Everett Ruess found
April 27, 2009 2:35 PM   Subscribe

By the time he was twenty years old, artist, writer, and adventurer Everett Ruess was paling around with Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams and had spent several years trekking around the southwest United States. In November 1934, Ruess left Escalante, Utah and disappeared - never to be seen again. Seventy-five years later, Ruess has been found. (previously on MeFi)
posted by quartzcity (17 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
During the next few weeks, Bellson, a carpenter and craftsman, spent his free time out hiking Comb Ridge, looking into every corner and crack along the rim. Then, one day, in an obscure crevice just under the crest of the Comb, he found a grave. Bellson saw at once that the person whose bones lay in that unlikely tomb had been buried in haste, and perhaps in great fear. A traditional Navajo himself, Bellson did not touch a thing.

When he got home, he called Johnson. "I found the grave," he told her.


Read the rest of the article in the April/May 2009 issue of ADVENTURE, on newsstands April 21.
That right there is a damn dirty trick.
posted by mudpuppie at 2:49 PM on April 27, 2009 [8 favorites]


Am I the only one who thinks the more interesting story is the guy who cured his cancer by shooting a lock of hair?
posted by mannequito at 2:55 PM on April 27, 2009


Holy cow...I heard about Ruess on my first trip out west, and always wondered how it could even be *hoped* to find him. Simply amazing.
posted by notsnot at 2:59 PM on April 27, 2009


National Geographic are stringing news outlets along, too - A spokeswoman from the National Geographic Society says results of DNA tests, along with other genetic and forensic tests, will be released Thursday. (Last Update: 4/26/2009)
posted by filthy light thief at 3:10 PM on April 27, 2009


They're not even saying where they'll be releasing the information:

John Rasmus, editor in chief of National Geographic Adventure, declined Friday to confirm the test results.

"I can't scoop our own press conference, but you don't hold a press conference if you don't have something to announce."

He said the press conference will be Thursday "somewhere in Utah."

posted by filthy light thief at 3:15 PM on April 27, 2009


Everett Ruess was my embodiment of youthful wanderlust in the southwest, years and years before I ever heard of Christopher McCandless. I heard and read all about him the summer I spent working in Zion National Park, and his self-reliance and artistry and general grooviness really spoke to my 19 year old psyche. It was easy to imagine him and his burro wandering along the same roads I was exploring at around the same age.

Simply amazing that they've located him, after all these years. I suppose I should say:

.
posted by hippybear at 3:17 PM on April 27, 2009


If the locator map in the SLTrib is correct, I've driven right by his bones many times passing over Comb Ridge.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 3:30 PM on April 27, 2009


If the article is correct, it's pretty wild that he was killed by Indians in 1934.

I'd have figured the biggest dangers by then would have been breaking a leg or being bitten by a rattlesnake.
posted by Malor at 3:39 PM on April 27, 2009


Salt Lake Tribune is saying that the DNA recovered from the remains is a match to Ruess' nephew.
posted by quartzcity at 3:59 PM on April 27, 2009


Dave Alvin wrote a song about him.
posted by zzazazz at 4:00 PM on April 27, 2009 [1 favorite]


One of his last letters said he had "been flirting pretty heavily with death, the old clown."

Charley Project page

The only possible clue was the phrase "Nemo, 1934" found scratched into a rock in a nearby cave. "Nemo" means "no one" in Latin and is also the name of a character in the classic novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, which Ruess had read several times.

tragic, yeah but ... what a way to go ...
posted by Twang at 4:07 PM on April 27, 2009


I spent six months in the American Southwest back in the early nineties, mainly in Arizona and Utah. I had just gotten out of university and needed some time and space to myself after spending seventeen years in school. For a Canadian city kid whose experience of the wilderness was limited to coniferous forest and chilly lakes, the desert was mindblowing.

I remember being overwhelmed by the gorgeous scenery there: the skies, the sunsets, the splendid desolation. I camped in the desert and read Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire over and over. Once, while I was working on a ranch, I hung out for a week or two with this guy my own age whom I knew as Alex, who taught me a lot about the southwest. Alex was from the eastern US somewhere, but he didn't talk much about himself. We exhanged addresses when he left the ranch, but we were both pretty rootless and in those pre-e-mail days it was hard to keep in touch on the road. I never heard from him again after we parted ways in Tucson. I was shocked to recognize him years later as Chris McCandless, who would die a solitary death in Alaska a year later, and achieve a sort of fame as the subject of the book (and later, movie) Into the Wild.

One of the things that I heard about from him was the story of Everett Ruess. Alex/Chris was fascinated by him (something that in retrospect is kind of ironic, as Ruess' story also appears in the book about Alex/Chris). He had a remarkable theory about what happened to Ruess, which I find especially poignant in the light of this new discovery.


I will convey the rest of the story to anyone who sends me five bucks and an SASE.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:10 PM on April 27, 2009 [8 favorites]


Why did the Utes kill him?! Argh!
I feel like a Victorian waiting for the next chapter of A Tale of Two Cities!
posted by DenOfSizer at 4:11 PM on April 27, 2009


Damn you Ricochet biscuit! Damn you!
posted by wherever, whatever at 5:24 PM on April 27, 2009


I"m not sure if ricochet biscuit is mocking the "buy our magazine" teaser, or fer reals...dude don't withhold from us!
posted by notsnot at 5:27 PM on April 27, 2009


What in the hell is National Geographic Adventure magazine? Do you have to base jump out of a hot air balloon over a half-dry African water hole during a wildebeest migration to subscribe to it?
posted by steef at 6:02 PM on April 27, 2009 [1 favorite]


What in the hell is National Geographic Adventure magazine? Do you have to base jump out of a hot air balloon over a half-dry African water hole during a wildebeest migration to subscribe to it?

Yes. It keeps the subscriber base sort of on the small side, but at least the advertisers know they are reaching their target demographic.
posted by hippybear at 9:38 AM on April 28, 2009 [1 favorite]


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