingerly; they put it in place over the glory hole. Melody is first to use the vacuum hose as Fred looks on. After four hours, the frigid forty degree water becomes too much for Dustin and Melody. They cannot wait to see the results.
At Big Nugget, Parker's crew is rolling, one of the blades on the tumbler inside the trammel. Glen welded the piece back in place, and they hope that the weld holds. Out in the wilderness, the repair shop is a primitive operation of ingenuity and grit.
Fred and Dustin lift the dredge from the glory hole. Fred has lost his patience because he has not been digging. Melody pans the material they dredged and Fred got to eat his words when they found 14 ounces that would have been missed.
At Indian River, the night crew is rolling again. After the day shift spends half of their shift repairing, the night crew is having problems backing up the rock truck to the edge to dump the dirt. Todd tells Kevin to keep dumping, and Todd is adamant that they need to keep working regardless of the danger, so another miner gives Kevin the directions to back up using a walkie-talkie. Jack Hoffman says he smells gold in the dirt, and he knows that familiar smell.
At Big Nugget, Parker is doing the first clean out from Discovery. He has spent $10,000 in fuel alone just to haul the dirt down from the mine. He looks at the sluice, and it is loaded with gold. A far cry from the small amount they had so far. They found forty-three ounces in the first clean out and more to come.
At Indian River, two crews mining around the clock have put ten thousand yards of dirt though. Now the first clean up is in process, and it gives them 137 ounces of gold and passed the break-even point. The fruits of their labor are paying off for both crews on this season of "Gold Rush."
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