This 74-Year-Old Woman Just Broke an Appalachian Trail Record

Relatively few young people have the grit and determination to finish a 2,200-mile, 900,000-vertical-foot hike like the Appalachian Trail. That only makes Linda “Nana” Vanderloop’s trip more impressive. On October 28, Linda became the oldest woman ever to thru-hike the AT when she climbed to the summit of New York’s Bear Mountain at 74 years old with her daughter Hanna, beating a 10-year-old record set by Nan “Drag’n Fly” Reisinger. For Linda however, the record was an afterthought.

”I did not go into that even knowing about [Reisinger],” Linda says. “Finishing the trail was something I wasn’t sure I was going to be doing.”

The idea of an Appalachian Trail thru-hike came about after Linda Vanderloop completed the Ice Age Trail in her home state of Wisconsin in 2020. Linda’s daughter, Hanna, became envious of her mom’s experience and began her own adventure.

“I would call her and she would be on the trail and I would be super jealous,” Hanna recalls. “She had this big goal she was chipping away at. So,I started hiking the blue blaze trail network in Connecticut.”

One of the sections of that network was part of the Appalachian Trail. As she began tackling those miles, Hanna realized she was hungry for more of that challenge, and made it her long-term goal to hike the AT. When she quit her job earlier this year to start working her way through the trail in 100-mile segments, her mother decided she wanted to come too.

From the start of the journey, the duo’s flip-flop approach was unconventional. They planned to begin on Bear Mountain in New York, but quickly had to pivot after discovering the peak was closed. Instead they began their hike between Bear Mountain and Harriman State Park in New York. From there, they hiked New Jersey and Pennsylvania before heading south to tackle Georgia, Tennessee, and most of North Carolina before heading north, sometimes hiking segments independently of one another.

“We only had two rules: [We passed] every white blaze in 365 days, and we almost always hiked northbound,” says Hanna. “Piece by piece, the pair hiked large swaths of the trail, occasionally meeting up with other family members to share the experience and accept support along the way.  Both Linda and Hanna found that their unconventional methods provided a more solitary experience outside of the bubble, which they liked.

As they neared the end of the trail, they discovered that Reisinger’s birthday (she also finished her hike at 74) was later in the year, and realized that Linda had a chance at beating her record. Besides being older than Reisinger by six weeks, she also completed her hike later in the season.

Obtaining the new title was a perk for Linda, but her experience was inspiration in other ways, too.

“We met so many people on the trail that were older,” she says. “And you felt so good that people still feel they can do this. You don’t have to be young. Anybody can walk. It was kind of neat to even see some trails that could even accept a wheelchair,” she said.

Linda’s journey was mostly devoid of injury, although she hiked Kinsman with food poisoning and wound up with about 20 yellow jacket stings in North Carolina. Still, she admits, the trip was far from easy.

“There is a reason 1 in 4 people only finish,” she says. “It lives up to its reputation of being one of the toughest and longest hikes.”

Since Reisinger set her record in 2014, many hikers have attempted to beat it. In 2023, Pamela Clark came close to claiming the title at age 76, but came up just shy of the ATC’s 12-month requirement. M.J. “Nimblewill Nomad” Eberhart currently holds the oldest overall Appalachian Trail record, which he obtained at the age of 83 in 2021.

When asked if she’s plans to tackle other long trails in the future, Linda responded, “I’ll never say never.”

“If the opportunity arises I’ll probably be out there,” she says. “It’s kind of hard not to keep the legs going once you start.”