Don Lenc's wife Dolores thought he was crazy for hiking the Appalachian Trail.

The thought of him navigating the 2,200 miles of steep and winding paths from Georgia to Maine at his age, then 67, made her quite uneasy.

"She would say, 'you're nuts.' Well, I am nuts," Lenc, now 70, said. "I saw on TV, they had a special about it."

Lenc was already hiking about eight or nine miles a day on various trails he had cleared on his Montville Township property, where he's lived for over 40 years. It started as a hobby, but conquering interstate trails throughout North America started to pique his interest. The 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail would be next on the list once the Appalachian was completed.

"I'm retired, obviously. (Hiking) is my busy work. I don't know how to run a computer or anything, I watch very limited TV, so I spend almost all my time back on my trails," Lenc said. "I got a 4-year-old granddaughter and she asked her mother, 'does papa live in the woods?'"

Delores' failing health kept Lenc off the trail for a while, though. She had a double lung transplant in 2006 and was awaiting a kidney transplant in 2015. Delores died April 18, 2015, leaving Lenc, like many widowers, with a lot of free time on his hands.

"We were married 45 and a half years. It was pretty much a change of life," said Lenc, a father of two sons, Don, 45, and Dan, 40.

One year and five days after Delores' passing, Lenc set out for the U.S.-Mexico border outside of Rancho Del Campo, Calif. to begin hiking the Pacific Crest for the next 166 days. He hiked solo all the way to Diamond Springs, Wash. - crossing desert, mountainous terrain and forests along the way - and finished Oct. 19 a few days shy of six months.

"I figured I would just go ahead and do it. It would be good for me," Lenc said. "It's a fantastic way to get away from everything, puts you in nature, you're busy, exerting yourself physically. The mind is free to wander."

Since records started being kept in 1952, 4,772 hikers and equestrians have completed the Crest. Less than 3 percent of them were 70 or older at the time, according to the Pacific Crest Trail Association.

It wasn't easy, either, Lenc said. Crossing into Washington in September meant more mountains and also snow. He tackled about 18.3 miles a day, maxing out at 30 in a day. He did that twice.

"I have arthritis in my hands," he said. "At the end of the trail, until I got the right glove combination, I could barely unbuckle my pack."

Lenc's interest in hiking came with a good amount of experience. Back in Vietnam as a member of the 101st Airborne, drafted in 1966, Lenc said it was common to be out in the field for 30 days at a time with a 110-pound rucksack on his back while locating Northern Vietnamese base camps and troops.

Carrying a 30-to-50-pound pack of camping and survival gear while trekking the Crest was nothing in comparison to Vietnam, Lenc said.

"People don't always realize you're going to be carrying a backpack," he said. "There's a big difference when you're walking five miles a day to prepare while wearing a backpack. I was in decent physical condition."

Lenc said he took more than 3,000 photos during his expedition, calling the sights "breathtaking."

"I wasn't home four days and I wanted to get back out there," he said.

Lenc hasn't ruled out possibly tackling the Continental Divide Trail next. That 3,100-mile path, which follows the Rocky Mountains between the Mexican and Canadian borders, would earn Lenc the coveted "Triple Crown" of North American hiking, since he already completed the Appalachian and Pacific Crest.

"I gotta do some research and see what's involved (with the Continental Divide)," Lenc said. "Hopefully, I'll be able to keep hiking. You never know with your health and everything else."

"In a way, I feel lucky at 70 to be healthy enough to do it."