The Rambler is near the mouth of Finkle (Seven-Mile) Creek, where it flows into the Lardeau River. It is down-slope and upstream from the Florence [082KNW013] and Gold Bug [082KNW016] prospects. The tenure was originally part of a cluster that included the Gold Bug Fraction and other claims. The showings are at creek level, 610 metres east of the Gold Bug workings.
There is little known about the early history of the Rambler. However, in 1905, a portal was collared in the canyon wall and an adit was driven for 15.2 metres in a northwest direction along the flank of the quartzite. The same year, a small shaft was driven on the contact. In 1919, the Rambler and adjacent Gold Bug, Silver Star and Silver Spoon claims were owned by W.J. Livingstone. In 1933, the property was leased to J. Flagel and Associates, who formed the Gold Bug Mining Syndicate. In 1957, Messrs. Hladinec and Bobicki held both surface and placer rights to the Rambler area. They drove a 12.8 metres long diversion channel to the adit and rerouted the creek while processing the sediment.
The Trout Lake area is underlain by a thick succession of sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Badshot Formation and Lardeau Group near the northern end of the Kootenay arc, an arcuate, north to northwest trending belt of Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata that is now classified as a distinct, pericratonic, terrane. The arc rocks are bordered by Precambrian quartzite in the east and they young to the west, where they are bounded by Jurassic-age intrusive complexes. They were deformed during the Antler orogeny in Devonian-Mississippian time and were refolded and faulted during the Columbian orogeny, in the Middle Jurassic. A large panel, the "Selkirk allochthon", was later offset to the northeast by dip-slip motion along the Columbia River Fault.
The Badshot Formation is composed of a thick Cambrian limestone that is a distinctive marker horizon in the Trout Lake area. It is underlain by Hamill Group quartzite and it is overlain by a younger assemblage of limestone, calcareous, graphitic and siliceous argillite and siltstone, sandstone, quartzite and conglomerate, and also mafic volcanic flows, tuffs and breccias, all of which belong to the Lardeau Group. The rocks are isoclinally folded and intensely deformed, but only weakly metamorphosed. They occur as intercalated beds of marble, quartzite and grey, green and black phyllite and schist. Fyles and Eastwood (EMPR BULL 45) subdivided the group into six formations (Index, Triune, Ajax, Sharon Creek, Jowett and Broadview) of which the lowermost (Index) and uppermost (Broadview) are the most widespread. The Triune (siliceous argillite), Ajax (quartzite) and Sharon Creek (siliceous argillite) are restricted to the Trout Lake area. The Jowett is a mafic volcanic unit.
The area is underlain by black siliceous argillites and phyllites of the Triune Formation, Ajax Formation quartzite and black siliceous argillites and cherts of the Sharon Creek Formation. The rocks are isoclinally folded, highly deformed and locally intensely phyllitic. The rocks are on the northeast limb of the Silver Cup anticline and they strike to the northwest and dip at a moderate to steep angle to the northeast. On the Rambler claim, a band of quartzite, which is said to be the continuation of so-called "Nettie L. (a.k.a. Ajax) dyke", crosses the creek and there are several showings of quartz carrying small amounts of galena, sphalerite, pyrite and a little chalcopyrite in schist adjacent to the contact. There is no major vein exposed.
Messrs. Hladinec and Bobicki drove a diversion tunnel and used the old adit to reroute the creek. They then dammed the natural channel as part of a plan to extract placer gold from sand and gravel in a plunge pool. A small cut in the quartzite unit to the south of the old adit portal exposed several galena stringers that are up to 0.1 metre wide and approximately 0.30 to 0.61 metre apart. There are also similar galena-bearing veinlets in quartzite in the diversion tunnel.
