Everett Ruess: The Boy Who Vanished into the Desert

 

American Authors Gone Missing

Exploring the Mysterious Disappearances of Literary Voices

Few figures in the American Southwest are as haunting as Everett Ruess, the young artist, writer, and adventurer who disappeared without a trace in 1934. At just twenty years old, Ruess had already carved out a remarkable path for himself, wandering alone through the deserts and canyons of the Southwest, chronicling his travels in evocative letters, journal entries, and artwork. His mysterious disappearance and the romantic, bohemian idealism of his life have since elevated him to the status of folk legend.

Artistic Interpretation of Everett Ruess | BookBrains Press

A Life in Search of Beauty

Born in Oakland, California, in 1914 and raised in Los Angeles, Everett Ruess was the son of Christopher and Stella Ruess, both educators with strong artistic inclinations. From an early age, Everett showed a precocious talent for art and writing. As a child, he wrote essays and composed poems—some of which were published in family-printed booklets like the Ruess Quartette—and he often signed his letters with pen names that reflected his playful and creative spirit (Rusho 1983, 11–12). He learned block printing and watercolor techniques from his mother, who was herself trained in the arts and active in Los Angeles literary circles (Rusho 1983, 3–4).

His classmates at Los Angeles High knew Ruess for his sensitivity, nonconformity, and intellectual curiosity. His interests included poetry, classical music, and the writings of Thoreau, D. H. Lawrence, and Edward Abbey. Though he maintained a small circle of close friends, he often felt out of step with his peers and longed for a deeper sense of meaning and connection with the natural world (Bergera 1999, 49–50; Rusho 1983, 25).

Everett Ruess Class Photograph, 1931 | Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

For a while in the early 1930s, Ruess lived in San Francisco, befriending artists such as Ansel Adams, Maynard Dixon, and Dorothea Lange. In Big Sur, he met photographer Edward Weston. The older artists mentored him, encouraging him in his work and his wanderlust (Malouf 2019). During his wanderings, he also befriended Native Americans, sheepherders, and ranchers. One memorable encounter occurred in 1931 when rancher Pat Jenks met the worn-out young artist along a road. Jenks loaded Ruess and his tired burros into his truck and brought them to his Deerwater Ranch, where Ruess stayed for about a month before taking to the road again (Malouf 2019).

Ruess's letters and journals are lyrical testaments to his longing for solitude and the sublime. He wrote of desert skies and starlit nights with awe and often described himself as intoxicated by the beauty of the land. "I have known too much of the deeps of life already, and I would prefer anything to an anticlimax," he wrote in his last letter to his brother Waldo (Bergera 1999, 53).

He also left behind haunting signs of his presence. Most famously, the word "NEMO" (Latin for "no one") was found carved into a rock near an Ancestral Puebloan ruin in Davis Gulch, Utah, the site of his last known camp. The inscription, dated November 1934, has been interpreted as a symbolic erasure of self, an embrace of anonymity in the wilderness, or even an allusion to Captain Nemo from Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea—a favorite book of Everett's (Bergera 1999, 54; Malouf 2019).

The Disappearance

Ruess left Escalante, Utah, on November 12, 1934, intending to head southeast toward Davis Gulch and eventually cross the Colorado River. He was last seen on November 21, when he camped with two sheepherders. He gave them a letter to mail to Waldo, a letter that became his final known communication (Lankton 2024).

In March 1935, a search party found Ruess's two burros alive in Davis Gulch, penned in by a makeshift brush corral. But his gear, diary, and artwork were gone, and there were no signs of struggle or remains. Theories about his fate proliferated: he fell from a cliff, drowned, was murdered, committed suicide, or simply walked away to begin a new life.

Bement Arch, Davis Gulch | BookBrains Press

W. L. Rusho, Ruess's early biographer, emphasized the possibility of a fatal accident or intentional disappearance. Others, like Gary James Bergera, have explored psychological explanations, including the possibility of suicide brought on by depression or a sense of futility in his artistic quest (Bergera 1999, 50-61).

