By By John Skavlem,The Berkshire Eagle

Copyright berkshireeagle

CLARKSBURG — Falls, Lyme disease and a hurricane couldn’t stop Betty Kellenberger.

This summer, the 80-year-old from Michigan officially became the oldest woman to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail, finishing the 2,200-mile journey she began three years ago. She completed her trek on Friday by stepping off the trail in Clarksburg, just north of North Adams.

A thru-hiker on the Appalachian Trail is someone who hikes the entire 2,200-mile length of the trail in a single, continuous journey, typically within a 12-month period. But the path to that milestone for Kellenberger — also known by her trail name, “Betty the Legend” — was far from simple, and not exactly textbook.

When she first set out in 2022 with her hiking partner, Joe Cox, she wasn’t chasing any records. She just wanted to hike the trail before time slipped away.

“I never had that in mind,” Kellenberger said of setting a record. “If I could have done it 10 years later I probably would have. I just figured I was running out of time, so I had better get to it.”

The record will show that Kellenberger is the oldest woman to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. But the it does not show the years of setbacks, the falls, the illness, the hurricane that wiped out parts of the trail. It does not show the thousands of extra miles she walked, doubling back, piecing together the trail in fragments until it became whole. And it does not show the memory of her hiking partner that she carried with her to the very end.

‘THIS HIKE WAS FOR HIM’

Kellenberger and Cox began together, hiking north from Springer Mountain in Georgia through the southern half of the trail. They made it to Harpers Ferry, W. Va., together before flying to Maine to continue southbound.

But Cox was injured on Katahdin, the trail’s northern terminus, and their journey came to an abrupt halt. Kellenberger tried to continue on her own, only to be sidelined by a mysterious illness, later diagnosed as Lyme disease, that forced her off the trail.

In 2023, Kellenberger set out again, this time alone from Harpers Ferry, the spiritual midpoint of the trail. Cox, unable to join her, urged her to go for the completion herself.

“He really wanted me to get that thru-hike once he no longer could do it with me,” she recalled.

But partway through Pennsylvania, she suffered a bad fall and had to stop once more. That year turned out to be the last time her long-time hiking partner could cheer her on in person, as Cox died not long after.

When Kellenberger laced up her hiking boots again in 2024, she did so without him by her side. From then on, she said, every step became a tribute to his dream for her, a dream she adopted as her own.

“I thought about him all the time,” Kellenberger said. “There were days I wanted to quit, but I knew Joe would want me to keep going. This hike was for him.”

A HURRICANE ‘GIFT’

The 2024 attempt brought new obstacles even before Kellenberger set foot on the trail.

That spring she underwent knee-replacement surgery, which delayed her start until August. She began south from Harpers Ferry, determined to make up for lost time, but Hurricane Helene soon tore across the Appalachians, leaving sections of the trail impassable and forcing officials to close them for repairs.

Because of that damage, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy ruled that the weeks when the path was under construction would not count against the 12-month window thru-hikers are normally given to complete their journey.

In other words, Kellenberger, and others who were forced off the trail by the storm, were allowed to resume later without losing their chance at an official thru-hike.

“It was a gift for me,” she said. “I hate to call it that, but it was.”

By the time she stepped off the trail at the end of that season, Kellenberger had already completed everything from Damascus, Va., up through the mid-Atlantic and into New England, finishing as far as the Massachusetts–Vermont border.

She had strung together nearly the entire center of the Appalachian Trail, leaving only the southern stretch back to Springer Mountain and the northernmost miles through Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

When she returned in 2025, Kellenberger resumed in Damascus to hike south to Springer before flying north to Vermont, tackling the punishing White Mountains and the rugged wilds of Maine.

Her body, tempered by years on the trail, held steady, she said. Her mind, she admitted, sometimes wavered. But the promise she had made to Cox kept her moving.

‘THE LEGEND’

Because Kellenberger hiked most of the trail on her own, the support she found along the way was crucial, she said.

She relied on the kindness of strangers: an English couple who drove her more than 550 miles across Virginia back to Harpers Ferry; a man in Vermont who cooked blueberry pancakes for hikers every morning; and volunteers who reopened miles of trail destroyed by Hurricane Helene months ahead of schedule.

Hikers call it “trail magic,” and for Kellenberger, it became the lifeblood of her trek.

“Trail magic is the coolest thing,” she said. “People have no reason to do all that stuff. They just want to.”

Her trail name, too, came from her travels and the hikers she met.

A group of Boy Scouts in Pennsylvania hiked with her for a day, constantly sprinting ahead only to collapse and snack as Kellenberger caught up, steady and sure. At the end of the day, they insisted she needed a name. After batting around suggestions, they settled on “The Legend.”

She chuckled at the time, reluctant to use it, she said. But as the miles added up, she began to feel differently.

“By the time I got through all the mountains in New Hampshire, I figured, maybe I really had earned it,” she said.

And her accomplishment is more than symbolic. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy, the nonprofit that manages and protects the trail, confirmed that Kellenberger’s thru-hike will be officially recognized.

Melanie Spencer, who runs the conservancy’s visitor center at Harpers Ferry, said Kellenberger broke the previous women’s age record by an “incredible” six years.

By the time she summited Katahdin and stepped off the trail for the final time last week, Kellenberger had more than earned it.

“I’ve been asked what’s next,” she said, grinning. “I’ve got a couple of days of rest before I make a decision.”