New Trad Climber looking for advice

Hi,
I'm looking to get into trad soon and would like some help starting out a rack. I'm trying to put together a Christmas list, so does anyone have recommendations for the first few pieces of gear to acquire?

I have a bunch of sport draws, 2 ATCs, a 60m rope, and other sport climbing odds and ends.

My default free rack:
- Brass Offsets
- DMM Wallnuts
- my old ABC tcu's
- Camalots .5 to 4

In knob & pocket terrain (Pinncles National Monument) I'd add
- Lowe Tricams

In Yosemite splitter crack type terrain, I'd add
- Hexes
- Rigid Stem Friends

In the northeast, where the mountains are really weathered, and the cracks are rounded and full of bumps, I might add
- Chouinard stoppers (the old, heavily curved ones)

- An "auto-lock" biner for clipping to your anchor. I use an old BD with a spring-loaded sleeve & pin. It's sort of like a doorknob - you twist the sleeve against the spring to open the biner. Let it go, and the spring latches the gate. But to lock it, I have to pull
and turn the sleeve, and once that's done, the spring holds it locked. Because of the plastic liner, it's literally never frozen shut ice climbing, nor ever unlocked by rubbing against the rock. These days, I'd suggest a Petzl William, Petzl Triact Lock, or Petzl AMD.

- big suggestion: Make sure you have enough 2' slings for a placement every 10', bring a cordlette to build your anchors (Amazing how many slings that freezes up!), and tack on maybe three 4' slings. Occasionally in trad territory you can girth hitch a small sandstone bridge or chicken head, saving a piece that you might want for your anchor. I keep a 4' sling girth hitched to my harness, and clipped under all the pro, to my haul loop with a locker; that's the sling I use to clip in to my anchor, once I've built it. Dogbones are great for straight-up cracks, but the minute the line wanders, they create rope drag. Only cure for rope drag is a regular sling.

- Read: John Long's "Anchors"; Royal Robbins "Rockcraft" books; maybe Walt Wheelock's "Rope, knots & slings for Climbers" or a newer book along the same lines written by (?) Eric Stoltz; definitely the Mountaineers "Freedom of the Hills". Every book I've seen that was illustrated by !Mike Clelland has been great, his drawings are fantastic.

- Almost forgot: Nut tool! I'd suggest the Metolius or Ushba, with the palm-saver at the base. If you find an old Forrest with the little hammer head at the end, those are pretty sweet.

- rap ring. get a couple DMM or SMC rap rings, throw them in the bottom of your chalk bag. Some day, you'll have to bail, and it's cheaper to bail from a ring than a couple biners.

All I can think of for now. The cool thing about trad is the difference between a trolley and a boat - clipping bolts is limited to a rigid line dictated by someone else, but with trad gear, you are free to chart your own course.

Buena suerte & bon voyage...

I started doing single pitch trad with a set of nuts, a single set of BD C4s from 0.5-3, and blue, yellow, and orange TCUs (doing it again today, I'd get mastercams or aliens). From there, double up on the most frequently used sizes.

This: web.archive.org/web/2012100…

caribouman -- Excellent post!!

You can tell that dude's been around and done some heavy craggin!