Sometimes, prospecting for gold doesn’t leave a good deal of time for much else. Rick Ness, Parker Schnabel, Tony Beets, and Fred Lewis understand this all too well. The “Gold Rush” cast has explored several different locations in their pursuit of the precious mineral used in everything from powerful technology to fancy jewelry. At first, most of the teams on “Gold Rush” had little to no experience in gold mining, but they have learned quickly to navigate the tools of the trade and the heavy machinery that comes with it.
Schnabel has been a part of “Gold Rush” since the first season where he acted as an advisor, but was later upgraded to a full-time miner when his grandfather granted him rights over the Big Nugget Mine in Season 2. He has visited Australia, Guyana, Papua New Guinea, and Canada in his endeavors, but there is one thing the famous gold miner regrets about his chosen profession.
Schnabel misses having time for friends
In a 23 minute Facebook Q&A session, Parker Schnabel talked about his favorite music, his future, and his crew, but he lamented the fact that he doesn’t have many friends on account of working so much by saying, “I would say that is definitely one of the downsides. All the guys and girls that I graduated high school with, I don’t really get to see them any more. I don’t make the time to keep in touch with them, it’s just a hell of a busy summer. So that’s definitely a downside — all the guys I used to hang out with, they’ve moved on, and I’ve moved on and don’t really have time to keep up. That’s a bummer, but I’m doing what I love so that’s what you give up I guess.”
Schnabel himself is worth around $10 million, and in 2018, he managed to mine around 6,000 ounces of gold, worth around $7.2 million (via Discovery). In the previously mentioned Facebook interview, Schnabel says that his crew tends to work from seven in the morning to seven at night, and 12 hour shifts leave very little room for anything besides mining. He sometimes has the crew start a little later depending on the amount of daylight, but even then, it’s only an hour or two delay.
It seems that if one wants to mine for gold on a television show, then one better be ready to do little else.