A Record Forged in Falls and Perseverance
MILLINOCKET, Maine — More than 14 million older adults fall every year in the , perhaps none so often as 91-year-old Dale Sanders.
By his count, Sanders fell 71 times while reclaiming his record as the oldest hiker to complete the Appalachian Trail. Seven were what he calls hard falls, including one that led to a brief hospitalization and another just 200 yards from the finish. But none were enough to permanently divert him from the 2,193-mile (3,530-kilometer) trail that 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 started Sept. 6 in West Virginia, hopscotched around with some brief breaks and finished Monday atop Maine's highest peak.
A Long-Planned Comeback
Sanders, whose trail name is Grey Beard, first set the Appalachian Trail record in 2017 at age 82. Four years later, his 83-year-old friend J. Eberhart, aka Nimblewill Nomad, took the title. But within months, Sanders announced his plan for a comeback.
While Sanders' first journey was easier than he expected, the latest was considerably harder. Despite six months of training near his home outside Memphis, Tennessee, he said he wasn't in the best condition 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.'"
There's a huge difference between hiking the trail at 82 and 91, he said. "But it is possible, because I'm proving that."
Close Calls and a Family Push
In June, Sanders was descending Killington Mountain in central Vermont when he fell forward in a boulder field, 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 and he ended up at a Maine hospital, where it was discovered he had a pinched nerve in his neck. He returned home in early August to be with his wife, whose mother had just died. It was his wife who convinced him to get back on the trail and press on with his journey.
Inspiration on the Trail
Sanders has become something of a star among fellow hikers. The retired parks and recreation professional has been blown away by the response from people who follow him on social media. Meredith Ewenson, who met Sanders in June while leading a hike in New Hampshire, said he embodied the idea that anything is possible and that the journey matters most.
"He's just a guy who loves the outdoors and just the fact that he's out there just, you know, living his best life, it just made me want to, you know, just keep doing it too," Ewenson said.
Sanders was born in Kentucky two years before the trail was completed in 1937. He served in the Navy and retired in 2002 after a career in parks and recreation. He said his goals have expanded beyond just doing it for himself.