St. Benedict's Prep freshmen hike Appalachian Trail in rite of passage

Freshmen at St. Benedict's Preparatory School leave Newark for five days on the Appalachian Trail, carrying packs, splitting chores and learning that no one finishes the 55-mile hike alone. The school has turned the trek into a 53-year rite of passage and a bookend to freshman year.

The program, called The Backpacking Project, sends students into teams of seven or eight after Spring Phase training. Each student takes a specialty role such as captain, camp specialist, navigator, cook or medic, so no one person is expected to know everything needed to complete the trek. Some adult supervision is part of the journey, but the students are the ones who have to move, cook, navigate and keep the group together.

St. Benedict's says experiential learning is one of its four core pillars and says the trail is designed to help first-year students build community, rely on one another and earn their membership in the St. Benedict’s community. That approach is built into the school’s identity. Benedictine monks founded what became St. Benedict's Prep in 1868 through Newark Abbey, and the backpacking tradition was established in 1973. Earlier versions lasted four days before the hike evolved into its current five-day format.

The school also treats the trail as a lesson in disciplined risk. It says it prefers rainy weather because the message is that difficult days can be endured together. For many freshmen, the experience is a sharp break from city life: some have never been hiking or camping before, and upperclassmen have led the hike in some years, adding another layer of mentorship and shared responsibility.

The result is a tradition that reaches beyond the woods. At St. Benedict's, resilience is not presented as an individual trait or a slogan. It is practiced over 55 miles, in seven- or eight-student crews, with assigned roles and a community waiting at the finish line.