I strongly recommend reading the articles on the home page of this site, left-hand column before doing any gear shopping. They may save you from some unwise or unnecessary expensive purchases. The gear lists are designed for the Pacific Northwest so are tuned to the conditions you'll find out here.

Borrowing or renting gear or purchasing second-hand are good ideas until you've gained more experience. It's especially important to postpone your pack purchase until you have all your other gear. That's because there are three ways your pack needs to fit: It needs to fit your gear, fit you and be comfortable for you with the load you'll actually carry in it. Pack fit is as individual as shoe fit and just as important.

The sponsors on this site are all good sources.

We have qute a few Pacific Northwesterners on this site--welcome aboard!

I would suggest registering at REI and/or Backcountry.com because of their liberal return policies--both firms basically allow unlimited, no-questions-asked returns. Trying to return something from amazon is, IMHO, a real pain.