91-year-old reclaims his record as oldest hiker to complete Appalachian Trail

Falls affect more than 14 million older adults in the U.S. every year, but few experience them quite as frequently as 91-year-old Dale Sanders.According to his own tally, Sanders fell 71 times during his successful campaign to reclaim his standing as the oldest person to complete the Appalachian Trail. Six of those falls were classified by him as hard falls, including one that necessitated a short stay in the hospital and another that occurred a mere 200 yards short of the finish line. Even so, none of these setbacks managed to permanently pull him away from the 2,193-mile (3,530-kilometer) wilderness trail extending between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine.The Appalachian Trail Conservancy defines an official thru-hike as finishing every section of the trail within a 12-month timeframe in any order, with breaks permitted. Sanders initiated his trek on Sept. 6 in West Virginia, moving between different sections with brief rest periods before reaching the end on Monday at the summit of Maine's highest peak, where he took a moment to pray beside the summit sign.Dale Sanders, 91, celebrates after completing a difficult section of Mt. Katahdin, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026, in Baxter State Park in Piscataquis County, Maine (AP)"I had to thank God, and I had to thank my support team and everybody that got me here," he said.Sanders, who hikes under the name Grey Beard, originally set the Appalachian Trail age record in 2017 when he was 82 years old. Four years later, his friend M.J. Eberhart, known as Nimblewill Nomad, set a new record at age 83. Just months after losing the record, Sanders announced his intention to mount a comeback.While Sanders found his initial 2017 hike surprisingly manageable, this recent effort proved significantly more grueling. Despite undertaking six months of advance training, he noted that he was not in peak physical form when he returned to the trail."And even today, I feel that I should probably be in better shape than I am," he said last month. "But I just have to always go back and say, ‘But I am 91, so I'm blazing new ground hiking long distances like this.'"In June, while hiking down Killington Mountain in central Vermont, Sanders fell forward into a field of boulders, badly scraping his arms, legs and hands."Thank God nothing got broken, but I was banged up," he said. "I didn’t rub the blood off, I just kept hiking."Sanders pauses for a prayer upon completing his hike of the Appalachian Trail (AP)A few weeks later, numbness in his left arm led to an admission at a hospital in Maine. What medical staff initially suspected might be a stroke was diagnosed as a pinched nerve. Although he was quickly cleared to resume his trek, the health scare prompted him to consider abandoning his effort.He temporarily returned to his home state of Tennessee in early August to support his wife after the death of her mother, and she ultimately persuaded him to press forward with the hike.Some of Sanders’ finest moments on the trail occurred in Pennsylvania, where he took advantage of well-maintained paths and unexpected treats provided by local volunteers known as "trail angels.""When people are taking care of you and bringing you caramel frappes on the trail, the rocks don’t matter," he said.Along the way, Sanders emerged as a celebrated figure among fellow long-distance hikers. Thousands of supporters also tracked his journey across social media platforms, a wave of interest that surprised Sanders and led him to rethink the broader scope of his trek."I wanna get it back, but right now, that’s secondary," he said. "Right now, what’s the most important thing - and it’s one of the things that surprised me – is that people are motivated and given encouragement by my efforts."Meredith Ewenson, who met Sanders in June while leading a group hike of 10 women in New Hampshire, noted that he personified not only the idea that anything can be accomplished, but that the journey itself holds the primary value.Grey Beard is a fitting trail name for 91-year-old Appalachian Trail hiker Dale Sanders, seen enjoying a rest, Wednesday, July 29, 2026, north of Monson, Maine (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)"Seeing it in real life is something that I'll definitely remember forever," she said.Ewenson recalled seeing Sanders early in the morning, though her group only recognized him hours later when he overtook them on the trail, revealing the Grey Beard logo printed on his T-shirt. The group reconnected with him that evening at an Appalachian Mountain Club hut around 4 p.m."I got here at noon," he told them.The following morning, she and her fellow hikers cheered as Sanders performed a brief "victory dance" before setting off once again."My first thought was ‘Wow, his mobility is insane,’" Ewenson said. "His face on that body just doesn’t make any sense. My brain couldn’t compute how he was so impossibly fit for being that age."Sanders was born in Kentucky in 1935, two years before the Appalachian Trail was fully completed. Targeted by bullies as a child because of his smaller size, he developed self-reliance through individual sports like acrobatics and swimming. He subsequently served in the Navy and retired in 2002 following a long career in parks and recreation.He also holds several other age-based athletic milestones, including becoming the oldest person to paddle the complete length of the Mississippi River—an 87-day water journey he launched on his 87th birthday.Throughout his latest trek, he confronted challenges like fallen trees and steep rock scrambles with energy, though he experienced fatigue near the end of one demanding 12-mile (19-kilometer) day. He lay down directly on the trail, announced he needed a quick power nap, and briefly fell asleep.Two minutes later, he stood back up and continued hiking.