The Adventures of Stitches II: The Curse of the Left Knee

COMING SOON TO A DESKTOP OR IPHONE SCREEN NEAR YOU: Now with Photo-Images

Today I submitted my two weeks notice at work. It’s like I’ve been carefully and quietly setting up this big Rube Goldberg machine for many months and this was the first domino I knocked over. Things are already underway and in a couple of weeks I will take my first steps north in the Pacific Crest trial.

If you don’t know me, my name is Patrick, but on the road I go by ‘Stitches’. This year I’m going to try to hike the PCT north from Campo :()

I will be accompanied by my T-Rex wife. This blog is where I will post updates and silly stories as I head north along the west coast. This first post is an attempt to address a question andYou may be thinking (and rightly so): “WHY?!?”

The short answer is that I’m going for it. extremes. And as I write this, I’m starting to realize that my “why” for the PCT is something completely different than it was two years ago. From the time T-Rex and I decided to hike the AT until we ended up in Katahdin, less than a year passed. Preparing for the PCT alone has taken twice as long.

On October 1, 2022 we reached the summit of Mount Katahdin and finished our hike on the Appalachian Trail. Thus followed many months of painful memories, transition fatigue, and longing for more adventures.

On May 30, 2024 we decided that we would try to push the PCT in the following year, 2025.

On October 15, 2024, after months of following a minimal budget, exercising every day, and purchasing equipment, I tore the meniscus in my left knee while bouldering indoors. I was devastated and knew immediately that our planned hike would be delayed.

On December 2, 2024, I had surgery to repair my knee and I didn’t walk again for six weeks. It would be three more months before I could jog.

On May 25, 2025 I backpacked again for the first time and hiked 8 miles! Joy is on a seesaw, and my tremendous happiness while walking was amplified by the pain I experienced after my injury. When we feel joy, there is an incredible feeling because we have known pain and pain. But like everything in life, joy is transitory and we can never keep it for long. And when we feel sadness, we know the seesaw. willpower tip and we will feel happy again. I told my physical therapist after the trip that the feeling of being back on the road and being able to walk was worth all the pain and anguish I had been through.

On November 19, 2025, our application was approved by the PCTA and we obtained our permits for a hike in 2026. It has been a constant time training, finalizing equipment, and preparing the ‘Rube Goldberg’.

When I’m on the PCT, I expect a lot of extremes. Extreme heat, extreme thirst, extreme aches and pains, extreme pain. Extreme altitude, extreme climbs, extreme descents, extremely hard sleeping surfaces. Extreme effort, extremely boring food options, extreme stench, extreme isolation, extremely expensive food and hotels (west coast, here we come).

But life is a seesaw, and I also expect extreme visions and wonders, extreme triumphs, extreme feelings of accomplishment. Extreme experiences, extreme climbs with intense adrenaline rushes. I want to meet interesting people and hear interesting stories. I want to see the west coast. I want to see the desert flowers and the open landscapes and the mountains and high altitude passes and the trees and the forests and the animals and all the new birds I’ve never seen or heard before.

If there’s one thing I learned on the Appalachian Trail, it’s that life never changes, even when you hike. You may think you’re sticking it to the man and living outside the wheels of society, but you’re not. It’s just that instead of ‘the man’ being your boss at work, it’s now your wife telling you that you have 8 more miles before you can sit down again.

Hiking is still real life, but it is life to the extreme. It’s like an intense pressure cooker that brings to the forefront all the subconscious issues you have yet to resolve and all your physical limitations. So… why would I be willing to put myself in this pressure cooker?

Pressure makes diamonds, baby, come on.

-Stitches (PCT NOBO ’26)

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