Finding Solitude and Silence
Finding Solitude and Silence
One square inch of quiet
Inevitably on all my trips I encounter a spot where I stop, calm my heart rate and breathing, and think, “Wow, this is quiet.” I don’t have to seek it out. The solitude of our public lands out West makes it so we don’t have to plan for silence, it is built in, worth sharing, worth preserving. A few years ago I was traveling through the Redwood National Park, stopped at the Hiouchi Visitor Center, and picked up One Square Inch of Silence, by Gordon Hempton and John Grossmann. The book is a journey through our national soundscape to foster stewardship of quiet that will preserve natural sounds.
We commonly think of air, water, and land pollution. During the 80’s the thinning and disappearing ozone layer gave us a crash course in upper atmospheric chemistry. Light pollution has become a international concern bringing about Dark Skies Sanctuaries. Plastic trash islands floating in our oceans are taking on horror cinema qualities. The mega-wildfires in North America are creating “worst in the world” air quality conditions in cities far from the fires. Air pollution leading to catastrophic and irreversible climate change is a huge conceptual leap from tail pipe and smoke stack emissions leading to stinky hazy air, but we are accepting this inconvenient truth. Noise pollution is way down our list of pollution hazards. But should it?
After reading Hempton’s One Square Inch I wanted to invite him out to my one square inch. Which square inch would I pick? The summit of Star Peak? How about in the sea of sagebrush in Ione Valley? My mind comes back to a patch of grass near Casey Springs, between the Black Rock Desert and Black Rock Range. It is not that these are the most remote places, although Star Peak is pretty hard to get to, or the most protected from noise pollution, they all experience visitors and fly overs. But I had that profound experience of silence breaking over me in those spots. I’m not sure that can be shared I only encourage you to experience it. But Casey Springs would be that spot.
After reading One Square Inch I came across Monica Perelle’s story in Patagonia’s Stories, In Search of Silence. Monica is a trail runner and outdoor writer based out of Mammoth Lakes, CA. Hey, I thought, preserving silence is gaining traction! Monica connects natural quiet to quieting the mind. A wild trail run combines the benefits of exercise, natural images and sounds, and limiting or excluding anthropogenic noise. She admits that wilderness can be noisy, wind, water, animals all add to natural soundscapes. But they interact with our minds differently than the noise of our daily lives. She connects the cluttered sounds of noise with the clutter of an anxious mind. Her experiences in quiet nature lead to a quiet mind.
Also within Patagonia’s Stories series is the talk by Justin Mauer, who relates growing up as a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults), being in a punk band, later as a freelance deaf interpreter, to hiking into the Hoh Rainforest to the One Square Inch. I admire his ability to pull from so many topics for a single message. His life’s experience in sounds and images came together in Silence Isn’t Silent, to say that silence is worthy of more attention than we are willing to give.
Nature is anything but silent. Depending on your definitions, we should strive for quiet, the absence of noise, as Bill McKibben put it, without the cacophony of people. I hope a night without coyote banter is an exception not a rule. I share the fascination of bird morning chorus with Hempton. The rush of streams, fluttering aspen leaves, ringing of cicadas, mockery of sage grouse and chukar will all get me to stop and listen. My favorite sound is the whoosh of a raven wing beat. The first time I heard it it stopped me in my tracks. McKibben wrote the Foreword for Peter McBride’s Seeing Silence (review here), he described these sensations as a birthright, but I regard them as good fortune.
I am fortunate, I don’t have to seek quiet. I live in a quiet neighborhood, in a quiet city, surrounded by public lands and wild spaces. Northern Nevada and the Southwest are filled with quiet, empty of noise. Low population densities, large swaths of open public lands, and few small population centers lead to many square inches of silence. Hempton encourages following Dark Skies maps to find quiet sanctuary. I agree, they are congruous.
But quiet cannot be taken for granted. Extractive land management policies over recreation and conservation is a major threat to public lands solitude. Hempton started a non-profit Quiet Parks International (formerly One Square Inch) for the recognition and preservation of quiet for the sake of all life. This site is an excellent resource for quiet, yet it was not an early search result when I starting poking around on the internet. As a map-guy I was quickly interesting in their map of nominated and designated quiet spaces. I narrowed in on Nevada, and to my surprise, or maybe not too surprising, only one nomination existed, Great Basin National Park.
