From the west, the pass is reached from the Parks Highway by a road winding approximately 40 miles (64 km) up the valley of Willow Creek.

To the east the road drops into and follows the Little Susitna River canyon downstream, and south, some dozen miles to the abrupt mountain front at the edge of the broad Matanuska-Susitna Valley.

Although closed to car traffic, this section of road is heavily traveled in winter and spring by snowmachines and skiers.

Mills, adits, sky-trams, and other extensive early-1900s mine workings throughout the area of the pass record the activity that brought the road in.

There are no known historical native settlements in the area, although Dena'ina Indians hunted for caribou, sheep, and moose in the western Talkeetna Mountains until the 1930s.

In 2005 the Mat-Su Borough extended the electric grid and built a short access road to the proposed site of a base lodge.

Groomed skate and diagonal skiing trails winding amongst historical mining facilities in the high alpine area near the Hatcher Pass Lodge and the museum have a season that typically extends from October to April.

[12] The Willow Creek mining district lies at the southwestern edge of a great mass of granitic intrusions that form much of the Talkeetna Mountains.

The Hatcher Pass schist consists mainly of metamorphosed and deformed sedimentary rocks, of Late Cretaceous to Paleocene age.

[14] West of Government Peak, the Arkose Ridge Formation lies to the south of the schist, the contact is a low-angle detachment fault.

East of Government Peak and the Little Susitna River the mafic rock unit is in contact with the Arkose Ridge Formation to the south and the felsic plutons to the north.

[17][18][19] Gold-bearing (+/- Ag, W, Sb, As, Cu, Mo, Pb, Te, Zn, Hg) veins and shear zones occur in the 74 Ma (million years old) quartz diorite, in small amounts in the schist and in the mafic unit, but not in the 67Ma quartz monzonite, and in only one instance in the Tertiary sediments.

The gold occurrences in the schist, mafic unit, and sediments have much higher silver contents than the deposits in the quartz diorite.

[25] Activities that can be enjoyed in the Hatcher Pass area include Nordic skiing, downhill skiing, mountain climbing, white water kayaking, rock climbing, mountain biking, paragliding, berry picking, gold mining, hiking, kite-flying, snowboarding, wildlife viewing and back country camping.

[28] The Gold Mint Trail provides miles of technical, rocky, gently-climbing mountain bike riding alongside the Little Susitna River.