My Xtreme Hike Story
Diane O'Donnell
Fundraising for 15th Annual Xtreme Hike Massachusetts 2026
Diane O'Donnell
Here we are again….seems like the 2025 lightening trail was just yesterday. With some trepidation, I write to say Patrick’s Posse will again hit the CF Xtreme Hike trail June 6th for another beast of a day in the Berkshire woods. One-day, 26+ miles, 6000K elevation and a crazy (yet dedicated) group of hikers up, down, and around Mt. Greylock to raise funds for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
We are grateful for the significant advances our Patrick and much of the CF community have experienced since our first CF hike in 2013. Your generosity and monetary support has had a direct impact on the research and the development of new treatments available. Patrick has benefited from many of these including the breakthrough CF modulator Trikafta that he started his freshman year at BC in December of 2019. Since then, CF has finally taken a back seat and Patrick is leading his best life. His days are spent working in tech sales for DataDog in Boston (enjoying his 10 minute walking commute), almost always a visit to the gym after work or weekends, hitting the many restaurants in his new North End neighborhood, and spending time on both the beach and the slopes this winter with his girlfriend Anna and his own cultivated Posse of amazing BC friends.
But as blessed as we have been in these recent years, we were sadly reminded of the brutality of this disease. Dear friends of ours just recently lost their 25-year-old daughter Maggie to CF. Trikafta was not a solution for Maggie’s CF genotype. Our hearts break knowing the pain and suffering they bore as we and others in our community caught the break we have all dreamed of. This year’s Posse hike will be dedicated to honor this remarkable young woman and her devoted family. We honor Maggie’s courageous fight and the grace and strength she and her family exude. Every step we take on the trail will be for Maggie and the many others who have lost their battle or have yet to catch their break from CF.
As grateful as we are for breakthroughs like Trikafta, it is a treatment, not a cure. And further, like Maggie, there are many in the CF community who cannot benefit from it. Therefore, we remain on this trail and our CF journey in search of the cure. We are so deeply grateful for the generosity all of you have shown year after year (Patrick’s 25!) and hope that one day we can put these “asks” (and this trail) to rest for good.
All our gratitude,
Diane, Jim, Elizabeth & Patrick
We are grateful for the significant advances our Patrick and much of the CF community have experienced since our first CF hike in 2013. Your generosity and monetary support has had a direct impact on the research and the development of new treatments available. Patrick has benefited from many of these including the breakthrough CF modulator Trikafta that he started his freshman year at BC in December of 2019. Since then, CF has finally taken a back seat and Patrick is leading his best life. His days are spent working in tech sales for DataDog in Boston (enjoying his 10 minute walking commute), almost always a visit to the gym after work or weekends, hitting the many restaurants in his new North End neighborhood, and spending time on both the beach and the slopes this winter with his girlfriend Anna and his own cultivated Posse of amazing BC friends.
But as blessed as we have been in these recent years, we were sadly reminded of the brutality of this disease. Dear friends of ours just recently lost their 25-year-old daughter Maggie to CF. Trikafta was not a solution for Maggie’s CF genotype. Our hearts break knowing the pain and suffering they bore as we and others in our community caught the break we have all dreamed of. This year’s Posse hike will be dedicated to honor this remarkable young woman and her devoted family. We honor Maggie’s courageous fight and the grace and strength she and her family exude. Every step we take on the trail will be for Maggie and the many others who have lost their battle or have yet to catch their break from CF.
As grateful as we are for breakthroughs like Trikafta, it is a treatment, not a cure. And further, like Maggie, there are many in the CF community who cannot benefit from it. Therefore, we remain on this trail and our CF journey in search of the cure. We are so deeply grateful for the generosity all of you have shown year after year (Patrick’s 25!) and hope that one day we can put these “asks” (and this trail) to rest for good.
All our gratitude,
Diane, Jim, Elizabeth & Patrick
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