Bartlett resident and outdoor adventurer Dale “Greybeard” Sanders is a force of nature. And he relishes the challenges nature can provide.
Sanders, 87, has accomplished an array of feats from traveling the length of the Mississippi River to hiking the Appalachian Trail to walking the rim of the Grand Canyon.
Last month he set a Guinness World Record for being the oldest person to complete the full source-to-sea length canoe trip of the Mississippi River. A new documentary on the 2,350-mile journey is in production.
He began his most recent trip down the Mississippi this summer on his birthday, June 14, in Lake Itasca in north central Minnesota and completed the adventure 87 days later on Sept. 8 about 110 miles past New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico. He averaged about 30 miles each day.
“This time it was really a lot harder. We had really low water, and it was hotter this summer than it was the last time,” said Sanders, who first completed the trek in 2015 at the age of 80. “And the worst enemy I had on the river was headwind.”
Matt Briggs, Dan Faust and Matt Taylor accompanied Sanders on various sections of the trip (in separate canoes and kayaks) in case of emergencies.
“That guy’s a machine,” Taylor said. “There’s nothing like getting schooled on the water every day for 50-something days by someone twice your age. That man put me to shame every single morning, which was awesome.”
With his first full Mississippi River journey in 2015, Sanders completed that trip in 80 days.
“Both times, one of the motivating factors was that I could get the age record,” Sanders said. “I knew it would be a big deal because the oldest person before me to paddle it was Verlen Kruger, who was known as the father of paddling long distances worldwide.”
In 2020 at the age of 81, Stan Stark from Gulfport, Mississippi, eclipsed Sanders’ record from 2015. Sanders decided this year to take on the trip again in order to top Stark’s mark.
In addition to his paddling prowess, Sanders also hiked the entire 2,190-mile Appalachian Trail in 2017, setting the record at age 82 for doing so.
“Dale’s not your average person. He’s really quite remarkable,” Faust said. “A few years ago for about a four-year period Dale simultaneously held the records as the oldest person to paddle the entire Mississippi River as well as the oldest person to hike the entire Appalachian Trail. I don’t think that’s something that anyone will ever accomplish again.”
M.J. Eberhart, also known as Nimblewill Nomad beat Sanders’ age record for the Appalachian Trail in 2021.
“With the Appalachian Trail and Mississippi (River), I lost those two records within 12 months of each other,” Sanders said.
Now that he has the Mississippi River age record back, he might take on the Appalachian Trail again.
“God willing and the creeks don’t rise, when I turn 90 I’ll try it again,” he said.
Sanders, who moved to Bartlett from Raleigh in 2007, spent 37 years with the Navy, including four years of active duty from 1958 to 1962. After earning his Master’s degree in Parks and Rec from Pepperdine University, he went back to work for the Navy and spent 33 years in their Morale Welfare and Recreation Department. When he retired in 2002, he decided it was time to do some nice, long expeditions.
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