32 GOLD PLACERS OF RAMPART REGION. 
northward from Wolverine Mountain and divide the Minook drainage from that of 
Troublesome Creek. Their valleys, even at the heads, are so steep that the trails 
leading out of them are exceedingly difficult to travel. 
Hunter and Hoosier creeks not only have had a sufficiently large flow to cut their 
canyons, but they did it quickly enough to have since had opportunity to widen 
them, while Little Minook Creek with its smaller volume has not yet graded its 
valley sufficiently to do so much side cutting, and Little Minook Junior and Florida 
creeks lack much of having cut their beds down to grade. 
HUNTER CREEK. 
General description. — Hunter Creek is the first tributary of any size above the 
mouth of Minook Creek. It is between 12 and 15 miles long, carries probably a 
little over 40 second-feet, and flows in a steeply walled canyon-like valley through 
its whole length. In its upper 7 or 8 miles it flows almost north until it comes to 
the line of the high bench, when it turns at a right angle and flows west to Minook 
Creek. 
Through the upper part of its course it is a crooked stream with a narrow V-shaped 
valley, probably indicating a rejuvenated drainage, while at its turn into the high 
bench the course becomes almost straight, showing a young, rapidly cut valley. 
It has but one tributary below the bend — Dawson Creek — entering from the south 
about 4 miles above the Minook. In the lower part of the valley of Hunter Creek 
the two sides are unlike. On the south side the upper 300 or 400 feet of the valley 
wall is very steep, almost precipitous. The descent then becomes gentler and forms 
a broad bench which slopes easily to the creek where it ends abruptly with a face 
15 to 40 feet high. This bench is probably to'be correlated with the lowest one on 
Minook Creek. It is covered with gravel, varying in thickness from 5 or 6 feet to 
15 feet, and with muck varying in thickness from 1 foot near the creek to 40 feet or 
more near the hillside. 
The creek flows tortuously through its bench, retaining the meanders it had before 
the bench was formed, and generally is close to the north side of the valley, but 
occasionally, as about 4 miles above the mouth, it wanders toward the south side, 
cutting away most of the bench. The valley has a grade in its lower part of 75 to 
80 feet per mile. 
Gold was discovered in Hunter Creek Valley by William Hunter (for whom the 
creek is named ) in 1896, at a point about 1\ miles above the mouth. Few defi- 
nite data were obtainable concerning the gold production of the creek, but it is 
believed to have been approximately $24,000, of which $3,000 was produced during 
the winter of 1903-4 and $3,000 during the summer of 1904, a total for the year of 
$6,000. Hunter Creek has so far not proved to be a rich creek, though gold has 
been found in the gravels of both the bench and the present stream bed. 
At the head of the creek the bed rock is mostly Rampart slate and quartzite; 
tuffaceous greenstones which predominate in the lower part of the valley are over- 
lain near the mouth by Kenai sandstones and conglomerates. The tuffs contain 
some rounded pebbles, and a hole 228 feet deep was sunk in them under the 
impression that they belonged to the frozen muck and gravels of the creek. The 
rocks are much jointed and contain many small veins of quartz and calcite. Pyrite 
occurs at many places. 
The gravels of the creek are 2 to 12 feet thick and are mostly diabase, slate, and 
chert pebbles from the bed rock, with many heavy bowlders of quartzite, occasion- 
ally reaching 3 feet in diameter. These larger bowlders are residuals from the 
gravels of the old bench through which the valley is cut. Much of the diabase 
gravel is angular or subangular. The muck over the gravel varies in thickness from 
1 foot in places along the stream to 40 feet or more where the small streams pour 
their debris upon the valley floor. 
