Building a Moab rack

I will be moving out to Moab in May and am hoping I will have about $500 of disposable income to start up a rack.

I am not great at climbing cracks so I would like to stick to large finger cracks and hand cracks. Therefore I was thinking about getting doubles in .5-2, and was curious if any passive pro would be useful too.

Any advice/comments would be appreciated!

Where in Moab are you hoping to climb?

If you'll be on Wall Street, I'd think you'd want at least 1 #3, a single set of stoppers and some smaller cams as well. (Even if all you can do is pick up a yellow/blue metolius)

You can pick these up somewhat inexpensively:
gearexpress.com/p-5746-meto…

Climbing at the 5.9-5.11 desert crack level will be heavy in the #1-#3 cams. I would start with doubles of those. A few pieces above and below your stated range (.5-2) will come in handy. A .4 and #4 are typically placed a lot.

The good thing about moving there in May is that it'll be too hot to climb pretty quickly, so you can work more to build up a desert rack.

Doubles to 2, plus a 3 and a 4 camalot and a set of stoppers is a good start to a rack. Hopefully you'll find partners with big racks in a hurry though, since you'll often need a dozen or more of the same cam on many pitches around Moab.

Lots of used gear for sale. Don't be scared. Check the various boards (Pagan) around town for people selling gear. Out of my triple set I have I bet I bought about %20 of it new. Good luck, Moab is awesome.