Dale Sanders, known on the trail as "Grey Beard," reached the summit of Mount Katahdin on Aug. 25 to reclaim the record he first set nine years ago: oldest person to complete the entire 2,193-mile Appalachian Trail. He is 91.
Sanders started his hike Sept. 6, 2025, in West Virginia and finished the trail in sections over nearly a year, hop-scotching between segments with breaks in between — an approach the Appalachian Trail Conservancy counts toward its official thru-hike recognitions. Along the way, he says he fell 71 times, six of them what he calls "hard falls," including one that sent him to a hospital in Vermont and another just 200 yards from the finish atop Katahdin.
Taking back a record he'd already held once
Sanders first set the oldest-finisher record in 2017 at age 82. Four years later, his friend and fellow long-distance hiker M.J. Eberhart — trail name "Nimblewill Nomad" — took the title at 83. Sanders announced his comeback attempt within months of losing the record, though the hike itself would not begin for several more years, delayed in part by the pandemic and by the sheer logistics of walking the length of the Appalachians one more time at his age.
By the time he reached the trail's northern terminus, Sanders said the record itself had become almost beside the point next to the encouragement he had picked up along the way, much of it from strangers following his progress online.
I am 91, so I'm blazing new ground hiking long distances like this.
Dale "Grey Beard" Sanders
A Kentucky native who spent 37 years working for the Navy before retiring in 2002 from Naval Air Station Millington in Tennessee, Sanders took up long-distance hiking later in life, well after most people slow down rather than lace up. His finish was confirmed and reported by multiple outlets, including NBC News and the trail community site The Trek, both of which tracked his progress over the final weeks as thousands of followers cheered him on. Eberhart, whose record Sanders just reclaimed, has not publicly commented on losing the title back to his old friend.
