It is the only notable tributary of Glacier Creek, which enters Turnagain Arm from the north, 12 miles (19 km) from its eastern end.

Through its boulder-like channel across the moraine the stream descends in rapids, to emerge into a narrow gravel-floored valley bordered by benchlike terraces of gravel and snowing no rock outcrops.

Throughout the basin of Crow Creek, the bedrock consists predominantly of interbedded argillites or shales and graywackes, with some conglomerates, cut by numerous granitic dikes and sills.

Locally, the shale beds have been metamorphosed, with the development of slaty cleavage, and in places the metamorphism has been intense enough to produce a somewhat schistose structure.

Near the mouth of Crow Creek, they dip prevailingly at high angles to the southeast, but at the head of the valley folding has occurred, and the general trend of the structure swings around to an easterly direction.

[2] The physiographic history of Crow Creek is highly complex, but the deep excavations made during the progress of mining have yielded much valuable information concerning it.

The gravels toward the lower end of the creek, a greater portion of which were comparatively barren, were sluiced out to bedrock and a flume built to bypass the stream around this point.

A ditch, about 1 mile (1.6 km) long, conveyed the water from the upper portion of Crow Creek to the penstock, which gave a fall of from 300–400 feet (91–122 m) at the bottom of the pit.

[2] The Crow Creek Mine continues to operate today, and the area is open to the public as a tourist attraction.