Hiking Through History

From the kitchens of Yellowstone to the canyons of Arizona, Sarah Tapia’s untraditional path to a history master’s degree is changing how students experience the past.

By Texas Tech University

July 1^st, 2025

Wind cuts across the rocky ridges of Grand Canyon National Park, dancing with branches and stinging the noses of visitors. On the trail below, fresh snow clings to the rocks shaded by fragrant pine trees, while deep in the canyon, layers of rock have stories to tell, if only passersby will look and listen.

For a team of Texas Tech University students, this is no classic trope of spring break – not this year. Instead of partying on the shores of Florida, these students came to the rugged and breathtaking landscape of the largest canyon in the world – it became their classroom, a challenge, and a conversation with the past.

Leading them down the trail was someone who knows how to bridge the natural world and its rich history with ours.

Originally from Corpus Christi, Sarah Tapia started at Texas Tech in 2008 as a history major. After shifting majors a time or two, facing financial barriers and playing a saxophone held together with tape, she found herself navigating jobs in fast food kitchens and local restaurants, unsure if she’d ever return to school.

In the back of those kitchens, under pressure and heat, Sarah learned a lot about herself.

After leaving Texas Tech – due mostly to financial hardship and burnout – Sarah drifted through restaurant jobs. She was just staying afloat, living the restaurant worker’s life, when an unexpected invitation came from a friend and her parents to tag along on a road trip to Yellowstone National Park.

She left with $20 in her pocket, but when they arrived, Sarah was immediately drawn to the natural beauty and history of the area.

What began as a spontaneous vacation turned into a life-changing opportunity. Sarah applied to work at Yellowstone as a cook and ended up being placed at the historic Old Faithful Inn.

Through multiple seasons at the inn, Sarah eventually made it to the post of sous chef, but professional growth wasn’t where she made her biggest gains. Her days were still spent prepping food, managing chaos and leading a team in the kitchen. But her time away from work, hiking among geysers and wild bison and sitting by rivers and streams allowed her to think about what could come next.

“It was the parks that did it,” Sarah said. “It was the people I met in the parks. It was being able to go and just sit out in the woods or by a river or a lake or something, that I basically grew up.”

In Yellowstone, Sarah found the confidence to push herself. She began saving money, paying off her debt and imagining a return, not just to college, but to a career rooted in education.

“I like seeing it. I like touching it. I like making it tangible – because that makes it so much more real.”

After her first Yellowstone season, Sarah used her savings to do something she never thought possible: travel internationally. She stood in the shadow of Machu Picchu in Peru, hiked five miles up a mountain because she couldn’t afford to take the bus to the top, and placed her hand on ancient stone carved by people long gone.

In that moment, something locked into place. It wasn’t just curiosity, it was connection.

She began chasing history across landscapes – walking among the graves at Arlington National Cemetery, witnessing Stonehenge in England, exploring castles in Ireland, revering temples in Vietnam and ancient cities in Cambodia.

Everywhere she went, Sarah found new reminders that the past isn’t gone, it’s layered all around us.

This tactile, immersive view of history became her foundation. While others debate theory and text, Sarah asked: “Where did they walk? What did they see? What can we still touch?”

It wasn’t just about studying history. It was about stepping into it.

After completing her Texas Tech undergraduate degree in history and anthropology in December 2020, Sarah returned to Texas Tech in the spring of 2021 with a renewed sense of purpose. She enrolled in the history master’s program.

However, graduate school presented new challenges, and Sarah found herself struggling and even academically suspended from the program for a time. It was during this difficult period that Miguel Levario, an associate professor of history and one of the leaders of the graduate program in that department, suggested an alternative path: the capstone track – a route no one in her program had taken before.

Initially hesitant, Sarah reflected on what had made history resonate with her: walking through Machu Picchu and experiencing history and archaeology firsthand. She envisioned a capstone that combined public history and field experience, grounded in physical labor and cultural learning. She named it “Hiking Through History.”

Collaborating with Texas Tech’s Center for Transformative Undergraduate Experiences (TrUE), the National Park Service and Wildland Fire Management at Grand Canyon National Park, Sarah helped organize a spring break volunteer trip that was anything but ordinary.

Instead of building something new from scratch, Sarah collaborated with Raider Service Breaks (RSB), an existing program coordinated by TrUE that brings Texas Tech students to sites across the country for hands-on, service-based learning. This year’s RSB focused on students volunteering with the Horace P. Albright Training Center and the Grand Canyon Fire Management program.

They were helping clear brush, branches and logs around a section of the Grand Canyon to possibly prevent or lessen the damaging impact of wildfires with a particular focus on protecting ancient Native American Heritage sites. Needless to say, it was hands-on, heavy work.

For the 2025 spring break trip to the Grand Canyon, Sarah embedded her capstone into the experience, transforming it into something more immersive, reflective and rooted in history.

After years of research, including reading dozens of books, Sarah has become an expert in the natural and human history surrounding the canyon and, as part of her project, developed and delivered a public lecture at the Grand Canyon Visitor Center.

In front of a crowd of well over 100 visitors, rangers, students and volunteers, she explored how the concept of “wilderness” has shaped American history and continues to evolve.

After the presentation, as part of her capstone, Sarah guided interested attendees and students on a hike to see 4,000-year-old pictographs created by the Havasupai people, providing a powerful, physical continuation of the ideas she introduced in her talk.

For students, the result was transformative. They weren’t just serving; they were learning. And for Sarah, it became the embodiment of everything she believes about public history: it should be accessible, immersive and inseparable from the land it rises from.

Sarah was the first graduate student in Texas Tech’s history program to successfully complete the capstone track – a hands-on, field-based alternative to the traditional thesis.

With “Hiking Through History,” she built a model that bridges classroom learning and field experience – one that makes history accessible, collaborative and grounded in the real world. It’s a model she hopes will continue, whether led by students, faculty, or through future Raider Service Break trips.

“This doesn’t have to end with me. Along with Dr. Levario, we built it to be replicable. I want someone else to take it and make it their own.”

Sarah is looking to work more with TrUE and faculty partners to explore how more service-learning trips could include academic components, like hikes through history. She believes public history must exist beyond the university setting. To her, history is meant to be experienced, not just read.

“If you’re not engaging the public, you’re screaming into a vacuum,” she said.

TrUE provides funding, mentorship and support for immersive learning opportunities like Raider Service Break. In Sarah’s case, it provided her with the opportunity to lead undergraduate students on a unique service journey through history.

Through its partnership with Grand Canyon National Park and by backing Sarah’s capstone, TrUE helped turn an academic vision into a real-world, student-driven experience.

“Without TrUE, none of this would have happened,” Sarah said. “They gave me the freedom and the trust to do something different.”

Sarah’s capstone may be complete, but her story is far from over.

Through the process of guiding students through the canyon, delivering her first public lecture and protecting ancient sites from wildfires, Sarah didn’t just prove what a capstone could be – she redefined what it means to study history at Texas Tech.

Now, she’s focused on what comes next: continuing to work in public history, deepening her connection to national parks and helping other students carve paths of their own.

“I want students who come after me to know they can do this, too,” she said, “especially the ones who didn’t think grad school was for them.”

Sarah’s story is a reminder that education doesn’t have to follow a straight line and that some of the most meaningful learning happens far beyond the classroom. That resilience, curiosity and service can take you places you never imagined, including being among ancient history below the rim of the Grand Canyon.

Because for Sarah, every trail walked, every story told, and every moment shared in the field has led to one powerful truth: “From Here, It’s Possible™.”