The Wels Project lies approximately 50km east of the community of Beaver Creek and 60km south of Newmont Goldcorp’s Coffee deposit, which was discovered by Kaminak Gold Corporation (also a Discovery Group company prior to its acquisition by Goldcorp). Wels hosts structurally controlled gold mineralization within granitic intrusives, gabbro, and metasediments with similarities to the Coffee and Golden Saddle deposits. The Wels land position consists of 351 contiguous quartz claims covering 7,200 hectares and lies within the traditional territory of White River First Nation.

The project is located 50km east of Beaver Creek, Yukon. Access to the project site is by air, with support enabled by a road-accessible logistics hub at the historical Snag Airstrip, which is just 25km west of the project.

Wels is located within the Tintina Gold Belt, a world-class district of gold mineralization stretching roughly between the Tintina and Denali faults from east-central Alaska through to the Yukon.

Wels is underlain by metasedimentary and metavolcanic rocks of the White River Formation that have been intruded by a series of Triassic gabbroic sills, and Cretaceous granitic plugs. This package has been cut by a series of predominantly west-northwest trending structures that host alteration and gold mineralization. Mineralization is noted in all rock types observed on the property to date and is associated with quartz veining, brecciation, and sericite alteration with anomalous As, Sb, and, locally, visible gold.

Key target areas include the Saddle Zone, a set of west-northwest trending, steeply south-dipping mineralized structures hosted within a granitic body, the Chai Zone found 1.4km to the southwest, which hosts high-tenor gold-in-soil, rock samples to 4.38 g/t Au, and is hosted by both gabbro and quartzite, and the Pekoe Zone, a gabbro-hosted set of high-grade soil and rock samples found 1.3km northwest of Saddle. Additional target areas include the Gunpowder Zone, which hosts a northwest-trending soil anomaly and gold mineralization in gabbro reaching 28 g/t Au, and the newly defined Matcha Zone, which hosts coincident Very Low Frequency EM anomalies and strong gold in soil values.

All mineralized trends remain open along strike and approximately 80% of the property is unexplored.

The Wels property was first mapped in the mid-1970’s and was revisited by the Yukon Geological Survey (YGS) in 2002, with several rock, soil, and stream sediment samples taken. The results were published in 2006 and later spurred the staking of 110 claims by two Yukon prospectors in 2011. The property was optioned to Gorilla Minerals shortly afterwards, who then completed several campaigns of soil sampling and trenching from 2011 to 2014, with highlights including a maximum gold value of 149.5 g/t Au from the first trench on the property in 2012, and a trench at the Saddle Zone which returned 8.8 g/t Au over 45m. From 2011 to 2014, Gorilla analyzed 1,811 grid soil samples, 143 rock samples, and significantly expanded the claim block.

In 2015, Gorilla completed a 5 hole, 442m diamond drilling program at the Saddle Zone. The program defined a WNW-ENE trending, steeply dipping mineralized zone now known as “Saddle Main”, with a highlight result of 3.11 g/t Au over 19.5m in DDH-15-01.

K2 Gold Corporation entered into an option agreement with Gorilla Minerals in 2016. In 2017, K2 completed a 10-hole, 1,231.8m diamond drilling program at the Saddle Zone. The drilling intersected the Saddle Main structure and subsidiary structures just to the north and south, with highlights including 5.08 g/t Au over 12.5m in DDH-17-08 and 2.37 g/t Au over 28.5m in DDH-17-06. In 2018, drone and LiDAR surveys were completed across the property, and in 2019 a program of trenching was conducting at the Pekoe and Chai targets.

Beginning in the 2022 summer season, K2 revisited the Wels project and completed 61 line-km of ground based magnetic and Very Low Frequency geophysics at the Saddle, Chai, and Pekoe targets. The survey methodology does an excellent job at identifying structure and was utilized at the Coffee Gold Project to great effect. The survey helped refine structural targets for the Fall 2023 Reverse Circulation drilling program.

A total of 12 holes for 1,961m of RC drilling were completed by K2 during September of 2023. Drilling tested new structures identified by the VLF survey at the North and South Saddle targets, Saddle West, Chai, and Pekoe.

K2’s 2023 RC Drilling

Historical Diamond Drilling Highlights