The Erie (West) occurrence is located at an elevation of 1080 metres, approximately 2 kilometres northeast of Erie Lake.

The area is underlain by siltstone and conglomerate of the Archibald Formation and argillite and siltstone of the Hall Formation, both of the Lower Jurassic, Rossland Group. The northwest-trending Erie Creek fault forms the boundary of the two formations east of Erie Lake with the Hall Formation to the east. A small mass of granitic rock of the Middle to Upper Jurassic Nelson Intrusions disrupts the strata to the immediate north. The locations of two adits are marked on Map 1145A just east of the Erie Creek fault in Hall Formation rocks.

Locally, schistose rocks host a vein, up to 60 centimetres wide, containing galena, sphalerite and chalcopyrite mineralization in a siliceous gangue.

In 1928, a grab sample from a pile of sorted ore assayed 229.72 grams per tonne silver, 21.8 per cent lead, 2.26 per cent copper and 4.3 per cent zinc, while a sample from a wide iron- capping exposed in an open-cut near the adit assayed 0.69 gram per tonne gold, 20.57 grams per tonne silver, 0.5 per cent lead and 0.6 per cent zinc (Minister of Mines Annual Report 1928, page 338).

In 1989, a grab sample from a 0.6-metre wide quartz vein, located near a former adit, assayed 3.6 grams per tonne gold (Assessment Report 18786).

In 1990, diamond drilling yielded 5.4 grams per tonne gold with 57.1 grams per tonne silver over 3.7 metres in hole 16 and 5.2 grams per tonne gold with 604 grams per tonne silver over 1.3 metres in hole 17 (Property File - Desert Gold Resources Inc. [1990-08-23]: No. 163 (1990) - Joe Claims Update).

In 1928, the vein was drifted on for 53 metres with two winzes developed for an additional 9 and 12 metres respectively. In 1988 and 1989, Highland Queen Mines completed programs of geochemical sampling, geological mapping, ground geophysical surveys and at least eight diamond drill holes, totalling 564 metres.