More than 14 million older adults fall every year in the US, 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. Six 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 trail that runs between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine, the AP reports.
- 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, where he paused to pray at the sign marking the summit. "I had to thank God, and I had to thank my support team and everybody that got me here," he said.
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 MJ Eberhart, aka Nimblewill Nomad, took the title. But within months, Sanders announced his comeback plan. While Sanders' first journey was easier than he expected, the latest was considerably harder. Despite six months of training, 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.'"
- 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. What doctors initially feared was a stroke turned out to be a pinched nerve, but though he was soon cleared to resume hiking, he considered giving up. He returned home to Tennessee in early August to be with his wife, whose mother had just died, and she convinced him to press on.
- Some of Sanders' best days were in Pennsylvania, where he enjoyed well-maintained trails and treats delivered by "trail angels." "When people are taking care of you and bringing you caramel frappes on the trail, the rocks don't matter," he said.
- Sanders holds numerous other age-related records, including becoming the oldest person to paddle the entire length of the Mississippi River, an 87-day trip he started on his 87th birthday. On his latest adventure, he tackled obstacles like downed trees or steep scrambles with vigor, though he started to get a bit wobbly toward the end of one 12-mile day. He laid down on the trail, said he needed a power nap and briefly fell asleep. Two minutes later, he got up and kept hiking.
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