High-tech learning for low-tech trek

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CATAWBA, Va. -- April Lucas slings a sleeping-bag carrier over her shoulder, hoping it will balance the others carrying leftover pizza, clothes and gear for a night in the woods.

A dozen or so companions look more ready for the trek to a primitive campsite, with tents and equipment hanging off backpack frames. But most in the group, except for the leaders, are hiking novices who know each other mostly through Internet chats.

They are taking a high-tech college course exploring a low-tech subject: the Appalachian Trail.

The course is no snap. Students must take weekly hikes on their own, recording their experiences in journals and photos posted online. They perform nature-enhancing projects, study art and literature by naturalists and learn how to survive in the woods.

One student spent hours trying to find and photograph a salamander. As night fell, she finally substituted a snake.

"Oh man, uphill already," Kerri Williams, of Floyd, said as the group recently began a 7-mile hike toward McAfee's Knob, with an overnight stop in temperatures that froze their water supplies.

The course was created by Bluefield College assistant English professor Mickey Pellillo, who offers it in collaboration with three others. One is by Bluefield colleague Walter Shroyer, an art professor who savors the peacefulness he finds hiking the Appalachian Trail.

"You mean there's a place on this earth that is this quiet?" Mr. Shroyer recalled thinking on his first AT hike as a teenager.

After taking a job at Bluefield College, he enticed Mr. Pellillo to try hiking the trail.

"It was gorgeous," Mr. Pellillo, 51, said of the panoramic views. "I couldn't believe the world even looked like that."