Where to find (and protect) quiet places in nature around SoCal

I’ve spent the past week in one of the least quiet places on Earth: a windowless room in a hospital’s intensive care unit. Among many noises, I’ve been listening to droning machines, incessant beeping when an IV bag runs dry and a “ding” from a monitor when my dad’s heart beats out of rhythm.

Loyal Wilders may have noticed they didn’t get an email at 11 a.m. last Thursday. That’s because last week my dad suffered the type of heart attack that one in three people die from and had open-heart surgery. Hence my new perch in a hospital.

Coincidentally, last week’s newsletter was supposed to be about the quietest places in nature around Southern California. After one of the most stressful weeks of my life, I am longing for that kind of peace. And given the stress we’ve recently faced with deadly wildfires and political upheaval, I’m guessing you’d like some quiet, too.

But, that can be hard to find in L.A. I really love this city, but “quiet” is not one of the first words I’d use to describe it. We have tremendous noise pollution from our highways, freeways, ports and airports (and entirely too much honking). That’s one reason I slip away to nature as often as possible.

But even our natural areas are under threat of noise pollution. I recently spoke with acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton, who co-founded Quiet Parks International in 2018, after his favorite quiet place grew really, really loud.

Volunteers with Quiet Parks International awarded Desert Mountain in Arizona, pictured here, as a quiet conservation area. While performing their quiet studies, the team remains on-site for a week.

(Photo courtesy of Quiet Parks International)

Hempton was part of an effort to protect an area of Hoh Rain Forest at Olympic National Park that was believed to possibly be the quietest place in the United States. He advocated for the area to become the world’s first quiet park, but the idea never garnered enough political will from federal agencies to make it so.

A few years later, the U.S. Navy operating out of Whidbey Island designated the Olympic peninsula, including where Hoh Rain Forest is, as an “electronic warfare exercise range.” This meant aircraft, including the aptly named Boeing EA-18G Growler, would start regularly flying over the area. Hempton felt he’d failed. So, he paid what he calls “the quiet” a visit in the area he’d dubbed “one square inch of silence” in Hoh Rain Forest in 2018 and asked it for help.

“The quiet laughed at me,” Hempton said.

It was there he realized he’d been focused too narrowly on one place and needed to broaden the scope of his mission.

Within a year, Quiet Parks International had formed and designated its first quiet park in the northeast corner of Ecuador. (You can now take trips there, which provides money to the Cofan nation to continue to protect their Indigenous homeland). The organization has five types of awards: wilderness quiet park, urban quiet park, quiet trails, quiet conservation area and quiet marine park. It has also created a process that anyone can follow to nominate a place they’d like to be considered.

(L) The view from the Desert View trail in Mt. San Jacinto State Park; (R) Volunteers with Quiet Parks International visited the Zabalo River in Ecuador to perform quiet studies and awarded it as the world’s first wilderness quiet park.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times; Perri Howard)

You might be wondering: How do Hempton and his colleagues measure “quiet”?

For one, they’re not looking for absolute silence. Nature can be loud. Think of how rowdy our feral parrots or migrating geese can be. Rather, the Quiet Parks audio team is looking for places without human-caused noise pollution. Specifically, when assessing a place that’s been nominated to be a quiet wilderness park, they are discerning whether it has a “noise-free interval,” one single occurrence of a 15-minute period of which no human-caused noise pollution occurs.

They also look during a specific time, from two hours before sunrise until one hour after sunrise.

“That is the magic window, that three-hour period, that in most places in the world sound propagates the farthest,” Hempton said. “That’s your most likely time that you will hear noise pollution.”

When assessing an urban quiet park, where it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect to find 15 minutes without noise pollution, the group instead tries to determine whether nature “clearly dominates,” Hempton said.

“What does that mean? It means if you rub your fingers on a leaf in front of you, you will hear its sound, and if you pick a different leaf from a different plant with a different texture, you will hear a different sound,” he said. “When a song bird sings, and if you are listening close enough, you will be able to hear its voice.”

Nature lovers have already started nominating places in California for various “quiet” distinctions.

