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[Warning: The below contains spoilers for Gold Rush Season 15, Episode 3.]
The road for Parker Schnabel, Rick Ness, and Tony Beets has never been easy. This week on Gold Rush, our favorite miners ran into trouble at their respective sites. They depend on crews to help dig them out of issues created as a result of massive machinery breakdowns. With lofty goals in place, the clock was ticking to get things back up and running or risk disaster for Season 15 moving forward. Let’s dig into how things shook out for the three.
Parker Schnabel
The 29-year-old dove in headfirst at Dominion Creek, putting it all on the line looking for 10,000 ounces of gold worth $25 million. A hard hill to climb when only 5.6 ounces were logged and no wash plants running. The 20-acre Long Cut has proven unpredictable, but Schnabel remains hopeful a record-breaking haul is not out of the question. Helping turn things around was getting the washplant Roxanne to turn that red light into green. Unfortunately, the crew noticed the tray wasn’t catching the water the way they wanted and eating away at the equipment’s pan.
They had to act fast moving the 30-foot excess water tray out of the way to redig the ditch it sits in and reposition the tray back into the ditch directed under the sluices. This is to catch access water and channel it safely away from the pad. Roxanne got back up and going until another hiccup. Sticks and other materials prevented it from doing its job. Thick mud in the water section of the suction basket.
Adding insult to injury, a loader operator hit the radio station that feeds the plant and caused one of the tires to explode. Roxanne really didn’t want to put on that red dress. Whatever Schnabel is paying Mitch Blaschke and Lee, it may not be enough, as they were able to work through all these issues. The final count for their efforts translated to 30.80 ounces worth $77,000. Not good. This has to really make Schnabel question if he made the right move opening Long Cut first.
Rick Ness
Rick Ness sat in sinking excavator. (Discovery Channel)
Ness’ future at Duncan Creek has been put into question after worrying if he’ll have a water license when the season ends. This gives him one more guaranteed year to mine on his claim and take the bull by the horns. It’s all-in to uncover what may be at the bottom of the 190-foot Rally Valley Cut, which may be a life-changing score. Just as Ness was ready to pull in the riches pay stockpile and the crew could begin sluicing, another problem. The cut was flooded with “muddy sh*t.” The result of falling dirt from a highly unstable wall. Making matters even worse, there was the risk his excavator could be lost in essentially quicksand. Pulling out the machinery and then getting the slop out became the goal. Ness found a 40-year-old cannon or monitor to help the pump and dilute the soupy mess. The monitor ran for 24 hours with the hope the bad stuff could get sucked out by the trash pump. We’ll see if there is finally a light or gold at the end of the tunnel for Ness and company.
Tony Beets
The Beets family certainly had the best start of the season by a mile at Indian River. Within two weeks, they totaled 774 ounces of gold worth $1.7 million. Tony’s kids Mike and Monica were tasked with getting a third plant running at Paradise Hill. With eldest Kevin running his own operation, this led to the “King of the Klondike” turning to other blood in his 27-year-old nephew Mike who will serve as rookie foreman for the Indian River plant. Things started to turn bad for Tony with a string of bad luck as his 30-year-old shaker deck was tearing itself apart. Rebuilding the deck would take days.
The Sluice-A-Lott washplant was also positioned at ground level, which brought problems in catching gold. Tony went from two washplants running to none. Mike had to move the 45-ton washplant one mile around the treacherous Indian River to a higher pad for waste tailings. No pressure. Mission accomplished, but what was the result of the three days of sluicing? The result was 75.3 ounces worth $188,000. Not the result they wanted, but the fam remained undeterred.
Gold Rush, Fridays, 8/7c, Discovery Channel