On tonight’s episode of Gold Rush: Dave Turin’s Lost Mine on Discovery Channel, Dave Turin’s team is on to a lead, that as you will find out, is quite exciting.
The premise of the series is revisiting places in Montana where mines that were once active and vital have been resurrected by Turin and his team.
He gets permission from landowners in an exchange for royalties and percentage of found gold, and he digs into the mines that have been shuttered and forgotten about over time.
Dave Turin and his crew turn their trommel up to double speed, hoping to pull the gold from Montana’s legendary Birdseye mine.
Dirty water and ground that’s not producing challenge the crew, forcing Dave to call it at the last minute.
But in the exclusive clip for tomorrow’s episode of Gold Rush: Dave Turin’s Lost Mine. The man working in the orange sweatshirt is part of Turin’s crew, Jason Sanchez.
And Jason is really clever about where to look for gold that may be left behind
What does Dave Turin work out to get access to these lost mines?
When Monsters & Critics spoke with Dave, we asked him how the deal went down and how he got access to these former mines.
He said: “We have to work out a deal. Typically, we give them a percentage of what we mine.”
Turin then told us he asks the owners to help with the permit process.
He said: “If the permit has lapsed, in order to start up new permits now with the environmental laws and everything, it’s very rigorous, it’s very complex, and it costs a lot of money. A lot of times we’ll ask the landowner to help us get the permits.
“And then once we get the permits, it’s all on me. I mean, the landowner really isn’t out any money. They’re just waiting for me to start production, and then give them royalties.”
And as the type of mining that he was able to do in an established spot, he explained:
“What we do is we’re doing placer mining, and placer mining is very visible. You go underground and all you’ve got is a portal. There’s a hole in the ground. But as a placer miner, we’re going up these stream beds.”
The lay of the land is altered from mining, especially from miners in the past that did not care about aesthetics.
He said: “Well, 100 years ago, those old-timers didn’t realize there’s going to be billions of people on this planet or millions of people living in Montana, and they didn’t care.
“They just tore up that stream bed and left all the gravel sitting out, so you’ve got huge piles of gravel that’s unsightly and, quite frankly, doesn’t grow much because they put the topsoil at the bottom, all the big inert rocks at the top.”
Turin explained further in our exclusive interview that his end goal was to leave the place in better condition than he found it, and he said:
“We come in, and we say to the landowner, ‘Look, when we’re done, we’re going to put the topsoil back. We’re going to reshape it, reclaim it, and you’re going to have a better piece of property than when we started.’
“And we were able to accomplish that…what I want to do is help people, and then actually put the ground back. I’m passionate about that.”
Exclusive preview of Gold Rush: Dave Turin’s Lost Mine
Watch as Sanchez finds some new leads in Montana, as the physics of time and gravity are explained as the determinates for finding residual gold left behind in mines.
The results are after careful observation, Jason Sanchez finds a score:
Gold Rush: Dave Turin’s Lost Mine air Fridays at 9PM ET/PT on Discovery Channel.