Roughly 100 miles outside Nashville, at the southern tip of the Cumberland Plateau, sits a small, picturesque college campus. The buildings are old and built of sandstone, castle-like.
This is the University of the South, known as Sewanee. It’s often noted as one of the most beautiful college campuses in the country.
One reason for that distinction? While campus is just a one-mile radius, it’s surrounded by 13,000 acres of forests, waterfalls and wildlife.
And it’s easy to access — the campus is fully encompassed by a 20-mile loop known as the Perimeter Trail.
On a warm evening in late September, 12 students gathered to hike a couple miles of the P Trail, as it is affectionately known. It’s the early days of autumn — the leaves are just beginning to yellow, and the brush is brimming with life.
While it is an ideal time of year to be on the trail, it is not the most popular season. That would be the spring — which is aided by a Sewanee tradition for graduating seniors to hike the trail in its 20-mile entirety before receiving their diplomas.
“The week before graduation every year, I’ve noticed the trail is packed with people,” Leyden Schelke, a senior at Sewanee, said. “I was so confused my freshman year. I was like, ‘Why is this happening?’ And then someone explained to me, ‘Well, you’ve got to hike the P Trail before you graduate. That’s how you know that you’ve closed your time out at Sewanee.’”
Schelke has already completed the full hike but said she plans to do it again as graduation approaches.
But it’s not the only time students are getting outside. Classes often hold labs out on the trail. The Sewanee Outing Program is constantly hosting hiking, biking and climbing trips along it. And sometimes, students just go out on their own.
“When I’m thinking about going on a run in the afternoon, I kind of almost go through the entire Perimeter Trail in my head and think about, ‘OK, what section do I want to do?’” Sarah Grace Burns, a senior, said.
Hannah Barrow, also a senior, said the trail has been a source of consistency throughout her time at the school.
“I feel the P Trail has seen a lot more of me than I’ve seen of it,” Barrow said. “Even going on the same trail every time, it’s different because, like, I’m different every time.”
For some students, outdoor access is a big part of why they came to the school in the first place.
Sanjana Priyonti grew up in a suburb of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Sewanee was the only school she applied to after seeing it in a YouTube video.
“In the place I grew up, we never really had access to like places like this,” Priyonti said. “It is city all around. And the first time I remember getting onto this trail for a two-mile hike — it was a section of the P Trail. And I was like, ‘Whoa, this is the best thing ever.’ I loved it instantly.”
But Priyonti said, for her, the trail is about more than just beauty.
“When you are in a country where women are not allowed to do whatever they want to do and you always need to have someone to protect you, you don’t really get to do all the stuff you want to,” she said. “So, coming here, it was more about getting my freedom.”
That feeling of freedom is not just for the Sewanee community. The Perimeter Trail is open to the public. Later this month, the Nashville Running Company is hosting a race along the full trail.
So, even though it’s not the most popular season for Sewanee students to fulfill their rite of passage, the crunch and changing of the leaves makes fall an inviting time for anyone to head out on the trail.
This story was produced by the Appalachia + Mid-South Newsroom, a collaboration between West Virginia Public Broadcasting, WPLN and WUOT in Tennessee, LPM, WEKU, WKMS and WKU Public Radio in Kentucky and NPR.
