Everett Ruess : His Short Life, Mysterious Death, and Astonishing Afterlife

Everett Ruess was twenty years old when he vanished into the canyonlands of southern Utah, spawning the myth of a romantic desert wanderer that survives to this day. It was 1934, and Ruess was in the fifth year of a quest to record wilderness beauty in works of art whose value was recognized by such contemporary artists as Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, and Edward Weston. From his home in Los Angeles, Ruess walked, hitchhiked, and rode burros up the California coast, along the crest of the Sierra Nevada, and into the deserts of the Southwest. In the first probing biography of Everett Ruess, acclaimed environmental historian Philip L. Fradkin goes beyond the myth to reveal the realities of Ruess’s short life and mysterious death and finds in the artist’s astonishing afterlife a lonely hero who persevered. Contents Maps I. Davis Gulch II. Wanderers III. The Legacy, 1859 – 1913 IV. Growing Up, 1914 – 1929 V. On the Road, 1930 VI. Lan Rameau, 1931 VII. The Misfit, 1932 VIII. The Bohemian, 1933 IX. Vanished, 1934 X. The Search, 1935 XI. Healing, 1936 – 2008 XII. Resurrection, 2009 Appendix A: Wilderness Song Appendix B: Father and Son Dialogue Acknowledgments Notes Selected Bibliography Index A look at the truth and myths surrounding his life and disappearance at age 20 in the Utah canyonlands.