80-Year-Old Becomes The Oldest To Hike The Appalachian Trail
Betty Kellenberger is an 80-year-old former teacher from Michigan who is now the oldest woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail, more than 2,000 miles from Georgia to Maine. She did it all after having her knee replaced.
2,200 miles across 14 states, climbing and descending the equivalent of 16 Mount Everests? That’s a six month commitment! She spent 40 years as a teacher and was no stranger to an active lifestyle. She took on cross-country bicycling trips and extended hiking trips in the Canadian Rockies and Peru.
Never married, with no kids, she said no one was stopping her from taking on a hike through more than a dozen states.“As a consequence, I don’t have people hovering, saying, ‘We don’t think you should do this,’” “Makes it, for me, a whole lot easier.” She loved what she saw along the way. “You see incredible parts of our country, things that you wouldn’t see otherwise,” “So much wildlife. It’s just gorgeous.”