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The Hatcher Pass and Sutton area is very mineralized as regards metal detectors. The high mountain areas are composed of granitic type rocks, granodiorite and tonalite in the immediate Hatchet Pass area, and monzonite above Sutton. Hot metal detectors like the Gold Bug 2 must be dialed way back to deal with the rock. Also, the gold is small. Very difficult detecting scenario. All my success in the area came from hand scanning hand picked quartz specimens, neatly side-stepping the issue. See Metal Detecting Lode Gold at Hatcher Pass, Alaska. I found the detectors to be of considerable aid in checking quartz specimens but I think the area would be very difficult to detect successfully in the classic sense of just scanning the ground for targets. The only creek in the area with nugget gold is Grubstake Gulch and it is completely claimed up. The Little Su, Willow Creek, and others have gold but it is small stuff. A Gold Bug 2 would hit it if you got on it, but would also go nuts on the rocks. A lower frequency VLF detector backed way down or a hot PI might deal with the rocks but then be unable to detect the gold. My method for checking potential quartz obviously worked but beyond that I would consider the area to be a very challenging scenario for metal detecting with a low potential for classic nugget detecting success. The main problem is simple - a general lack of gold nuggets! Honestly, a gold pan is probably a better tool for finding gold in the area than a detector unless you are chasing ore samples like I did. Ray, R.G., 1954, Geology and Ore Deposits of the Willow Creek Mining District, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1004, 86 p., 9 maps http://www.dggs.alaska.gov/pubs/id/3460