Have you ever been lucky enough to just sit on a log and listen to the whisper of

[kiri]

14. hear the sound of your own blood coursing through your ear

When in Antarctica, away from camps and on windless days, it is so quiet that you can hear the sound of your own blood coursing through your ear. You verify this by marking it against your pulse. I was never sure whether the sound came from your ear drum or the capillaries in the inner ear.

I made many experiments, plugging one ear or the other, held my breath, tilted my head just to further the experience.

I only experienced this again a few hundred miles from the North Pole on Ellesmere Island, near Perry's Cairn, a few miles from Alert, NWT. And then briefly in the high Himalayas, but it was usually too windy and too many aircraft.