Past In Progress: Sarah Tapia’s Hiking Through History
From the kitchens of Yellowstone to the canyons of Arizona, Sarah Tapia’s path to a History Master’s degree is anything but traditional - it’s changing how students experience the past.
"This was the perfect physical representation of what my research is: how human history, natural history, and the landscape are all interconnected."
-Sarah Tapia
A Landscape of Learning
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 still 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 to hear the stories of the canyon. For a team of Texas Tech University Students, this is no ‘classic’ trope of a Spring Break - not this year. Instead of partying and drinking 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.
Musician, Chef, historian…who is Sarah?
Sarah Tapia is not your average History Master’s Student.
Originally from Corpus Christi, Sarah started at Texas Tech University (TTU) in 2008 as a History Major. When life threw her off-course with academic setbacks, major changes, financial barriers, and 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.
But it was in the back of those kitchens, under pressure and heat, that Sarah learned to lead. It was in the national parks, Yellowstone specifically, where she began to heal, rediscover history, and imagine what learning could look like outside the classroom.
Off Trail, On Course
Sarah Tapia didn’t plan to find herself in a national park kitchen, but it’s where everything started to come together.
After leaving Texas Tech due to financial hardship and burnout, Sarah drifted through restaurant jobs, trying to stay afloat. Then came an unexpected invitation from a friend and her parents to tag along on a road trip to Yellowstone National Park. With only twenty bucks in her pocket, she got in the car, and when they arrived, something clicked.
“I saw the park for the first time and fell in love with all of it.”
-Sarah Tapia
What began as a spontaneous vacation turned into a life-changing opportunity. Sarah applied to work at Yellowstone’s historic Old Faithful Inn, where she was hired as a cook. She’d go on to spend multiple seasons there, eventually rising to sous chef at the Inn.
But the experience wasn’t just professional growth - it was personal healing for her. Days were spent prepping food, managing chaos, and leading a team. Off-time was for hiking among geysers and wild bison, sitting by rivers, and thinking about what came next.
“It was the parks that did it. 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.”
-Sarah Tapia
In Yellowstone, Sarah found the confidence to dream again and push herself. She began saving money, paying off her debt to Tech, and imagining a return, not just to college, but to a career rooted in education, culture, and place.
“I was fully devoted to, ‘I’m going to go back to school and I’m going to get my damn degree.’”
History you can feel
For Sarah, history didn’t come alive in a classroom - it came alive through motion, through travel, and through touch.
“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, hiked five miles up a mountain after missing the tourist bus, and placed her hand on ancient stone carved by people long gone.
“I was like, holy s***. I’m getting to put my hands on something somebody carved thousands of years ago.”
-Sarah Tapia
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.
Hiking through History
After completing her undergraduate degree in History and Anthropology in December 2020, Sarah returned to Texas Tech University with a renewed sense of purpose. She enrolled in the History master’s program.
However, graduate school presented new challenges. The pace, the reading load, and the pressure to excel were overwhelming. Sarah found herself struggling, eventually facing academic probation. It was during this difficult period that a professor 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 in national parks. She envisioned a capstone that combined public history, field experience, grounded in physical labor and cultural learning. She named it ‘Hiking Through History’.
Collaborating with Texas Tech University’s Center for Transformative Undergraduate Experiences (TrUE), the National Park Service as well as the 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 Albright Training Center and the Grand Canyon Wildland Fire and Aviation Service, helping clear brush, branches, and logs around a section of the Grand Canyon to help prevent wildfires or at least lessen their damaging effects, especially to ancient Native American Heritage sites. Needless to say, it was hands-on, heavy, and honorable work.
Video Montage of 2024's RSB to the Grand Canyon
For the 2025 spring break trip to Grand Canyon National Park, Sarah embedded her capstone into the experience, transforming it into something more immersive, more reflective, and rooted in public history.
After having to read through dozens of books to become an expert in the history surrounding the canyon and its peoples in only a few months, Sarah developed and delivered a public lecture at the Grand Canyon Visitor Center titled “Answering the Call of the Wild: Wilderness and American Identity.” 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, culture, and national identity.
Drawing from historical texts, Indigenous perspectives, and her own lived experiences in national parks, Sarah challenged the audience to reconsider what wilderness means. You can watch her amazing presentation below.
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.
Built to Be Replicated
Sarah Tapia 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.
Through 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. I built it to be replicable. I want someone else to take it and make it their own.”
-Sarah Tapia
Sarah is looking to work more with TrUE and faculty partners to explore how more service-learning trips could include academic components, like interpretive hikes, public presentations, or cultural storytelling. Her project shows that when students are trusted with responsibility, they rise to the occasion.
It also shows how deeply transformative these experiences can be for everyone involved.
Sarah believes public history must exist beyond the university. To her, history is meant to be experienced, not just read. And if students (especially first-gen or non-traditional ones) can get their boots dirty while building cultural knowledge, all the better.
“If you’re not engaging the public, you’re screaming into a vacuum.”
The Center for Transformative Undergraduate Experiences (TrUE) provides funding, mentorship, and support for immersive learning opportunities like Raider Service Break.
Through its partnership with Grand Canyon National Park and backing of 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.”
From Here, It’s Possible
Sarah Tapia’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 — especially the ones who didn’t think grad school was for them.”
-Sarah Tapia
Her story is a reminder that education doesn’t have to follow a straight line. 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 Tapia, every trail walked, every story told, and every moment shared in the field has led to the embodiment of TTU’s slogan which is one powerful truth:
From here, it’s possible.
