How To Age Well? One Step At A Time.

This is Dale “Grey Beard” Sanders. He is 90. Here, Dale is on the water in wind and rain, but this Navy man and adventurer is just as able on land. Photo courtesy Growing Bolder.  

By Ray Glier

His handle, or nickname, while hiking the Appalachian Trail is “Grey Beard”, but Dale Sanders is way past grey as an emblem of distinction. The hair that flows from his chin is snowy white and a venerate look, a look that deserves a more esteemed totem than grey, if you ask me.

Dale is much too humble to accept a bolder handle, but something like “Avenging Hero of the Aged” would work. That’s what Sanders is to me.

Dale is 90. He is hiking the 2,197.9-mile Appalachian Trail. For a second time.

Whether you are 50, 60, 70, or 80, this man, once mercilessly bullied as a kid, is heroic because Sanders is showing what’s possible, even if you consider yourself non-athletic, which he does.

In addition, Dale is a national champion in spearfishing and still competes.

And there’s this, too. Sanders paddled the Mississippi River in 87 days when he was 87, the oldest person known to paddle the Mississippi from its source at Lake Itasca, Minn., to the Louisiana Delta.

How is that for pushback on the other side of the ledger from ‘old’?

When Sanders finishes the AT next summer he will be 91, and he will be the oldest person ever to hike the Appalachian Trail. (The oldest woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail is Betty Kellenberger, 80, just this past September).

A U.S. Navy man, Sanders set sail on his adventure September 6. The Appalachian Trail thru-hike is typically Springer Mountain, Ga., to Mt. Katahdin, Maine. Dale, who lives in Bartlett, Tenn., near Memphis, is doing a “flip flop”.

Dale started in Harpers Ferry, W.Va., Sept 6, and came south this fall. April 6, 2026 he will return to Harpers Ferry and go north to Katahdin. It is considered a thru-hike when it is done within 365 days, or a fiscal year.

If it goes according to plan, Dale will hold the age record next August for a second time. He was 82 when he set the record in 2016. (Sanders also helped his friend, M.J. “Nimblewill Nomad” Eberhart, 83, break his record in 2021).

Dale told me something remarkable, as if being 90 and hiking almost 2,200 miles isn’t remarkable enough.

When he started this southern segment in September, which included a 14-mile jaunt last weekend in North Carolina walking up a 5,000-foot mountain in frigid weather, Sanders had swollen feet and legs.

After the first three weeks to a month on the trail, the swelling was gone. His body had replenished itself.

“I go into these (adventures) with physical issues, and when I come out, many times those physical issues have been fixed,” Dale said. “After a couple of weeks of hiking, the swelling all went away. Really, my circulation improved so much.”

Sanders has frailties that come with age, just like the rest of us. The chill in the mountains last weekend crept down to his bones and it took several hours to warm up. Dale’s weight, he said, is ideally 152 pounds, but he has sagged to 138 on the trail because it is difficult to find enough calories.

“Obviously, the older I get the harder it becomes to do outdoor activities,” Sanders said. “I find it very difficult to get warm and keep warm enough when it’s cold. Two years ago, I didn’t have that trouble, so I obviously now prefer to hike the outdoor activities in the hot season.”

For 57 years Dale didn’t mind whatever season it was. His career was in parks and recreation and it was a year-round blast.

“I like to be around people when they are happy and they are happiest when they’re out participating in recreation,” Sanders said. “So I was around people at the happiest times in their lives all of my career.”

There are a few other things you should know about this man.

Growing up in Lickskillet, Ky., on a tobacco farm, the bullies came for Dale at school. He was smaller, frailer and, he says, “a little dumb.” 

All that hazing stopped when Dale discovered he could do acrobatics and possessed agility swimming under water in Whippoorwill Creek. He and a friend mesmerized the other kids with their running and jumping. Sanders added long stretches of staying under water to his kid resume.

Dale also had to perform, under much more serious conditions, as a Navy medic attached to the Marine Corps in Okinawa, Japan.

Sanders showed his spearfishing expertise in the waters off shore. He dueled a 6-foot moray eel most of the day. When he claimed the prize, the Marines had a welcome feast thanks to their Navy medic.

Five years later, in 1965, at age 30, he won a national spearfishing competition.

It is jaw-dropping that 59 years later, at age 89, Dale took third place in a national spearfishing contest on Lake Geneva, Wisc., against competition 50-and-older.

Where does this man get these superpowers?

From the same places that are available to all of us, if we choose.

“Living the happy life puts adrenaline in your body to help ward off disease,” Dale said. “Number two, if you’re not a spiritual person, you need to be. You need to find a good quality spiritual life and live it.

“Number three, you’ve got to stay active. If you don’t stay active, your body is not going to generate enough adrenaline to ward off disease, and you’re going to start having physical issues.”

4.38 million steps, give or take, provides a lot of adrenaline. 4.38 million steps is what Sanders needs to muster for this trek along the Appalachian Trail. You only have to look at the picture below to see where the adrenaline comes from.

More Dale below fromGrowing Bolder.