‘No shortcuts’ on a 40-mile rite of passage for high school freshmen
Matthew Luna, a freshman at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark, N.J., stood along a brook in Stokes State Forest as he scanned a paper map of the Appalachian Trail’s rocky path across New Jersey’s northwest corner.
His assignment that morning in late May was to lead seven classmates on a 13-mile hike through woodland, across a two-lane highway, up a mountain and over uneven terrain to a 4-H camp. His teacher, Charlie Miseo, delivered instructions: Follow the white markers, make four right turns. Go left, and you will get lost. “There’s no shortcuts?” Matthew said. “Shortcuts?” Miseo replied. “Yeah, you’re taking the shortcut.”
It had been a long year at St. Benedict’s, a Catholic school whose student body is overwhelmingly children of color, many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The pandemic had forced Matthew’s class to forge bonds over video since September, and faculty members were still matching students to faces they had only seen on Zoom.
Last year, the outbreak canceled a nearly half-century-old school tradition that ends freshman year: a mandatory 50-mile hike over five days along the western edge of New Jersey to the Delaware Water Gap.
To teachers, the hike is a way to deepen bonds and introduce nature to teenagers who have never set foot on a trail. To freshmen, it is a test to see if upperclassmen’s tales about wildlife encounters are really true.
With temperatures warming and pandemic restrictions starting to loosen, school administrators decided it was time to bring back the hike. So students returned to campus in Newark’s Central Ward for a week of training.
Each hiker learned a role — medic, navigator, cook, among others. If they couldn’t afford equipment or gear, they rented it from the school’s growing stockpile. Once in the woods, teachers fell back, leaving tenderfeet to find their way together.
Students from the U.S. Naval Academy were brought in to assist the young hikers as part of the academy’s summer leadership training, and some St. Benedict’s upperclassmen also returned to offer support. There was one tweak this year: Because there was less time to train, the trek was shortened to 40 miles across four days.
The boys surrendered their cellphones at the school, rode 50 miles on coach buses to the start of the trail, and strapped on backpacks that weighed 25 to 40 pounds. There was no turning back; anyone who started had to finish or do it all again, either in the summer or next spring.
“It’s the only course where if you get a 98%, you fail,” said the Rev. Edwin Leahy, the school’s headmaster since 1972. “If you’re in, you’re in.”
DAY 1:
‘I’m going to strangle a bear!’
Jorwally Santana, 16, wanted to race. He had been running for track teams in Paterson, N.J., his hometown, since he was 7, and it was one of his coaches who recommended that he enroll at St. Benedict’s. This spring, he excelled at 800 meters, winning several races.
But leg injuries had slowed him in the weeks before the hike. To steady himself, he picked up a walking stick by the starting line and set off with his team in single file shortly after 9 a.m.
In all, there were 118 freshmen hikers, divided into groups of seven or eight. Every 10 minutes, a team was released onto the path. The squads were identified by the names of animals like elks and foxes.
“I’m going to strangle a bear!” said Aidan Carlisle, a member of the eagles team.
Jorwally was on the rattlesnake team and his instinct was to move fast. It was not a competition, per se, and there were rules to regulate pacing. If a team caught up to the group in front of them, they were supposed to stop and wait five minutes before going on. If it happened again, the slower team had to let the faster team pass them.
The night before leaving home, Jorwally bought a whistle at Walmart. If he wanted his team to stop, he blew it once. If he blew it twice, they had to move.
It did not take long for the rattlesnakes to miss a turn. After retracing their steps, they were the last to reach the first outlook. As Jorwally ate lunch, two other students, Robert Wilmote and Jahari Taylor, debated if they had ever seen such natural beauty.
“It’s like the nature backgrounds you get on a computer,” Robert said.
“No, it’s more like the Samsung phone,” Jahari replied.
Jorwally’s focus was pain management. The uphill climb aggravated his knee injury; he strapped on a brace for support. Because his team was the last to arrive for lunch, they were also the first to depart. Recovery would have to wait until nighttime.
But soon, Jorwally’s right foot caught between rocks. His injured knee twisted, and he screamed as he fell to the ground. Teammates tended to him; a medic wrapped ice around the knee. Joseph Jumbo, a fellow student, carried Jorwally’s bag across his chest with his own pack on his back.
Jorwally picked up a second stick for balance.
If he stopped now, his hike was likely over, so he kept going, ambling slowly across Route 206’s two lanes as drivers honked their horns in support.
He clenched his teeth as he climbed a steep mountain. When the tree canopy yielded to sky, Jorwally caught up with a group of exhausted hikers. They were adjusting their do-rags and wondering if a helicopter could rescue them.
“I just want my braids to breathe,” Javeir Bennett said.
When Jorwally reached the 4-H site and set up his tent for the night, he asked if anyone had pain medication. A friend gave him Advil. Teammates held flashlights as they checked each other for ticks.
Jorwally heard someone counting and looked out in the distance. Some classmates had been caught outside their tents after curfew. They were doing pushups in a moonlit field.
DAY 2:
‘You don’t leave anyone.’
Everyone knew when Tyce Albany, 15, was approaching. He carried a pot attached to a metal clasp on the back of his pack, and it swung back and forth, clinking and clanking with every step. He was the slowest member of his team, the elks, and as his teammates hurried ahead, he expressed frustration to a naval midshipman.
