CATAWBA, Va. – April Lucas slings a nylon bag holding a sleeping bag over her shoulder, hoping it will balance satchels 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 except for the leaders, this is a group of hiking novices who know each other mostly through Internet chats.

They’re taking a high-tech college course exploring a low-tech subject: the Appalachian Trail. The offering by Bluefield and Ferrum colleges is billed as “online and on foot.”

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 community service projects – and must post before-and-after-photos – as well as study art and literature by naturalists and how to survive in the woods.

One student spent hours trying to do an early assignment 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 crew set out single file earlier in November to fulfill a class assignment: a hike of 7 miles on the trail to McAfee’s Knob and back, with an overnight stop in temperatures that froze their water solid.

The course is the brainchild of Bluefield College English professor Mickey Pellillo, who offers it in collaboration with three others. One is Bluefield colleague Walter Shroyer, an art professor who savors the peacefulness he finds hiking the Appalachian Trail. The trail runs from Georgia to Maine, with Mount Katahdin serving as its northern terminus.

“You mean there’s a place on this earth that is this quiet?” said Shroyer, recalling what he thought on his first AT hike as a teenager.

After he took a job at Bluefield and moved close to the trail 15 years ago, he enticed his colleagues to try hiking. One was Pellillo, who quickly got hooked.

“It was gorgeous,” Pellillo, 51, said of the panoramic views. “I couldn’t believe the world even looked like that.”

Pellillo has since hiked the entire 2,175 miles of the trail, a goal Shroyer still has before him. A fall in which he broke his wrist on the second day out last year kept him from completing the last 600-mile leg in New England.

The Appalachian College Association’s grant offer for an innovative, online, interdisciplinary course prompted Pellillo to come up with the class, which has been offered in the fall since 2004.

“I couldn’t get any more innovative than an online hiking course,” Pellillo said recently in an interview on the Bluefield College campus.

The course offering is a collaborative effort by the two Bluefield professors and two from Ferrum College. Davis & Elkins College faculty joined the effort as well but dropped out this year.

Students can take the course to fulfill a requirement for art, literature, science or outdoor recreation, but must do assignments in each discipline.

While the course attracts traditional students at Bluefield and Ferrum, more than half are enrolled in Bluefield’s adult degree program. Most have limited experience with the outdoors, Pellillo said.

“We had some women from Richmond last year,” Shroyer said. “Their idea of being out in nature was a lawn.”

The online class has a couple of face-to-face requirements: a field trip to the Art Museum of Western Virginia in Roanoke or at least one of four overnight hikes on the Appalachian Trail that are offered.

Occasionally students ask whether they can take the class and skip the hiking part, Pellillo said. The answer is no.

Lisa Waller of Halifax wasn’t able to complete a 5-mile class hike in the Sherando Recreation Area because she fell and was injured.

“I didn’t know what all I was getting into,” she said. “I wasn’t prepared for a hike.”

To make up for missing the last half-mile, Waller, with her 2-year-old son and 6-month-old daughter in tow, brought snacks to send off the hikers and greet them when they returned nearly 24 hours later.

Lucas, who is 25, was on her second hike on the McAfee’s excursion. She called the first “a shocking experience” that required a day of recovery.

“Some of them really dread these hikes,” Shroyer said. But inevitably, he said, they feel a sense of accomplishment afterward.

That was Lucas’ experience at McAfee’s Knob.

“Even though I had on four pairs of pants, two shirts, a hooded sweatshirt, a jacket, two pairs of socks and gloves, the cold was too much,” she wrote in an e-mail after spending a sleepless night in subfreezing temperatures.

She said her neck, shoulders, back and legs were still sore several days later.

“But even taking all of that into consideration, I don’t regret the experience,” she said. “Getting outside and enjoying a good hike and view of the world below is something that costs nothing, and the memories will last a lifetime.”