Program Highlights:
-Hike through the Roan Highlands Virginia's two highest mountains
-Encounter wild ponies in the Grayson Highlands

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 both 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.