In response, I nominated Casey Springs as place of naturally persisting quiet. The coordinates for the south end of the springs are 40.999624, -119.015015. This spot is on the California Historic Trail and within the Black Rock Desert - High Rock Canyon Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area. Designating a single spot such as Casey Springs brings awareness to the silence and solitude in a non-wilderness area that still has many of the qualities of wilderness. It would be much simpler to pick a remote location within wilderness to designate, but without visitors it wouldn’t have the voice to speak for silence. This would be a great place to insert the time honored question, “If a tree falls…”
The negative impact of urban noise on our lives has been documented, decrease in concentration, interrupted sleep, elevated blood pressure, and anxiety, which compounds related stress coming from our busy lives, the 24 hour news cycle and connectivity. These are the more subtle effects of noise than hearing loss. As with any public health study, you could be critical, and question how can these related markers be attributed to noise? Confidence in the science and expert peer review is necessary. Then see if it fits your own narrative.
One Square Inch shifted my focus from purely the landscape to include the soundscape. I found a free noise meter app for my phone. Now I play a game where I will try to find quiet below 20 dB. I shoot video just to collect sound bites to post on Instagram. I joke that the “noisiest” place to ride a bike is the Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge, where the birdsong is deafening.
How would I define Nevada’s soundscape? From a distance, Nevada is the lumpiest state. The valleys of the Basin and Range are isolated. Canyons within each range are even more isolated. The state has the texture of acoustic paneling, or scored and folded corrugated cardboard. Up close, the surface of the high desert is the pygmy forest of sagebrush steppe and pinyon-juniper forest. The most common ambient noise will be the wind. Rural roads see very little traffic, therefore the next most common sound is insect stridulation and bird chatter. Seasonally, Nevada is snow covered. The sensation of quiet after snowfall is real. Nevada may not have the sound attenuation of the temperate rainforest but possesses deep silence.
Find that special quiet spot that brings all your senses into play. My aunt shared just this spot with me on a local hike to the grotto. The grotto was a natural stone amphitheater, angular gray rock, covered in moss and lichen, in a concave break in the forest. It was a damp spongy hike to get there. I was introduced to my first moss draped Yew tree. I felt like I was meeting an old soul. As a place to sit and enjoy the moment the grotto was her calming space for a quieting of the mind.
Resources not directly linked in text:
Attention Restoration Theory (ART)
Restoring Silence in Muir Woods
Noise Pollution and the United States EPA
Noise Pollution and the European Environment Agency
Sound Preservation and the National Park Service
Noise Pollution Effects on Wildlife
The Philosophy, If a tree falls in the forest…
June in Review:
The month started with The Howling hosted by the non-profit Wildwoods Open Land Foundation. I went a day early to help setup and camp with their director, Jeff Rosenfeld. The event was as educational as it was social promoting responsible access to public lands. I gave an opening talk, an overview of how I pack for bikepacking, and lead a short tour of Dog Valley. Mid-month was Rides with Friends #3; Bikefishing the Granite Range. I did a solo pre-tour of the area and then crossed over the range to Fox Peak to pre-ride the route for the July Rides with Friends trip. Filling in my days, I made local mountain, road, and gravel rides. I picked up a Sea to Summit 50o Synthetic Quilt. My current quilt Sierra Designs 30/40o down quilt was too warm for summer comfort. In the winter it picks up too much moisture from condensation to stay effective. My hope is the synthetic quilt will be the right choice for the summer/early fall, and double as a top quilt in the winter. We shall see.
Ride Calendar:
July I will be traveling to Lamoille Canyon, Ruby Mountains (Elko, NV) and Nye, MT for fishing and gravel road riding.
July 15-16 Rides with Friends #4, Fox Peak Loop
August 12-13 Rides with Friends #5, Perseids Meteor Shower CampOut
August 24-27 MADE Handbuilt Bike Show
August 29- Sept 1 Burning Man tours for Earth Guardians Camp
Sept 16-17 Rides with Friends #6 Dark Skies, Massacre Ranch Overnight
Sept 22-24 3-Day Trego-Seven Troughs-Lava Beds Loop
Oct 14-15 Rides with Friends #7 Black Rock Point Hot Springs and Micro Playa Overnight
Thank you for supporting my storytelling. Next month I will be reviewing Wilson Wewa’s Legends of the Northern Paiute.
I have to think Thousand Springs Canyon is a Square Inch of Silence.
Nice! I have my square inch places .. some are close and some are remote. But they all bring an inner peace with the quiet. I remember my husband being woken up in Kona HI by the wind in the palm fronds and him saying “it is noisy in paradise!” It always surprises me when people do not enjoy the lack of sound. I have had house guests tell me they didnt sleep because it was too quiet. They can have their city sounds … I prefer my peaceful quiet.