This 91-Year-Old Man Fell 71 Times While Hiking the Appalachian Trail. He Just Became the Oldest Person to Complete the 2,190-Mile Trek

Dale Sanders finished the hike in just under a year. Nicknamed “Grey Beard,” he’s no stranger to age-defying feats of endurance

Christian Thorsberg | Daily Correspondent

September 1, 2026 2:24 p.m.

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After 359 days, 71 falls and 1 brief hospitalization, 91-year-old Dale Sanders has officially become the oldest person to hike the entirety of the Appalachian Trail.

Shortly before noon on Monday, Sanders—fondly dubbed “Grey Beard” by his supporters—etched his name into the record books by summiting Katahdin, Maine’s highest mountain and the northern terminus of the roughly 2,190-mile trail. With his arms raised high in the air, he paused to pray at a sign marking the peak and reflected on the ups and downs of the trek, which included one fall just 600 feet from the finish.

“I had to thank God, and I had to thank my support team and everybody that got me here,” Sanders tells the Associated Press’ Holly Ramer and Robert F. Bukaty.

Sanders broke a record that he’d previously set in 2017, when he completed the trail in just seven months, as a spritely 82-year-old. His achievement stood for four years, until 83-year-old M.J. Eberhart, known as “Nimblewill Nomad,” took the title in 2021. The pair’s rivalry was nothing but friendly: Sanders cheered Eberhart on and hiked alongside him during especially hard stretches.

“He was going to quit several times,” Sanders tells the New York Times’ Chris Cohen. “I actually went up and hiked with him the last few days so that he wouldn’t quit. We’re really close friends.”

Now 87, Eberhart returned the favor as Sanders fought to take back the crown. He was one of multiple volunteers who drove a camper van nicknamed the “Base Camp on Wheels” during the first 800 miles of Sanders’ hike, meeting the nonagenarian at resting spots along the way, according to the Trek’s Katie Jackson.

Sanders followed an unconventional route, setting off on September 6, 2025, from Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, roughly in the middle of the trail. As he told Memphis magazine’s Anna Traverse last November, he then hiked south into Georgia “to follow the color of the trees, and hopefully a little warm weather, to Springer Mountain,” the trail’s southern terminus.

After pausing for the winter, Sanders resumed his journey in the spring, making his way north from Harpers Ferry to Katahdin. He averaged 12 miles per day, with just one day of rest each week.

Along the way, Sanders frequently encountered “trail angels” who offered words of encouragement, supplies and sweet treats. “When people are taking care of you and bringing you caramel frappes on the trail, the rocks don’t matter,” he tells the AP.

Guidelines published by the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, the nonprofit organization that cares for the footpath, stipulate that a “thru-hike” of the full trail can be completed in multiple segments, in any order and with breaks, over the span of a year.

In August, as Sanders approached the finish line, his attempt suddenly appeared to be in jeopardy. The cumulative impact of six hard falls over the year, including a particularly nasty one in June, landed him in the hospital with a pinched nerve. Around the same time, he received word that his mother-in-law had passed away.

“When it rains unfortunate incidents, it seems to come in buckets,” Sanders wrote on his Facebook page on August 10.

Meet the 91-Year-Old Hiking the Appalachian Trail

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After his hospital stay, Sanders returned home to Tennessee, where his wife convinced him to complete the trail. Taking her advice, he hiked an unfinished stretch in the Great Smoky Mountains before returning to Maine for the final haul.

Born in Kentucky in 1935, two years before the Appalachian Trail was completed, Sanders is no strangers to feats of athleticism. In 2020, at age 85, he became the oldest person to complete the “rim-to-rim-to-rim” trail at the Grand Canyon, a roughly 42-mile trek in harsh desert conditions. In 2022, at age 87, Sanders paddled the Mississippi River in 87 days, seven years after completing the same trip in 80 days as an 80-year-old.

“As a young man living far back in the woods of Kentucky on my parents’ tobacco farm, I truly believe the Guinness Book of Records was the only book I dutifully read after high school,” Sanders said in 2020. “That was over 70 years ago. Inspirations I felt while reading about others’ records inspired me, significantly improving my chances of success.”

What advice does Sanders offer to seniors hoping to follow in his footsteps? As he advised his peers after setting the Appalachian Trail record for the first time, “Get plenty of exercise,” and remember that “it’s OK to eat doughnuts if you also exercise.”

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.