Story in the Soil

Capacity Building on the Tibetan Plateau...

At Story in the Soil we are supporting earthquake relief efforts in Yushu by providing funds for school building and disaster awareness.

Blog Posts

Oh! The Passes... (Forrester)

We woke up early again, the day after summiting Mt. Whitney, with another formidable obstacle in front of us. Forester Pass is the highest point on the actual trail (Mt. Whitney is on the John Muir Trail, but not the Pacific Crest), at 13,153 feet. Getting there in the first place was a challenge. We were solidly relying on the GPS and Blaze's memory from hiking this section the year before. We had to climb over two rises, then descend down to Wright Creek. As usual, the trail that…

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Posted by Arnold James King on September 6, 2011 at 3:11pm

Kennedy Meadows to Mt. Whitney

The front of the Kennedy Meadows General Store was obscured by a few

old trees. To the right stood a rusting white pole with an equally

decrepit Shell Oil logo attached to the top. It drew your eyes down

towards a neglected list of gas prices, with only partial forms of

numbers revealing themselves. The old tank they stood guard beside was

empty, at least until the season picked up. The sky was a cloudless

blue, and as I took off my load, I heard a vaguely familiar…

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Posted by Arnold James King on July 2, 2011 at 12:30am

HWY 58 to Kennedy Meadows

The hike from Highway 58 near Tehachapi Pass to Kennedy Meadows is 140 miles long with multiple strenuous climbs. Hopefully the previous 560 or so miles gets you conditioned for this patch and the upcoming push through the Sierras. We were conditioned when we arrived in Tehachapi, but a week of pizza, hamburgers, burritos, frozen yogurt, beer, and tequila definitely had its effects. Recovering the weight was definitely a plus, I was down to 155 pounds when I reached Tehachapi, and got…

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Posted by Arnold James King on June 1, 2011 at 1:52pm

Spaghetti, Poison Oak and Terrorism....Damn you Wells Fargo

The day started out like any other and ended like only a few days in your entire life can claim. We woke up to the rising sun amid a skeleton with a banana phalus, a Dora the Explorer seat pad, and multitudes of beetles having copious amounts of copulation, it was going to be a great day! Hiking out of the oasis created by the trail angels and PCT legends The Andersons, we immediately received a life saving present from a random hiker, lots of beef jerky! Munching on this new found carne…

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Posted by Chris Tucker on May 31, 2011 at 3:09pm

Front Page

TOUR OF THE UNKNOWN COAST 2013 UPDATE!

I AM TAKING PLEDGES TO FINISH THE 100 MILE TOUR OF THE UNKNOWN COAST IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, CALIFORNIA! http://www.tuccycle.org/

YOU CAN DONATE at the bottom of the page via PayPal, or send a check to Arnold King, PO Box 94, Eureka, CA., 95502. Make checks payable to Arnold King, and write "Story in the Soil" in the memo line. The money will then get wired to KVTC in China.

Thanks for visiting Story in the Soil! We are working with Lost Coast Rotaract in Humboldt County to raise money in order to support vocational training for relocated Tibetan nomads in the earthquake stricken Yushu region in China's Qinghai province.

Above is some recent work from students who have benefitted from Story in the Soil funds in Yushu!

We've been very concerned about the recent spate of immolation in and around Yushu, as well as in the greater Culturally Tibetan region. Not every act of immolation is the same. Just this November a woman from Yushu traveled to Beijing and self immolated in protest of her land being confiscated. The most recent case in Yushu was committed by a woman protesting land rights, which have been an unfortunate hot-button issue between ethnic Tibetans and the government in Yushu since the earthquake. Alas, the post-quake harmony amongst the residents of Yushu that I witnessed in the immediate days following the quake was not properly sowed, and has now deteriorated into bitter political dischord that is tearing this community apart. Our commitment at Story in the Soil remains with the students of Yushu's valuable learning centers. We are not a political organization.

So far this year we've been able to send one student to Xining to enter tourism school, and two other first generation relocated nomads are preparing to get their taxi drivers license. This is being funded by Story in the Soil, which is very exciting! Emai me at arnyking@gmail.com if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for Story in the Soil.

I'm constantly updating the Yushu News section, with both Yushu related stuff and China news. Check it out!

-Arny King