‘Gold Rush’: Parker Schnabel Plays Hardball With Tony Beets’ Son Kevin (RECAP)

[Warning: The below contains spoilers for Gold Rush Season 15, Episode 4.]

Let’s face it.  Gold Rush Season 15 hasn’t been the best start for Parker Schnabel, nowhere even close to being on track the way he would like. Equipment issues and icy ground have plagued the 29-year-old and his crew with hopes the tide would turn in their favor.

Things were the complete opposite for Tony Beets in terms of generating gold, but that doesn’t mean he faced his own obstacles. Meanwhile, Beets’ eldest son has begun to learn how hard it is to be a mine boss as he tries to negotiate a deal with Parker, who plays hardball. Let’s dig into what took place during the November 29 episode, which was without Rick Ness.

Parker Schnabel

Mitch Blaschke, Tyson Lee and Parker Schnabel in conversation. (Discovery)

The Long Cut has been a steep learning curve for Schnabel. The plan for a record-breaking season has hit constant snags with only 36 ounces to show for three weeks of work. “It’s a bit scary,” he said. Still cool and collected, he split his crew in half. One was concentrated on stripping Bridge Cut, which won’t hit paydirt for weeks. The other was the problem child which was the Long Cut. The only progress in terms of gold has come from the wash plant Roxanne running ditches in the area.

This Long Cut ground needed to be defrosted before any sluicing could take place. The team ran into another issue where crew member Mitch Blaschke worried the gold pay layer may have sunken lower. If it’s more than 20 feet down or more, they may not get to it in time this season. Schnabel wanted to investigate and invest in a $ 20,000-a-day rental of a sonic drill to test how deep the Long Cut pay layer was. Luckily, it was about 15 feet of bedrock, meaning there was still hope. Blaschke got back to work to clear the waste. Helping things along, they brought in a super conveyor. More issues came when the excavator broke the hopper, once again putting operations at a standstill. The drive shaft snapped and cracked both sprockets and disengaged one of the conveyor chains. Six hours later, it’s up and running.

Another bad week at the Long Cut with four acres needing to thaw and 16 acres left with 15 feet of overburden that needed to be removed. Sluicing the ditch pay resulted in 99.45 ounces. Just shy of a quarter of a million dollars, bringing the season total so far to 135.85 ounces. . Schnabel is still hopeful. “We’ll get through it. We’ll survive one way or another.” The power of positivity.

Tony Beets

Cousin Mike spraying his tools yellow. (Discovery)

The “King of Klondike”  has hit the ground running with 849 ounces in just three weeks. He has never sluiced this early. Beets’ Indian River claim has historically offered consistent gold yields. Sluice a Lot has been bringing in the gold within the Comeback Cut. He’d like to get his 30-year-old Shaker Deck up and running as well. His plan was to remove the screen deck and armor it up with steel plates. Then haul the 50-ton wash plant to a new pay pile with the new reinforced screen and conveyer to fire it up. Nephew “Cousin Mike” was tasked with the big job and deadline to get it running by the end of the week.

Mike was promoted to Indian River foreman after Kevin went off to do his own thing. Poor cousin Mike couldn’t catch a break when the conveyor smashed into the hopper feeder. This brought the operation down for at least a couple of hours. Beets’ son also named Mike, a heavy equipment specialist, was called in to lend a hand. It took two days to get the plant fired up again until more problems arose. The steel plates actually diverted the water before it could wash gold from dirt, rendering it useless until it was fixed. In between the work, cousin Mike demonstrated his method for making sure nobody took his tools. He spray-painted them yellow.

Back at Paradise Hill where the family convened to see what Sluice-a-Lot gave them from running nonstop for the week. The result was 255.38 ounces. That’s nearly $640,000, bringing the season total to 1,105 ounces.

Kevin Beets

Beets’ son and partner Faith Teng have certainly felt their growing pains at Scribner Creek. They host their first crew meeting along with their foreman Brennan Ruault, who returned to the fold. He opened up how it lifted his spirits getting the call from Kevin as he hoped to move up the ladder. The crew worked to get started on stripping, hoping to reach 1,000 ounces by the end of the season. The goal was to get three acres stripped at the Links Cut to pay dirt by the end of the week using the equipment borrowed from his dad. After some delays, work began.

We were introduced to some of the team including rookie Hunter Cannon, who spoke about being found on TikTok and wanting to leave her government job for the great outdoors of the Yukon. She would run into trouble with her truck. Another crew member Chase Dreger wanted to get some gold to hopefully move out of his parents’ basement. His experience came from a gravel pit before responding to Kevin’s job posting. Dreger’s truck also wasn’t working properly.

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Kevin was frustrated at what equipment his dad left him with. Any teen who gets the jalopy as their first car can relate. Kevin and Teng take a field trip to neighbor Schnabel’s place where they hope to secure a functioning rock truck. His budget was $100,000. Schnabel told him it was actually $110,000 for the one he eyed. Kevin asked if he would take $105,000. Schnabel played hardball saying, “I don’t haggle. Take it or leave it, I don’t care.” Kevin realized he was not in a place to negotiate. He asked if he could defer payment. Schnabel said the only catch is he would take it as is, no matter what happens. There was no warranty here. Teng felt it added even more pressure to get to their goal, but the 21-year-old 40-ton truck got them back in the game. Missing their deadline for the week, they have a big hill to climb in the coming weeks.

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