(L) Hikers trek down a slightly icy path in Mt. San Jacinto State Park; (R) Hikers crunch past grasses and tall pines on the Desert View trail in Mt. San Jacinto State Park.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

Last August, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park was designated as a quiet conservation area, becoming the only place in California to have received an award from Quiet Parks International. Sadly, Anza-Borrego was already too polluted with human-made noise to earn the more prestigious “wilderness quiet park” distinction, but leaders of the Anza-Borrego Foundation say they will continue to work to preserve this desert beauty’s tranquil soundscape. (I’m rooting for you guys!)

There are 13 more natural places in Southern California that have been nominated to be designated by the group with a quiet award. Those are:

• Bob Jones Trail in San Luis Obispo
• Piedra Blanca formations in Los Padres National Forest (on my hiking to-do list!)
• Santa Rosa Island in the Channel Islands
• Wendy Trail in Thousand Oaks
• Point Mugu State Park in the western Santa Monica Mountains
• Leo Carrillo State Park in Malibu (which we named one of the best beaches in Southern California)
• Point Dume Natural Preserve in Malibu
• Topanga State Park in the Santa Monica Mountains
• Ernest E. Debs Regional Park in L.A.
• Chino Hills State Park in Chino Hills
• Mt. San Jacinto State Park
• Joshua Tree National Park
• Elfin Forest Recreational Reserve in Escondido

The weekend before my dad had a heart attack, I visited Mt. San Jacinto Park, which has been nominated to be an urban quiet park. There was snow on the ground, and I took time to smell the butterscotch scent emanating from the Jeffrey pines. Yellow-rumped warblers and Phainopeplas flitted about the trees. Outside of the squeals made by someone getting thwacked by a snowball, it was peaceful.

I thought back to that serenity as I sat in the ICU waiting room watching for my dad’s surgeon to emerge. About the peace I felt while lying on a massive boulder, my fleece jacket under my head, eating a huge sandwich as I looked down on the beautiful view. Even though I wasn’t with the quiet in the hospital waiting room, the quiet stayed with me.

3 things to do

Lozen,a red tail hawk animal ambassador, during the grand opening of the San Dimas Canyon Nature Center.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

1. Spend a day with birds in Claremont
The California Botanic Garden and Pomona Valley Audubon Society will co-host the Family Bird Festival from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday at the gardens in Claremont. Activities include an immersive migration game, storytelling and crafts. Attendees can also participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count via stations set up around the gardens. The festival is free with paid admission to the gardens. Buy tickets at calbg.com.

2. Pull weeds at the Ballona Wetlands
Ballona Wetlands Land Trust will host a nature walk and cleanup from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday. The group will first take a nature walk through the area and then work together to pull weeds. Attendees should park on site at Area A, in Marina del Rey across from Whiskey Red’s. Participants will be provided with gloves and tools. Learn more at the organization’s Instagram page.

3. Hike in a nature preserve in Van Nuys
Junior urban ecologist Ryan Kinzel will host a free hike from 8 to 10 a.m. Saturday through the Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve (6350 Woodley Ave.). The reserve is home to numerous native plants, animals and migratory birds, including the American white pelican, the largest boreal flying bird in the U.S. Participants should bring water and wear comfy shoes. Register at eventbrite.com.

The must-read

A prefabricated home recently went up on a private inholding in the Whispering Pines section of Joshua Tree National Park. The 870-square-foot home is in an ecologically sensitive area flanked by rocky hills where bighorn sheep and desert tortoises roam.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Residents and environmentalists are sounding the alarm on potential development within Joshua Tree National Park. Times staff writers Alex Wigglesworth and Lila Seidman report that individuals and businesses connected to Connecticut-based real estate investment firm called Darkhorse Tactical Investments have purchased more than 100 acres of land within Joshua Tree National Park boundaries since 2021. A prefabricated building — think boxy modern mobile home — was recently placed on the land, and environmentalists are worried about what else developers might build. One managing partner with Darkhorse told The Times that the recent construction activity “is definitely not a development.” Those who love Joshua Tree hope that’s the case.

Happy adventuring,

P.S.

Applications are open until 9 a.m. Feb. 21 for Community Nature Connection’s Emerging Naturalists 1.0 program. The free program educates high school students in grades nine through 12 about how a naturalist observes and journals their findings, along with how to get involved in local environmental action and find careers focused on the outdoors. Students will be expected to attend in-person classes at Vista Hermosa Park near downtown L.A. Learn more at the organization’s Instagram page and apply here.

For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.