Gold Rush TV Show

[edgemar]

saw this somewhere.

these reality shows are like soap operas for men.

[Aragorn]

I do agree that these shows do seem to have a lot of manufactured drama.

I don't think that Dakota Fred was as big a tool in real life as they made him seem on the show. He seemed to be a problem solver who looked at the situation and thought of a way to fix things. If Todd would have listened to him the first season, they might have done better.

As far as last season, what a total disaster. The Hoffmans took what money they had and threw it away in South America. I think a lot of the stuff Todd does is more for the show drama than for the gold. I think the aggravation with his bad decisions is what the producers what though.

As a side note, why does every vehicle have the same canned motor noise? No matter if it is a semi or a dozer, same motor noise.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by Bugsinrugs

Little has been said on how they jack up the land. They should be made to at least attempt to restore the areas before they leave.

That entire area has been dredged or mined in the past. It heals itself in short time.

Besides, have you ever seen that land? Besides in TV I mean?

No, very few have.

So what difference does it make? If you never see it and don't know about it, then it doesn't affect you in the least.
It's their land.

[J P Stein]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

That entire area has been dredged or mined in the past. It heals itself in short time.

Besides, have you ever seen that land? Besides in TV I mean?

No, very few have.

So what difference does it make? If you never see it and don't know about it, then it doesn't affect you in the least.
It's their land.

Well, it depends on your description of "heal' and "quickly"
In the geologic sense, "quickly" can be several thousand or a million years.

I've seen better aerial "tailings" pictures than this but this ought to do. ......

I've never seen your lawn either. Can me & my buddies come down & dig a few holes?.....we'd promise not to fill them back in.

[Rednine11]

I hate the old mans voice.......
I just don't think we're going to get to a thousand ounces......
and I wonder how many times the word Glory Hole has been said on that show..Geez...

[sammyg2]

There's the irrational PNW response.

Show me a picture of those tailings a few years later.
Show me a picture of tailings that are so remote you'd never be able to find that place.
Show me a picture of those tailings after a couple of winters covered with snow, and then grass, then snow again.

I know where my yard is. I see it all the time. It is not hundreds of miles out in the middle of nowhere in the arctic circle only accessable 4 months out of the year by crossing streams and rivers and moutain ranges in a 4 wheel drive.
It's not in a place where maybe a dozen people get within sight of it every century.
And my yard is MY property. If I want to dig it up I will.


Within years that Yukon land would be grown over with native grasses and weeds and saplings.
Within 20 years there's be trees growing there.
In 30 years you'd have trouble figuring out what land had been mined and what had not.

A whole lot of that land up there they are stripping has already been dredged not that long ago (in the geologic sense, oh boy).

Hey maybe it's a good thing all them glaciers are (not) melting. Those big bad glaciers kill the grass and the only thing left under them is dirt and rocks. Glaciers should be illegal.

[sammyg2]

Here's a picture of some reclaimed land in Missouri that was strip-mined for coal.
Nature has pretty-much reclaimed it in a decade, and you wanna talk about a wildlife paradise.....

[Bill Douglas]

Originally Posted by tevake

Bill is going to be rich by the end of His summer trip :-) I figure his SUP boards are going to get him to where even the jet boats can't reach

Cheers Richard

Haha, I hadn't read this thread before. Thanks Richard.

I didn't find any gold. I dived down to the bottom of small water falls and rapids with a bucket, then panned that back on the river bank. The logic was (in pools at the bottom of waterfalls) the light sand and gravel would get washed away and the heavy stuff would get left. There had been big rain falls with rivers changing their course so I thought I had a good chance. But no. The cold from the NZ South Island rivers was incredible. Argh, I thought it was going to kill me, but not before I found gold. All in all, it was fun, but would have been more fun if I had found some. I'm going to go back sometime with a Garret AT Gold machine and try that way.

[J P Stein]

There are trees growing in the ravines. I don't know when the pic was taken. The soil has been turned upside down.
There is no topsoil or even fallen leaves to hold moisture. Take a look at the blowdown area around MT St Hellens....a much better area to grow foliage to see how the recovery is going there. Much of Alaska has a growing season of about 3 months per year. Things grow slowly there. It ain't Missouri. Most of the coal mine tailings were replanted.......they were forced into that by the Fed & Local govs. I have a shirt tail cousin that developed fertilizer coated seed to make plants grow in that ****.

