Four or five years ago, I sat beside Fisher's Hornpipe Creek for as long as I dared tempt the fading hours of daylight, and when at last I said goodbye to my ever-cheerful friend, I fully believed that for reasons of health and age, I would never pass this way again. I walked away with tears in my eyes, and that following winter, their torrent was multiplied by one from Nature which ripped through the Kautz Creek channel with incredible force, tearing away bridges and massive chunks of the forest. Sections of the trail were destroyed, but with other damage in the Park in greater need of immediate repair, hiking paths had a lower priority.
A few days ago, I gave serious consideration to a trip to Fisher's Hornpipe and dismissed it as too far and hard for tender knees. Instead, I opted for a shorter, easier trip which somehow turned out being neither, a fortuitous circumstance which inspired me to do more than sprint around Rampart Ridge today. En route, I discovered that my least favorite section of the trail had been one Mother Nature saw fit to remodel. The new section is overhung with tree roots and rocks which look like they might tumble down any second, but it is nevertheless much easier on the feet than its predecessor. Pyramid Creek Camp has also been relocated away from the stream's present and much broader bed.
Upon seeing the devastation wrought by the flood at the upper Kautz crossing and at Pyramid Creek, I had misgivings regarding what I might find at Fisher's Hornpipe, but when I arrived there, it seemed nothing had changed. The same root mass leans up against the bridge. The same riffles chuckle and the same little falls tumble into the same pools as before. Fisher's Hornpipe is unaltered in its simple beauty, or perhaps it appears that way because I saw it through the eyes of an old friend, returned for an unexpected visit after a long absence.
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