More Ruess

"Everett Ruess---a bold teenage adventurer, artist, and writer--studied and lived with Edward Weston, Maynard Dixon, and Dorothea Lange. He traded prints with Ansel Adams. He tramped around the Sierra Nevada, the California coast, and the desert wilderness of the Southwest between the age of 16 and 20, pursuing his dream of ultimate beauty and oneness with nature. Then in November 1934, at age twenty, he mysteriously vanished into the barren Utah desert."

---Flap jacket of:  Everett Ruess A Vagabond for Beauty & Wilderness Journals


"He could be logical, then illogical. He could laugh and sing, could play-act, could assume roles, or could brood in sadness, silence, and isolation. But above all, Everett Ruess could see in a way that far transcended the mere act of vision. His reactions to the wonders of Nature went beyond what we could assume to be normal experience, to the point where he could resonate to the light waves that struck him from all points in the landscape. His was a strange gift that set him apart from aquaintances, friends, and relatives. Many people can feel emotion as they gaze upon some of the mere sublime vistas of canyons, desert, or mountains. But rare indeed is an Everett Ruess, who could sense beauty so acutely that it bordered on pain." (16)


Everett Ruess: A vagabond for Beauty
Edited by W.L. Rusho

Ruess was not only discovering the beauty in nature, but  he was discovering things about himself. In one letter to his brother he explained, ". . .I am nineteen and sensitive, but it is small consolation to be told that. I have been discovering new moods, new lows, new and disturbing variations in myself and my feelings for individuals, and for people as a whole. . . . After various turnings, twistings, and recoils, I still have not been able to find any proper oulet for my feelings. Perhaps there is none and perhaps it is necessary for my feelings to die of weariness and refusal. I won't apologize for my emotions because I don't feel completely responsible. I can trace certain reactions in them when I am analytic, but I do not care to now. I don't expect you to understand them any more than anyone else, nor would it matter much if you did, because it seems to be up to me."

Everett Ruess was a deep thinker for his years. I don't know if any of us ever stop the inner wranglings of who we are, how we fit in, and how we contribute to life. Those questions may be masked or hidden in a variety of pursuits.

In our outdoor pursuits are we seekers of beauty? Does our inner being somehow blend with the outer beauty of nature? Do we see ourselves as "man in nature" or do we see man as an outsider?