Baxter State Park is best known for a very narrow, one-mile trail connecting the 5,000 feet Baxter and Pamola peaks. In fact, the trail is so narrow that at some points, the width of the pass is only 3 feet, with thousand feet drops flanking both sides; hence the name Knife's Edge.

The park limits the number of trekkers on the trail by handing out only a handful of parking passes via a lottery system online. Unfortunately, we were unable to get one, but the park ranger there told us that if we lined up outside the park gate at 5AM the next day, at 7AM when the rangers at the trailhead rang down with the number of no-shows, we might be able to get in. Using game theory, we figured that this is probably what the park rangers tell everyone without a pass, so we got in line at 4:30AM. It turned out to be the right move as droves of cars started coming around 5AM; we were fifth. At 7AM, we were let in.

We decided to do the loop because we heard that you don't want to retrace your steps, doing Knife's Edge twice. We didn't understand that sentiment until we were up in the mountain. The rocky, precipitous one-mile trail took over 3 hours to traverse. And it quite lived up to its name.

As another hiker we overheard said: "Much Knife. So Edge."