'We did it!': 92-year-old breaks record to become oldest person to hike Grand Canyon rim to rim

A 92-year-old man is now the oldest person on record to have conquered the Grand Canyon's 24-mile, rim-to-rim hike.

Guinness World Records confirmed the feat on Tuesday, about two months after Alfredo Aliaga walked for 21 hours over two days to complete the hike, which began on the Grand Canyon's North Rim and ended on the South Rim as observers cheered him on.

"We both started screaming and jumping up and down," Aliaga's daughter, Anabel Aliaga-Buchenau, told USA TODAY on Wednesday about the moment that she and her daughter first saw that his record had been confirmed. They then called Aliaga on Facetime, who had seen the Guinness World Record's story earlier in the day but didn't realize it was the official confirmation.

"It was very funny," Aliaga-Buchenau said. Now that he knows it's confirmed, "he feels happy and very proud," she said.

In his first interview following the accomplishment back in October, Aliaga told USA TODAY that finishing the rim-to-rim hike felt amazing and said that it's never too late to do something big, even in your 90s.

After all, he said, it's "only one step after the other."

How hard is the rim-to-rim hike of the Grand Canyon?

The rim-to-rim hike of the Grand Canyon, also known as R2R, is among the top bucket-list experiences for avid hikers. It takes training, stamina and careful planning. A typical R2R that starts on the North Rim involves 5,700 feet of elevation loss during the first leg, and 4,400 feet of elevation gain for the last 9.6 miles.

"Less than 1% of the six million annual visitors embark on this hike and most prepare for months, even years," according to the Rim to Rim Club.

A place of extremes, many hikers have succumbed to sweltering temperatures in the canyon, while others have gotten caught in snow or slipped on ice.

An average of about 12 people die at the Grand Canyon every year, and around 900 have died there since the 1800s, according to an unofficial tally by Michael P. Ghiglieri and Thomas M. Myers, authors of "Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon."

Although Ghiglieri and Myers found that the leading cause of death in the canyon are helicopter and airplane crashes, followed by falls, deaths from environmental conditions like heat have been on the rise in recent decades.

In September, 55-year-old Ranjith Varma of Manassas, Virginia, became unresponsive during a rim-to-rim hike and later died after bystanders and then rescuers performed CPR on him, according to the National Park Service. In November, 65-year-old James Handschy of Oracle, Arizona, used a personal locator beacon to summon help while he was attempting to hike from the South Rim down to the Colorado River and back, according to the Grand Canyon National Park. Rescuers found Handschy unresponsive and he was pronounced dead.

How did Alfredo Aliaga complete the rim-to-rim hike at his age?

Aliaga beat the previous record-holder for the oldest person to have hiked the Grand Canyon rim to rim, John Jepkema of Craig, Colorado completed his hike over five days at the age of 91 in 2019. He died last March.

Aliaga trained for the hike by walking three hours every day in Berlin, where he lives with his son. He didn't do any mountain training but figured the long walks would help prepare him for the hours and hours he would need to be on his feet.

Aliaga said there are three reasons he's so healthy at the age of 92.

"I have a routine, three things that I do every day and that is enough to be strong, happy and healthy when you are so old," he said. "The first one: Eat healthy food, drink water with it ... The second one, just 30 minutes each day walking. If you can do more, very good, but 30 is enough. But every day!"

The third recommendation, he said, is the most important one: Sleep eight hours every night, going to bed and getting up at the same time every day.

Aliaga said he began his three-step method when he was 74 so it's never too late.

"We are willed by Mother Nature to move, and if you are eight hours sitting in a chair, you cannot be healthy," he said. "We must move."

More about Alfredo Aliaga

Aliaga was born on Aug. 28, 1931, in a tiny village in northern Spain called Mozota, which had no running water when he was a boy, said Aliaga-Buchenau, a longtime resident of Charlotte, North Carolina, and a professor of German and comparative literature at the University of North Carolina.

During the Spanish Civil War – which broke out in 1936 – Aliaga's parents sent him to live with his aunt and uncle on a sheep farm in the mountains, where he helped shepherd the animals, said Aliaga-Buchenau, who also did the rim-to-rim hike with her father.

Aliaga spent time in the military, worked for a telephone company and at the age of 25, immigrated to Germany to study geology. There he met his wife Ingrid, then became a pharmaceutical rep and the couple settled down with their two children in Northeim in central Germany, about halfway between Berlin and Frankfurt.

In their retirement, Aliaga and his wife began traveling the world on a shoestring budget, bringing their tent and hiking poles to places like Machu Picchu, Mount Everest Base Camp and the Grand Canyon. They once went on a 2,000-mile bike ride from Finland to Germany.

Aliaga lost his adventure buddy in 2006 following 39 years of marriage when Ingrid died of Lou Gehrig's disease, or ALS, at the age of 76.

"My dad would say, 'Oh, how about if we do this?'" Aliaga-Buchenau said. "And she would say, 'Yes, let's go!' She was always ready to take on the next adventure."

After his wife's death, Aliaga "was a shell of his former self, having taken care of Ingrid 24/7 for two years," his daughter said.

How the Grand Canyon helped Alfredo Aliaga find his joy again

To help him heal after Ingrid died, Aliaga decided to return to all the places he had been with her. At the top of his list was the Grand Canyon.

He took his daughter and his then 9-year-old grandson Nick to the natural wonder, where they camped for the night and left a paper origami crane in Ingrid's memory (family and friends made her 1,000 cranes as she lay dying and threw them on top of her grave at her funeral).

Since then, Aliaga has returned to the canyon repeatedly and has done various rim-to-rim hikes. He's been so many times, his daughter said, that rangers and other hikers recognize him.

Ahead of his most recent trip, KNXV-TV in Flagstaff, Arizona, reported about Aliaga's record attempt, and that story was posted in a rim-to-rim hiking group with more than 70,000 members on Facebook, further solidifying the 92-year-old's fame.

Aliaga could barely get into a good rhythm because of all the people stopping him during his most recent hike.

"(There were) a lot of people asking me, 'Oh, you are Alfredo. May I get a picture with you?'" Aliaga said. "We lost a lot of time making pictures, and they (would say), 'Oh, you are my hero, you are my inspiration.'"

'You made our day, Alfredo'

On a post in the Facebook group about Aliaga's hike, about a dozen people shared the photos they took with the nonagenarian.

"You made our day, Alfredo!" one user wrote along with a selfie with a beaming Aliaga.

Another posted their photo with Aliaga and wrote: "I felt like I was meeting a celebrity!"

A video shared with USA TODAY of Aliaga’s final steps on the rim-to-rim hike shows dozens of people cheering him on as he nears the end.

“We heard about you and wanted to see you,” one person told him. Another shouted: “You’re our idol! We love you!”

The cheers appeared to give Aliaga a boost as he lifted his trekking poles higher and brought them down with force with each new step.

As he finished 21 hours of hiking, Aliaga raised each pole in the air and declared: “We did it!”

What's next for Alfredo Aliaga?

Buchenau, Aliaga's son-in-law, told USA TODAY that the Aliaga plans to do a rim-to-river-to-rim in May with his family and another rim-to-rim in October, "health permitting."

Aliaga told Guinness World Records that he'd also love to conquer another record by hiking the Aconcagua in Argentina, the Cotopaxi or the Chimborazo, both of which are in Ecuador.

For now, the Grand Canyon still has his heart.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 92-year-old Alfredo Aliaga is oldest to hike Grand Canyon rim to rim