The Bonanza showing is at the foot of the southeast slope of Fays Peak. It is at an elevation of approximately 2200 metres on the axis of Silver Cup Ridge. The area is drained by American Creek, which flows to the southwest, and Butte Creek, which flows to the northeast. The Bonanza King (L.14178) claim is at the north end of a northwest trending linear cluster of crown granted claims that comprise Mineral Lease M 219. They include, from south to north, the Gallant Boy (L.14179), Harlock (L.14180), Butt Fraction #1 (L.14176), Butt Fraction #2, (L.14177), Butt (L.14082), and Bonanza King (L.14178). The showings are also described under Gallant Boy [082KNW215] and Butte Group [082KNW095].

The prospect has been explored by surface cuts and an adit driven for 48.8 metres. Its early history is poorly documented; however Burdos Mines Limited is known to have done some soil geochemical work and trenched and drilled three diamond drill holes for a total length of 234.4 metres in the Bonanza Creek area, in 1969. It is not clear how much of this work was done on the Bonanza King crown grant and how much was done on the Butt #1 (L.4176) claim. The two are adjacent to each other northwest and southeast of a pass between the American and Butte Creek drainages.

Camborne Resources Limited worked on the Butte Group [082KNW095], Gallant Boy [082KNW215] and the Bonanza property in the late 1980s and identified two principal areas of interest in the Bonanza area. The Bonanza North and East areas are described as having short adits. The former is probably on the Bonanza King claim.

The Trout Lake area is underlain by a thick succession of sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Badshot Formation and Lardeau Group near the northern end of the Kootenay arc, an arcuate, north to northwest trending belt of Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata that is now classified as a distinct, pericratonic, terrane. The arc rocks are bordered by Precambrian quartzite in the east and they young to the west, where they are bounded by Jurassic-age intrusive complexes. They were deformed during the Antler orogeny in Devonian-Mississippian time and were refolded and faulted during the Columbian orogeny, in the Middle Jurassic. A large panel, the "Selkirk allochthon", was later offset to the northeast by dip-slip motion along the Columbia River Fault.

The Badshot Formation is composed of a thick Cambrian limestone that is a distinctive marker horizon in the Trout Lake area. It is underlain by Hamill Group quartzite and it is overlain by a younger assemblage of limestone, calcareous, graphitic and siliceous argillite and siltstone, sandstone, quartzite and conglomerate, and also mafic volcanic flows, tuffs and breccias, all of which belong to the Lardeau Group. The rocks are isoclinally folded and intensely deformed, but only weakly metamorphosed. They occur as intercalated beds of marble, quartzite and grey, green and black phyllite and schist. Fyles and Eastwood (EMPR BULL 45) subdivided the group into six formations (Index, Triune, Ajax, Sharon Creek, Jowett and Broadview) of which the lowermost (Index) and uppermost (Broadview) are the most widespread. The Triune (siliceous argillite), Ajax (quartzite) and Sharon Creek (siliceous argillite) are restricted to the Trout Lake area. The Jowett is a mafic volcanic unit.

The Bonanza King claim is on the northeast side of the Silver Cup anticline. It is Close to the Butte Group [082KNW095] and Gallant Boy [082KNW212]; however, it is in a different geological setting. It is on the southwest, footwall, side of a major, northwest trending fault that runs down the axis of Silver Cup Ridge. It is underlain by green and grey phyllites and volcanic rock of the Broadview and Jowett Formations. The rocks are highly deformed and intensely schistose and they commonly display parasitic folds with shallow northwesterly plunging axes. The foliation strikes to the northwest and dips moderately to steeply to the northeast, as it does throughout the Silver Cup area.

The Bonanza King vein conforms to the strike and dip of the enclosing carbonaceous phyllites. It strikes to the northwest and dips to the northeast. The vein is 0.3 to 0.61 metre wide and is composed of quartz mineralized with pyrite and minor galena. It has been explored by surface cuts and an adit. In 1914, "average" samples were reported to assay 6.85 to 61.71 grams per tonne gold and 51.4 to 205.7 grams per tonne silver. Camborne Resources Limited describes the "Bonanza East" as being a short adit on a sub-concordant shear zone that contains a quartz-carbonate vein that produced a "character" sample that assayed 2.88 grams per tonne gold, 1127 grams per tonne silver, 32 per cent lead and 2 per cent combined copper and zinc. It describes the "Bonanza North" zone as having a small adit with dump material composed of coarse-grained pyrite, fine to coarse-grained galena and minor sphalerite in a quartz and/or quartz carbonate gangue. A selected sample from the dump assayed 3.56 grams per tonne gold, 1732 grams per tonne silver and 27.8 per cent combined lead, zinc and copper.