The 2009 Discovery: A Roller Coaster of Hope and Doubt

In 2009, seventy-five years after his disappearance, the Everett Ruess mystery seemed finally solved—only to unravel spectacularly within months.

The breakthrough began with an extraordinary family story. In the early 1970s, an elderly Navajo man named Aneth Nez broke a 37-year silence to tell his family about witnessing a dark incident in the 1930s. He told them that while sitting on a ridge, he watched three Ute boys chase down and kill a young white man. After the killers took the victim's two mules, Mr. Nez, out of respect, buried the body, but was too afraid to speak about it for decades (Johnson 2009a).

Glenn Canyon | BookBrains Press

In May 2008, Nez's grandson, Denny Bellson, and granddaughter, Daisy Johnson, decided to search the area their grandfather had described. Bellson later recounted that he saw a saddle first—probably his grandfather's, which, in the Navajo tradition, he would have disposed of because it had been contaminated by coming in contact with the blood of the dead. Then, he saw the bones, jammed down into a rock crevice (Johnson 2009a).

The Scientific Triumph

University of Colorado researchers assembled compelling evidence. The bones belonged to a male, Caucasian, 19 to 22 years old, and about 5 feet 8 inches tall—all a match for Ruess. A facial reconstruction closely matched photographs of Ruess taken by Dorothea Lange. Most convincingly, DNA extracted from the bones showed a 25 percent match with nephews and nieces of Mr. Ruess, the exact amount that would be expected in that family relationship. The conclusion, said Kenneth Krauter, a professor of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at Colorado, was "irrefutable" (Johnson 2009a).

In April 2009, National Geographic Adventure magazine and the researchers announced their findings with confidence. "This was a textbook case," said Dr. Kenneth Krauter. "We had a large number of markers [600,000] and, when comparing the bone DNA and the Ruess samples, the mode of inheritance of those markers was exactly what you'd expect for the relationship between an uncle and a niece or nephew" (Potts 2009a).

The Doubts Emerge

But the celebration was short-lived. By July 2009, Utah's state archaeologist, Kevin Jones, raised serious questions. The distinctive shape of the incisors—with an extra ridge of enamel along each side on the back, giving the tooth a shovel-shape—is found in about 90 percent of American Indians and Asians and in only about 8 percent of Caucasians. Whoever was buried in the crevice had shovel-shaped incisors (Johnson 2009).

Even more problematic were the dental records. Physical anthropologist Derinna Kopp noted that "two of the lower left teeth, the second molar and first molar, should have fillings, according to Everett's dental records—we can see those clearly in the pictures—and they have no dental work on them at all" (Johnson 2009).

Family Anguish

The controversy devastated the Ruess family. Brian Ruess, Everett's nephew, admitted they were "shocked" and "didn't expect someone as respected and respectable as the state archaeologist to raise a dissent" (Johnson 2009b). By July 2009, despite initially expressing complete confidence, the family seemed worn down by the debate. Brian Ruess told a symposium audience: "This can be dragged on forever. Everybody can challenge every last piece of evidence, but there will never be a resolution of every single question because no one was there. [Our family] is convinced, and we are not going to play the game of 'is it, is it not,' to the detriment of our emotional health" (Potts 2009b).

Davis Canyon Where Ruess's Burros Were Located | BookBrains Press

The final blow came when a subsequent test by the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory definitively proved the bones were not Ruess's. As Susan Spano noted in Smithsonian Magazine, "the findings, published in National Geographic Adventure, had to be retracted when a state-of-the-art U.S. military lab determined that the Comb Ridge bones were not those of Everett Ruess" (Spano 2011). The revelation was stunning: AFDIL announced that the skeleton was not only not Everett's, but had to be that of a Native American. The error wasn't due to contamination or sloppy work, but rather stemmed from Kenneth Krauter's decision to use cutting-edge Affymetrix GeneChip technology in an unprecedented way for forensic work. The software produced what Krauter calls "noise" when overly small amounts of DNA were used, creating false readings that appeared legitimate. Even more troubling, the computer seemed to bias results in favor of the Ruess family DNA, yielding the expected 25 percent match. "We screwed up by relying on the technology too much," Krauter admitted (Potts 2010).

