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

The competition between Tony Beets and Parker Schnabel is heating up for Season 17 of Gold Rush. These two miner heavyweights have just started their operations, but the pressure is on to deliver 13,000 ounces. Tony enlisted the help of his brother Nick to serve as foreman at Indian River. Delays at the Midas Cut have only frustrated the “King of the Klondike” with Parker already pulling in gold numbers at Dominion Creek. 

Greg Gibson, who joined the Discovery Channel show, has high expectations right out of the gate.  The shrewd businessman pumped money and resources into Trail Hill. With a lot riding on generating profit, he brought veteran Buzz Legault to get him results. 

Read on to see how things shook out for these three this week. 

Tony Beets 

Nick Beets posing looking down lens, excavator in background. (Discovery Channel)

Tony grew impatient that his team had failed to sluice early like last year. He was anxious to get gold out of the ground, hoping for a $65 million pay day. The crew have been working feverishly to open up the 60 acres of the Midas Cut. They needed to remove the muck and expose the ground for thawing. Nick saw Tony’s strategy as a gamble. “If you don’t gamble, you don’t win,” Tony responded. The crew already stripped 20 acres with the goal to add another 20 by the end of the week. Tony’s grandson Eagan was also part of the family business as a hoe operator. The 18-year-old had some flirty banter with fellow crew member Karissa Williams. The fun turned serious though when a track blew on his equipment. Nick laid down the law for Eagan to stay focused on the task at hand. Meghan Roberts was in charge of keeping the dump site safe and managed the traffic of all the rock trucks. The muddy grounds caused issues with the vehicles and even a dozer getting stuck. Tony rode in with his own dozer to get the operators back in motion. Tony and Nick panned the area to test the grounds, which gave them the confidence to keep going. Now they just need to get sluicing.

Parker Schnabel 

Parker Schnabel (Discovery Channel)

Parker one upped Tony in Round 1 of the Klondike clash against Tony. He was four years into his overall seven-year plan at Dominion Creek. So far, there were 145 ounces generated from the Golden Goose wash plant this season. The mine boss set an aggressive goal to get a wash plant going each week over four weeks. Parker looks to score off gravel from last year’s leftover pay. Tyson Lee had to haul wash plant Big Red to sluice gravel at the Golden Mile Cut. He found there wasn’t enough water coming down the sluice runs.  A broken spray bar caused them to shut down in order to repair it. They made a valve replacement in order to get Big Red going. 

At Ken & Stuart’s Quagmire Cut, Mitch Blaschke was close to sluicing, but water had been everywhere and delayed progress. Mitch needed to strip 30 acres, but that was easier said than done. Mitch had to figure out why the ditch wasn’t draining. A big layer of ice was the culprit. “We’ve never had a problem like this before,” the foreman said. The strategy was to pump out the water to a new holding pond 450 feet away with hopes his hose was long enough to do the job. Team Parker met up for their second week gold weigh-in for two wash plants. The Golden Goose at the Airstrip Cut brought in 163.60 worth $818,000. Big Red’s first haul got a disappointing 47.80 ounces. This brought their total to 356.90 ounces. Parker remained optimistic with Bob joining the wash plant next. 

Greg Gibson 

Buzz Legault (Discovery Channel)

Greg made big money in hard rock mining and hoped to do the same with placer mining. The latter relied on water to separate minerals. Buzz saw the operation at Trail Hill to be a big undertaking. Greg has been buying up ground across the Klondike with the 60-acre claim off the Bonanza Creek a way to start his new empire. He gave Buzz a week to set up his new wash plant named Hot Box in order for them to start testing.

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To help, Greg brought in his trusted crew Neil Gauthier and Tyler Culhane, With $3 million already invested in the claim and another half a million used to purchase the wash plant, failure wasn’t an option. Buzz first got the wash plant off the truck, which had a few dicey moments. Then came hauling it up the hill to the wash plant’s resting spot for the season. They finished the job by setting up the hopper, tailing conveyer, and sluice runs. Buzz admitted using a little guess work with the last part of the installation. Ultimately, Buzz passed his first big test. Greg was pleased and thought it was a good start. “So you’re ready for 18 hour shifts,” Greg asked Buzz. Buzz responded that he would do 20 hours if he could. Greg liked his work ethic. 

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