The water of Young Creek is derived in part from melting snow and glacier ice, and during the warm summer days is discolored with glacial silt.
The upper part of the stream, formed by the union of two short forks, each a little more than 4 miles (6.4 km) long, flows over a flood plain between low brush-covered gravel benches.
These flow south from the ridge whose north slope is drained by branches of White Gulch, one of the forks of Chititu Creek.
Except for a small area of sandstone near the big bend the numerous bedrock exposures along the creek are shale or the intruded dikes.
This deposit is made up of material that is in large part foreign to Young Creek and that has been transported a long distance, much of it from the upper Chitina Valley.