
September 1st, 2026
Dale Sanders is 91 years old.
He is the oldest hiker to finish the Appalachian Trail again.
He finished on Monday at Mount Katahdin in Maine.
The trail is 2,193 miles long.
Sanders is also called Grey Beard.
He first set the record in 2017.
He was 82 years old then.
His friend M.J. Eberhart took the record in 2021.
So Sanders planned to come back.
Sanders fell 71 times during the hike.
Six of the falls were hard.
One fall put him in the hospital for a short time.
Another fall happened only 200 yards from the end.
In June, he fell in a rocky area in Vermont.
He did not clean his wounds.
He kept walking.
Weeks later, his arm felt numb.
He went to a hospital in Maine.
Doctors found a pinched nerve.
It was not a stroke.
He thought about stopping.
But his wife told him to keep going.
So he returned to the trail.
Sanders said his goal is now more than the record.
He said people feel motivated by what he does.
This surprised him.
A fellow hiker, Meredith Ewenson, said Sanders showed that the journey is the most important thing.
She remembered his "victory dance."
She said his fitness at that age seemed impossible.
Sanders was born in Kentucky in 1935.
That was two years before the trail was finished.
He has other age records.
He is the oldest person to paddle the whole Mississippi River.
During this hike, he lay down once for a two-minute nap.
Then he continued walking.
September 1st, 2026

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