Hey everyone! My name is Chad Thome. I am 47 and I have been an avid hiker for many years. My son got me into thru hiking in 2016. This journey goes from 2016 jumping to 2021 for part 2 of this trip. Transporter is my trail name. I got this because I had a 35 pound pack with no food or water in it yet at the start. Adding in food and water, this brought my pack total to over 45 pounds. This is a lot, as you know or will soon see!!! My son and I got all of our backpack gear together for the thru hike attempt in 2016. This is crazy what you think you need in a backpack doing this from home, compared to what you actually need on trail. I spent 1000s of hours becoming a YouTube expert. Only to find out I learned nothing. We started the 1rst week of May 2016. We froze walking in ankle to knee deep snow in the Smokies, hung many PCT method food bags (throw rope over tree limb, snap rope into carabiner attached to food bag. You then pull to the tree limb, wrap a twig into the line as high as you can reach and slowly let go. The limb stops the bag) We endured many miles and ended up in Daleville VA around 730+ miles in. We hiked around 30 miles further, when my wife called and said the house sold and that was the end of my journey, so I headed back to Daleville, VA for a flight home days later. My son finished the thru hike in 2016 whos trail name was Radar. My wife did the exact miles and journey in 2017. My wife and I came back to the trail in 2021 for a LASHER hike. This is really long section hike. Life allowed this one opportunity (never pass these up) for us to hike as couple, so we grabbed it. Hope to meet another 100-200 amazing people as we did hiking in 2016. Look forward to talking to everyone.