‘Gold Rush’: Greg Gibson Makes Big Discovery That Could Turn Season Upside Down

Parker Schnabel has been hit with many levels of frustration this season of Gold Rush. Six weeks of sluicing low grade pay barely made a dent into his 13,000-ounce goal. Making matters worse, gold prices have plummeted from the 5,000 an ounce high hundreds of dollars at a time. The mine boss isn’t one to sit in sorrow and makes a major investment to turn things around during the November 13 episode. 

Meanwhile, Tony Beets continues to ride high on a hot streak with two wash plants running in the Midas Cut. He looks to follow up on the momentum coming off an 800-ounce week worth $3.5 million. New placer miner Greg Gibson wants to build his own empire. A big key to getting him there is at Trail Hill with Buzz Legault. The pressure is on for his foreman to fire up his wash plant Hot Box and deliver for the savvy businessman. 

Let’s break down the latest that transpired on the Discovery Channel series. 

Parker Schnabel

Parker Schnabel (Discovery Channel)

At this point, Parker had already spent $20 million on his operation while only bringing in $5 million in gold. The mining prodigy felt his best chances at meeting the lofty goal set was Dominion Creek’s Road Cut. Drill results in this particular area revealed that it could bring in upwards of 6,000 ounces worth a whopping $26 million. Parker invested in another million dollar wash plant named Phil to power through the Road Cut, which runs twice as fast as Big Red. Foreman Tyson Lee was tasked to get the new addition to the equipment fleet up and sluicing ASAP. Usually, the crew received guidance from the manufacturer, but this time the crew flew solo putting it together. They slowly got the job done. 

Although they had to shut down after having to re-level the wash plant. This caused the sluice runs to drop to the ground and spill water and gold rich pay. The team went with a bush fix and added wooden blocks to prop it up. Team Parker met for the weekly weigh-in. Roxanne at the Quagmire Cut brought in 101.40 ounces. The Golden Goose has been sluicing at the Airstrip Cut and added 44.35 ounces. Bridge Cut’s Bob generated 117.55 ounces. Before the shut down of Big Red, the stockpile from Golden Mile came in at over 25.70 ounces. Phil sluiced in the Road Cut over three days to produce 162.15 ounces. That translated to close to $2 million. Parker needed a big push over the next few weeks if he was ever going to catch up with Tony. 

Tony Beets 

Tony Beets using radio next to wash plant conveyor zoomed in. (Discovery Channel)

Things have been going well for the “King of the Klondike.” Tony’s brother and foreman Nick, had hit bedrock at the Midas Cut. Panning gave good results. Tony believed jagged bedrock could be hiding a gold bonanza. Nick’s second in command Andrew Moran was in charge of keeping two wash plants going. Crew member Adam Waugh had to keep Find-A-Lot fed, but the wash plant ran into belt issues. This forced him to shut down the wash plant. Rocks knocked off one of the control boxes. Tony was frustrated over Andrew and Adams lack of attention to detail. He cleared the rocks away from the hopper. Andrew felt the heat more than anyone as a leader.

This instance served as a wakeup call for him. The crew were able to get back on track after a five-hour shutdown that cost Tony $65,000 in gold production. Tony could see the operation at least three months working in the cut. Find-A-Lot faced issues with rocks hitting the spray bar and losing nozzles. Nick and trusted mechanic Len Hoekstra figured out that a rubber guard needed to be built. Nick got a material handler to lift up the equipment. Len looked through the instruction manual to see how the new toy could be used properly. The Beets family convened for the weigh-in. Find-A-Lot pulled in 378.48 ounces. Sluice-A-Lot added an impressive 464.46 ounces. It was another great week worth more than $3.6 million and helping bring the total to 2,500 ounces. The lead against Parker widened even more. 

Greg Gibson

Buzz Legault cleaning window on excavator

Greg had a 500-ounce gold goal and had Buzz chase white channel pay. The discovery of an old tunnel caught their interest. They wondered what would be inside in this unearthed old drift mine shaft. With that came mysterious black dirt the crew planned to investigate further. The dirt was full of graphite. Samples were run where they hit bedrock. Panning gave them more confidence to find a way to process the black schist without losing the gold. Buzz borrowed a test trommel, which he believed would be the best tool for extractions.

Buzz ran a 20-yard test before meeting with Greg for a weigh-in. Running white channel generated 35.46 ounces worth $150,000. These were encouraging in Greg’s eyes. The black schist test of 20 yards was eye-opening for Greg. He saw an opportunity to perhaps increase his aspirations. “This changes the entire seasons,” Greg declared. Buzz was tasked to find a big trommel based on what was seen so far. He felt the pressure even more now with the stakes higher. 

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