Bill Marchel: Search for silence calls for determination

SEATTLE — On April 22, 2005, Earth Day, Gordon Hempton of Port Angeles, Wash., designated a tiny spot in the Hoh River Valley in Washington's Olympic National Park as "One Square Inch of Silence." He marked the location by placing a small red stone on a log located roughly 3 miles from the Hoh Rain Forest Visitor Center.

Hempton is an acoustical ecologist. He seeks quiet places for his recordings of nature. The spot he designated as One Square Inch of Silence is, he feels, one of the few remaining quiet places in the United States. Hempton's plan is to protect that square inch from human-made noise, such as a passing aircraft, hoping that if a noise-free condition can be met in one tiny spot, then quiet will reign over a much larger section of the park.

During a Christmas vacation in Seattle, four of us -- my partner, Janis Anderson; her daughter and son-in-law, Emma and Moneer Rifai of Seattle, and I planned to hike to One Square Inch of Silence to "hear" for ourselves what Hempton heard.

On a map, at first glance, the journey from Seattle to the Hoh River Valley in gigantic Olympic National Park looks relatively simple. We discovered otherwise.

It was raining (it rains almost daily in December in Washington) when we awoke. We planned to leave Seattle at 6 a.m. That idea was dashed when we discovered a rental car would not be available until 7. Then the rental car guy was late.

It was roughly 7:45 when we headed north from Seattle, Moneer at the wheel. Not far out of the city we were to board a ferry for a trip across one of the many bays in Puget Sound. "The ferry just left," we were told. "You'll have to wait for the next one."

We killed time at a nearby coffee shop. The days are short in December, and we were losing valuable time.

"Will the hiking trail be hikeable in this weather?" we asked the ranger.

"It's a rain forest," he said. "Just go out and enjoy it."

It was nearly 2 p.m. when we arrived at the Hoh River trail head. It was raining harder. We donned our waterproof clothing and headed in the direction of One Square Inch of Silence, about 3 miles ahead.

The terrain was gradual; the trail itself was underwater in many spots. We wound our way among ancient sitka spruce trees, gigantic specimens, the lower branches draped with a glowing yellow-green moss. One mighty tree had fallen to the ground years ago. I paced off the length from the roots to treetop: 73 long steps, or about 220 feet. Some of the stately spruce trees are over 300 feet tall, and their trunks, well, they are massive -- 5 or 6 feet in diameter. I had never been surrounded by such an environment.

At about the 2-mile mark, daylight ebbing, Janis and Emma decide to turn around and head back to the car. It was still raining. Moneer and I forged ahead, jogging at times to beat the impending darkness.

It was disappointing Janis and Emma could not have joined us in our find. The reality, though, is that in our haste to beat the darkness, Moneer and I never really took time to listen and experience the silence of the Hoh River Valley.

In his book "One Square Inch of Silence," Hempton wrote about the rain at the red stone marker. "Have you heard the rain lately? Nearly 300 feet overhead, high in the forest canopy, the leaves and bark absorb much of the moisture ... until this aerial sponge becomes saturated and drops re-form and descend farther ... striking lower branches and cascading onto sound-absorbing moss drapes. Heard day or night this liquid ballet will continue for more than an hour after the actual rain ceases."

Finally, in darkness, Moneer and I broke out of rain forest into the parking lot to one lonely vehicle and were reunited with two happy women.

It was still raining, maybe harder.

Bill Marchel is an outdoors photographer and columnist. He lives near Brainerd.