Everett Ruess (1914–c.1934) was an American artist, poet, and explorer known for his solo journeys through the American West. His writings and artwork captured the region’s beauty and solitude, earning admiration among adventurers and nature enthusiasts. His mysterious disappearance in 1934 added to his legend.
Born in Oakland, California, Ruess developed a passion for art and literature. He traveled extensively, exploring the High Sierra, California coast, and deserts of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado. He befriended artists and photographers, including Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Maynard Dixon, who encouraged his creativity. His letters, journals, and woodblock prints reflect his deep connection to nature.
Ruess’s writings were compiled into books, including W. L. Rusho’s Everett Ruess: A Vagabond for Beauty (1983) and David Roberts’s Everett Ruess: His Short Life, Mysterious Death, and Astonishing Afterlife (2010.) His poetry and letters continue to inspire wilderness and adventure enthusiasts.
He vanished in November 1934 while exploring Utah’s remote canyons, leaving behind only his camp and burros near Davis Gulch. Despite searches and theories ranging from an accident to foul play, his fate remains one of the American West’s great mysteries.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Everett Ruess
I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it. Always I want to live more intensely and richly. why muck and conceal one’s true longings and loves, when by speaking of them one might find someone to understand them, and by acting on them one might discover oneself?
—Everett Ruess
Happiness lies in a large measure of self-forgetfulness, either in work… or in the love of others.
—Everett Ruess
I like to be perfectly open and sincere, and yet it is impossible to be sincere to all of one’s self at once, so for the deepest understanding one must seek those with whom one can be most truly one’s self and never be blind to the ineffable drollery of it all.
—Everett Ruess
Leave a Reply