‘Gold Rush’: Rick Ness Gets Life

The miners haven’t gotten off to the best start during Season 17 of Gold Rush. After last year’s hot streak, Tony Beets scrambles to make up for lost time during the October 16 episode. His short fuse and frustration doesn’t bode well for the newcomers on the crew. Although Parker Schnabel got on the gold first, it’s not to the level to make a big dent in his 13,000-ounce goal in an effort to beat the “King of the Klondike.” He put the pressure on his lieutenants Mitch Blaschke and Tyson Lee to jumpstart the operation by continuing to get the four wash plants going.

Rick Ness’ mining future remained uncertain, especially after going through some health struggles. The underdog got checked out by a doctor who suspected he had sleep apnea. This all delayed activity at Duncan Creek with the wonder if things would even get started on Rick’s claim.

Let’s dig into what happened on the Discovery Channel series this week.

Tony Beets

Tony Beets working in CAT excavator. (Discovery Channel)

The veteran mine boss isn’t in the best mood without gold in his pot two weeks into the season. Tony looked to change that quickly by building up enough stockpile to put Sluice-A-Lot to work. His crew were two-thirds into the 60-acre Midas Cut effort of moving dirt. The plan was to have enough pay for the wash plant to run 24/7 to make up for lost ground. Tony had 14 to 15 rock trucks running each day with the majority greenhorns operating them. His grandson Eagan continued to earn his stripes within the family business.

Newcomer Tim Meisner hoped not to get axed as Tony notoriously was quick to fire if things weren’t getting done to his satisfaction. When Tim wasn’t following directions, Tony ended up sending him home for the day. Others like Xander Lewis were sent packing permanently. The driver flipped his truck, which blocked the road to the stock pile. Tony had to step in when another truck had a flat tire. The diminishing team members led to Tony’s daughter Monica hopping into an excavator after a few years. However, for her her, it was like riding a bike. She observed Tony’s management and doesn’t necessarily agree with his hard-nosed approach. Tony’s brother Nick lent a hand to get things back on track. Despite some bad luck, the Beets family came out to witness Sluice-A-Lot operating for the first time. There for the moment was also Tony’s son Michael and wife Minnie. The race was on to beat Parker.

Rick Ness

Rick was in Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon territory looking for answers. He knew something was wrong as his energy level was low and everything hurt. Two weeks prior, adding insult to injury, Rick found out he needed an engineer to plan a safe way to mine Duncan Creek before the crew could even get started. Rick received some eye-opening results from a sleep study, confirming the doctor’s diagnosis that he indeed had severe sleep apnea. He found out he stopped breathing an average of 89 times per hour. His oxygen censor was below 60 during a portion of time. “I probably haven’t gotten a night’s sleep in years,” Rick concluded. “The reality is I could have died any day.”

There was a whole lot on the line this year besides gold. Rick called Brian “Zee” Zaremba to thank him for encouraging him to look into his health issues and address them. Zee attempted to lift up Rick’s spirits that now he knew what the problem was and could work to fix it. He had a new lease on life after getting some shut-eye using a CPAP machine. Rick met with crew members Jason and Heather Folster to talk about building up their team, as well as how they can move forward. They wanted to get back to mining.

Parker Schnabel

Parker Schnabel (Discovery Channel)

The chaos was creeping up to Parker with two wash plants running, but only having just over 400 ounces to show for it. This wasn’t much into his 13,000-ounce goal. Parker wasn’t above helping out in a truck. With Big Red and Golden Goose were running, Tyson was tasked to get Bob up next. The mechanics have been working round the clock to make sure the wash plant was ready to go over the coming days. Tyson not only had that to deal with all this, but massive problems at the Golden Mile Cut where pay was still frozen after the area had the coldest winter in 50 years. The foreman had to get the dozer to rip the top of the grounds off to expose the center pay so the sun could help the space thaw.

‘Gold Rush’: Tony Beets Sends for Brother Nick in Battle to Beat Parker Schnabel

Meanwhile, the mechanics were able to get Bob ready to be moved on the truck deck. From there, it was unloaded, assembled and in its new home at the Bridge Cut. Team Parker assembled for the weekly gold weigh. Big Red at the Golden Mile came in at 43.03 ounces. The Golden Goose ran top gravel at the Airstrip Cut at 144.00 ounces. Bob at the Bridge Cut fired up for a few days to bring in 45.50 ounces. The overall total was 232.08 ounces worth $1.1 million. They were behind in Parker’s eyes. He aimed for 700 ounces a week, so Roxanne was definitely needed to get their numbers up.

Gold Rush, Fridays, 8/7c, Discovery Channel

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