A quiet battle against noise
2006-10-29
by LEAH LEACH
JOYCE — Gordon Hempton listened all over the world for silence. The quietest spot he found was close to home.
A three-mile walk into the Hoh Rain Forest takes him to a place of peace marked with a small red rock, measuring exactly one square inch, given to him by the late David Four Lines, a Quileute tribal elder.
It marks a spot atop a moss covered log 678 feet above sea level that Hempton calls the quietest place on earth.
From that one spot quiet radiates for hundreds of miles, he said.
It is the one square inch center of Hempton’s quiet battle against noise.
He is working to have airlines agree to detour around the park and to have park management include silence as a natural resource.
His One Square Inch project is a means of supporting those goals.
