Desperate to reach bedrock and uncover larger deposits of gold, Todd and Jack push the crew to dig deeper than ever before. With the Alaskan winter closing in, the miners face flooding, cave-ins, and equipment failures as they take greater risks in a final attempt to make the claim pay off.

After returning home to Oregon, the Hoffman crew looks back on its first mining season in Alaska and reflects on what went wrong. The special revisits the major setbacks, costly mistakes, and hard lessons from the season, while the miners discuss their future plans and how they hope to improve their chances of finding gold next time.