Welcome to the Quietest Square Inch in the U.S. - Outside Magazine
Reaching the quietest square inch of land in the U. S. is literally a walk in the park. To find it, you hike along the Hoh River in the heart of Olympic National Park, past bigleaf maples carpeted in spike-mosses and around epiphytic ferns sprouting out of the saturated Northwest soil. Look to your left and you may notice a tiny red pebble resting on a mossy nurse log, marking 47°51'57. 5"N, 123°52'13. 3"W. That’s America's quietest wild place. The quietest inch isn’t a sound vacuum. The discipline of acoustic ecology, which is dedicated to understanding the natural sounds that come through loud and clear when we're not around, outlines an important distinction between sound and noise. In spite of the natural sound, dense forest engulfs the inch in a hush that is, at times, below 20 decibels—quieter than most recording studios. The red pebble was put in place in 2005 by Gordon Hempton , a 62-year-old Emmy Award-winning acoustic ecologist in Washington State who has been recording natural soundscapes for more than 35 years. He switched from merely studying sound to actively protect quietude ten years ago, when he spontaneously lost his ability to hear. Source: www.outsideonline.com
