TahoetoWhitney

Who the Hell is doing it...

This Trail Guide and the related Forum are being built by Alex Wierbinski to encourage and inform those who seek natural engagement for body, mind, and spirit. You've got to be a registered member of Tahoe to Whitney's Backpacker Forums to view my profile. (Registration page)

I'm a 58 year old dude born in SF who's lived in the Bay Area since, currently residing in Berkeley for 22+ years. I guess iconoclast is the word that best describes me, though more in a revolutionary political sense than religious.

I believe in your freedom as much as mine, and I fight for both. I'm just getting tired of telling people that one person's freedom cannot take away another's. That's not freedom, it is tyranny. Our old symbols and systems, which I venerate, have taken on a dangerous character when the "freedom" of one is used to limit another citizen's prerogatives. Or deny whole countries their own identities.

America was once a mutual agreement between each and every citizen to protect their fellow citizen's different use of their same shared rights, not a "card" that can currently be stolen, purchased, or given away for "votes."
Citizenship cannot be stolen, purchased, or given away as a bribe.
Citizenship is only the legitimate child of the specifc political ethics and democratic practices specified in our Constitution. There is no other source of soveregnity here.

Sadly, that legitimate ship of state sailed long ago. Today the spectacle of open corruption and open criminality fills and controls our polity, economy, and society while our corrupted political factions unify within a system that allows them and their corporate/billionaire sponsors steal everything that's not nailed down, to assest-strip our country, while they distract us with arguments over who's rights one side will take away from the other.

And the press ignores open, systamatic corruption.

Barry Bonds, Lance Armstrong, Jack Murtha, and every illegal mark us out as a Nation of Cheaters that rewards cheating. Actually believing in our Constitution and its principals, just being an American and standing up for American Values will get you nothing but screwed.

Corruption rules this Era.
These are the times when being good for good's sake must be its own reward.

Neither imposing one's values on one another nor corrupting our democracy are allowed or acceptable under the terms of our Constitutional Democratic Republic. Both are the common operating procedures of our contemporary political parties, their leaders, and their bribers.

I call it the Corporate Fascist State.
It is corporate wealth and power exercising virtually complete control of both political parties, their candidates, and assures their ultimate subjagation to corrupt influences.

We live in an age dominated by greedy cheaters.
We are ruled by wealth and power and those who love, hold, pursue, and serve them.

The False Dichotomy
One side bashes gays while the other side bashes guns... proving that both sides are wrong. Both sides are fully bribed by exactly the same economic interests, producing shared Economic policies that have successfully stolen both our rights and our treasure while each faction strives to distract us from that brutal fact by dividing us over who's rights each side is willing to take away.

Our two political parties are different fingers of the same dirty hand.

Thus my iconoclasm.

It is my great misfortune not to share the greed that currently dominates our nation and motivates the consumers who have replaced our citizens. It is a lot easier to go along with things than to fight them, especially when being greedy has proven so very profitable and powerful. The greedy and their minions rule our country.

That's the top third, not the "one percent." Our problems are not as superficial as some percieve.
The vast majority of our corporate elite is completely corrupted.

Blow a kiss to our dearly departed democracy and rights...

The Compass
But no matter how rich or poor I am the clear fact remains that our system has been corrupted, and that's just wrong. This open spectacle of corruption makes my primary duty as a citizen, and yours, to observe, analyze, and understand where our system went off the tracks.

Then we must put it back on our Constitutional track.

REAL
ENVIRONMENTALISM
Real Environmentalism deals directly with the primary sources of our ecological degradation. Our greed and corruption has taken down legit govt, stripped our citizens of their wealth and rights, and now this monster is finishing the job of stripping nature bare.

The trajectory of "endless growth" our corporate leadership has and is pursuing is the ultimate source of our global environmental breakdown. We must end the corporate growth machine of death, and find balance.

To save the last remaining elements of our natural environment we've gotta take our country's corrupted democracy out of the hands of its billionaire and corporate bribers/funders. This is the only way to disengage the growth machine of death.
This means we must restore the fundamental democratic principals that once gave our government legitimacy to have any chance to save our environment at all.

We must break the chains of bribery that have bound our liberties and killing our environment.
We must displace greed to reestablish the principals of our Constitution as our guiding lights.

We must undo the policies of Greed and Growth that have ravaged our ecology, our economy, social and educational systems, but most importantly we must restore the eternal mutual Constitutional values and practices between citizens that made country exceptional for as long as we could preserve them.

They lasted until the Robber Barons and their new corporate elite rose on a flood tide of emigrants that finished off the indians and the asset-stripping of the East Coast. You know, what they now call the "Rust Belt." Now the grandchildern of the Robber Barons are doing in our generation to the West Coast what the Robber Barons did to the East Coast during their times.

Asset-stripping, massive explotation, asserting political control, and the development of empire.
Sound Familiar? Our current crop of corporate masters are deploying these same tools their ancestors first used to effect from the 1880s to 1900 to initially break our democracy and establish oligarchic control domestically and across an empire.

This is why you should know your history.

Our current leadership and their minions have much more in common with the
British Empire than our Revolutionary Forefathers.

Hey, I'm just one dude. At least I'm dying trying.
All this to save Nature.

The revolutionary aspect of my iconoclasm is my philosophical desire to get us back a bit closer to nature and back a bit closer to our once-democratic principals. Back to our fundamentals as Americans. Being a consumer in a corporate fascist state is demeaning, dishonorable, and disgraceful to all true Americans.

Those identities are bad for man and nature.

Ok, that's it about me generally. As we travel down the long trails on this trail guide you will get to know me by my backcountry style, practices, observations, and perceptions. No more politics. Maybe a bit of philosophy and history along with the beauties of the High Sierra. But, no politics...

Let's go hiking!

As those of you who have contacted me well know, I offer my experiences, knowledge and advice freely. I've walked most of these trails at least five times, and I see natural experience as the source and foundation of physical, mental, and spiritual wealth. I'll do what I can to get you out there in safety with confidence, properly geared, trained, and good to go.

If you feel my efforts are worth supporting, send wealth to:

Alex Wierbinski

2437 Piedmont, #202

Berkeley, California.

Visitors welcome, if you give me a heads-up prior to showing up at my door...
I don't mind backpacker-travelers trying to get to and from the mountains.

Thanks to all you who've offered hospitality on the trail and the road.

I will continue to provide free full-service backpacking consultation independent of my
financial situation or physical condition.

Cash: I have not had a bank account for decades & some of my toes tried to fall off a couple of years ago during Jan. of 2011. 2013 brought heart failure along the JMT 3/4ths of the way from Tahoe to Whitney.

Sigh. Nonetheless, this site is the payback from decades of being a backpacking bum... ENJOY!

2016
UPDATE
Thinking about setting up a Pay Pal account...
...next, I need to get an ID to open a bank account.

Why is coming in from the cold so difficult?

The Tahoe to Whitney Trail Guide and Forum have been built, funded, and supported by my individual efforts, with help from friends and family. THANKS! If you feel these efforts are valuable to you, you are invited to support them here: This is the first full and free classic trail guide of and on the web. A True "Digital Book" Why Support Tahoe to Whitney? Mission Statement