Peter Donohoe: When Trails Become Paths

There is a certain magic to a trail. You feel it in the crunch of soil underfoot, the play of light through the leaves and the pause to let someone else pass. Trails meander. They invite a slower pace and a kind of shared respect among the people who use them. Over time, they shift with the seasons, narrow underbrush or bend to protect a wetland. A trail can adapt and give back to the land when the land needs to heal.

But a trail can change. Pave it, straighten it, fix it in place and it becomes a path. A path may serve its purpose well, but it carries a different spirit. It is permanent. Where a trail can be coaxed back into nature, a path must be torn out to be undone. Once a trail becomes a path, that shift is rarely reversed.