Stick to things that you know a little about.
There are coal tailings in WA that look just like when they were dumped there.......great for riding dirt bikes cause you can't hurt anything.

Yes, most will ever see it, but it's the attitude that is the problem. You ever see a clear cut right down to the high water mark of your favorite river bank? Have any clue what that does to the river?

[Aragorn]

Just finished watching last weeks episode and am starting to think this show is on its way out. Even the manufactured drama is slipping in interest. Seems like most of the cast is also upset with being filmed all the time anyway. Will probably watch till the end of the season, but think this show will go the way of Alaska:The last Frontier for me.

Still don't know how the Hoffmans can be so broke but drive around in relatively new pickups that cost around $50k.

[VincentVega]

No kidding. I watched for a while, I thought it was interesting to see how the operation worked. After that.... it's tough to sit through more than a few minutes.

[edgemar]

I found the solution for watching this show: TIVO!!!

It takes me about 10 minutes to skip through all the re-hashing and crap and watch the interesting moments of the show.

It is definitely getting worse though. The only thing interesting is seeing that dredge fire up after being moved and reconstructed...

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by J P Stein

There are trees growing in the ravines. I don't know when the pic was taken. The soil has been turned upside down.
There is no topsoil or even fallen leaves to hold moisture. Take a look at the blowdown area around MT St Hellens....a much better area to grow foliage to see how the recovery is going there. Much of Alaska has a growing season of about 3 months per year. Things grow slowly there. It ain't Missouri. Most of the coal mine tailings were replanted.......they were forced into that by the Fed & Local govs. I have a shirt tail cousin that developed fertilizer coated seed to make plants grow in that ****.

Stick to things that you know a little about.
There are coal tailings in WA that look just like when they were dumped there.......great for riding dirt bikes cause you can't hurt anything.

Yes, most will ever see it, but it's the attitude that is the problem. You ever see a clear cut right down to the high water mark of your favorite river bank? Have any clue what that does to the river?

A couple of seasons ago on this show, the doofus clan was stripping overburdon.
Trees a foot and a half thick and 30 feet tall, growth like a jungle.

Then they figured out they were in the wrong place, that area they were stripping had already been mined a couple decades earler.

If the land recovers so fast that after 20 or 30 years it's impossible for supposed miners to tell if it's been stripped before, I really don't think it's worth getting bunched over.

ESPECIALLY since this land is so remote that you couldn't find it with a guide and a map.

Take the irrational emotions out of it and look at it logically.

And remember, Avatar was fiction. Fantasy. fake.

[tabs]

Originally Posted by Bugsinrugs

Little has been said on how they jack up the land. They should be made to at least attempt to restore the areas before they leave.

Living in NV City you should know that back in the days of 49 the miners used LOTS of Mercury in their Sluice Boxes to catch the fine Gold. As a result ALL of CA's major rivers are laced with Mercury, as Mercury escaped from those Slice boxes. So drink up your glass of water, eat up your CA fruits and veggies cause they all gots Mercury in it. I think it was really silly of CA to worry about lead bullets when not only is there nearly 200 years worth of lead bullets plus all that Mercury sitting at the bottom of the water supply.

[URY914]

Originally Posted by tabs

Living in NV City you should know that back in the days of 49 the miners used LOTS of Mercury in their Sluice Boxes to catch the fine Gold. As a result ALL of CA's major rivers are laced with Mercury, as Mercury escaped from those Slice boxes. So drink up your glass of water, eat up your CA fruits and veggies cause they all gots Mercury in it. I think it was really silly of CA to worry about lead bullets when not only is there nearly 200 years worth of lead bullets plus all that Mercury sitting at the bottom of the water supply.

This explains a lot of things.....

[legion]

I stopped watching after the end of the third season. By that time, it was clear that Todd had lots of ideas but no relationship with reality.

[Deschodt]

I wonder.... that show might actually be better without ANY manufactured drama. Shorter, but better... you can spot it a mile away, those guys aren't actors, and what are the odds a truck will leave the road right in front of a camera, come on !! ;-) If you need some drama, make it a straight race to 1000 ounces or 2K (since Parker already won), and the winner gets a million$ prize or something...
The artificial crap between Tony Beets and Parker is the worst... I still enjoy it (but FFWD and DVR'ed as someone pointed out) mostly just to see the Hoffmans fall on their face again...