[at-l] gear list in order of priority

[stephensadams at hotmail.com (Steve Adams)]

Robert,

Reference your post, dated 04-17-05, asking ?... what would you suggest 
purchasing first??

You provide conditions which include having ?an unlimited cash flow (and) 
all the time in the world to prepare.?  You wonder about buying things to 
use now and re-purchase upgraded equipment later.

Most continuing hikers end up doing precisely as you consider.  We acquire 
closets full of equipment we no longer use; we found ?better? stuff.  We 
used the old equipment, found it didn?t suit us as we wished and changed to 
something else.  We repeated this process, repeated it again, and again, ad 
nauseam.  And, we will continue buying more stuff.

Buy the cheapest crap you can find.  Camp in your backyard.  (Go on, let the 
neighbors talk.  The ones who like you will understand, the ones who don?t? 
like you ... well, who cares?)  Graduate to taking hikes carrying it all.  
Hike in blistering heat, hike in the bitter cold, and in the pouring rain.  
Hike the flats, then up and down hills, steeper as you go on.

You probably won?t like what you first buy, but you will learn why you don?t 
like it.  You will learn what you think you want from a specific piece of 
replacement gear.  Buy that and try it out.  What you don?t like will be 
different than what I don?t like.  The improvements you make, upgrading your 
equipment, will be different than the improvements I make.  We are different 
people.

Time is the key.  Saving your lunch money provides close enough to your 
dreamed of cash flow to buy the gear.

Reference OrangeBug?s post, this same date.

He provided pretty much the same specifics I would recommend.  But, YOUR 
experience hiking and backpacking will tell YOU the order of importance of 
your replacement gear.

Welcome to the disorder.

Steve