[Warning: The below contains spoilers for Gold Rush Season 15, Episode 12.]
The Gold Rush miners officially reached the halfway point of the season. Tony Beets had his best start with three wash plants until the Shaker Deck and Sluice-A-Lot went down for repair and maintenance. This stalled the operation a bit, 2,600 ounces into his 5,000-ounce goal. It’s been an uphill battle for Tony’s eldest son Kevin as the first-time mine boss worked through tons of obstacles and personnel drama on his road to even getting some gold out of the ground.
Things look to be turning around though on that front heading into the January 24 episode. Meanwhile, Rick Ness cleaned out the last bit of Rally Valley, which meant the newly minted Yukon landowner needed to search for another cash cow. Let’s take a look at what went down this week.
Rick Ness
Rick Ness crew member Ryan Kent sat on toolbox in back of service truck. (Discovery Channel)
Over at Duncan Creek, Ness was riding high as a new landowner and after a great finish for Rally Valley. He has begun the hunt for his next mammoth payday. His first potential option was the Crew Cut, but that hasn’t delivered much. Despite the lack of returns, Buzz Legault was convinced he could find gold over there. The foreman got one more week from Ness to prove it. The foreman sees reasons for him to continue. Others on the team continued to work through the Crew Cut pile until Kyle Lawson ran into issues with the parking break of his loader. This threatened to shut down Rocky, the only working wash plant.
Mechanic Ryan Kent investigated and found the culprit was a blown accessory drive belt. They didn’t have a replacement, which meant having to shut down the plant. Kent’s MacGyver fix was to use his truck’s air compressor to disengage the loader’s parking brake, move the loader away from the plant and bring in the spare loader to clear the tailings pile. The plan worked until the spare loader’s tilt linkage snapped in half. With no loader to clear tailings, the wash plant was again dormant.
To get Rocky back sluicing, Kent moved the 460 excavator and a rock truck out of the Crew Cut for Lawson to run both and do the job of one loader. In the meantime, the new solution for now was to move parts from one loader to the other. This got them back at full strength. The Ness group met up for a weighing. The results were a terrible 9.28 ounces worth around $23,000. The Crew Cut was a bust. Ness needed to look elsewhere.
Kevin Beets
Kevin Beets working with chains. (Discovery Channel)
At Scribner Creek, it was a monumental day for Kevin. After months of breakdowns and delays, he was ready to fire up his own wash plant and get that first taste of the good stuff. And with a mountain of Links Cut pay to run, there may be some hope to hit his 1,000-ounce goal for the season. Kevin leveled up his operation with a giant power source that, to his knowledge, nobody in the Yukon was using. He invested around $100,000 from his life savings for this new generator. The benefits with the propane-powered generator were that it was better for the environment than diesel and cheaper to run.
Though with it being propane that meant more flammable, so it had to be handled carefully. Crew veteran Len Hoekstra was tasked with moving the important new addition to the right spot, which was easier said than done. With everything in place, after three months Kevin was finally running pay dirt. Things don’t go smoothly. Moments after starting, his wash plant had to shut down as the team figured out the proper place for the conveyer to help the pay get to the prewash. Kevin got a visit from his parents on his birthday. A nice gift was he started sluicing and seeing some gold.
Tony Beets
Tony Beets frustrated in front of excavator. (Discovery Channel)
We’re back at Indian River and the “King of the Klondike” has faced a few hiccups on his way to his 5,000-ounce goal. Thankfully, he had the the 35-year-old Trommel sluicing with his youngest son Mike heading up the site. The Trommel’s fuel transfer pump on the generator faced some issues. Mike called Tony about the generator surging. He instructed him not to run and to send the crew to haul pay pile. He wanted a good pile for the Trommel to work through once the generator was fixed. Tony later agreed to send another generator.
There was more problems for Tony to help deal with after an excavator in the super pit was stuck, bringing the stripping operation to a halt. They managed to pull it out of its spot. Cousin Mike came in to swap the generator from Indian River to get the site sluicing again. The Trommel couldn’t get up again until they figured out what was going on with the conveyer belt, which was running crooked. Son Mike’s quick fix was simply removing the roller and letting the belt hang more freely. The hope was it would re-center the twisted frame and then not lose any gold in the process.
“I’ll keep my mouth shut. This is not my business,” Cousin Mike said as he observed Tony’s son work through the plan. The Beets fam came together for gold weighing. After five straight days of running the one plant, the results were 325.14 ounces, worth more than $800,000. Tony felt good about what his “favorite son” had provided. However, he aimed to have all three plants up and running. The real boss of the Minnie Beets told her husband to get the hell out of there then. After all, there was more bacon to bring home.
Gold Rush, Fridays, 8/7c, Discovery
