The Yukon winter may be loosening its grip, but the challenges keep piling up for Parker Schnabel and his crew on the “long cut.”
After investing in drilling to pinpoint the depth of bedrock, Parker learned that most of the cut carries around 15 to 16 feet of overburden above pay dirt. While that means fewer wasted yards than expected, it still leaves a monumental task: clearing 16 acres of frozen ground before sluicing can even begin in earnest.
To speed up operations, foreman Mitch Blaschke deployed a 150-foot super conveyor, a massive custom-built machine designed to haul overburden out of the cut as fast as the excavators could scoop it. For a time, the machine performed flawlessly.
Then disaster struck.
“It was going good till it wasn’t,” Mitch admitted over the radio as the conveyor ground to a halt.
Inspection revealed a snapped drive shaft, destroyed sprockets, and a disengaged chain—damage severe enough to threaten days of lost work. Mechanic Bill Wichrowski and Liam quickly set to work on-site, replacing the shaft, realigning sprockets, and reattaching the drive chain under tight pressure.
“If I don’t get this exact center, the chain’s going to run crooked,” Bill explained. “Break another shaft, and we’re sunk.”
After six tense hours, the crew fired the conveyor back up. To the relief of everyone in the pit, the belt roared back to life, sending waste rock rolling up and out once more.
Pay Dirt Results: Still a Struggle
Despite the repair victory, frozen ground continues to haunt the operation. Parker’s team managed to run the pay from the long cut’s ditch—material that produced only 30 ounces the week prior.
This week’s tally was better, but still underwhelming. Weighing the gold, Mitch called out the numbers:
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10… 20… 30… climbing steadily until the scale read 99.45 ounces.
The gold, just shy of the symbolic triple-digit mark, is valued at nearly a quarter-million dollars, though Parker’s mood was tempered.
“That’s a lot of sluice for under a hundred [ounces],” he said. “But it was a huge boost to our season total—we’re now up to 135.85 ounces.”
While the numbers are climbing, Parker acknowledged the uphill fight ahead.
“The long cut’s going to make this season difficult. It’s deep, it’s frozen, and with problems like this, the scales could tip toward losing money.”
For now, Schnabel’s operation presses forward. The pay is there, but so are the setbacks.
And in the unforgiving Yukon, every frozen yard counts.