The Enduring Appeal

The 2009 episode serves as a powerful reminder of how even seemingly definitive scientific evidence can crumble under scrutiny, and how desperately people want to solve the enduring mysteries that capture our collective imagination. For the Ruess family, it represented both the hope of closure and the painful realization that some questions may never be answered.

Artistic Interpretation of Everett Ruess | BookBrains Press

As David Roberts noted after experiencing the entire debacle firsthand, "Roberts tells the whole story of the misidentification of the Comb Ridge remains, an interesting twist in the Everett Ruess saga. But in the end we're left no wiser" (Spano 2011). The failed identification only added another layer to the legend.

The story continues to resonate because, as French filmmaker Emmanuel Tellier observed, it illustrates "the capacity to fully enjoy and embrace little things, little bits of beauty here and there, when they happen. Today, everything has become easy, so we tend to take everything for granted. Everett could have had a quieter and simpler life in LA…but he chose a more demanding path, where things that matter mean even more" (Malouf 2019).

Ruess's life and disappearance echo like a ballad across the canyonlands. His writings endure, full of rapture and restlessness. "Say that I starved; that I was lost and weary," he wrote in his poem Wilderness Song, "Lonely and wet and cold…but that I kept my dream!" (Spano 2011). Perhaps, as many now believe, the mystery is best left unsolved—its lingering questions allow dreams to live on.

Join the Conversation

Which theory about his disappearance resonates most with you?

Some critics argue that Ruess was an immature idealist whose story has been overly romanticized. Others see him as a visionary who "kept his dream." Which view do you find more compelling?

Stay connected! Follow us on Facebook and Pinterest for blog updates!

Follow us on Amazon for new book releases!

📚 For Further Reading

Bergera, Gary James. "'The Murderous Pain of Living': Thoughts on the Death of Everett Ruess." Utah Historical Quarterly 67, no. 1 (January 1, 1999): 48–67.

———. "The Mystery of Everett Ruess." The Salt Lake Tribune, August 19, 2011. https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=52399719&itype=CMSID.

"Everett Ruess: Artist, Poet, Adventurer, and Inspiration." Accessed June 16, 2025. https://everettruess.net/.

Johnson, Kirk. "Bones in a Desert Unlock Decades-Old Secrets for 2 Families." New York Times, May 1, 2009a.

———. "Solution to a Longtime Mystery in Utah Is Questioned." New York Times, July 5, 2009b.

Lankton, Matthew T. "Everett Ruess: Lost in the Labyrinth of Davis Gulch, Utah." Intermountain Histories, May 25, 2024. https://www.intermountainhistories.org/items/show/833.

Malouf, Mary Brown. "Nowhere Man." Salt Lake Magazine, November 1, 2019. https://www.saltlakemagazine.com/everett-ruess-nowhere-man/.

Potts, Mary Anne. "Everett Ruess Mystery Solved! DNA Results Prove Skeleton in Utah Desert Is Ruess." National Geographic Adventure, April 30, 2009a.

———. "Everett Ruess Update: Believers and Skeptics." National Geographic Adventure, July 6, 2009b.

———. "Everett Ruess Update: How the DNA Test Went Wrong." National Geographic Adventure, February 2, 2010.

Roberts, David. Finding Everett Ruess: The Life and Unsolved Disappearance of a Legendary Wilderness Explorer. New York: Broadway Books, 2011.

Ruess, Everett. On Desert Trails with Everett Ruess. Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, 2000.

Rusho, W. L. Everett Ruess, a Vagabond for Beauty. Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, 1983.

Spano, Susan. "Not Finding the Lost Explorer Everett Ruess." Smithsonian Magazine, November 4, 2011. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/not-finding-the-lost-explorer-everett-ruess-128091779/.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Vanishing of Barbara Newhall Follett: When a Literary Prodigy Disappeared Forever

The Sea Claimed Its Own: The Disappearance of David Kenyon Webster

The Vanishing of John Lake: A Sports Editor's Final Deadline