The season six finale of “Gold Rush” gave viewers insight into the final weeks of gold mining operations as Tony Beets, Todd Hoffman and Parker Schnabel engage in a bitter race for the most gold. Freezing temperatures and broken machines created a headache for everyone as they tried to gather every last scrap of gold for their final season totals. Here’s how the numbers ended up for each team as well as some of the final struggles they encountered in the episode.
Parker and the Scribner Creek crew
Not satisfied with 3000 ounces, Parker gambles the remainder of his season on a creek bed all in the name of beating Todd.
Parker begins to sluice the creek bed, roughly 1800 feet of thawed pay, to advance his 300 ounce lead over Todd but Goldzilla has a motor that is failing and won't make it to the end of the season. Parker's crew decides to cannibalize Big Red for a motor and, after some creative mechanical maneuvers with the pulley system, the new motor is installed. A frozen pump then almost shuts Parker down, but after foreman Rick Ness torches the pump for a bit it unfreezes and restarts. 95 year old John Schnabel arrives by helicopter for the final cleanup and convinces Parker it’s time to finally call it a season. Parker and his crew work one final 10 hour shift and at midnight the last bucket of pay dirt is run.
The final cleanup weighs in at 353 ounces of gold, giving Parker a 3,362 ounce season worth $3.7 million dollars.
Todd and the McKinnon Creek crew
The Hoffman crew have issues running Monster Red while they set up a second wash plant, Fort Knox, so they stop sluicing until they’re ready to run both wash plants at the same time.
Once they get the second plant running, they run 600 yards an hour for five days straight. They have another 24 hours to go when Fort Knox suffers a malfunction with the turbo charger on the water pump which overheats and stops them in their tracks. Mechanic Juan cannibalizes a part off his own truck to keep the operation going and when the stacking conveyor breaks down for the 6th time Todd decides to just push it out of the way with a bulldozer.
When Jack cleans up the final gold it adds up to 321 ounces for a season total of 3,032 ounces, the best season ever for Hoffman crew and worth $3.3 million dollars. In the final moments of the episode Todd packs up and leaves the Klondike to mine next season in Oregon.
Tony and the Eureka Creek crew
In need of one final cleanup, hoping to finish on a high note, Tony continues his adventure with the first Klondike dredge to mine in 30 years, but is still 300 ounces short of his season goal. With winter looming, the dredge will be crushed by ice if they don’t remove it from the pond before winter freezes them in. Tony wants to get his final cleanup in but Gene tells Tony it’s time to winterize and stop.
That’s not going to cut it, according to Tony, who wants to run his operation to the very last minute. Gene preps the dry dock, irritated at the situation, but follows orders. Tony finally calls the season at the very last moment but, before he can count his final gold, he assists Gene with parking and winterizing the dredge. The final cleanup begins and the crew boxes up the pay dirt to be weighed at Paradise Hill. Tony, with 609 ounces so far worth $670,000, needs 291 ounces to reach his 900 ounce goal, but comes up short at 127.75 ounces. Tony's season total of 737 ounces is 163 ounces short of his goal, but he has gained critical knowledge that will allow him to produce around 36 ounces a day in the future.
