[Warning: The below contains spoilers for Gold Rush Season 15, Episodes 20 and 21.]
After two weeks, Gold Rush Season 15 returned with back-to-back episodes on April 4 as our miners look to finish strong. With summer prices for the valuable yellow stuff reaching new highs and winter on the horizon, the clock is ticking. Rick Ness is hoping for a big score alongside his crew, spending five weeks and a million dollars to bet on a Vegas Valley bonanza.
Tony Beets also isn’t about sitting and waiting for action, pushing to get to his 5,000-ounce goal for the season after some delays. Meanwhile, Kevin, the eldest son of the “King of the Klondike,” continues to feel the growing pains as a rookie mine boss. However, things are looking up. The question is if the late season rally is enough to help him push forward.
Finally, it has been a nonstop struggle for Parker Schnabel, known for taking big swings. So far he hasn’t gotten that one home run at the unpredictable Dominion Creek. Can things turn around before disaster strikes? Let’s unpack what went down.
Rick Ness
Rick Ness smiling at gold weigh. (Discovery Channel)
The good news for the Ness crew was that the overburden had finally been cleared and ready for pay. They had a huge stockpile to run through, but needed to move Monster Red to the new cut and start washing dirt by the end of the week to see if Ness made the right move. They decided to completely disassemble Monster Red and take the safer route. They experienced some issues moving the shaker deck, but were able to get it on the trailer for delivery. Forman Buzz Legault put Monster Red in the wrong place. This came two weeks after he and Ness had some heated words. Tensions between the two remained. After correcting the positioning, the crew received encouraging results with the output. “It’s lit up like it’s Christmas,” Ness said.
During the second hour, Ness stood at 951.85 ounces and looked toward Vegas Valley to hit. The sluicing process began, but more crew butted heads with frustration building. Thankfully, Ness got a nice shot in the arm for morale with best friend Brian “Zee” Zaremba returning to help. Sadly, Zee revealed his wife Chelsea received devastating news and had been diagnosed with two forms of cancer at age 33. Despite the heartbreaking update, Chelsea wanted Zee to go lend a hand.
Problems arose when smoke came from Monster Red’s feed conveyor. A rock was the culprit, which was the best case scenario considering the belt still in good shape. More issues followed with Ness discovering at least six holes caused by a big rock, which damaged the screen deck of the wash plant. They manage to work through these obstacles. The crew convenes to see what came of Vegas Valley. The first pay came in at 56.07 ounces. Not so fast. He teased the crew revealing another 200 ounces worth $670,000. Halfway home to the promised land.
Tony Beets
Tony Beets stood side on in cut. (Discovery Channel)
Tony decided to bust out the 85-year-old dredge to bank more gold with the water thawing at Indian River. He once again enlisted the services of Greg Mason for the job after they brought the equipment back for the first time in five years. The crew used dozers to pull it over to the pond closer to the thawed pay. It was initially beached on bedrock, but used dozers to get it to the spot and get sluicing in the area for the first time in six weeks.
Mason noticed the dredge was sinking to one side due to a leak in the pontoon filling with water. Nephew Michael came over to lend a hand. They installed pumps on the bank to remove water from the dredge and locate the leak. After two days down, they were able to get it back up and running. The Beets fam convene for weighing, which brought it to 31.75 ounces worth $83,000. Mike’s Paradise Hill Trommel came to 172.15 worth nearly half a million dollars. This brought them to 4,363 ounces.
During the second hour, Tony ran wash plants at Paradise Hill and Indian River to get him over to that season goal. Though the dredge is almost out of pay. Two other wash plants have sat idle waiting for frozen ground to melt. Tony brought in nephew Mike to sluice with Sluice-A-Lot at the extension at the Comeback Cut. Mike had to drag the wash plant to the new pad and fire it up by the end of the day. He brought in partner, wife Ruby Mahoney to assist with the job. The dredge ended up finishing the one-acre cut ahead of schedule. Son Mike started off the weighing from the Trommel, which came in at 251.48 ounces. The extension of the Comeback Cut was next with 146.46 ounces. Finally, the last gold from the dredge checked in with 58.74 ounces. The total was now at 4,800 ounces worth a whopping $12.6 million. Almost there.
Kevin Beets
Kevin Beets sat in service truck. (Discovery Channel)
The new mine boss spent five months getting 470 ounces of gold. With only four weeks left he needed to double it for any chance of another season. To bring in as much gold as possible, Kevon tasked foreman Brennan Ruault to dig out pay dirt and get the stockpile pile full while the rest of the crew fed the wash plant 24/7.
He brought in veteran miner Rick Johnson, who also happened to be a bank manager, as an operator. He worked with colleague Hunter Canning to work these overnights. At 2:32 a.m., Johnson found himself stuck in mud. Hunter had eight minutes to rush and help him before having to go back to keep the hopper filled or risk gold blasting out of the sluice box.
They managed to get the truck out. The next morning Kevin came to check on the crew, who met another hiccup when rocks clogged the prewash forcing the wash plant to be shut down while Canning dug it all out. At the end of a grueling week, it was time for the weighing. The hard work paid off in the form of 205.58 ounces. Kevin’s biggest haul yet. They also had nuggets, which added 4.14 ounces. This brought the total to more than half a million dollars resulting in 680 ounces so far this season.
Parker Schnabel
Parker’s Crew Tyson Lee, Alec Kelly and Liam Pukila together fixing plant. (Discovery Channel)
During the second hour, Schnabel stretched his crew thin trying to make the most of a bad situation at the start of the season. He turned his attention to seeing what might be in the Elbow Cut. His crew had to remove two feet of overburden and take out the frozen pay layer to sluice. He broke out the multi-million dollar D11 dozer for the job. The 30-year-old was not playing and brought in all the firepower to get the overburden removed as quickly as possible.
The frantic move meant blowing through a quarter of a million dollars to open the Elbow Cut. Mitch Blaschke led the crew as they moved wash plant Roxanne, which was a dicey process.
The weighing started with Big Red at the Bridge Cut coming in at 100.10 ounces. Next up was the Elbow Cut, which finished at 282.30 ounces worth nearly $740,000. A good week added to the 5,425.4 total worth more than $14 million.
Gold Rush, Fridays, 8/7c, Discovery