'Gold Rush' 's Dave Turin on Dramatic New Season: 'I Questioned My Leadership and Attitude'

"I had to examine my own self," Turin tells PEOPLE

It looks like season 7 of Discovery Channel’s hit series Gold Rush won’t be so golden for Dave Turin after all.

Coming off a big season 6, Todd Hoffman and his crew were convinced this was going to be a big year and spirits were high — but that all changed.

“The audience is going to see the pain and suffering from our crew that you’ve never seen before,” Turin tells PEOPLE. “It’s going to be a roller coaster ride for the audience.”

At the start of the new season, fans will see Turin — who is Hoffman’s right-hand man — and the crew working in their home state of Oregon for the first time, instead of Alaska and Canada.

“We started in Oregon with the highest hopes that we ever had and the prospects of gold is better than anything we’ve ever seen,” he continues. “I felt like for our team, we come back off of the best season we ever had and we go to Oregon and we were going to do amazing things, but then it starts to fall apart.”

Justin Kelly

Discovery Channel

“It happened from within,” Turin says. “We couldn’t predict it. You can’t predict people and what’s going on inside of them. So, it’s a rough year.”

As one of the leaders of the group, Turin took it especially hard when fights broke out among the crew.

“That was the hardest part, to see my group … my family… disintegrate from within. It was painful,” he admits. “I don’t like that we fall apart. You’ll see some difficult things… You’ll see some apologies and I’m one of the guys that’s involved in that and I had to examine my own self. I had to question my own motives and thoughts.”

The 57-year-old admits to second-guessing his role on the crew and if this was the job for him.

“I did question whether I was in the right spot,” the longtime miner says. “I have always been one of the leaders and I felt like I … I felt responsible for it. If you can’t keep your team together, you will always have self doubt. I questioned my leadership and attitude through it all.”

The two-hour Gold Rush season premiere airs Friday at 9 p.m. ET on Discovery.