“My feet hurt,” Tyce said.
“Everybody’s do,” said Ben Huynh, a senior at the Naval Academy. “It’s about pulling through.”
“My toes are numb,” Tyce added. “Completely numb.”
In school, Tyce had a 3.4 GPA, but he struggled with physical demands. Growing up in Hillside, N.J., he attended Philip’s Academy Charter School before transferring to St. Benedict’s. Every day, he walked past a sign bearing the institution’s motto: “Whatever Hurts My Brother, Hurts Me.”
The trail tested that. The freshman class had not had a chance to interact much in person, and on the trail their differences stood out. While Tyce languished at the back, Joshua Johnson, a speedster from Newark, pushed a pace that was hard to keep up with.
“Did your mom breastfeed you protein shakes?” Noah Bridges asked Joshua.
The elks alternated between reciting rap lyrics when moving with ease and stretches of silence when the going got tougher.
During one stretch, they passed four hikers, all of them white, and noted that they had not seen any other Black hiker outside their group on the popular trail.
“I think it’s just something more common for Caucasian people to do,” Joshua said.
To pass the time, they debated whether it would be easier to climb Mount Everest or complete the Appalachian Trail’s entire 2,193.1 miles.
“I’d hike the whole trail,” Javeir said. “I heard on Everest you have to sleep on the side of the mountain.”
“Too cold, bro,” Noah said.
To push Tyce, his teammates let him walk in front, but as the miles passed, he faded and ended up at the back again. As the end of the day’s hike neared, his team moved on without him, finishing as a unit of seven instead of eight. David Okeh, a junior at St. Benedict’s, took note.
“Go back!” he said. “It’s not the midshipman’s job to hang back with him!”
The elks raced to Tyce, grabbed his bag and walked with him.
“They need to learn that you don’t leave anyone,” David said.
DAY 3:
‘Lucky we got them home alive.’
Matthew Morales, 15, had a hard time staying still. In classes, he often fidgeted or tapped his shoes on the floor. Midway through eighth grade, he was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and a doctor prescribed Focalin to improve his focus.
It helped, but he struggled with remote learning. During virtual classes, he often explored other tabs on his browser and kept another computer or television nearby when his mind wandered.
On the trail, he decided against medicine the first two days because he didn’t want to feel drugged. Early on, he strained to stay calm when mistakes were made, but he found his stride. When teammates struggled, he carried their bags. When a decision needed to be made about direction, Matthew set the course.
“Follow the captain!” one teammate shouted.
His grandfather, John Mooney, blazed the family’s trail to St. Benedict’s, and two of his uncles graduated from the school in 1972.
Five years earlier, a racial uprising over the policing of Newark’s Black residents set off days of violence, resulting in 26 deaths and accelerating white flight. St. Benedict’s closed for a year and re-imagined its approach as experiential learning was becoming more popular at some secondary schools.
The Rev. Philip Waters, who was a member of the faculty back then, parked by the side of the road, offered Matthew and some other students water, and told them he was one of the priests who started the hike. The school wanted an outlet for the students to burn off energy.
On the first hike, boys brought supplies in brown paper bags and suitcases.
“We’re lucky we got them home alive,” Waters said.
That responsibility now fell to Glenn Cassidy, 49, an associate headmaster and a graduate of the school who first hiked the trail in 1987.
“Give us another 40 or so years,” Cassidy said. “We’ll have this thing down pat.”
DAY 4:
‘Look what you accomplished.’
Shortly after 6 a.m., Carlos Presina, who graduated from St. Benedict’s in 2020, went tent to tent, checking to see which members of the team he helped lead were not ready to break camp.
The hike had been a formative experience for him when he was a freshman, and now he was volunteering to make sure the next group understood the standards. One student, Isaac Durrette, was not moving quickly enough. So Presina, 19, started to take down the tent with Isaac inside.
“You didn’t want to move, I move for you,” Presina said.
Each step was a struggle for Isaac, who was slowed by knee and ankle pain.
The night before, he was less than 2 miles from camp when he refused to walk any farther. Other teammates kept going to beat the rain, but Andrew Gomez, 15, stayed behind. He figured Isaac could do it, and Miseo, the teacher, reminded them of their choices: Hike the last 8 miles or come back and do it again. Isaac rallied to reach the mountaintop.
“Hell, yeah, dude,” Andrew said that night. “Look what you accomplished.”
Now there were 6 miles left until the finish line. Andrew and Isaac took off with their team, around 7:30 a.m., and their group quickly reached a ridge with panoramic views of the Delaware River and the Pocono Mountains across the water in Pennsylvania.
The boys pressed on, picking up speed as they marched downhill in single file, listening for rushing water because they knew that meant the end was near. Finally, three teams spotted a brook, and 24 students stampeded down a muddy slope. As they finished, each team held hands in a prayer circle before walking to a picnic area to enjoy hot dogs.
Three buses soon arrived. Cassidy addressed each group, reminding them that their paper — “What I Learned on the Appalachian Trail” — was due in five days.
Most slept on the ride back to campus. When they got there, the first thing many did was retrieve their cellphones. Some hopped in their parents’ cars; others ordered Ubers.
Andrew carried a walking stick he had found on the trail and marched 10 blocks to his family’s home. Inside, he hugged his mother and told her he wanted to order a quarter pounder. He also needed a shower.