I'm a newbie and just starting to collect gear ahead of my first backpacking trip (probably Kisatchie NF). I just picked up a Primus classic trail stove and fuel at my local Wal-Mart. I was VERY surprised to find it there. I know it's a little I the heavy side for a stove at 8 oz, but I feel like the solid construction will be more forgiving on my newbie-ness.

Buying my first piece of equipment got me wondering what other people bought as their first item. What did you guys get? Did it turn out to be a good investment?

Cheap Walmart Wenzel backpacking tent... Destroyed on 2nd day had to really fuss with it to finish trip so no, not at all

I started backpacking pretty young, but the first real piece of gear I bought with my own money was an Optimus 8R white gas stove. It was persnickety and the instructions that came with the stove were hugely unhelpful. As I recall, the instructions recommended warming the fuel tank with your hands to pressurize the stove enough to force some fuel into the cup when you opened the valve! It took me a while to realize how utterly useless that advice was.

However, I still own it 40 years later and it works. I stopped using it on trips about 15 years ago, so I got 25 years of active use from it. The thing is bombproof once I learned how to pressurize it correctly.

Couldn't afford Wenzel.

I think mine was a Broadway Academy external frame pack, that didn't even have a hipbelt. After two trips, I looked at a Camp Trails Adjustable II pack, complete with PADDED hipbelt, gulped hard (twice) at the price tag, let the clerk pry my credit card out of my hand, and spent 6 months paying it off. Best purchase I ever made.

I then did the same thing to replace my second purchase (a Sterno stove) with a shiny new Svea 123R stove. That was done after the best non-purchase I ever made: I checked Colin Fletcher's original Complete Walker out of the library, and proceed to learn how to tell good gear from junk.

Camp Trails backpack for me , too circa '73. No pad, blankets, axe, umbrella and a small kerosene lantern. Froze, got sore, dirty, and wet and loved every minute of it.

I once casually remarked to my brother "I think I want to go backpacking."
He replied "What's stopping you?"
And I thought to myself "Yeah! What's stopping me?!" So I bought a bunch of gear and went.

The first item I put my hands on was a Jansport Katahdin 50L pack. Not the most comfortable, and it's lacking a few options, but it's pretty darn light. I used it for several trips, including a few on the Wild Azalea Trail in Kasatchie NF (I'm in NOLA).

Oh boy. Now we're going back in time. Bought a Dacron II sleeping bag at the U-Save market near my house that was supposedly good down to about freezing. IT wasn't But I took it on some memorable trips in the 1960's. I'm guessing that I bought in in '67?

I started backpacking at age 6. Now that I'm 79, how am I supposed to remember that far back?

My first piece of gear was a sleeping bag. I didn't buy it, I asked my parents to get it for me for Christmas. I was 10 years old, so that was in 1969.

My mom really grilled me on that choice. I recall her telling me first that it was a really odd choice and then asking me "why in the world do you want that?

She seemed almost horrified when I told her I wanted to go camping, but she got me a bag. She was never happy about it though. She was a worry wort and I'm sure she envisioned me doing all kinds of mischief all night long under the guise of "camping". I'm sure because I endured long lectures on how I'd never get away with whatever I was planning combined with threats and descriptions of certain tortures I'd be subject to when I was finally captured in the middle of the heinous acts I was committing.

It was just a cheap discount store 3 lb bag but I loved it. My friends and I had all asked for sleeping bags and we camped out in our backyards with them as soon as it warmed up enough to melt the snow off. We talked a lot about how great it must be to be able to go camp somewhere not in our yards, and spent a great deal of time trying to figure out ways to convince or connive our parents into letting us.

It was a couple years before I actually used my bag the first time camping out in Rock Cut State Park, but two years after that it was with me when I did my first trip up into the Sequoia NF and it did many more there over quite a few years.

I've only bought 3 bags since, and still have all of them.

Did I mention that the stove and pack together didn't cost more than $125?

Of course, that's when $25,000 a year was considered a princely salary. (Please note that I didn't say I was MAKING a princely salary!)

I bought a few random, unmemorable things like a cheap daypack and a couple of pocket knives, but the first USEFUL thing I ever bought was my first mini Mag Lite, when I was 15. I still use it, though it has been re-newed a bit with an LED bulb and tailcap switch.

