Finding Everett Ruess: The Remarkable Life and Unsolved Disappearance of a Legendary Wilderness Explorer

331 Pages·2011·5.19 MB·English

by  David Roberts

Finding Everett Ruess
ALSO BY DAVID ROBERTS
The Mountain of My Fear
Deborah: A Wilderness Narrative
Great Exploration Hoaxes
Moments of Doubt
Jean Stafford: A Biography
Iceland: Land of the Sagas (with Jon Krakauer)
Mount McKinley: The Conquest of Denali
(with Bradford Washburn)
Once They Moved Like the Wind: Cochise, Geronimo, and the Apache Wars
In Search of the Old Ones: Exploring the Anasazi World of the Southwest
Escape Routes
The Lost Explorer: Finding Mallory on Mount Everest
(with Conrad Anker)
A Newer World: Kit Carson, John C. Frémont, and the Claiming of the
American West
True Summit: What Really Happened on the Legendary Ascent of
Annapurna
Escape from Lucania: An Epic Story of Survival
Four Against the Arctic: Shipwrecked for Six Years at the Top of the World
The Pueblo Revolt: The Secret Rebellion That Drove the Spaniards Out of
the Southwest
On the Ridge Between Life and Death:
A Climbing Life Reexamined
Sandstone Spine: Seeking the Anasazi on the First Traverse of the Comb
Ridge
No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World’s 14 Highest Peaks (with Ed
Viesturs)
Devil’s Gate: Brigham Young and the Great Mormon Handcart Tragedy
The Last of His Kind: The Life and Adventures of Bradford Washburn,
America’s Boldest Mountaineer
K2: Life and Death on the World’s Most Dangerous Mountain (with Ed
Viesturs)

Copyright © 2011 by David Roberts
Foreword copyright © 2011 by Jon Krakauer
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Broadway Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division
of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
BROADWAY BOOKS and the Broadway Books colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of
Utah, for permission to reprint text from the Ruess Family Papers; excerpts from letters, diaries, and essays
by Everett Ruess; excerpts from correspondence, essays, and diary notations by Christopher, Stella, and
Waldo Ruess; and excerpts of correspondence from others to the Ruesses.
Grateful acknowledgment also to Michèle Ruess, for permission to quote from diaries, essays, and letters
belonging to the Ruess family.
The Utah State Historical Society kindly granted permission to quote from the papers of Harry LeRoy
Aleson.
The blockprints at the head of each chapter are reproduced from originals by Everett Ruess.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Roberts, David.
Finding Everett Ruess/David Roberts.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Ruess, Everett, b. 1914. 2. Poets, American—20th century—Biography. I. Title.
PS3535.U26Z78 2011
811′.52—dc22
[B] 2011008379
eISBN: 978-0-307-59178-4
Maps by Jeffrey L. Ward
Jacket design by David Tran
Front cover photograph courtesy of
the University of Utah, J. Willard Marriott Library,
Special Collections Department
v3.1
To the memory of Stella, Christopher, and Waldo Ruess—
Who loved Everett without qualification,
And who spent the rest of their days keeping his flame alive
Wherever poets, adventurers and wanderers of the Southwest gather,
the story of Everett Ruess will be told. His name, like woodsmoke,
conjures far horizons.
—Hugh Lacy, 1938
CONTENTS
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Foreword by Jon Krakauer
Author’s Note
Map
Prologue
PART ONE: THE DESIRE TO LIVE
One: “I Have Given the Wind My Pledge”
Two: “I Have Been One Who Loved the Wilderness”
Three: “The Crazy Man Is in Solitude Again”
Four: “I Go to Make My Destiny”
Five: “I Have Seen More Beauty Than I Can Bear”
Photo Insert 1
PART TWO: SAY THAT I KEPT MY DREAM
Six: Nemo
Seven: Desert Trails
Eight: Cult and Conundrum
Nine: “No Least Desire for Fame”
Photo Insert 2
PART THREE: WHAT ANETH SAW
Ten: Jackass Bar
Eleven: Comb Ridge
Epilogue: Happy Journeys
Acknowledgments
Note on Sources