Vista Gold Corp. Announces Initial Results from Guadalupe de los Reyes Drilling Program

Vista Gold Corp.

is pleased to announce the results of its initial drilling program for the Guadalupe de los Reyes gold-silver project in Sinaloa, Mexico. In November 2011, Vista initiated an exploration drilling program on the project. With the results of the first 10 core holes, we have begun to achieve our objectives of: Obtaining core for metallurgical testing from the stockwork that is the host for the project's current reported estimated resource in support of a planned Preliminary Economic Assessment; Testing for the potential for high gold and silver grades in the underlying low-sulfidation epithermal vein systems, with hole 11GW-001 intersecting 1.5 meters of 5.46 grams/ton gold and 645.7 g/t silver at 60 meters below surface; and Confirming the historic reverse circulation drill results with diamond core drilling. Prior to the holiday break this past December, Vista completed 10 diamond core holes totaling 1,470 meters. All of the holes targeted the Guadalupe vein system which can be traced over a distance of 4.5 kilometers. Approximately 2.5 kilometers of strike length was extensively developed by historic mining with underground workings extending 400 meters vertically. In the Guadalupe West area, six holes were drilled down dip and along strike from previous drilling. Three additional holes were drilled to explore the projection of the vein to the east in an area with no prior drilling. These holes were designed to test potential veining below surface stockwork outcrops that have returned assays ranging from 1 to 4 g/t gold. The final hole targeted high grade mineralization east of the main area of historic production. Six of the 10 holes intersected 10 to 40 meters of quartz veins and stockwork zones. In this area the vein is typically five to eight meters wide with stockwork veining extending an additional 20 to 30 meters up the hole. Assays are still pending from the final hole.