How I Got College Credit for Thru-Hiking the Appalachian Trail

High school found me in the middle of my moody, “I don’t need society anymore” era. I spent weekends and summers camping, hiking, and paddling with friends. In my spare moments, I listened to Eddie Vedder’s Into the Wild soundtrack on repeat while poring over topo maps of New Hampshire’s White Mountains to plan my next big trip.

On weekdays, I’d return to the sterile white corridors and fluorescent lights of the local public school. Though I never struggled academically, I had this feeling that none of it mattered, that I was biding my time, waiting to do something real with my life.

During my sophomore year, I discovered I could graduate a year early. My school required that I take a couple of extra online classes and have a plan for college. I quickly narrowed it down to a few programs that emphasized outdoor field learning, with Vermont’s Sterling College being my top choice.

Though Sterling offered more outdoor time than probably any other college, my first semester there still left me wanting something more. During that period, I began speeding through Appalachian Trail books like Hiking Thru, A Walk in the Woods, and Appalachian Trials.

Springer fever hit me full force. I decided to leave school for the Appalachian Trail before I ever knew that I could get credit for thru-hiking.

Thankfully, a sympathetic advisor encouraged me to explore taking a few independent studies on the trip to maintain my enrollment status. She was sure previous students had gotten credit for independent studies while traveling.

How I Got College Credit for Thru-Hiking

Before I knew it, I was meeting with the college president to discuss my plans to incorporate independent studies and thru-hiking. To my surprise, he loved the idea. He helped me connect with faculty for my independent study program and encouraged me to speak about my upcoming adventure at an all-college meeting.

At the next meeting, I made the announcement, looking for other students to join my thru-hike. Two other students joined my plan, and working with faculty, we each designed coursework for our trip. 

I created four independent studies:

1. Logistics of Planning a Thru-Hike
2. Backcountry Photography
3. Natural History of the Appalachian Mountains
4. Thru-Hiker Psychology

All three of us worked together on the Logistics of Planning a Thru-Hike. The other three independent studies differed for each of us.

For my degree, I double majored in ecology and environmental humanities, a program that explores humans’ relationship with the environment through the arts. Natural History of the Appalachian Mountains and Backcountry Photography fit nicely into my degree program, and Thru-Hiker Psychology and Logistics of Planning a Thru-Hike counted as electives.

The Coursework

The college has a different schedule now, but when I attended Sterling, each semester began with an intensive session. This “intensive” was a couple of weeks long and allowed students to focus on one course to fully dive into a subject or take a study abroad.

Along with the other two students, I attended Sterling’s winter intensive in February while preparing for our hike. This allowed us to get a few credits in ahead of our hike. As we were all in the same year, we all took a class called Bounder II, which focused on foundational skills that would make the rest of our time at Sterling easier.

During this time, we also worked on the Logistics of Planning a Thru-Hike. A Sterling faculty member who taught field expeditions in the American Southwest, Labrador, and the Sierra Nevadas oversaw this study as we planned things like gear, timing, and food. We would document and review our plans at the end of the hike.

For the most part, the other three studies were to be completed on the trail. However, we spent the rest of the fall and early winter before the hike reading material for these courses. I read books on wilderness photography techniques, studies on the psychology of endurance athletes, ecology guides for the eastern United States, and more.

On the trail, I practiced taking photos of people, landscapes, streams, waterfalls, plants, and wildlife for Backcountry Photography.

To complete Natural History of the Appalachian Mountains, I learned to identify new species and documented the changes in the landscape and species composition as we hiked further north. I also kept track of unusual features, like large patches of invasive species we noticed.

For Thru-Hiker Psychology, I kept a journal of my own emotional journey on the trail and interviewed other hikers about their motivation and experience.

The Cons of Thru-Hiking for College Credit

The obvious problem with studying while thru-hiking is that you have to study while thru-hiking. There’s nothing like putting in a long, hard day on the trail only to get to camp and realize that you need to write a journal entry, try to interview another hiker, and take notes on the species you saw that day. 

There were days when I was excited to do the work and many when I was too exhausted to put in my best effort. Having to keep up with so much during a hike sometimes made the journey feel like more of a job than an adventure.

The gear was another problem.

Most thru-hikers I know are obsessed with pack weight. They pare down to only necessary equipment and find the lightest version they can afford for items like sleeping bags, stoves, and tents.

