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John B
07-30-2018, 15:16
The quietest place in America:

https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-quietest-place-in-america-is-becoming-a-warzone-1827972574

This doesn't surprise me: "The furthest you can get from a road in the Lower 48 is 19 miles..."

Tipi Walter
07-30-2018, 16:21
In the Southeast where I backpack noise pollution is the single biggest thing destroying wilderness, or what's left of wilderness in the Eastern United States. Two main causes:

Nearly nonstop overhead jet traffic from a half dozen major airports---Atlanta, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Asheville, Charlotte etc.

Motorcycle tourism on so-called "scenic" roads---most especially Harleys with custom minimal muffler pipes.


Thanks for the article--I'll copy it and read it on my next backpacking trip.

FrogLevel
07-30-2018, 17:29
How many of these complainers and environmentalists have or will have kids? Do your part for the environment (and quietness) and don't.

DuneElliot
07-30-2018, 19:29
The quietest place in America:

https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-quietest-place-in-america-is-becoming-a-warzone-1827972574

This doesn't surprise me: "The furthest you can get from a road in the Lower 48 is 19 miles..."

Of course it doesn't specify paved or major road...a road can include four wheel drive roads that see very little traffic

Tipi Walter
07-30-2018, 20:28
How many of these complainers and environmentalists have or will have kids? Do your part for the environment (and quietness) and don't.

Never had kids. People often ask what's one of the biggest impediments to living outdoors. My opinion? Reproduction.

greensleep
07-31-2018, 15:35
Never had kids. People often ask what's one of the biggest impediments to living outdoors. My opinion? Reproduction.

:clap:clap:clap:clap:clap

Dogwood
07-31-2018, 23:45
The quietest places in America(?) aren't necessarily on the surface. Underwater is still quiet unless you're diving in Lake Sidney Lanier by my house on the 4th of July as I was. Season plays a big part in noise levels. Hang-gliding and parachuting are quiet(er) places. Caves are exceptionally almost maddening quiet. Try overnighting in a cave past any light. Once all the outside noise is gone than you have to contend with the noise in your head and breathing, heartbeat, bones and joints,...

Dogwood
07-31-2018, 23:56
Night hike. It's much quieter than during the day. Really love soloing in the winter with no one around at night under a full starry sky breaking trail in 2 ft of pow. In the stillness there is yet movement - heartbeat, breathing, crunching snow underfoot, an occasional stirred animal, glowing eyes, pushing past bent snow laden evergreens and grasses, lit planets and the moon, meteoroids, and maybe a slight movement of clothing. The mind begins to quiet. I'm a silent gliding ghost, a vapor, in the now in the moment. Glorious.

Traveler
08-01-2018, 06:48
The quietest place in America:
This doesn't surprise me: "The furthest you can get from a road in the Lower 48 is 19 miles..."


I have to question the 19 mile statistic given some of the huge tracks of land in the western states. I suppose it depends on what is considered a "road", but there are places on the western prairie like Nebraska that have higher mileage distances from published map roads unless driveways and stock feeding routes are included as "roads". I have been where the silence is deafening in this region of the western prairie, though access to these places may be limited by the landowner and as such, may not have been included in this statistic.

DuneElliot
08-01-2018, 09:45
Had to Google how they did this but it still doesn't explain what the limits were in regards to roads: http://www.peakbagger.com/report/report.aspx?r=w

DuneElliot
08-01-2018, 09:45
Had to Google how they did this but it still doesn't explain what the limits were in regards to roads: http://www.peakbagger.com/report/report.aspx?r=w

I lie, it does, at the bottom

Jayne
08-01-2018, 10:55
If you like a lot of nothing around you should try west Texas: there's lots of it (but it gets hot in the summer :sun .)

Jayne
08-01-2018, 10:57
[That analysis is only looking at "USA—federal , quasi-federal, state, and tribal"]

Dogwood
08-01-2018, 11:34
How many of these complainers and environmentalists have or will have kids? Do your part for the environment (and quietness) and don't.

