Climbing the Deadly Knife Edge of Mt. Katahdin

The Appalachian Trail spans 2,200 miles from Georgia to Maine and ends in the 5,200-foot Mount Katahdin. During our recent road trip to the northeast of the country, Thomas and I carved out a day to climb up the eastern side using the Heel-on-Taylor Trail and heading down on the western side using the Hunt Trail, where we would then meet up with Brian and Andrew at the Katahdin Stream Campground. Thomas hiked the mountain solo in 2018 using the Hunt Trail, but the eastern side of the mountain would be new to both of us. The total distance would be approximately 10 miles and would take all day to complete. We awoke at 4.30 in the morning to begin the climb. Whose crazy idea was it to hike a mountain this early? I'm sorry that I ever complained about the heat. I regret every life decision I've ever made right now. Have fun guys. Good luck. How long are you guys gonna nap? Well, we gotta find the Hampton Inn first. Good luck. All right, see ya. I'm gonna take the Heel-on-Taylor Trail. Okay, the weather today mostly cloudy to clear. High 69. Northwest winds 10 miles per hour. It's 6.13 a.m. right now. We have all day to do this, but we'll probably need all day. I've done enough mountain hiking now to know that when you start you get like this this burst of joy you just want to run up the mountain, but if you do that you're probably going to get gassed out after about 20 minutes. I'm trying to remind myself I've got to pace it even though I know I can get up there as fast as I want. We will not be doing that. We will be saving plenty to get down the mountain. Okay. Break these out now. All right, let's go. It feels like we're making good progress so far. I'm feeling much better than I thought I would at six in the morning. 220 feet up so far. Only 3,800 left. How does this compare to the way that you went up? So far pretty comparable. I honestly expected to be a little bit more smoother grade, but no I'm still climbing up boulders here. Yeah this is... Now this, this is what I was expecting our gradient to be. Much lower and easier, so I'm going to enjoy this. This is our limousine. Wow, we made a lot of progress in a very short time. Okay, it is 6.44. Sunrise was at 6.42. We can definitely see the sun already. Temperature has also gotten a little warmer. I imagine once we get up on the mountain it'll not be warm though. Okay, I'm gonna ask you a question. This will be the only time I'm gonna ask it. Is that the peak? I want to say that one further to the right. I think that's it, or at least pretty close to it. Might be a couple hundred feet higher than that, but... Okay, even if it's not, I won't ask you again. That'll be the first and only time. You feeling it yet? I'm really feeling it. Oh man, that was a tough section. The views are already worth it. This trail has vertical uphill and then very small sections that will let you put your guard down, and then it gives you another vertical uphill. Man, you'd think views like this might get old. Not at all. I mean, look how fast those clouds are moving over them. I kind of want to hurry. I want to experience the clouds while we're up there. Okay, let's go. Whenever I see cairns up on a mountainside like this, I always wonder if it's a grave or cairns. It's kind of encouraging as you see these three ponds right there. We can see them out that way, so we're probably like right around here. So Pomola or... It's steep, but still just up that way. And just behind it should be Baxter Peak. Yeah, but we got to do the Knife's Edge. It's called Knife's Edge for a reason. We might be able to finally taste the clouds, Robbie. That looks intimidating. Just look down. Don't look that down. Oh man, this is beautiful though. This is one of the best views I've ever seen. This gives Whitney a run for its money, man. Really? Yeah. Difficulty or views? It's harder than Whitney. Whitney's like walking. This is climbing. So on the way down, it's even more treacherous. So much so that they give you bars that you have to climb down on. Wow. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Man, this is a scramble. Of any mountain I've done, this is the most climbing by far. I've only gone bouldering a few times and even then it's just indoors. But I find that I'm using some of the grips that I would while I'm in there. Granted, it's not true climbing, but it's definitely climbing adjacent. We're above the bottom of this cloud right here. Robbie, I got a quiz for you. You got a quiz for me? Quiz for you. Alright. Do we go this way or do we go straight up? Apparently up. Man, this just seems wrong, dude. Next stop, go over there. Okay, buddy. Sure. There is something to be said about trusting the blazes. You look and you're like, there's no way that's the best way. And then you get there and you're like, it wasn't that bad. It was pretty good. I don't know what happened right here, but now there's like actually a little bit of a trail, like almost some gravel and everything. Enjoy the fruits of your labor, Robbie. It's becoming even funnier in retrospect that I was not worried about this mountain. I thought this was just like a simple day hike. I think in my head, I was thinking, oh, we don't even have to stay overnight at the top or anything. How hard could it be? So far, we've climbed 3,200 feet in elevation only, a little over three miles in distance. Almost there. I'm feeling it. It's satisfying to look across there and not have to look way too far up. I'm feeling it. Just to see that mountain. A pretty tough climb, but really happy we don't have to deal with elevation. I think the max height we're going to get is like 4,000. That is perfectly manageable. This is it, right? There's no further. Only a mile up to that area over there. Whoa, that is daunting. Let's get out of this wind. Yeah. I hope you got something sweet because I'm feeling something sweet. Yep. Good man, good man. These are just chocolate chunks. Oh, that's terrible. On the Adirondacks, when we did