While his team pushes to hit their 1,000 ounce goal, Rick Ness is looking to the future.

Offered the option of returning to the Indian River, mining Tony’s ground, he wants to find out if Duncan Creek has more to offer.

There’s one thing I’m learning about Duncan Creek right now—it’s very hard to read the ground. Overall, there is gold here, and it’s just a matter of figuring out where. So, if I’m going to be successful here, I better figure it out quick.

So, I’m going to go up in a helicopter today and see if I can maybe from a different view figure out what’s going on.

[Music]

This actually where my claim start. Okay. Right here. Oh, yeah. And all the way down this valley. We could just work our way up here.

Rick’s landowner, Troy Taylor, has given him access to more than 9 miles of virgin ground along Duncan Creek, notorious for gold-rich hotspots and dead zones.

Yeah, looking for new ground this late in the season, it’s not ideal. It’s a little crazy, but if I can find something, get into it, and prove it, then I can come up with a really strong plan for next year.

It’s a really sparse spot right there. I wonder if that’s right where the thick trees start. Yeah, I think that’s the spot right there. That’s a lazy inside corner of the creek. It’s definitely never been touched.

On the inside bend of a creek, the water flows slower and should deposit more gold. Last week, Rick found a 1 and 1/2 ounce nugget on a lazy bend just like this.

Yeah, this isn’t going to be easy, but this is what I’m going to have to do this year if I’m going to have a future here.

We’re going to try to get into one of the spots I spied from the helicopter.

In the Yukon, Rick Ness is faced with a choice that could define his future: head back to Tony’s steady ground on the Indian River, or gamble on nugget-rich pay dirt here on Duncan Creek.

Rick must decide before the season ends. So, he’ll bulk test a patch of ground he spotted from the air.

Little steeper than it looks. Wa wa. Oh, that’s what I was afraid of. That’s all permafrost. Just about took off.

The steel tracks of the 54-ton excavator are fighting for traction on the frozen bank.

All right, seat belts going on, I guess. Good. Easy, easy. Yeah, buddy. Wash my shacks out real nice. Oh, yeah. Not so bad at all.

Hoping for a quick smash and grab—you know, dig a little pick and cruise in here, test it, and hopefully find my future.

If Rick hits his thousand ounce gold and wants to return to Duncan Creek, he’ll need thawed ground with guaranteed gold.

All right, so far so good. Nice and thawed. Already starting to see a little bit of gravel in there, but I’m looking for the big old boulders. It’s going deeper than I thought. Gravel, where are you?

I’m starting to see the tops of the boulders right down here. It’s a little bit deeper than I thought it would be, but that’s definitely the stuff we’re looking for.

Cruisy, I found the stuff we’re looking for. Why don’t you get that rock truck back here and let’s get some of this stuff trucked to the plant.

To avoid Rick’s steep descent, Cruzie takes a longer route along the creek.

Oh yeah, that’s some good looking pay. Oh man. Rick’s found thawed ground, but he won’t know if he’s got a future at Duncan Creek until he runs it through the wash plant.

Well, why don’t you get that on up to the plant? I’ll be waiting here for you.

Good luck.

In the Yukon, with an offer on the table of returning to the reliable gold of Tony Beats’ Indian River ground, Rick Ness has gone out to see if he can do better on new ground at Duncan Creek.

Oh, yeah. Well, here we go. What is that? That’s what we got out of the test.

That’s a lot of gold actually for 10 truckloads.

10 truckloads. Yeah. 200 yards. 200 yards. So, you know, 2 hours of running. I’m just trying to find good ground for us to go in the future, right?

Yeah. And if this test turns out right, I think that’s a pretty good indication.

Oh, yeah. There’s that, too. But we’ll get to that. I knew there was. Honestly, this is more important right now.

Ground on the Indian River typically pays 1 ounce per 100 yards. If his 200-yard bulk test is better than that, Rick’s future lies at Duncan Creek.

Here we go. What do we get? Two. Three. Holy. 4.14.

Nice. That’s—yeah, I see your head working, Cruisy. That’s over 2 ounces per 100 yards.

That’s awesome. Those are good numbers. Yep. That’s it, right? Those are good numbers.

Honestly, you make serious money. An ounce per 100 and you’re happy—you can make money at that. 2 ounces per 100, now you’re just laughing.

So, this is great news for our future, but we also have to think about now.

So, why don’t we add the rest of what we got this week to it?

To return to Duncan Creek, Rick still needs 170 ounces of gold to hit his thousand goal, but his average so far has been 60.

Oh, yeah. This is going to be a good one. 50, 60, 70. Are we going over 80? 80.66.

80.66. There it is. That’s awesome. Just keep going up. Yeah. Worth 153,000.

No, this is awesome. Our gold weights keep going up and up, but we still can’t sit on our hands. If we’re going to hit our thousand goal, we still have just about 100 ounces to go to get there and not a whole lot of time.

So, that’s a lot of work. We’ll get there, bud.