Project 50 in 50 is Just the Start for These T1D Adventurers

With extreme weather conditions, new environments, and unprecedented challenges to consider, the two thoughtfully planned their entire journeys to ensure their success and inspire others living with diabetes who want to dare to live beyond their condition.

Laying the Foundation to Climb High

Patrick, founder of The Diabetes Connection, has been living with type 1 diabetes (T1D) for 28 years. Patrick and Michael, who’s coming up on his 21st diaversary, met while working at a summer camp for people living with diabetes.

“We started off really small, going on backpacking trips together,” Michael said. “Then, in the summer of 2019, we both had the season to do something big, and we bounced back and forth between what we wanted to do.”

Michael and Patrick knew they wanted to involve people living with diabetes. They aimed to set an example for the T1D community, demonstrating that high-performance activities were achievable despite the disease.

“That’s where the idea of every mountain, every state came into play for 50 in 50,” Michael said. “It was an awesome adventure! We got to climb a lot of challenging peaks and travel the country. We also got to meet a ton of awesome people living with diabetes out there. We even invited some people out to climb non-technical peaks with us.”

During their adventure for Project 50 in 50, Patrick and Michael met a surprising number of people with diabetes. Traveling 20,000 miles in just 49 days (beating their 50-day target), they met people with diabetes at random stops like gas stations. 

“It was such a cool experience hearing everyone’s stories,” said Michael. “Understanding we all live with different challenges, but we’re all making it work with type 1 diabetes. The whole goal of our new project, Low to High, is to show that you can do whatever you want to do with type 1 diabetes—you just have to have the planning in place for it.”

Patrick and Michael not only inspire others with diabetes but are also inspired by them.

Project Low to High describes Patrick and Michael’s 135-mile journey starting at Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the continental United States at 282 feet below sea level, ending at the summit of Mount Whitney—the highest point, towering at 14,505 feet, in just 48 hours.

“That’s what we want to echo throughout our adventures, no matter how big or small—just that it’s possible, and you bring your diabetes along for the journey,” Michael said.

Inspiring Others to Get Outside with Diabetes

Michael and Patrick’s adventures have motivated people living with diabetes to get outside and tackle significant performance challenges. While in Vermont, Patrick and Michael encountered a man with type 1 diabetes who was attending a bachelor party on a summit. They noticed each other’s continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) and started a conversation.

“We were taking pictures for social media on the summit of this peak, showing off our CGMs,” Patrick said. “We exchanged information and posted his picture on social media, and then we started following each other. I just saw recently that he’s now putting together a challenge to summit the highest peak in South America. He’s doing something fairly similar to what Michael and I love as our bread and butter.”

He’s not the only social media connection Patrick and Michael inspired. Bailey Sullivan, a driven runner and athlete, aspired to climb Denali, the highest peak in Alaska. She reached out to Patrick and Michael to get tips ahead of her travels.

“It’s cold, it’s high, it’s remote,” Michael said. “Oftentimes, people reach out to us to understand, from a diabetes perspective, the things they need to think about. For example, a lot of people living with diabetes know the supplies they need to bring with them, but they’re not thinking about whether it’s negative 40 degrees outside, whether their insulin might freeze, or if their insulin pump tubing needs covering.”

Michael and Patrick have empowered countless members of the diabetes community to prepare for extreme conditions—helping them navigate challenges and reach incredible heights.

“It’s even more rewarding to see other people doing it,” Michael said. “Using us as advice for how to get out there, stay safe, and really how to thrive in that environment with their diabetes.”

Learning to Summit Wasn’t Textbook

Patrick and Michael didn’t arrive in this position overnight. Each of them brings years of experience in diabetes management and high-performance expertise. How they began their journeys looks very different from today.

“For me, when I first started getting into high-performance activities, the technology wasn’t quite there yet,” Michael said. “I was still on multiple daily injections, using a blood glucose meter. I was blind to a lot of what my glucose was doing. Current technology is awesome—it allows us to manage our disease a little more easily.”

But what’s changed most for Michael is that he’s “learned to stop striving for perfection in the mountains.”

“We talk about time in range a lot,” Michael said. “We talk about trying to achieve awesome management with diabetes, but sometimes, in the mountains, you have to kind of let things be as you’re going up and down. You have to be a little more flexible with how you do things out there.”

Michael said he’s become a “lab rat” for himself to figure out what works best—what low supplies, insulin management techniques, and device therapies are most effective. Patrick echoed Michael’s sentiment, affirming that he’s gotten better with giving himself grace along the way.

