Dale Sanders, a 91-year-old hiker from Tennessee, has reclaimed his record as the oldest person to complete the Appalachian Trail, finishing the 2,193-mile journey on Monday atop Maine's Mount Katahdin. By his own count, Sanders fell 71 times during the feat, including six hard falls, one that required a brief hospitalization, and another just 200 yards from the end.
Journey details and route
The Appalachian Trail runs between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy defines a thru-hike as completing all of the trail's sections in any order within a year, allowing for pauses. Sanders began his hike on 6 September 2025 in West Virginia and, with brief breaks, completed the journey on Monday, pausing to pray at the summit sign.
“I had to thank God, and I had to thank my support team and everybody that got me here,” Sanders, whose trail name is Grey Beard, told the Associated Press.
Record history and comeback
Sanders first set the Appalachian Trail record in 2017 when he was 82, only to be overtaken four years later by his 83-year-old friend MJ Eberhart, whose trail name is Nimblewill Nomad. Within months, Sanders announced his comeback plan. Despite six months of training, he told the AP he still was not in the best condition. “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.’”
Challenges and support
In June, Sanders fell forward in a boulder field while descending Killington Mountain in central Vermont, scraping his legs, arms, 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.” Weeks later, his left arm went numb, leading to a hospital visit in Maine where a pinched nerve was diagnosed. Although cleared to resume hiking, he considered giving up at that point. When he returned home to Tennessee in early August to be with his wife, whose mother had just died, she convinced him to press on.
Some of Sanders' best days were in Pennsylvania, where he enjoyed well-maintained trails and treats from “trail angels.” “When people are taking care of you and bringing you caramel frappes on the trail, the rocks don’t matter,” he said. His thousands of social media followers also motivated him. “I wanna get [my record] back, but right now, that’s secondary,” he told the AP. “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.”
Sanders was born in Kentucky in 1935, two years before the Appalachian Trail was completed. Bullied as a child for his small size, he gained confidence in solo sports such as acrobatics and swimming. He later served in the navy and retired in 2002 after a long career in parks and recreation. He holds numerous age-related records, including becoming the oldest person to paddle the entire length of the Mississippi River in 2022, an 87-day trip he started on his 87th birthday.
