This class will be an experiential exploration, hiking the Appalachian Trail, comparing and contrasting the experience of walking through the wilderness with traditional pilgrimages, and communicating with others who are themselves bot in the class, but hiking the trail for their own reasons. Class members will learn, through reading journal writing, and interpersonal communication, how pilgrim backpackers experience 'communitas" in relation to both persons and their environment. We will spend about two weeks hiking in Tennessee and Virginia.