Something about the impending loss of the trail made me notice what I’d blanked out before: the perfumed taste of a thimbleberry, the beads on a spider web after a rain, and the tops of the Cascades just managing to push through a gauze of mist. Allison and I crossed over the California-Oregon border in mid-October, close to a pasture containing splotchy cows and a single bull whose horns were scratched and whose huge penis drooped like a limp gastropod. The bored animal watched as we formed Os for Oregon with our stick-thin arms. I felt a twinge of sadness, knowing we’d never return to the trail once we left and got caught up in responsibilities, jobs, and the like. This meant that I’d never see this land again; nor would I relate to Allison in quite the same way again, with the trail and the forest framing our relationship, forcing us into simple roles: Allison manhandling maps and carving steps in snow walls, me building fires and scooping water from a brook. Suppose we needed the trail, and its shared mission, to stay together?