Mount Wright, you couldn't see this far. This is hundreds of miles that you can see. No marmots up here? That's what I remember. You just want to crawl in there and die. What are your thoughts? You know it's serious when the distance is hazy. Yep. No, you know it's serious when you try and go 10 feet forward, you have to go 30 feet down. This is just crazy, man. Just stay there. I'm going to try and get down. Okay. I don't think the camera can capture this, but I want to see how. Okay. See if it shows you how far down you have to go. I'm six foot three, by the way. Oh, I'm Robbie. I want to go hike Mount Katahdin. Robbie, you know it's very tough. It's not going to be that tough. Two weeks later, I'm on my butt sliding down a mountain trying not to die. I can't even blame you because I was the one who wanted to go. I didn't even know it was going to be this bad on this side. The blazes are telling you where to go and it still seems impossible. I see people up there. Oh, wow. That's probably Baxter Peak right there. That is Baxter Peak. Yeah. That seems so far away. Wow. I don't know. This might be the most beautiful hike I've ever been on. I don't even know how we did that. We just came up from right there. No. Never has 50 yards seemed so high. That is crazy. We just went right down that. I've talked about this before, but as an American, we're accused of using the word awesome too many times and in inappropriate situations. This is the appropriate situation. Truly awesome. Probably the most terrified I've ever been hiking right here. Just put your whole body against it. There you go. There you go. I'm thinking and I'm just going to slide. All right, there we go. Pretty much there. There you're level. This is worse than Angels Landing, Mount Whitney, any of the mountains I did in Japan. This is like one of the scariest, most difficult hikes I've been on. Actually, Robbie, if you stay down there, but don't go too far down, you can hug a side and that's better than the way that I went. Yeah, you want to go up there. Drop down a little bit. Yeah, right there. That's great. Then keep going. See, I went up a little bit too high. Somewhat of a path over here. Yeah, that looks better than mine. I will tell you one thing. This section of the trail has earned its nickname. This is a knife edge if I've ever seen one. OK, we were told the right side is more fun. Left side is more easy. But the blue blazes, they go on the right side. We're going to opt for the fun route. So, Robbie, why do you think this is a fun route? Well, I like the feeling of near death. This is pretty fun. It's not too bad, despite the drop off. I was going to say, they could at least throw up, like throw a rope up here or a chain or something. Once you find out where the blue blazes, it's like, OK, that's not unreasonable. I mean, it is unreasonable, but no more than anything else we've done up to this point. Maybe I've just gotten over them, but I thought I used to be somewhat scared of heights. When I was a kid, I was definitely scared of heights. And then later, I still had a healthy fear of it. But now it's just, I don't know. I still have the respect for it, but I'm not as wobbly. You look like an ant up there. You remember that time when we were in Hawaii and we were like, it was like twice the size. We were like, oh, I got to scoot on my butt. Now it's like, OK, now it's really life or death. All right, whatever. What? If it looks... I'll tell you, it looks as bad as it is. It looks really bad. Yeah, it is pretty bad. Careful now. There was a group behind us at the summit. I haven't seen them in a while. I wonder if they turned back or if it's just how slow you have to go on these rocks. I don't know how you get there. Get to those cabins. Those seem like pretty dope cabins down there. I remember seeing this last time, but I still don't know how to get there. If this was the only way to get from here to there, I'd turn around right now. I'm not doing that. Luckily, I think this is the trail down here. Well, maybe not so luckily. That's doable. Yeah. Sorry I'm moving so slow. Take your time. This section is definitely a bit rockier than the other ones, but this is actually fairly traversable compared to what we have been doing. I mean, it's slow going, but we've made some major progress. That was the peak where we had lunch. Two more peaks. After a while, I think we've been on here for probably over an hour now. The fear of heights definitely diminishing. But the disdain for this ridge is rising every second. You're like, I'm ready to get off of this. Yeah, seriously. I think it's right there. I think we're pretty close. You take the lead. Can you pull out that map? I'm curious if this was Chimney Peak or if that one's Chimney Peak. No, the chimney was over there. Oh, really? That was the chimney that was there. That one, you think? We were first on Pomola, then the one immediately that we had to go down and back up. That was the chimney. Okay. This one here is South Peak, and then this one, that one up there is Baxter Peak. Yeah, pretty high up. I mean, this is probably not too much lower than Baxter. I think just past that peak there, and we're there. Okay, so this dude behind me, he was a thru-hiker. He has just finished a six-month journey. This is a six-hour journey, and boy, does it feel like it. Did it. There you go. It's so different coming up this way and then looking at Knives Edge and being like, I did that. Wow. Yeah, that is crazy that we did that. It doesn't really look like you can walk on it, but when you get right next to it, it's kind of traversable. Yeah. Well, most of it is. It's like that 1% that's boot and scoot. Yeah, let's go have lunch. Yeah, let's do that. Springer Mountain, Georgia. Only 2,189.1 miles to go. There's someone over here that's done that. 2,189 miles. I'm not even sure I've hiked 2,000 miles in my entire life. How high is this? 5,267? There you go. That's respectable. Yeah, that's a respectable climb. Almost a third of Mount Whitney. Thank