Welcome to TahoetoWhitney.Org

When this brutal web-construction process is over TahoetoWhitney.com will be your complete Trail Guide to the long-distance backpacking trails along the Sierra Crest between Lake Tahoe and Mount Whitney.

Man, it's much easier to walk the trails than put 'em up on the internet.

The main trails described on the Trail Guide are the Pacific Crest Trail along the whole Sierra Crest, the Tahoe to Yosemite Trail in the Northern Sierra, and the John Muir Trail in the Southern Sierra.

Here's the first page of the Trail Guide.  

Here's the first page of the Trail Forums.

The Trail Guide also describes many major and minor trail variations, alternative routes, side trips, scrambles, cross-country sections, as well as a wide range of short and medium distance backpacking trips that always feature backpacking along a section of the Sierra Crest, independent of where the trips begin or end.

I've hiked hundreds of trips along the Sierra Crest, but backpacking from Lake Tahoe to Mount Whitney is my Holy Grail. I've done that four times, as of 2011.

Although the Guide and Forum approach the Sierra as a single four hundred mile backpacking trip along the Sierra Crest, the Sierra Crest naturally breaks down into shorter sections defined by the distance between resupply points along the trail, and where highways cross the Sierra Crest trails.

This breaks a long trip down to medium distance bite-sized backpacking sections.

 Countless short and medium distance backpacking trips can be crafted within each of the trail sections between the resupply points, highway crossings, and local trailheads.

Where the few highways crossing the Sierra climb up to their high mountain passes at the Sierra Crest, this guide and forum will describe your Car Camping and Day Hiking oppertunities.

If I don't have it online yet, feel free to email me, and I'll tell you what I know. If I don't know it, then I'll pass the question to the membership. There's a lot of wisdom and experience within the members of this site.

This High Sierra Backpacker's Forum is the sister site of the TahoetoWhitney.com Trailguide.

This Forum compliments the Trail Guide in two ways. First, each page on the Trail Guide has a "comments" link that brings you to a forum page on this site where you can post questions, comments, or your basic experiences on that particular location along the trail.

Every page on the High Sierra Trails Forums are part of a larger trail section. The pages in each section give detailed descriptions of that trail section, but each specific forum page is limited as it can only accept basic comments and questions from backpackers and other visitors.

Many backpackers who have hiked a particular section of trail have excellent information, pictures, and videos of that section of trail that merits their own page(s) in the Forum for that particular section of the trail.

Registeing on this site allows you to post your own stand-alone pages in the trail Section Forums, as well as the Gear, Weather, Safety, Living Things, and Trail Culture Forums with the ability to easily post up pictures, embed videos and maps, and link to resources.

There are a wide range of backpacking topics discussed on The Forums where you can find answers to your questions, or share your experiences and expertise by posting up pages about your favorite backpacking topics.

Tell us about your favorite trail in the trails forum, your experiences with various stoves in the gear>stoves section, or warn us away from bad boots in the gear>boots section of the forum. Your perspective and experiences are valuable if your share them.

A Rich Resource: You

The Trail Guide and Forums provides my analysis of the trails between Lake Tahoe and Mount Whitney as a base line. The Forum was built to incorporate your perspective and experiences on these trails with my descriptions. This can only make the trail guide much richer.

These forums are set up so every High Sierra Backpacker can add their own perspective about any section or specific location along the main High Sierra trails, as well as their perspective and experiences with just about any backpacking topic.

I invite y'all to share your High Sierra experiences, and add your perspective to mine so that we all can get as big a picture of these mountains, and the various experience they bring, as possible.   Tell us about your killer route in the Emigrant Wilderness. Relate your experiences in the Yosemite Backcountry. Post your thoughts about your John Muir Trail hike, or tell backpackers what you think every hiker on the trail should know in the Safety Forum.

Good Info for all backpackers

If you are not a High Sierra Backpacker, no problem. The Forum Topics cover a wide range of backpacking topics of interest to all backpackers, and are set up for every backpacker's information needs. 