Our independent studies meant we had other gear to worry about. For my backcountry photography course, I carried a DSLR camera, and for my natural history course, I had a field guide to wildflowers. The other students with me carried items for taking natural samples and equipment like calipers, measuring tape, and a GPS for recording information for the American Chestnut Foundation.

I don’t remember exactly where, but early in our hike, a trail angel was weighing packs at one gap in Georgia. He told us that so far, all of our packs had been the heaviest that had come through that season. We laughed about it in the moment, but it was far from ideal.

Cold temperatures and snow in Georgia, followed by two feet of snow in the Smokies, meant I also held onto cold-weather gear for a good portion of my hike before mailing it home to swap to lighter gear. I probably relied too heavily on vitamin I during those first few weeks.

“The College Kids”

When we did make an effort to lighten our packs, we made decisions other hikers would probably regard as madness. By the time we hit Virginia, we were all sleeping under one tarp and sharing one stove, which we cooked enormous meals on and dished out into three bowls.

As we were rarely more than a few feet apart and often observed engaging in odd behavior like measuring trees, other thru-hikers often would recognize us as “the college kids” on sight.

Today, you could probably replace much of our course equipment with an iPhone and battery bank. I completed this thru-hike in 2013, and while iPhones existed, they weren’t part of my college student budget. Today, used phones are fairly affordable and offer good quality photos, e-book field guides, apps for note-taking, plant identification apps, and more.

The Pros of Thru-Hiking for College Credit

A great friend from my freshman class sat next to me about a month after we got back to Sterling. He said, “I’m glad you went, and that you came back.” He told me that though I had never mentioned leaving, I looked “flighty” during my first semester, and that leaving for the Appalachian Trail seemed to help me find my place at Sterling. I think he was right.

Thru-hiking reaffirmed many of my ideas about wanting a job and a lifestyle where I could spend time outdoors, but it taught me a lot of new things, too. People will surprise you with their kindness, and there are plenty of like-minded weirdos out there, so you don’t have to give up society completely.

The courses also improved my hike in specific ways.

I think that the backcountry photography course forced me to take more photos than I otherwise would’ve, which helped to make me a better photographer and gave me plenty of fun photos to look back on. 

The natural history course I took and some of the work my friends did meant that we became much better at identifying wild plants, trees, and mushrooms on the trail than your average hikers. This skill meant we could confidently forage to supplement our dinners.

Some of the stuff we ate on the trail was downright gourmet. We chewed winterberry leaves and balsam fir resin, sautéed fresh mushrooms like morels and chicken in the woods, feasted on dewberries and black raspberries, and tossed stinging nettles, ramps, wild onions, and chickweed into our noodles and instant mashed potatoes.

All the planning and research on human motivation and emotions during endurance trips probably made my experience easier.

Is It Worth It?

I wouldn’t change the way I hiked the Appalachian Trail for the world. That said, it’s probably not the easiest way to complete a thru-hike. College isn’t easy, even when you love what you’re studying. It can also be a tough time in life to fund a thru-hike. My savings account had about four dollars left when we hit Katahdin.

Whether this makes sense for you will depend on many factors, like your financial situation, desired major of study, and support system.

What Colleges Will Let You Thru-Hike?

Sterling College is the smallest accredited four-year institution in the United States. They emphasize experiential education and independent learning, offering degrees like ecology, applied conservation biology, and sustainable agricultural food systems. While they are not the only college to share similar values, I know that their unique structure played a role in the feasibility of this project.

That said, I can’t promise Sterling would approve your trip, and there are other options to explore. Virginia’s Emory & Henry University offers a dedicated Semester-A-Trail program, which allows full-time students to complete a thru-hike. Another author for The Trek, Tilghman Moyer, completed this program in 2019.

Many small colleges and universities offer students the opportunity to design independent study courses, like I did for Sterling. If you’re currently enrolled in a school or applying to schools now, this might be worth investigating.

Students with majors like outdoor education, environmental studies, conservation, or related fields may have better luck convincing their school that a thru-hike applies to their education.

Thru-hiking for college credit is great, but I don’t recommend applying to a college just because they offer an option to thru-hike. Ensure you love the degree program and the environment at the school, too. Your hike will be a meaningful part of your life and education, even if you don’t get credit for it.

Featured image: Photo courtesy of Jordan Charbonneau; graphic design by Zack Goldmann.