you. That backrest. Get a backrest. Here, you want me to feed you some pretzels? Life sure is good. Okay, you ready to get off this mountain and never come back? I want to say never, but give me another at least two years. I am ready for this nice plains in Spain with no rain. A little wind though. I think that's the end of the hike and I forget there's a very long portion after that which is getting down. For us, it's a little bit less than half. Because this way back's a little longer. So, here we are at Thoreau Springs. I don't remember there being water last time I was here, but it's a cable campground. Oh, so we're going to continue this way? So this is it? Just Thoreau Springs? This is it. Thoreau ascended Catania in 1846 and wrote the Maine Woods, one of the earliest authentic descriptions of the great forest regions of northern Maine. So, walking on flat ground for the last half hour, 45 minutes, is giving me the illusion that it's going to be pretty easy. Walk up to the edge right here and remember, oh, oh, that's right. We're still on top of the mountain here. Crazy. Getting close to the end of my rope. Seven and a half hours of hiking. 6183 miles, 4200 feet of elevation change. Bobby, join me. Take a nice reprieve before we kill ourselves going down this mountain. Oh man, this doesn't look fun. Oh my god, I am absolutely pooped. You can definitely take a longer break here if you want. Yeah, I want to take a nice 20 minute break. Yeah, we are not even close to out of the woods yet. We're literally not in the woods yet, so we're not out of the woods for sure. So, do people talk about this place as if it's a very difficult and awe-inspiring mountain? Because I always thought it was just kind of, you know, the end of the Appalachian Trail and then that's what its claim to fame was. But just difficulty and beauty-wise, this is off the scales. I've never heard anybody talk about this one specifically as far as that goes. I think it's just so inaccessible to most people. You know, I don't know too many people who live within driving distance of Maine where they're going to do this. It's nice now that we're coming off that crazy ridge up there. Starting to see some trees. They're only about knee high right now, but... That's a very good sign. We were behind there. God knows where. Started up top. I think so. Let's check it out. There's one of them. I'm trying to figure out how they want us to do this. It's like... Like that, maybe? That wasn't terrible. Looks as good as any method. Yeah. I saw what you did, but still, it didn't seem any less sketchy. There you go, get your stretches in. What do you do if you're shorter than me? We saw someone who's shorter than you. They still made it up. Thank you, Paul. Oh boy, I see the trees. Oh, it's actually kind of nice. That does help. I see a blaze there. Makes me think that there's a blaze down here. There is a blaze. There's blazes there, but I don't... I guess that's it. You got this? Is there something I can't see? Because that doesn't look possible, but... I think... I think it probably is. It's tough. Oh yeah, there's rocks here. Okay. Still tough, though. This is perfectly sane food to eat. So in that little crevice, take a little leap of faith and put a... put a shoe. Why, you came up this? Yeah. This is scary. Put both hands against the wall and kind of... Oh, that works, too. All right, I think this is finally the tree line. Still a ways to go, but at least we got shade. I need to take a quick snack break for my morale. Saving that good stuff for the end. Okay. I've hit a good point of relaxation right here. All right, now I'll actually check the GPS and see how far we are. I was afraid to do it earlier. No, come on, that has to not be updated yet. We're still pretty far, but it goes by faster. Oh my god, we are so far, dude. Probably three or four miles. We did that tabletop in like no time. From those rocks down, that was like the whole trip. How long did you estimate this would take? 12 hours. It's probably pretty accurate. We're at 923 right now. This is a really hard hike. I haven't done anything harder, for sure. 100%. This is a bicycle course. That hardly seems real. It's probably fleeting. Look behind you. I feel like that might have been that section of the trail where I said Mount Katahdin. More like Mount Can't Walk Two Feet Without Hitting a Bouldering. I don't think I can understate how interminable this section of the trail is. We have been doing what you're looking at on screen for like two hours, and it just keeps going. Going and going. It is definitely getting less rocky and a little bit flatter. I think we're definitely rounding the corner here. Not quite rounding the corner, so to speak, but getting there, getting there. Let's go. How much? 1.1. I don't think I'll ever have been happier to see Brian and Andrew than when I see them once we get to the trailhead. It's going to be interesting to see what adventures they got up to, though. Did they flip the canoe? We have no idea. Did they finish the last two seltzer waters? Could be. Let's see if we can find Robbie and Thomas. This is exciting, though. I hope I actually find them, and I hope I don't have to hike too much to find them, to be honest. But we will see what happens. It's funny because every shadow that I see, I kind of... Oh, hey! Look who it is. You guys are very close. You have these, though. Oh, my goodness. Oh, man. And they are cold. I could kiss you. Heaven on earth. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you very much for watching. If you enjoyed the video, please check out our Patreon page at patreon.com adventure. It is literally thanks to our patrons that we're able to make these videos at all. If you want to check out what Brian and Andrew were up to while we were hiking or the rest of our road trip, click on the videos on the screen. But thanks, as always, for watching. Hope you enjoyed it, and we'll see you in the next one. That was the best. Yeah, that was the best mountain ever.