Rick Ness Reveals Dangerous Health Issue in Dramatic Season 17 Premiere

The treasure hunt is back on with the Season 17 premiere of Gold Rush. Coming off of last year’s record-breaking season, Parker Schnabel has a chip on his shoulder after not delivering as many ounces as Tony Beets. This year the prodigy looks to invest in more equipment and crew to ensure lightning doesn’t strike twice. 

Meanwhile, Tony leans more on his family when it comes to his operation. Rick Ness appears to be MIA at the start of the October 2 episode. And with gold at a whopping $5,000 an ounce, there is a new mine boss on the block in Greg Gibson. The opening minutes saw Parker meet him as the successful entrepreneur acquired some pipe in a $10,000 deal. This stage looks set for a mining showdown. 

Read on to see how the return of the Discovery Channel series shook out. 

Tony Beets

Tony Beets in front of the excavator. (Discovery Channel)

We’re back at the Indian River where the pressure mounted for Tony, who wanted to continue his momentum.  At age 70, the “King of the Klondike” has no plans to retire or slow down. In fact, he planned to go bigger and bigger. And that’s saying something considering last season he pulled in a record 11,000 ounces worth $43 million. His sites include Paradise Hill alongside Indian River, where the team looked to be opening a massive cut. Surprisingly, Cousin Mike didn’t return, leaving Tony to bring in his younger brother Nick to serve as a foreman. Nick knows just because they are siblings Tony isn’t going to take it easy on him. He needed to prove himself. His first test was at the christened Midas Cut where the team needed to build a dike to reinforce and wall before water drowned the cut. A 50-ton excavator move to the pond almost turned disastrous when it fell off the truck. The ground remained too sloppy to send to a wash plant. There would be no sluicing as a result, which surely drove Beets crazy in his efforts to get a leg up on Parker. 

Parker Schnabel 

Parker Schnabel and Mitch Blaschke together surverying cut. (Discovery Channel)

Parker had his own muddy issues due to thawing. With 17,000 ounces pulled so far on his multi-year investment at Dominion Creek, they have four years to pull in what Parker expected to be 60,000 ounces worth $300 million. Therefore, the heat was on the team to generate bigger than the year prior. HIs aggressive goal was 13,000 ounces for the one season. It would take three wash plants running nonstop at the Dominion Creek with another at the leased ground at Ken & Stewart. Good thing he had his reliable lieutenants in Tyson Lee and Mitch Blaschke in the foreman roles. Tyson was tasked with getting the Golden Goose to start running top gravel by the end of the week at the Airstrip Cut.  Mitch had his own problems to deal with draining water out of the dubbed Quagmire Cut. Another reliable soldier Brennan Ruault was also back helping prep the land for sleuthing. Making things especially tricky was the fact the ponds were next to Tony’s property line. Parker’s cut drained into Tony’s Indian River’s claims. The holding ponds sit on the boundaries of the Midas Cut. Without cooperation, Parker could be without water to sluice. 

Parker paid a visit to Tony to see what to do on their shared claim lines. Can they be good neighbors? Parker went in wanting to make things work, but Tony wasn’t having it. Mitch had the idea to build the “Great Wall of Parker” to separate the property. With that, 15,000 tons of overburden needed to be moved to the side of the boundary line. The weight was felt on the shoulders of Tyson to get the Golden Goose running. It was mission accomplished, which gave Parker an early edge. The “Great Wall of Parker” also got completed. Mitch declared the land Team Parker with a stick with a cutout of his boss’s face, complete with trademark hoodie. The team met for the first weigh-in of the season. The Airstrip Gravel brought in 145.50 ounces worth $720,000. Parker was happy to be on the board, but there was still so much to do.

Rick Ness

Crew members Jason and Heather Folster were at Rick’s site and were concerned that they hadn’t heard from him. They awaited the plan while opening camp. The two checked in through Zoom with others from the team to see what was going on with Rick. He had left things up in the air after a rollercoaster ride at Duncan Creek. Rick confided he wasn’t feeling good on the car ride back up to Dawson City with his confidant Brian “Zee” Zaremba. He opened up about his issues. They included sleepwalking, where Rick had even hit his head at one point after a fall. Zee was concerned by what he heard and insisted Rick go to a doctor to get checked out. The good news was his heart, lungs and blood pressure were good, but he most likely had sleep apnea. The nurse practitioner recommended going to an overnight sleep study. After the appointment, Rick went on his way to Duncan Creek to meet the team. They gave him tough love about being ghosted. Before any work could even get underway and operate, the team needed an engineer with a mining plan as instructed by a safety inspector. 

Greg Gibson 

Gold Rush newcomer Greg was at Bonanza Creek and had bought claims all over. He started with underground drilling, working his way up in 43 years mining gold and sold a company in 2012 for half a billion dollars. He described his approach to not micromanage. Despite all the past success, the shrewd businessmen wanted to make another fortune in the Yukon. Greg depended on the local knowledge of his new crew head Buzz Legault. The veteran had worked under many of the mine bosses. Buzz didn’t make a solid first impression being late. The foreman was admittedly overwhelmed by the project. Greg wanted to get sluicing by June 1. His goal was simple. Greg wanted gold and lots of it. Let the games begin. 

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