‘Gold Rush’: Rick Ness Takes $1 Million Gamble That Could Cost Him Everything

[Warning: The below contains spoilers for Gold Rush Season 16.]

The Olympic athletes aren’t the only ones going for the gold. After a week break, Discovery Channel gave us another new official episode of Gold Rush. Tony Beets has been enjoying a great run right and already banked $14 million. With gold prices so high, the “King of the Klondike” is showing no signs of stopping, driven in large part to running two wash plants at the Corner Cut. 

Parker Schnabel also generated some big numbers to the tune of almost $20 million thus far. His team works frantically to grow that haul with a 10,000-ounce goal in the balance. Compared to the other two miners, it has been an uphill battle for Rick Ness. After leaving Lightning Creek, he moved back to Vegas Valley, which was deemed dangerous to mine. What does he do next? Read on to find out.   

Rick Ness

Rick Ness/Discovery Channel

With his operation at a standstill, Rick felt backed into a corner and faced with another massive gamble. The underdog mine boss gathered the crew to share his plan to extend Vegas Valley four acres and shift more than a million yards overburden in six weeks. “This is the only option we have,” Rick said. This could be the end of the company if it doesn’t pay off, but the team, although somewhat skeptical, believed in their leader. Rick dubbed the new cut Valhalla, a name inspired by a metal song from the  band Stormwarrior. At Duncan Creek, they worked on the first steps of the project to strip to the bottom, moving at a nice pace. Rick was told he would really be all in with all his $1 million in the balance when factoring in the expenses. Despite the news, he moved forward hoping for the best. A rock truck went down, costing the crew valuable time, but it was eventually repaired after parts came in for installation.  We’ll see if Rick can move mountains and once again hit the jackpot. 

Tony Beets

Discovery Channel

At Indian River, Tony’s strategy was simple. He planned to run his two wash plants at the Corner Cut 24/7 until winter hits. Things have not run as well at Paradise Hill, where the Trommel wasn’t running. The long distance from the equipment to the water pump led to many breakdowns. In order to alleviate this, Tony enlisted son Mike to create a new feeder pond, widen the dike, clear trees, dig out the pond and flood it with water by the nearby creek. From there, he set a deadline to get the pump in place by the end of the week. 

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Mike has been struggling at the site due to Tony pulling crew members and resources to work at their cash cow at Indian River. He had a number of rookies to lean on to get the job done. Ashley Jenson, the most experienced truck driver, was given responsibility to keep an eye on things with the level of danger high. Being close to the edge could lead to disaster. A D6 dozer did go over the road and needed some help getting back on the road. The team managed to get things set up for the pipe move. There were disagreements between Mike and his crew member Len Hoekstra as to how to tackle it. Mike stood his ground, and came together to get closer to sluicing. The family met for their weekly weigh-in. Sluice-A-Lot started things out with 339.92 ounces worth nearly $1.2 million. Find-A-Lot added another 332.62 ounces. That gave them in total more than $2.3 million worth of gold.  673 ounces more than $2.3 million dollars. Tony was about 2,000 ounces out of his target. 

Parker Schnabel

Brennan Ruault (Discovery Channel)

Parker was not pleased to find pieces of debris left in the roads by crew members. This turned out to be foreshadowing for what’s to come. With Mitch Blaschke pulled to help oversee the Golden Mile, the pressure was on for Brennan Ruault at Ken & Stuart’s area. He had three days to get down to pay in pit 2 before pit 1 ran out of pay for Roxanne to feed. Not making things any easier was the fact Brennan had a green crew. Billy Abbott , among the newest, blew a tire on his rock truck. The culprit was a piece of steel in the runway, which Parker said could happen. Brennan stressed the importance of paying attention. 

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Despite the setback, they were able to get tings ready for Roxanne. However, the wash plant ran into feeder issues. Spacers were installed at the bottom of the rubber belt to create more tension to make the belt tight and stop sideways movement. For the weigh-in, Roxanne’s pit 1 work brought in 100.35 ounces worth $350,000. The Bridge Cut at Dominion with Bob brought in 105.02 ounces worth over $360,000. At Golden Mile, Sluicifer came in next at 247.45 ounces. Numbers were down once again, but Parker remained hopeful with four plants running they were still on track. 

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

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