Everett+Ruess-++A+Vagabond+For+Beauty

**Everett Ruess: A Vagabond For Beauty **

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A Vagabond For Beauty is a non-fiction book about the life, travels, and mysterious disappearance of [|Everett Ruess] in 1934. It is a collection of letters written by Ruess to his family and friends while he was out exploring the deserts and mountain ranges of the American Southwest.======

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While most of the book is in Ruess’s own words, W.L. Rusho writes about Everett’s formative years at home prior to his journeys. Also included is a brief biography of Everett’s parents, Stella and Christopher, and also his older brother Waldo. At the end of the book, Rusho lists all of the facts about Ruess’s last known whereabouts. He conducts interviews, and follows leads to a few possible scenarios explaining the disappearance. There is a forward by John Nichols (author of The Milagro Beanfield War), and an afterward by Edward Abbey (author of Fire On The Mountain).======

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One of the most interesting things about Everett Ruess, is that in his short lifetime of just 20 years, he managed to befriend some of the most influential artists of his time. He met Photographers [|Edward Weston], [|Dorothea Lange] , and [|Ansel Adams] , as well as the Painter [|Maynard Dixon]. He was quite adept at living life in the cities, especially when surrounded by the Bohemian art scene, yet he felt dismal and lost unless he was in the wild. Everett was trying to live a dual life, trying to succeed as an established artist within the confines of society, and roaming the world as a free spirit with a liberated soul. Everett’s inner journey, and the search for himself are the underlying themes throughout the book.======

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The story begins in southern California, just before Everett finishes High School in 1930. He leaves on his first journey, a two-month solo backpack of roughly 250 miles from Los Angeles to Carmel. He also visits Big Sur, and Yosemite before returning home. Everett falls in love with the wilderness as soon as he hits the trail. Searching for beauty and inspiration for his art would become a quest he would never abandon the rest of his life.======

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In 1931 Everett travels to Monument Valley in Arizona, and begins a trip that would take the better part of a year for him to complete. He and his burros travel to Canyon de Chelly, the San Francisco Peaks, Grand Canyon, Zion National Park in Utah, and the Salt River Valley in south central Arizona. In March of 1932 Everett resumed his trip after a brief visit home. Again, he was alone with his two burros in the place that he was falling deeper and deeper in love with. This trip brought him to Ganado, Mesa Verde in Colorado, and back to the Grand Canyon once more. By this time, his sensitivity to the landscape was so deep as to be unimaginable by conventional standards. His dedication to it is almost tragic. Everett wrote this to a friend, “…he who has looked long on naked beauty may never return to the world, and though he should try, he will find its occupation empty and vain, and human intercourse purposeless and futile. Alone and lost, he must die on the altar of beauty” (Rusho 164).======

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In 1933 Everett returned to the Sierra Nevada for 5 months, and in April of 1934 he began his terminal journey. Back in the heart of the Southwest, He traveled from Monument Valley to Navajo Mountain and Rainbow Bridge. Next Everett visited Tsegi Canyon, Gallup, New Mexico, the Hopi Mesas, Flagstaff, Oak Creek Canyon, and the Grand Canyon. From there he traveled north to Bryce Canyon in Utah, ending up in the small town of Escalante. On November 19 th, Everett wandered out of town with his two burros, and was never heard from again.======

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Some people believe he was murdered, and his gear was stolen. Others think he may have had a fatal accident and fell from a cliff edge. Some say he married a Navajo woman and remained anonymously in the Southwest. There are also those that feel that Everett just simply walked off into the wilderness to escape civilization all together. His disappearance still remains a mystery to this day.======

“Everett trudged on- forgetting to return”. Photograph. Rusho, W.L. Everett Ruess: A Vagabond For Beauty/ Wilderness Journals. Salt Lake City UT: Gibbs Smith, Publisher. 2002. 235.
 * Works Cited:**

Lange, Dorothea. “Everett Ruess”. Photograph. Rusho, W.L. Everett Ruess: A Vagabond For Beauty/ Wilderness Journals. Salt Lake City UT: Gibbs Smith, Publisher. 2002. 234.

Rusho, W.L. Everett Ruess: A Vagabond For Beauty/ Wilderness Journals. Salt Lake City UT: Gibbs Smith, Publisher. 2002.