My first purchase was a Big Agnes Jackrabbit tent. It was a great tent, but turned out to be a waste of money. Haven't used it in nearly 2 years now. Much more comfortable in my hammock.

I had some gear, including a nice Eureka tent given to me earlier, but the first piece of gear I purchased myself was a SVEA 123 stove. Got it from REI in 1975 for $11.25... yes, its turned in to a good investment. It still works like it's new.

I got mine around 1985 - never a problem with it. It's now thoroughly cleaned and shiny, and sitting on a good friend's bookshelf alongside my - now his - complete collection of hardbackc Colin Fletcher books. He got them when we downsized to a condo earlier this year.

My first purchase was a SVEA 123R stove in 1977. I don't remember what I paid for it. I used it until last year. This year, I got a Trangia Alcohol stove. It's quieter and less finicky, but it doesn't simmer like the SVEA does.

I remember my first gear purchases. My wife and I had been talked into going "camping" with some friends at a RV park with about 50 other intimate neighbors. I said this is not camping so my wife said that she would go backpacking with me. I had just received an insurance check to pay for my daughters car which had been totaled and the insurance was generous so we had a few extra dollars to spend. Fortunately there was a real outfitter shop. We bought two North Face frame packs, two foam pads, two pairs of fairly good boots, a couple of good quality synthetic bags and and a couple of other misc items. We borrowed an Optimus Hiker stove and set off for a first trip. Our packs were in the neighborhood of 35# with mostly canned food. I was convinced that this was a good thing. My wife not so much. We still have most of the equipment and have used it as loaner gear and I have used the frame pack to haul tools etc on trail crew trips. Fortunately we ended up at a true outfitter and not a big box sports gear pusher.

WOW. I just looked and the Hiker stove is $220 new and my Svea is $120.

My first stove was an Optimus 8R that I bought from a tiny backpacking store in NJ that was in business for about 3 months in '75. I still have it and it has made meals on several hundred days afield. It's been long supplanted by a Whisperjet and a Micro-Rocket. but I may pull it out New Year's eve on our annual tradition backpack. May make a complex meal with multiple stoves, the 8R would be worth the weight carrying it just for the memories. We still use my first Thermarest with the tiny metal valve that freezes up in the winter. It's never leaked in it's hundreds of nights of use. Still a good pad in the winter. This is a good thread; it really makes me appreciate the gear I've had and the memories it helped create.

1968. I had ALWAYS wanted to backpack. Begged my family to go camping instead of to relatives for vacation. Finally a friend I met at school and 3 other friends were going backpacking and I was invited. My dad said yes. I took money out of my savings and my friend who grew up backpacking took me shopping. We bought a Kelty External Frame backpack, a down sleeping bag unknown name at a navy surplus store but it had a nylon shell. We bought an old fashioned ensolite pad and a tube tent and a snakebite kit. We bought 2 bungie cords to hold my pad and sleeping bag on the bottom of the pack. We bought a Sierra club cup. That was it. I wore cotton jeans and tennies and cooked over an open fire in a coffee can. Never regretted a single one of those things...even the stupid snake bite kit. It got me out backpacking and I used that stuff for years!!!!

The Cutter snake bite kit was the ultimate in useless gear. I had one, too.

After my first trip with borrowed gear I was hooked but poor, but my Uncle hired me to watch his often difficult dogs and in my opinion overpaid, so when I was getting groceries I went across the street to EMS and just happened to walk into an annual 30% off sale. I walked out with a big unwieldy and idiot proof Kelty external frame pack that I used for a few years.

Hey those old external frame Keltys were the bomb! They were actually fairly light...my first one I got in 63 was under 5 lbs! In fact closer to 4. If it weren't for the fact that I go offtrail a lot I might even consider one of those things again...bet they weigh a lot more now tho...:)

I still have my WFS Mt Blanc External frame pack. It is just a hair over 3lbs. I didn't pay for it though.

My first gear purchase all by myself was a fishing rod. I split and stacked wood for a neighbor to earn the $15 I paid for that rod. I took good care of it for years, then it went missing in college.

Had to be something Boy Scout related about 1967. Probably a mess kit, then an official knife. Still have the knife. They were made of carbon steel back then and rust has mad it's mark.