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One of the great mysteries of the Four Corners and the Southwest has been the 1934 disappearance of young artist Everett Ruess. He left the Utah village of Escalante alone, descended Davis Gulch where his two burros were found, and vanished. Now, 80 years later, we have a better understanding of what may have happened to him.<\/p>\n
The Ruess saga has inspired books, songs, plays and celebrations. A botched scientific analysis of DNA embarrassed researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder, demonstrated errors in studying skeletal remains and brought down National Geographic Adventure magazine, which ceased publication. In the intense pursuit of Ruess\u2019 remains, editors overlooked caution in not checking facts, scientists ignored margins of error, and a questionable oral history and confession of a dying man resulted in the unearthing of an historic Navajo burial on Comb Ridge near Bluff, Utah. The remains were supposed to be those of the 20-year-old artist.<\/p>\n
The 2009 outlines of the sensational discovery did not make sense.<\/p>\n
In 1934, Ruess\u2019 burros were found 60 miles away, yet writer David Roberts claimed Ruess\u2019 remains were discovered near Comb Ridge and Chinle Wash based on a Navajo story that Ruess had been murdered by three Utes riding horseback on the Navajo Reservation.<\/p>\n
At the time, I wrote in The Durango Herald, \u201cA 75-year-old mystery has now been solved \u2013 or has it? Did Everett Ruess visit a Navajo girlfriend? How did he cross the Colorado River during high water? Why were his remains found 60 miles east of where he was last seen? New questions arise as old ones are laid to rest. One question is about Ruess\u2019 assailants. Would three Ute Indians have been riding horseback deep on the Navajo Reservation in 1934? Dr. Robert McPherson, Utah State University at Blanding historian and an expert on southeastern Utah, has recorded numerous local oral histories. He says, \u2018I\u2019ve heard nothing about the murder.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Major newspapers covered the story. National Geographic sponsored a press conference. The DNA from the skull seemed to match Ruess\u2019 family\u2019s DNA.<\/p>\n
But a Bureau of Land Management staffer in Monticello, Utah, intrigued by the discovery, tracked down Ruess\u2019 dental records, which verified dental work with gold fillings that the skull did not have. From the beginning of the media frenzy in 2009, the Utah state archaeologist claimed that the teeth in the uncovered skull showed wear patterns indicative of a Native American diet. No matter. There had been a rush to judgment, a rush to publish and a deep desire to have the mystery solved.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve looked for Everett Ruess, too. I\u2019ve explored Davis Gulch off the Escalante arm of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Much of it is now buried under the receding waters of Lake Powell. I have field-tested echoes and watched as stars pinwheeled slowly above the dark silhouette of the canyon\u2019s steep walls. I\u2019ve listened to summer storms rumble down the gulch, and I\u2019ve seen lightning flashes pierce the blackness. I\u2019ve hiked and camped in the sinuous sandstone canyons, soaked up the silence and pondered the many nights Ruess slept alone, tired, hungry, isolated, yet captivated by the desert Southwest.<\/p>\n
He wrote marginal, gushing, adolescent poetry, did better with his water colors and excelled as an artist creating difficult block prints. A young man from Los Angeles, Ruess traveled in the depths of the Great Depression, showing up uninvited at meal times. He routinely appropriated unused Navajo hogans. He visited remote ranches and often overstayed his welcome, yet people liked him, remembered him and admired his pluck and perseverance because he followed his dreams.<\/p>\n
Now, two books help us to understand the troubled 20-year-old, and one of the books offers the best evidence yet for why his remains were never found. Everett Ruess: His Short Life, Mysterious Death, and Astonishing Afterlife (2011) by Philip Fradkin can be a difficult read at times, yet we learn new details. Ruess was a pothunter, carried a gun and often traded his art for cash or food. In his last chapter \u201cResurrection, 2009,\u201d Fradkin summarizes the recent Ruess debacle over the unearthed remains.<\/p>\n
Fradkin explains that just when the Ruess family members thought the mystery was solved and they were preparing to cremate the remains and place the ashes in the Pacific Ocean as is their family custom, they tried one more DNA match after contacting the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory. Descendant Brian Ruess wrote: \u201cThe AFDIL\u2019s studies determined that (the) remains were not those of Everett Ruess.\u201d Case closed. So what really happened?<\/p>\n
The book that in my estimation finally unravels the secret of Everett\u2019s death is Flagstaff writer Scott Thybony\u2019s The Disappearances: A Story of Exploration, Murder, and Mystery in the American West (2016). Ruess claimed, \u201cI shall always be a lone wanderer of the wilderness \u2026 I\u2019ll never stop wandering. And when the time comes to die, I\u2019ll find the wildest, loneliest, most desolate spot there is.\u201d Now, we know he did.<\/p>\n
At Fort Lewis College, I teach a popular class about American wilderness. In the class, we talk about personal responsibility and survival, about being prepared, about going out and coming back. Wilderness has shaped our American character, and wilderness shapes us, too.<\/p>\n
For over half a century, Ruess has been deeply tied to wilderness issues in the American Southwest. He became a symbol for wilderness for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. In his last letter, written Nov. 11, 1934, from the Escalante Rim to his brother, Waldo, Ruess wrote, \u201cAs to when I shall visit civilization, it will not be soon, I think. I have not tired of the wilderness; rather I enjoy its beauty and the vagrant life I lead, more keenly all the time. I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star-sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highway.\u201d<\/p>\n
So what happened to him? Good writers track down stories. Thybony had heard that in the 1970s, human bones turned up in Davis Gulch, where a Californian exploring for American Indian ruins \u201csaw bones wedged within a crack. He scaled in with a rope and saw indications of a broken hip and fractured collar bone. Leaving most of the remains in place, he took a few of the bones for identification.\u201d The tourist gave the bones to a National Park Service ranger, who deposited them with his supervisor at the Lake Powell marina at Wahweap \u201cand at that point they disappeared.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thybony re-read the visitor\u2019s notes and set out to find the crack. He did. He also found a perfect hideaway in the sandstone, a beautiful, remote campsite in a miniature alcove where \u201can ancient juniper had been dragged in for firewood, and a small ring of stones had been placed against the far wall.\u201d He found a flat stone set on rocks like a small table and \u201cby the cliffside opening, a row of stones had been laid out for leveling the sandy floor wide enough for a single bedroll. The site contained no evidence of prehistoric use, not even a potsherd or chert flake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nearby was the unweathered inscription NEMO 1934. A few of those cryptic inscriptions have been found and photographed in various locations. Scholars today and previous searchers attribute the markings to Everett Ruess.<\/p>\n
Did Scott Thybony find the last campsite of Everett Ruess? Did the young artist slip on a sandstone ledge, take a fatal fall and die wedged in a sandstone crack? I think so.<\/p>\n
But if the mystery is solved, his legacy will endure. Everett Ruess will always be a symbol of wilderness and solo journeys across the desert Southwest.<\/p>\n