Why should I buy a backpack that's over 200 dollars?

[Sarcasm the elf]

To see a comparable example, buy your next tennis shoes at Walmart. Get the cheapest brand (I think they actually have $10 or $20 shoes). Record the date you purchased them and see how long they last. Next, purchase the cheapest pair of tennis shoes from Dicks (about $59.99). Record how long they last.

My experience with Walmart shoes - through 3 boys - is that they will be falling apart and almost unusable in about a month. We could get about 6 months out of the Dicks brand name shoes...

You get what you pay for!

I had the same experience.

Personally if I want to buy on the cheap I either buy on clearance or I buy quality stuff that has been used.

[Tipi Walter]

I started out as a dirtbagger---used my old Air Force duffel bag as a pack and slung it over my left shoulder and started backpacking. Thing always hit my left leg as I hiked BUT I WAS OUTDOORS!! All that mattered. Even went the Walmart boot route and Shelb is right---pieces of expendable crap. A series of crap.

I couldn't afford a stand-alone 0F rated down bag so I scrounge up a cheap synthetic and threw an army feather bag over it, WW2 issue. Stayed warm at 0F but had to carry a 10lb sleeping system. Sucked.

And as Bronk says, it depends on how much you'll use your stuff. If you do one trip a year, you can use a duffel bag like me or put everything in a garbage bag and tie it on a stick like a hobo bindle. Or carry all your crap in your hands and wear shower flipflops.

But if you go out alot or want to go out alot, high quality gear is cheaper in the long run. I think Skurka wrote something about this once, something about "stupid cheap"---like not getting it right for 4 purchases until you find what really works. This is very true when it comes to winter sleeping systems and shelter options.

If you buy a cheap down bag (oxymoron almost) rated to 20F for $150 dollars but it stops working at 30F then you just wasted money. If you buy a WM bag rated at 0F for $600 and it works to 0F and you keep it for 20 years and 10,000 bag nights, then it was a perfect investment.

And tents really suffer from obsolescence---even so-called high quality brands like Mt Hardwear or North Face or Sierra Designs. Two good years and 200+ nights and the floors start leaking, the zippers break, the fly leaks, a pole breaks. I've gone thru many such tents in the last 20 years and then when they broke and failed I went back to get a replacement and the idiot companies DISCONTINUED that model. They always discontinue what works. Remember North Face Westwind or Toulumne?? Remember Mt Hardwear Muir Trail tent or Mountain Jet or Thru Hiker tent or Hammerhead?? Gone.

So I took a step up in tent quality and went with the Hilleberg line of tents and won't ever go back. Very expensive, very durable, and this is important: INSIDE MY CIRCLE OF TRUST. I know when the crap hits the floor fan this shelter will keep me alive. And once one of my Hillebergs developed a design failure after about 900 nights of field use and the company sent me a brand new inner tent no questions asked. Never broke a pole, floors still waterproof, flys still strong, zippers all work.

[RumpusParable]

I'm gonna echo those who talked here about quality vs cost: super cheap usually means lower quality

While also echoing that it's not always the universal case.

And yet another echo that is if a person wants to go cheaper but try to get the best out of their options to try buying past year or coupla years, depending on the bag and how it's been treated, higher end or better (formal and informal) reviewed name brand gear.

Tons of factors involved make it a subjective matter as this thread is an example of and I've used cheap cheap cheap bags and oh Christ the cost bags. Over all, the better name brand ones were better for any longer or heavier treks except my rucksack while I was Army in the late 90s.

God I loved and miss how convenient external frames have become (body size makes for difficult internal frame fits)... But anyways, back to topic...

Ebay, second hand sites and stores, etc can get low cost and generally likely better gear than eBay lack of name or fake-name gear.

Stay cheap but shop around for the best your budget allows and fits your use

[scbobk11]

I bought an ALPS Orizaba 3900 pack on clearance...great deal less than $100 for a 64L pack. The pack looked fine and worked fine until the third time I used it when the main body of the pack started tearing.

Now with the fourth time of use it is literally self-destructing and is being held together with Tyvek tape (great stuff BTW).

Not sure if all ALPS packs are like this but now I'm looking for a new pack.

It's worth is to me to buy a name brand pack that gets good reviews from the readers of Whiteblaze.

A quick analysis shows that I spent about $25 per backpacking trip my my pack that fell apart, plus the time it took me to carefully tape it together before the last trip. If I do four trips a year and a $250 pack lasts me only five years then I'm already way ahead on a $ per trip basis.

[SWODaddy]

I remember being a boy scout and my parents bought me a frame pack from Kmart or some equally crappy place. Waist strap buckle broke half way through one trip, and a shoulder strap tore off on another.

You definitely get what you pay for.

[SWODaddy]

I remember being a boy scout and my parents bought me a frame pack from Kmart or some equally crappy place. Waist strap buckle broke half way through one trip, and a shoulder strap tore off on another.

You definitely get what you pay for.