He’s the youngest of the gold mining gurus on Discovery’s hit reality series “Gold Rush,” but Parker Schnabel continues to rank among the top money-makers in the show’s history. He’s also become one of the legit fan-favorite personas in the “Gold Rush” landscape, partly because his go-for-broke attitude has provided no end of dramatic tension. And Schnabel’s penchant for betting big was perhaps never more on display than in the early days of Season 14, which saw him ponying up a cool $15 million for a claim at the potentially lucrative Dominion Creek claim.
As Schnabel recently told People, the decision to go all in was particularly difficult and had to be made as his business was at a tricky sort of crossroads. “We were at a real fork in the road in terms of taking on way bigger risks… Spending a pile of money on new ground or downsizing,” he said. And as the young miner went on to add, the latter option was just not something he wanted to do. “I probably would’ve rather lost money and kept the team as whole than downsized, honestly,” Schanbel claimed.
Given how much of Schnabel’s life has been dedicated to building his business, that sentiment is more than understandable. And it should be fascinating to see how much that business might grow with Dominion Creek in the fold.
Schnabel stands to win big if his gamble pays out as expected
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As Parker Schnabel told People, part of his need to grow his operation stems from the fact that said operation is costly to maintain. “We’re not a lean and mean little nimble crew or anything like that,” he quipped, adding, “We need a lot of ground, and we need a lot of ounces out of the ground to stay afloat.” Perhaps more importantly, Schnabel wanted to be certain he was able to keep his current crew of miners together, stating, “And my number one concern was, we built this really good crew and I didn’t want to have to break that up.”
But even Schnabel is uncertain if Dominion Creek will pay off as hoped. “As far as if it was worth it, we’ll see,” he told People, continuing, “We won’t really know if it’s worth it from a profit standpoint for a few years.” Taking into account the massive up-front investment required to claim Dominion Creek, the long-term aspect of Schnabel’s big gamble has already brought loads of drama to his storyline. And it will no doubt do so for years to come.
Even still, if the gamble does pay off, it’ll go down as the biggest win of “Gold Rush” star’s life. As noted in the People article, the Dominion Creek claim is that rare slice of untapped territory in the Yukon. If Schnabel and his crew can dig up all the gold stuff believed to be buried there, the payout could be upwards of $160 million. And with a return on investment like that, Schnabel would likely never have to think about downsizing again.
