How does a “normal” 91-year-old person get around? Hopefully they just walk around on their own, right, albeit more carefully, deliberately, or with a more casual pace. If, that is, they’re not positioned, unfortunately, behind a walker, gripping a came, or pulling themselves along in a wheelchair. All of this is “normal,” right, and none of it would turn heads. And then there is Dale Sanders… or to use his trail name: Greybeard — the oldest person to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail (AT). Dale’s here to challenge the norm.
Our Small Part
The call came in and we answered. The support team reached out to see if we could provide a guide to help Dale “Greybeard” Sanders traverse the Northern Presidentials. Not only would we be willing to help, we’d waive the charges paying the guide fees ourselves. Leading this epic would be Redline Guide Rhonda Willette (who, in reflection, said she would have done it for free as it was a wildly enriching adventure). After our small part in all this came and went we quietly followed Dale from the sidelines and cheered him on as he progressed further. Finally the day came and he stood atop the sign on Mount Katahdin’s Baxter Peak — the northern terminus of the AT. There he stood, the oldest person to ever thru-hike this crazy 2,193 mile trail.
Like most people, we learned this from social media and we gave it some love and life moved on. Then the letter below came in the mail. In it we read about Greybeard, age 91, falling 71 times, and each and every time was answered by Dale picking himself up off the ground, dusting himself off, and continuing on his journey. This, to say the least, is impressive on its own pointing to the power of the human spirit.
This epic began on September 6, 2025 and was completed on August 31, 2026 — 359 days later.