“It’s something that’s really important to my greater wellbeing—not putting so much focus and importance on having perfect blood sugars while we’re out doing this,” Patrick said. “Just knowing that this is going to be a finite timeframes when I know my blood sugars are going to be crazy and just being okay with that, being as safe as possible, but not putting that additional burden of assuring that I’m constantly in range when we're doing something where it’s near impossible to have textbook glucose management.”

Facing Challenges as a Team

While Patrick and Michael’s expeditions have come with some rewarding highs, they have also encountered some scary lows—including Michael’s tumble a couple of hundred yards down a snowfield.

“My infusion set actually got ripped out of my body without me knowing,” Michael said. “I went quite a few hours without insulin while we were waiting for a helicopter to pick me up. It was exceptionally challenging because so many things were going on in that moment—the last thing either of us was thinking about was my infusion set and whether it was still in my body.”

Because it was snowing outside and Michael was wearing so many layers, it was hard to detect the status of his infusion set, but when his blood glucose levels escalated despite having insulin on board, Michael and Patrick knew something was up.

Patrick, who has medical training and lived experience with T1D, supported Michael in switching to insulin pens—that’s when they confirmed Michael’s pump was disconnected.

“Patrick’s knowledge of diabetes, understanding something was going wrong, and being able to assess the situation while we’re in this emergency was probably the most stressful thing,” said Michael. “But again, having a plan in place, reacting to it appropriately, and having a backup plan for if devices fail helped everything work out in the end.”

Patrick was Michael’s “diabetes guardian” that day, and Gailson Search and Rescue is why he made it back safely.

“We were able to resolve that, luckily,” Michael said. “But one of the coolest parts of that story, even though a lot of bad things happened, one of the coolest parts was that the emergency responder was living with type 1. So he comes down and I’m telling him I’m living with type 1 and he asks much more informed questions.”

Used to having to explain himself to the fullest extent, Michael couldn’t believe the breadth of the paramedic’s knowledge—when Patrick and Michael found out he had type 1, too, they were relieved.

Planning Makes a World of Difference

Having the right people around you in a high-stress environment with T1D makes a big difference, but having a plan in place helps you navigate those situations logically and with some structure. Michael and Patrick thoroughly discuss their low blood glucose protocol, turnaround points, backup plans, and more before heading out on their adventures.

“When you’re stressed, it’s a lot harder to make those decisions,” Michael said. “They say you make mistakes without experience, but you’ve got to make mistakes to gain that experience. So, this is the balance we’ve had over the years.”

“I would take that a step further and probably would argue that I would not take on challenges of this magnitude without Michael because of our confidence that we’ve built through our relationship over the years, and then also his background knowledge and his experience of living with type 1 himself,” Patrick said.

“There’s not another person I would feel safe and confident taking on something of this risk and magnitude with when there’s so much on the line.”

Not having a partner with this understanding in an emergency situation is dangerous for both. Trust means everything to Michael and Patrick. They understand when each other is suffering, when things are unsafe, and what their cutoff points are.

“If we don’t get to a summit by a certain time, we have to turn around and head back down,” said Michael. “It has to be very clear-cut. We also have to always assess how much fuel we have on board, whether we’re talking carbs, water, or whatever it may be. We also like to ask each other ‘On a scale of 1 to 10, where are you right now?’”

One means they take 20 minutes to recoup, and ten means they’re feeling great and can keep going.

“As we’ve gotten older, the acceptable risk goes down,” Michael said.

Without Trust, There Can Be No Adventures

“Trust is something inherently important to anyone who’s going into the back country with someone, whether you live with type 1 diabetes or not,” Patrick said. “If you don’t have that level of trust with someone, I would recommend scrapping the trip until you’ve built that confidence.”

“If you receive any hesitation or pushback from that person you’re going in there with, do not go,” Patrick encouraged.

Building on Patrick’s words of wisdom, Michael affirmed, “The point is to start small.”

“I have a couple of rules when it comes to finding climbing partners,” Michael said. “Number one is that a climbing partner can never have a hundred percent success rate because if they’re summiting every mountain every single time they go, they might be taking too many risks.”

Patrick and Michael encourage others to find adventure buddies with a good sense of risk analysis. Building things up over time to learn more about that person is worthwhile for everyone involved. 

“Whether it’s breaking big goals down into bite-sized steps, a positive mental attitude, or finding the community that helps you achieve your goal,” Michael said. “A lot of what we do applies.”