The obstacles and excuses kept blocking Betty Kellenberger’s path, but she never stopped moving forward.
Kellenberger, an 80-year-old retired schoolteacher from Carson City, Michigan, became interested in the Appalachian Trail in elementary school when she learned about it in a Weekly Reader: Betty immediately thought she wanted to hike it someday.
But adult life and her work as a teacher obstructed her path for decades. Even for young people, hiking the entire Appalachian Trail is a grueling, multi-month endeavor.
The trail runs through 14 states from Maine to Georgia and is about 2,200 miles long, filled with rigorous climbs and rocky terrain and a whole host of environmental challenges.
Finishing the entire thing is such a daunting task that many people only attempt to cover stretches of it at a time.
Betty wanted to do the whole thing.
“I remember thinking, ‘How long do you think you have to think about it? You know, I’m pushing 80,” Betty told the AARP. “Am I going to wait until I’m pushing 90?’ So yeah, it sort of pushed me into action.”
She researched the trail and made her first attempt in 2022 with a trail partner, Joe Cox.
Unfortunately, Cox had a rough fall on Mount Katahdin in Maine and had to exit the trail a day later. Betty didn’t make it much longer, leaving several days afterward due to lingering effects from dehydration, Lyme disease, and a concussion.
She tried again in 2023, starting at Harpers Ferry, Virginia and heading north. Betty made it all the way to Massachusetts, but a bad fall forced her to abandon the adventure.
Then, she had knee replacement surgery and learned the sad news that Cox had passed away. Betty became determined to finish the trail in his honor. (Watch a great video of her trek below from PBS…)
She started at Harpers Ferry again in 2024, this time going southward. Unfortunately, in September Mother Nature threw her another curve ball: Hurricane Helene had toppled trees, obstructing paths all over the South, making the Appalachian Trail so impassable in parts that officials made hikers an extraordinary offer during the clean-up.
Leave now and you can count your existing mileage on day one next year.
Typically, all through-hikes have to be finished in 12 months to count as complete, so Betty had actually caught a break.
She began training for her next shot at the Trail by climbing steps every day at the local hospital because her Michigan surroundings were so flat.
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And when she headed out to the Appalachian Trail again in March 2025, she only had the northern and southern routes remaining since she had hiked between Massachusetts and Virginia before the hurricane hit.
She finished the southern end first. Only the northern end remained, but the mountains of Maine and New Hampshire are notoriously difficult, so Betty wasn’t sure she could do it—until she met a man hiking in Pennsylvania who said something unforgettable.
Hikers often call people like this trail angels, seemingly divine beings that show up in the darkest times and offer enough food, advice, or encouragement to keep people going.
“I was hiking alone, and I just thought, if I have to do this alone, I’m not sure I can do it. And he says, ‘Well, you can quit, and nobody will point fingers at you and blame you or anything. But you’ll never know whether you could have done it or not. If you go and you take it on and you try it, then you’ll at least know.’”
So Betty kept going.
The collective elevation gain along the iconic trail is equivalent to hiking Mount Everest 16 times. It’s estimated that 75% of through-hikers fail every year—and no wonder. Betty’s challenges included sore feet, heavy packs, bad weather, mud bogs, upended roots and endless, endless piles of rocks.
“Early on I decided the Lord must love rocks because He made so many of them,” Betty told The Trek website with a chuckle.
Finally, on September 12, Betty completed the northern end at age 80—besting the previous record by six full years—to become the oldest female to finish the Appalachian Trail.
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“I’ve had a ‘series of unfortunate events’, I call them. But each one, I learned something,” she told AARP. “Each one, I got a little stronger. Each one, I got a better story. And so then, this year, I was able to do it.”
In addition to the record, Betty took home a simple, yet powerful lesson that she loves sharing.
“Get out, move, set a goal and work toward it. The bigger the goal, the greater the reward. Don’t let society or friends and family set your limitations.”
Quite often, you might be surprised how far you can go once you simply take the first step.
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