I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into when I agreed to take that trip with my family and friends, nor had I any idea of what the mountain even looked like.

My sweaty hands grasped stones that somehow, miraculously stayed in place. My shaking knees below me pressed up against the pale, loose sand. I forced myself not to look down, as the slope below me would make for a nasty fall. I knew all too well that I was terrified of heights, and it only rubbed in more when I glanced up to see that my brother was climbing steadily a good 30 feet ahead of me and seemed to care less about risks. My mother, below me, murmured something.

“Gorgeous. Will you look at that?”

I whipped my head around. It was gorgeous. Golden rays of sunlight splashed on to the Knife’s Edge, giving it a look of friendliness before a cloud rolled by and it returned to its taunting self. Unfortunately for me, the splendid sight turned my head in the down direction.

My heart seemed to double in size, my head started whirring, and my neck refused to turn away. Still as a statue, I watched, wide-eyed, as shadows crept across the trees far below me. My hands, clutching small ledges, already slipping, were becoming more and more vulnerable to slip off the stones.

“Julia! Quit looking down!”

I then realized that I had created a jam, so slowly my neck turned, and I was back to staring at the sand, which resembled crushed graham crackers.

My friend and our two families had agreed to hike Mt. Katahdin that summer. We stayed in a bunkhouse, and it was just big enough for eight people to sleep comfortably. At the base of Katahdin lies a small pond: Chimney Pond.

Chimney is basically what hikers depend on when they trek Katahdin. They fill their water bottles there, they get cooking water there, and when they lie on the banks of it, it provides the most spectacular view of the Knife’s Edge. It also made for a really fun rock-hop around it, my friend and I later found out.

Our route was to hike up the Saddle Trail, to Baxter Peak, across the Knife’s Edge, and back down the Dudley Trail. The Saddle Trail is considered the “easy” trail. It is, until you reach the Saddle Slide: 1,000 feet of loose sand and stones on a sometimes 50 degree angle.

When we had finally made it to the top of the Slide, we sat to take a bit of a break.

“Those clouds look pretty intimidating,” my father noted.

They were indeed big, heavy and gray; they were traveling fast. Sure enough, 20 minutes later, buckets of water dumped on our heads. Oh, great, I thought. The vote was to trek back down the now slippery slide to the safety of the bunkhouse, thinking that by the look of the sky, the rain wouldn’t be letting up any time soon.

It was kind of ironic that midway down the trail the sun came out again. We decided to spend the rest of the sunny afternoon daring ourselves to dunk our heads under water in the outlet, which is a tiny little body of water that people use for washing dishes, since Chimney is reserved for drinking water.

The outlet is about 3 feet deep at the deepest point, but it is so cold, it’s a wonder why there’s no sheet of ice covering it. It does, however, relax your muscles once you’ve managed to slither out again.

The next morning, over bowls of rather disgusting instant oatmeal, we debated whether or not to give Katahdin another go. When asked for my preference, I said that I didn’t care either way, but the truth was that I would have much, much rather stayed below the tree line, in the safety of the bunkhouse, and read on the bank of the pond. Apparently, I was the only one who was terrified of heights, as two hours later I found myself looking up at the Saddle Slide once more.

The whole process started over again. Left foot up, right hand up. Right foot up, left hand up. I feared the worst. I imagined I would look down, like I did, but I thought I would lose my grip this time and go tumbling down, down those rocks and stones and all the other obstacles that made up the Slide.

I was wrong. I found myself at the top in what seemed to me like a flash. I glanced back down the trail. It didn’t just shrink on me, did it? No. It didn’t.

As I fell asleep that night, I looked back to the morning before, frozen on a 50 degree angle, and the last thing I would have ever wanted to do was replay that.

But now, thanks to my friends and family, I’ve hiked the Slide again. I now know to try something a second time if I don’t like it at first. It might still be challenging, or I might still utterly hate it, but I have to persevere. For all I know, it might become one of my favorite things to do.

JULIE BAUMGARTE is a seventhgrader in Peg Acheson’s class at Brunswick Junior High School.