Every Freshman at This High School Has To Hike 55 Miles on the Appalachian Trail

A Catholic prep school in New Jersey has an unusual program for its freshman class: a mandatory 5-day, 55-mile backpacking trip from High Point State Park in New Jersey to the Delaware Water Gap on the Appalachian Trail, supported by adults but guided by the students themselves.

Saint Benedict’s Preparatory School in Newark, New Jersey runs on a peer-led governance model in which student leaders take responsibility for running much of daily school life — overseeing attendance, leading morning assemblies, managing the schedule, and even handling disciplinary matters.

Photo: Michael Scanlan courtesy of St. Benedict’s Prep

That emphasis on student leadership extends to the annual freshman hike. Unorthodox though the Backpacking Project may be, St. Benedict’s has been running the program successfully for more than 50 years at this point. The school’s approach to learning has gained national attention: it was featured on 60 Minutes in 2010, and more recently, the Backpacking Project was the subject of a segment on CBS News.

“Every single year at graduation, our student speakers reference the Backpacking Project as being a pivotal moment” in their education, says Dr. Glenn Cassidy, who serves as the executive director of the school’s outreach division and is himself a St. Benedict’s alumnus. “Students for decades to come will reference their teammates from backpacking and tell the stories.”

Freshmen spend most of spring training for the 5-day hike under the guidance of upperclassmen, who also lead groups of students during the hike itself. Every student has a role to play and receives specialized training for that role, whether they’re a navigator, cook, camp specialist, medic, or the team captain. The kids aren’t allowed to bring their phones with them (except for the trip leaders, who all carry one for safety purposes). 

Photo: Michael Scanlan courtesy of St. Benedict’s Prep

Pulling off a project of this scale is, as Cassidy puts it, “a year-round project.” This year’s hike involved around 200 freshmen and upperclassmen organized into 24 teams of eight, plus roughly 15 adult hikers spread among them. Additional students and staff travel in support vehicles paralleling the route, ready to respond if someone gets hurt, a team loses the trail, or water supplies run low.

The school delivers all its own water rather than requiring students to purify from streams, and collects all garbage to leave no trace. With so many students on-trail at once, the school can’t rely on public land campsites; instead, program organizers seek out private camping areas near the trail. Planning for the following year’s hike begins before the current one ends — campsites for 2027 are already secured.

While adults are present on the trail and staged nearby, they take a light hand in the hike, and the students function largely independently. It’s one of the school’s core principles, after all: “students step up when adults step back.”

Photo: Michael Scanlan courtesy of St. Benedict’s Prep

Through the ups and downs of the trail, students learn about leadership, teamwork, resourcefulness, determination, and the empowerment that comes from overcoming adversity. And for many, the five-day trip may be their first opportunity to immerse themselves so fully in nature, on a hiking trail far from Newark’s bustling urban environment.

Life lessons notwithstanding, not every teenager instantly takes to the great outdoors after one week on what is probably America’s rainiest long trail. Cassidy jokes that some students get home and vow to burn their boots and never return to the woods. But for some, the trip sparks a passion. Students who enjoyed the program can volunteer as upperclassmen to train and lead their own groups of freshmen in later years.

Photo: Michael Scanlan courtesy of St. Benedict’s Prep

Some take their connection with the outdoors beyond their school careers. Just a few weeks ago, Cassidy and his students encountered a St. Benedict’s alumnus on trail. The alum was out on a training hike with Outward Bound, where he now works. 

Over the decades, Cassidy estimates dozens of graduates have gone on to work with outdoor organizations, including Project USE, a Newark-based outdoor education nonprofit. Many more, he says, carry the lessons of the trail into careers in schools and youth-serving organizations.

St. Benedict’s isn’t the only institution to recognize the educational potential of long-distance hiking — Emory and Henry College’s Semester-a-Trail, for instance, allows students to earn academic credit for hiking the Appalachian Trail. But as Cassidy told CBS News, his school’s Backpacking Project is likely unique, not only in that it focuses on much younger students and is a mandatory part of freshman year, but also in the degree of autonomy afforded to and expected of those students.

Photo: Michael Scanlan courtesy of St. Benedict’s Prep

That emphasis on student independene has been central to the Backpacking Project since its earliest days. St. Benedict’s started the Backpacking Project in 1973 as an experiential learning option for what Cassidy describes as the school’s “more rough and tumble students.” The program itself was a little rough back then, too. The monks running it had little more hiking experience than their charges. 

“It was, from their description, a miracle that they made it,” says Cassidy of that first group. Father Mark Payne joined the school two years later and took charge of the program; Payne had significant scouting experience and largely made the program what it is today.

Payne was Cassidy’s predecessor at St. Benedict’s. Now, Cassidy encourages educators who are passionate about the outdoors to consider getting involved in the school. “We’d love to find outdoors people for whom this sounds interesting, who would also be English teachers, math teachers, history teachers,” he says. “Somebody’s got to take this program from me at some point. I’ve been doing it a long time.”

Photo: Michael Scanlan courtesy of St. Benedict’s Prep

Out on the trail, the St. Benedict’s groups inevitably cross paths with curious hikers. “Most of them are extremely receptive,” Cassidy says. “When we explain it, most of them are saying, ‘This is fantastic. I’m glad you’re doing this.'” A few, he acknowledges, are less charmed by the steady stream of teenagers — but they are the exception. 

After all, for most hikers, the program’s appeal is easy to understand. The lessons learned on a rain-soaked, mud-splattered trail have a way of sticking with people. Whether students go on to careers in outdoor education, return years later as volunteer leaders, or swear off the outdoors altogether, the experience is one many carry with them long after the hike is over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Featured image: Michael Scanlan courtesy of St. Benedict’s Prep