After a two-week break, Gold Rush Season 15 returned on April 4 with back-to-back episodes as the miners race against winter. Gold prices are up, and everyone’s pushing hard.
Rick Ness has spent five weeks and a million dollars chasing a big payday in Vegas Valley. Tony Beets is fighting to hit his 5,000-ounce goal after earlier setbacks, while his son Kevin tries to find his footing as a rookie mine boss. Things are improving, but time is tight.
Meanwhile, Parker Schnabel is still struggling at Dominion Creek, swinging big but missing that breakthrough. Can he turn it around before it’s too late?
Rick Ness
Good news for Rick Ness: the overburden was cleared, and it was time to run pay. The crew moved Monster Red to the new cut, facing some hiccups—especially when Foreman Buzz Legault placed it wrong, causing more tension with Ness. Once repositioned, results looked strong. “It’s lit up like it’s Christmas,” Ness said.
By hour two, Ness had 951.85 ounces and was hoping Vegas Valley would pay off. Sluicing began, but tensions rose—until morale got a boost with best mate Brian “Zee” Zaremba returning. Zee shared heartbreaking news: his wife Chelsea had been diagnosed with two forms of cancer at 33 but still encouraged him to help.
Trouble hit when smoke poured from the conveyor—just a rock, luckily. But a larger rock caused six holes in the screen deck. Despite it all, they pushed through. First pay: 56.07 ounces. Then Ness surprised the crew with another 200 ounces worth $670K. They’re halfway to the big goal.
Tony Beets
Tony Beets fired up his 85-year-old dredge at Indian River to boost gold totals, bringing in Greg Mason to help. After towing it to thawed ground, they hit a snag—a leaking pontoon. Nephew Michael joined to help pump out water and patch the leak. After two days, the dredge was back in action, pulling 31.75 ounces. Mike’s Trommel added 172.15 ounces, bringing them to 4,363 total.
Later, Tony ran wash plants at Paradise Hill and Indian River, trying to hit his season goal. With the dredge nearly out of pay and other cuts frozen, he sent nephew Mike and Ruby Mahoney to fire up Sluice-A-Lot at the Comeback Cut extension. The gold haul was strong: 251.48 ounces from the Trommel, 146.46 from the extension, and 58.74 from the dredge. Total: 4,800 ounces worth $12.6 million—closing in on the 5,000-ounce goal.
Kevin Beets
New mine boss Kevin had 470 ounces after five months and just four weeks to double it. He pushed hard, assigning foreman Brennan Ruault to stockpile pay while the crew ran the wash plant 24/7.
Kevin brought in veteran miner and ex-bank manager Rick Johnson, teaming him with Hunter Canning for overnight shifts. At 2:32 a.m., Johnson got stuck in the mud, and Hunter had just minutes to rescue him before risking gold loss. They got it out just in time.
The next day, a rock clog forced a wash plant shutdown. Despite the setbacks, the week ended strong with a weigh-in of 205.58 ounces—Kevin’s biggest yet—plus 4.14 in nuggets. That brought his season total to 680 ounces, worth over half a million dollars.
Parker Schnabel
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.
