At 91, Dale "Grey Beard" Sanders is trying to reclaim his Appalachian Trail record

Dale Sanders is not new to this. In 2017, at 82, he became the oldest person to complete a thru-hike of the roughly 2,190-mile Appalachian Trail, walking the full stretch from Georgia to Maine within a 12-month window. He held that title for four years, until his friend M.J. Eberhart, known on the trail as Nimblewill Nomad, broke it in 2021 at 83.

Now 91, Sanders is back on the trail trying to take the record back, and by most recent tracking, he's on pace to do it. The New York Times, which followed Sanders on a recent stretch of the hike through New Hampshire's White Mountains, first reported on this attempt.

Sanders, who goes by the trail name Grey Beard, started this attempt in September, hiking south from Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, before returning to the same point to tackle the northern half through spring and summer. He's been aiming for roughly 12 miles a day, with one rest day a week, and reporting from the trail in July put him deep in New Hampshire's White Mountains, working through some of the route's most physically demanding terrain before the final push into Maine.

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A body that still argues back

The hike hasn't gotten easier with age, and Sanders doesn't pretend. Retracing sections he first walked in 2017, he's said his conditioning now hits a ceiling that simply didn't exist for him in his eighties, no matter how hard he trains beforehand.

He still prefers company on the trail when he can get it, and has crossed paths with a steady stream of younger thru-hikers along the way, several of whom have said meeting him was a highlight of their own hikes.

Unlike most thru-hikers, who camp in tents or trail shelters, Sanders travels with what's essentially a mobile basecamp, a truck-mounted camper trailer driven by a rotating crew of volunteers who handle logistics, cook meals and help plan the next day's mileage. Eberhart, now 87 and reportedly attempting to defend his own record on the same trail, was among the volunteers who drove for Sanders earlier in this hike.

A late-life habit of chasing records

The Appalachian Trail isn't Sanders's only claim to fame. He also holds age records for the Pinhoti Trail, the Florida Trail and a round-trip rim-to-rim hike of the Grand Canyon, and became the oldest person to paddle the full length of the Mississippi River at 80, a journey that later became the subject of a documentary. He's said the instinct to chase these records traces back to being bullied as a kid growing up on a tobacco farm in Kentucky, where sports became one of the few places he felt in control.

There's still hard trail ahead of him, including Maine's remote 100 Mile Wilderness, where resupply options are scarce, and an unfinished stretch through North Carolina's Smoky Mountains. But at his current pace, Sanders is on track to reclaim the record before his 12-month window closes, and he's said he intends to finish the trail regardless of whether the timing holds up.