FEAT ON THE GROUND
82-year-old man hikes 3,524-km Appalachian Trail
There was a moment back in August when Dale (Grey Beard), Sanders considered giving up.
In the middle of the 100-Mile (160 km), Wilderness in Maine, far from help, he was bleeding internally and having heart palpitations — not surprising considering that he was about 60 years older than most people he had met on the Appalachian Trail.
Sanders called his wife in Bartlett, Tenn., and she urged him to keep going. With a go-ahead from his doctors, he did. And on Thursday, Sanders, 82, officially became the oldest person to hike the 3,524 km trail in a year.
He walked much of it alone, but for the 1.6 km, ending at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy headquarters in Harpers Ferry, W. Va., Sanders was joined by friends, family and hikers — including two dogs — he had met along the trail. At the end of it, he danced a jig. “I feel euphoric!” Sanders said. “I keep thinking, is someone going to come out of the woodwork and say, ‘Uh-uh, I hiked it last year … and I was 83.’ But no one has stepped up and said that.
“Someone said to me, ‘You can’t do it; the only way an old person’s going to be able to hike the Appalachian Trail is if they’ve hiked it before.’ That challenged me.”
Sanders has completed other impressive feats. A few years ago, he paddled the length of the Mississippi River. He broke a record for underwater breath-holding in 1959 and was U.S. spearfishing athlete of the year in 1965. But he had never done a hike lasting more than two weeks. For this one, he started in Georgia in January and was on the trail for seven months.
He is, incidentally, two years older than the Appalachian Trail, which was officially connected in 1937, meaning people could hike it in its entirety from Georgia to Maine.
“As older people, we have a great deal more challenges,” he said. Injuries take longer to heal, including the hip he injured in a fall on Kinsman Mountain in New Hampshire that took two months to stop hurting.
Sanders, who had a 50-year career as a parks and recreation program administrator, spent his boyhood on a Kentucky tobacco farm and also worked as a circus acrobat.
Someone said to me, ‘You can’t do it; the only way an old person’s going to be able to hike the Appalachian Trail is if they’ve hiked it before.’ That challenged me.
“He always did acrobatics,” said his sister, Elaine Bush of Nashville, who celebrated with him in Harpers Ferry. Sanders’ wife, a daughter and son-in-law and two grandchildren also came. “He was always in the limelight ... and he did unusual things.”
Sanders takes 30-inch steps, so he figures he took 4,625,256 steps for the hike.
Along the way, he passed tens of thousands of white blazes that mark the trail. When he passed the last one, he stopped, took off his cap, and kissed it.
At conservancy headquarters, he hugged his wife and accepted a glass of cider. And he announced his next move.
“I’m done, and I’m tired,” he said. “And I can go home.”