Sound check: the quietest place in the U.S.
Excerpt:
I’m in the Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park, at a spot that has been christened the “quietest square inch in the United States” by Gordon Hempton, an acoustic ecologist who spent more than three decades traveling the globe and making sound records of pristine environments. These days, however, he is more concerned with protecting these soundscapes than in documenting them — starting with the very patch of forest where I’m sitting.
The difference between hearing and listening, and the discovery of how to really, wholly lend one’s ear, are revelations Hempton wishes more people could have. “After three days or so in the Hoh Valley or in Olympic Park, you find that all the chatter of the modern world that snuck aboard your backpack with you … loses relevance,” he told us, with sermon-like delivery. “It’s no longer important. What’s important is the beauty of nature.”
But the quiet spaces — defined not by their lack of sound, which could include birdsong and wind rustling leaves, but their lack of manmade noise —are quickly disappearing. By some estimates, noise pollution affects more than 88 percent of the contiguous U.S.