SHELBY, N.C. - The Appalachian Trail opened in 1937 as a continuous footpath and, a year later, Lee Barry first set his boots on the trail.

At the time, Barry was a 15-year-old Boy Scout from Newark, N.J. He joined other scouts for a 100-mile hike of the Georgia-to-Maine trail.

As was required for the scouts, Barry fashioned his own pack from ash, hickory and World War I Army web belts. He made the troop's tent from white muslin, dipping the cloth into a pot of alum and paraffin to waterproof it.

Sixty-six years later, Barry, who now lives in Shelby, hit the Appalachian Trail in 2004, carrying a homemade pack (made from nylon with no frame) and wielding a pair of hiking poles for stability.

With shuttles provided by his wife, Lois, he started Jan. 2 at the trail's southern terminus at Springer Mountain, Ga., hiking for three weeks at a time and returning home for monthly church council meetings. When he finished walking the trail's 2,175 miles on Nov. 20, he had turned 81.

Though he didn't set out to do so, Barry became the oldest thru-hiker, based on records kept by the Appalachian Trail Conference in Harpers Ferry, W.Va. A thru-hiker is one who intends to complete the trail on a continual, but not necessarily non-stop, basis, according to spokesman Brian King.

The "Easy One," Barry's trail name, edged out "The Crazy One," who was the late Earl Shaffer, the first person in 1948 to make a thru-hike. Shaffer completed his third and final thru-hike in 1998, finishing just before his 80th birthday. (King said 82-year-old Mike Caetano of Pensacola, Fla., completed the trail in 2004, hiking sections over two years. Barry said he has met both Shaffer and Caetano on the trail.)

Barry said he was unaware of the age record until he had begun the trek. "The only thing I thought about," Barry said last week of his advancing years, "if it's going to get done, I've got to get it done now."