Star of the Discovery Channel TV show Gold Rush, Parker Schnabel has been on the show since its very first season. He started out as a teenager helping his grandfather John run the family’s gold mine called the Big Nugget. After a while, Parker stepped into the main role at the mine, and the more responsibility he took on, the more fans seem to love him.
But what happened to Parker on Gold Rush? Fans have been wondering if he’s still on the show after more than a decade. It’s been a while since the last season aired, so people want to know what’s going on with their favorite miner.
What happened to Parker on ‘Gold Rush?’
According to Parker’s Instagram, he’s doing just fine. He’s focused on working and mining even when Gold Rush isn’t on the air. Although he doesn’t post much, it’s clear that he’s just living his best life right now. The Discovery show’s last season ended March 2020. As of right now, there are 11 seasons, and a 12th hasn’t been confirmed by the network. But someone else is speaking up.
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In an April 2021 interview, Gold Rush star Rick Ness told Looper that the 12th season was going to happen. “It’s a thing, yeah,” he said. “I’ve got the same few guys and I got a couple of really good new additions to it.”
He clarified that he’s not always looking to get a bigger group of miners together, but they did haul in $2 million last year, so he might need more people to help keep up the momentum.
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But, while you wait for the show to come back, you can watch one of the many spinoffs — Gold Rush: Dave Turin’s Lost Mine, Gold Rush: White Water, and of course, Parker’s show Gold Rush: Parker’s Trail. According to The Hollywood Reporter, another spinoff called Gold Rush: Winter’s Fortune has recently been given the green light by Discovery and will be about the gold-mining offseason.
Is Parker Schnabel still on ‘Gold Rush’?
As of now, it looks like Parker is on the show to stay. His Instagram handle is still @goldrushparker and neither he nor Discovery has said anything about his leaving. Not only is he finding a lot of gold, but fans really do seem to love and support him, so it doesn’t look as if he will be leaving anytime soon.
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Parker was last seen on Gold Rush in 2020 as he dealt with the issues of running his business during the pandemic. But even though so much devastation was going on across the country, things ended up looking good for him.
In a clip posted by the show on Facebook in May 2021, we see Parker and his crew talking about how they’ve had a really good mining season. After they weigh it all and do all the calculations, we see that they bring in a record-breaking 7504.9 ounces of gold. It was worth almost $14 million, which is four million more than their previous goal.
You can watch Gold Rush on the Discovery Channel and Discovery Plus.