Rick Ness told Looper that because gold is finite and a lot of the more accessible spots have already been pilfered, finding and getting to gold continually gets more difficult. 

“That’s the thing right? Like, they’re not making any more ground with gold in it. I would say there is still a lot of ground left in the Klondike with gold in it, but the fact of the matter is that it’s getting harder and harder to get to, get back to that ground,” he said. “You can fly a helicopter out to the middle of nowhere where no one’s ever been and there could be an amazing amount of gold there, but if you don’t have the money to put the infrastructure into getting in, well, that really ain’t worth anything. So I can never predict where I’m going to end up, but I guess I’m always gonna go where the best opportunity is.”

But Ness may not have to look too far. According to the Pahrump Valley Times, a 2020 survey of resource and exploration companies released by the Fraser Institute named Nevada “the world’s top mining destination.” Several gold mining companies are already taking their places in the state where they see “large potential of the Nevada gold fields and prospective gold establishments,” per the publication.