Today's topic: We rank the Top 40 schools where you can hit the books AND the backcountry. Your assignment: Rappel off that ivory tower and take our cram course on America's most adrenaline-friendly colleges. You'll come for your B.A. (Bachelor of Adventure) and want to stay for life.

When it came to ranking North America's best places to learn, live, work, and play, we did our homework, canvassing hundreds of colleges and enlisting an able crew of undergrad reporters. Then we narrowed the honor roll down to 40 schools that turn out smart grads with top-notch academic credentials, a healthy environmental ethos, and an A+ sense of adventure.

#29 - UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO, Moscow, Idaho
LOCAL COLOR Moscow (pop. 21,000), in the hills of Idaho's Palouse region, delivers a lively music scene, capped by the annual Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival, in February. Locals run on the paved eight-mile path along Paradise Creek, bike the trails on 5,000-foot Moscow Mountain, and paddle the Snake and Salmon rivers.
WORD ON THE QUAD The Student Recreation Center has the highest climbing wall (55 feet) of any U.S. university. Thanks to an outstanding outdoor program, fledgling mountaineers learn on British Columbia's Kokanee Glacier and later climb Mount Rainier.
VITAL STATS CONTACT: 1-888-884-3246, www.uidaho.edu; STUDENT BODY: 9,047 undergraduates, 2,000 graduates; TUITION: residents, $3,600; nonresidents, $11,652; room and board, $5,034.
—JOY BARBOUR