When Hillsdale students fled campus for spring break, most headed straight for the warm embrace of their mothers and their mattresses. But seven thrill-seekers blew past the exits for their homeward highways as they drove south to backpack through Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains.
The students came from Hillsdale College’s Adventure Club, a group in its inaugural year that organizes monthly outdoor excursions open to all of campus. This trip is the club’s first spring break expedition, and Adventure Club President sophomore Emma McCormick said the club will continue to organize similar getaways over the next few years.
“The goal was just to have fun, exercise, and not be inside,” McCormick said.
McCormick said she and her posse spent four days navigating a loop on the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, a trip originally scheduled to last six days but was cut short by two days because of a sudden increase in the risk of hypothermia. The group hiked an average of 10 miles a day through Tennessee backcountry, carrying clothes, cooking supplies, sleeping bags, and tents with them on their trek.
“You have to plan trips like this pretty carefully so you can live,” McCormick said. “Even though there was a plan, we were still out in the woods, and we could do whatever the heck we wanted, whenever the heck we wanted.”
Adventure Club Treasurer sophomore Dominic Whalen, an Eagle Scout, said the constant incline of the terrain surprised the hikers and made the trip strenuous. Water obstructing the travelers’ path also challenged the adventurers, McCormick said.
“We crossed so many streams,” she said. “We grew as a team as we went on, because we had to help each other not fall into the water and balance with our packs on.”
While this may have tested the strength of the group, it also came as an advantage, helping them bond. Only two people on the trip knew each other well when they hit the trail, a dynamic that could have been dangerous to a handful of people relying on each other for safety in the wilderness, the student said. Whalen said the group overcame their unfamiliarity quickly, sharing jokes, riddles, and stories as they hiked farther into the forests.
“The farther into the trip we got, the less of a filter we had,” trip coordinator freshman Danae Sollie said.
Immersed in nature for four days, the hikers got to see the remnants of Tennessee’s wildlife after a fire destroyed more than 15,000 acres, burned more than 150 homes, and killed three people in November. Sollie said she observed the destruction from a high vantage point one day, and the scene struck her.
“The sky was really blue, the snow was white, and the trees were black because of the fire,” she said. “It was a really beautiful contrast.”
The Adventure Club will hold an informational meeting Friday at noon in the Knorr Family Dining Room for anyone interested in joining them for future trips into the wild.
