Dale “Greybeard” Sanders has reclaimed his Appalachian Trail record, which he originally set in 2017
Credit: AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty
NEED TO KNOW
- Dale “Greybeard” Sanders became the oldest person to complete the Appalachian Trail at 91 years old
- Sanders previously held the record at 82 and reclaimed it after another hiker broke it in 2021
- The retired Navy veteran credits his active lifestyle and plans to pursue more adventures, including scuba diving
At 91 years old, Dale “Greybeard” Sanders has become the oldest person ever to complete the Appalachian Trail, a grueling long-distance hike.
“It’s harder on you physically when you get older and you simply cannot do what a 21-year-old can,” Sanders tells PEOPLE after reclaiming his title on Aug. 31. “Those limitations are the reason why I’m the only one in their 90s that has ever hiked the entire Appalachian Trail.”
Sanders says he first broke the record for oldest hiker in 2017 when he was 82. Then fellow hiker MJ “Nimblewill Nomad” Eberhart went on to claim the title in 2021 at age 83.
Eventually, Sanders thought it was time to reclaim his title — and the journey took him months to complete.
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 — and that’s exactly what Sanders did.
“My wife didn’t want me to be gone for a year, so I did it for six months, then came home for the winter, and then went back to finish,” Sanders explains.
The final stretch to the summit of Katahdin, which involves 5,200 feet of elevation change, proved to be the most grueling section, he says. Two-tenths of a mile from the top, Sanders fell on rocks and felt searing pain in his right thigh and knee.
“It was so bad. I was there laying on the rocks, couldn’t hike up, couldn’t hike down,” Sanders says. “God must have been with me because I’m in such good shape, the pain started subsiding after about 30 minutes and I was able to walk to the top.”
Credit: AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty
Sanders, a Kentucky native now living in Tennessee, credits a lifelong active lifestyle for his ability to stay in physical shape.
While working at the Naval Hospital in Oakland, Calif., as a young corpsman, Sanders got involved in the spearfishing community and started competitive diving. After his first military stint, he got his graduate degree from Pepperdine University in Parks and Recreation and then worked in that field for four years before returning to the Navy.
He met and married his wife Meriam in 1980 while stationed in the Philippines and retired in 2002 with 37 years in the military. They are now settled in Memphis.
Credit: Tara Bahrampour/The Washington Post via Getty
The father of three and grandfather says the most memorable adventure was paddling the full length of the Mississippi River from Source to Sea at 80 years old in 80 days, in support of Juvenile Diabetes.
He even has a Guinness World Record under his belt, getting recognized for being the oldest person to do a Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim (there and back) hike of the Grand Canyon, a feat he accomplished at the age of 87.
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And he tells PEOPLE he’s “not done yet.”
Sanders is now hoping to break his own Grand Canyon record, saying, “I have that record now, but I want to raise the age to 91.”
But he says he’s going to wait a bit on that. Right now, his next big adventure is sending him back to his old diving roots.
“I got an offer to scuba dive with the fish in the Atlanta aquarium. And that’s a fun thing,” says Sanders. “I’m going to pick them up on that offer. That’s my next thing to do.”
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