The AT north of the gap goes over a ridge line that was slated for a major development. In many spots you can see where phone poles were sawed off at the ground and in couple of spots there are obvious former model home sites with overgrown flower beds and roses. Sort of bizarre.
Actually, the area you are referring to, around Crater Lake, was developed. These were 3 and 4 season homes, 27 or 28 in total. During the planning of Tocks Island Dam (and the subsequent flooding, the homes were mostly bought by the Federal government, and the remaining were taken by eminent domain. Then, this area was essentially bulldozed, and all power lines were removed, and poles were cut down. There is one homestead that didn't get bulldozed, for reasons unknown to me, and locals refer to it as the Chaplains cabin. You can still walk inside the cabin, but it's dangerous, the floors are rotted and there are holes (you can literally fall from the 2nd floor to the basement. Sadly, the place is a real mess ...... graffiti all over the walls, broken glass, condoms, old mattresses, and beer bottles now litter the floors. This community is at high elevation, and would not have been actually underwater, but was within the "buffer zone" of the recreational lake that would have been created. According to a ranger whom I spoke with many years ago, the AT, (which is only about 300 feet from the north side of the lake), would have been just another 200 - 300 hundred feet above the water line!
As the signs say, beware of rattlesnakes! Don't worry, we didn't see any of them. Additionally, we spoke with a person who has hiked Tamany dozens of times over twenty-five years and he had only seen two. But then again, he almost stepped on one of them it was camoflaged so well...
I've hiked Mt Tammany well over a hundred times, maybe two hundred times, and have never seen a rattlesnake. I'm not saying they are not there, .... just saying it's unlikely you'll see one. I've only seen 2 snakes in that area ..... a long black snake near Dunfield Creek (not sure what kind) that just slithered off the trail as we approached, and a garter snake on the Blue trail. A bit further to the east, Rattlesnake Swamp Trail, is known for Rattlesnakes, but I've never seen any there either on my 10-15 times hiking that area. We did find some baby garter snakes one day, and a friend picked them up, 3 or 4, without hesitation. Glad the mama was not to be seen!