Binky, nutritionally enhanced vodka "tasting" formula, head phones, and, ...bill burr environmental disaster (https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=bill+burr+environmental+disaster&view=detail&mid=F241A9F7B91CDD3E07FFF241A9F7B91CDD3E07FF&FORM=VIRE)

HooKooDooKu
08-01-2018, 11:43
Never had kids. People often ask what's one of the biggest impediments to living outdoors. My opinion? Reproduction.
Not saying I disagree with you... but actually having kids is what got me hiking MORE... once they were old enough to start taking on camping trips with me.
I used to only go on trips once or twice a year. But now I do more like 6 to 12 per year. The increased frequency helped me complete the 900 Miler Club, and my 12yo has done about half the trails in GSMNP.

Dogwood
08-01-2018, 12:16
Not saying I disagree with you... but actually having kids is what got me hiking MORE... once they were old enough to start taking on camping trips with me.
I used to only go on trips once or twice a year. But now I do more like 6 to 12 per year. The increased frequency helped me complete the 900 Miler Club, and my 12yo has done about half the trails in GSMNP.

Chocolate lab does the same thing, is quieter, cheaper, and easier to train. Dog **** doesnt smell as much either. ;)

futureatwalker
08-01-2018, 14:30
How many of these complainers and environmentalists have or will have kids? Do your part for the environment (and quietness) and don't.

Well, if everyone took this advice, you'd have a quiet world indeed...

I have two, and it has been a pleasure introducing them to backpacking. For one it has stuck; for the other less so. But it also has had me think about the importance of turning on the next generation to the outdoors. Once us old-timers pass, it will be important for the next generations to be strong advocates of these spaces.

zeldaminor
08-06-2018, 14:15
In the Southeast where I backpack noise pollution is the single biggest thing destroying wilderness, or what's left of wilderness in the Eastern United States. Two main causes:
Nearly nonstop overhead jet traffic from a half dozen major airports---Atlanta, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Asheville, Charlotte etc.
Motorcycle tourism on so-called "scenic" roads---most especially Harleys with custom minimal muffler pipes.
Thanks for the article--I'll copy it and read it on my next backpacking trip.

So true. I live in Charlotte and the plane noise is absolutely ridiculous. Moving west into the mountains you still get a lot of the flight path noise and the motorcycles. I love western NC, but this stuff does make me sigh a bit when I'm on the trail.

Tipi Walter
08-06-2018, 14:21
So true. I live in Charlotte and the plane noise is absolutely ridiculous. Moving west into the mountains you still get a lot of the flight path noise and the motorcycles. I love western NC, but this stuff does make me sigh a bit when I'm on the trail.

I've developed a "two-tiered" earplug system to achieve artificial Deafness when I'm out backpacking. Not the perfect system but it sure destroys all human generated noise in the backcountry.

The problem is as you say absolutely ridiculous. I call it The Age of The Jetson Madness. I've written long screeds on the subject in my trip reports.

BuckeyeBill
08-06-2018, 14:27
So true. I live in Charlotte and the plane noise is absolutely ridiculous. Moving west into the mountains you still get a lot of the flight path noise and the motorcycles. I love western NC, but this stuff does make me sigh a bit when I'm on the trail.

When I lived in NYC, they altered flight paths when the US Open Tennis Tournament came to town. They were so low you could read the tail numbers. Afternoon naps were out of the question.

DuneElliot
08-06-2018, 14:35
So true. I live in Charlotte and the plane noise is absolutely ridiculous. Moving west into the mountains you still get a lot of the flight path noise and the motorcycles. I love western NC, but this stuff does make me sigh a bit when I'm on the trail.

This was one of the saddest things about backpacking the Uinta Highline Trail last month...the High Uinta Wilderness lies below the flight path straight out of or into Salt Lake City. It was fairly remote and high above, but still audible especially when I wasn't hiking and taking a break or in my tent.

Slo-go'en
08-06-2018, 17:32
It can be very quite in the Whites. Even quieter in Maine, as the trail is far from any high traffic highways.

Jets are cruising at 30,000 feet going over here, but there is the occasional military jet or private Piper Cub.

Then there is PA, where the sound of highway noise was pretty much non-stop for the whole state.