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When he vanished without a trace in November 1934, Ruess left behind thousands of pages of journals, letters, and poems, as well as more than a hundred watercolor paintings and blockprint engravings. A Ruess mystique, initiated by his parents but soon enlarged by readers and critics who, struck by his remarkable connection to the wild, likened him to a fledgling John Muir. Today, the Ruess cult has more adherents—and more passionate ones—than at any time in the seven-plus decades since his disappearance. By now, Everett Ruess is hailed as a paragon of solo exploration, while the mystery of his death remains one of the greatest riddles in the annals of American adventure. David Roberts began probing the life and death of Everett Ruess for National Geographic Adventure magazine in 1998. Finding Everett Ruess is the result of his personal journeys into the remote areas explored by Ruess, his interviews with oldtimers who encountered the young vagabond and with Ruess’s closest living relatives, and his deep immersion in Ruess’s writings and artwork. It is an epic narrative of a driven and acutely perceptive young adventurer’s expeditions into the wildernesses of landscape and self-discovery, as well as an absorbing investigation of the continuing mystery of his disappearance.
In this definitive account of Ruess's extraordinary life and the enigma of his vanishing, David Roberts eloquently captures Ruess's tragic genius and ongoing fascination.
From the Hardcover edition.
The absorbing story of wilderness explorer Everett Ruess, who has gained a cult-like following since his disappearance in 1934.
In adventure writer Roberts' (The Last of His Kind: The Life and Adventures of Bradford Washburn, America's Boldest Mountaineer, 2010) latest, the author examines the life of Ruess, who was born in 1914 to caring, if over-involved parents. From a young age, he was fascinated with nature. At 16, he set off on the first of his expeditions, hitchhiking from Los Angeles to Carmel, then moving on to Big Sur. Roberts depicts Ruess as intelligent but somewhat naïve, and completely unable to support himself. He became increasingly dependent on his cash-strapped parents to fund his wanderings, and his sense of entitlement deepened over the course of his short life. The author relies on Ruess' surviving letters and journals to paint a portrait of the explorer, and they reveal a moody, pensive and often troubled young man who had a disdain for sedentary life: "I don't think I could ever settle down. I have known too much of the depths of life already, and I would prefer anything to an anticlimax." The second half of the book delves into the possible fate of the explorer, presenting readers with four possible outcomes: suicide, murder, accidental death or withdrawal into hiding. Roberts explores each of these avenues thoroughly, providing both sides of each argument before laying out his own investigation. Though readers may be left with niggling doubts—Roberts chronicles many hoaxes with regards to Ruess' disappearance—in the end, he makes a convincing case.
A well-researched, readable look at a complex personality in wilderness exploration.
Foreword Jon Krakauer xi
Author's Note xv
Prologue 3
Part 1 The Desire to Live
1 "I Have Given the Wind My Pledge" 13
2 "I Have Been One Who Loved the Wilderness" 37
3 "The Crazy Man Is in Solitude Again" 79
4 "I Go to Make My Destiny" 116
5 "I Have Seen More Beauty Than I Can Bear" 152
Part 2 Say that I Kept My Dream
6 Nemo 193
7 Desert Trails 218
8 Cult and Conundrum 234
9 "No Least Desire for Fame" 268
Part 3 What Aneth Saw
10 Jackass Bar 293
11 Comb Ridge 311
Epilogue: Happy Journeys 360
Acknowledgments 371
Note on Sources 379
Index 383
Anonymous
Posted May 19, 2013
Really gets good at the end! With so much time spent fillng in the missing pieces to a story that will probably always have missing pieces it is somewhat difficult to follow.
Still if there is a general intrest in the works of this author, this is another in a long line of excellent stories told from someone with first hand knowledge of the land.
Anonymous
Posted December 6, 2011
Not the best of John or Davids works but still an intersting story and one I had no familiarity with. It would have been great if......Well I can't say I dont want to spoil.
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