Registering on this site gives you the ability to use a fancy Rich Text HTML editor that will allow you to easily upload inline images into your text, as well as easily embed your videos and maps to better compliment your posts about your High Sierra experiences.

I have worked really hard to give you a view of my experiences in the Sierras through the Trail Guide, as well as the power to add your knowledge and perspective through this Backpacker’s Forum.  

Posting Tips for Registered Users

On the .org site there are "breadcrumbs" at the top of each page showing where you are in the Forums, or the site. Click the section that sits at the next level above the specific page you are on. This will take you from a specific location on the trail to the section of trail that particular location lays within.

From there click "post new high sierra backpacker's forum" or any of the other options that best suite the character of your post. Each type will create a stand-alone post in that trail forum. Each type of post will bring you to a content creation page.

Three things are vital to properly set up the text box on the content   creation page: First, below the text box do two things. Open the rich text editor. Below the rich text editor is a link saying "input format." Click that link then select FULL HTML. This will allow your images and formatting to print properly.

At the top of the text box you will see the label "body." Below that is a   small arrow. Click that arrow to open up the Rich Text Tool bars. You now have a rich text editor that will deliver high quality text formatting along with uploaded inline images.

The yellow box on the toolbar is the image uploader. Click that, then the   "upload" tab, and you can now upload inline images from your computer into the cursor position on your posts. 500 pixels is the biggest width that stays within the limits of the page, so make sure that your images are limited to 500 px width. You can downsize the images in the uploader, so you don't have to edit the images beforehand. But images that are too dense are kind of heavy to store on my server...

When you do post, and especially after you register, each post is accompanied by a host of taxonomic categories. Don't sweat it. Check them out, and if the category applies, select or check the approiate option. If the category does not apply, forget it. If you are a registered user posting in a forum topic, the form that you are posting from within will automatically be selected at the bottom of the list of taxonomic categories.   The reason behind all of this rigamoroll is to make all of our posts on this Backpacker's forum easily accessible to all backpackers who are seeking information about a particular trail, a section of that trail, or a specific location on that trail. The same goes for the supporting backpacking topics, such as gear and resupply, too.

Site Status

As of now I have stopped web construction after completing both the Tahoe to Yosemite and Pacific Crest Trail routes down to Highway 4, and I am currently editing the completed content. I've pretty much done that, and now I'm writing the "sidebar" topics, such as Trail Skills, the Art of Walking, and Physical Preparation.

Man, I'm dying to lay out the John Muir Trail!  Backpacking is out right now, as I caught some frostbite hitchhiking out of the Sierras in early Jan...but that's going to be the topic of an upcoming article, "how to treat frostbite." Grim shit. But I'll be able to carry the heavy pack along the long-distance crest trails by the end of Summer, I hope. Whew!

As soon as I finish writing drafts of the "sidebar" topics, I am going to finish all the maps, and the miles and elevations pages for the routes between Tuolumne Meadows and the Whitney Portal.

Then I will slowly, and painfully begin constructing the trail guide pages that tie this information all together.

Building the website is kind of like walking the trail, but it takes six times longer, and gives you a headache. Anyway,...

These sites are deep in the construction and editing phases, and are by no means anywhere near completion.

Come on by and visit...

You should stop by every now and again to monitor, and add to my progress. If you have years of experience, or are a first time hiker, you should add your experience to the mix.

Don't be hesitant to contribute your experiences. The mountains are not just one thing, or one experience. The mountains represent a wide range of experiences in concinnity with (perfect, delicate balance) the wide range of people who venture into them.

You are an important part of that balance.

Your experiences on the trails between Lake Tahoe and Mount Whitney will add a dimension of experience for other people of every skill level to better understand how to plan their trip, and what they could possibly expect on the trail.

  Thanks for stopping by, and come on back soon.  

Alex Wierbinski

July 28, 2011  

Lake Tahoe to Mount Whitney, Crown Jewel of the Pacific Crest Trail  

PS:  I'm here to help you out. If you have any questions that the Guide and Forum do not handle, shoot me an email at hiker1@TahoetoWhitney.com.