Everett Ruess: Lost in the Labyrinth of Davis Gulch, Utah
Everett Ruess left Escalante Utah on November 12th, 1934 in a light red shirt “as thin as smoking paper” and headed towards Davis Gulch with the confidence of an experienced explorer, which he very much was, but to never be seen again.
Davis Gulch is located about forty-five miles southeast of Escalante, Utah, down the Escalante River before it meets with the Colorado River. Before leaving Escalante, Everett was warned about the winters of southern Utah and the dangerous trek across Escalante Canyon. However, Everett planned to be home for Christmas, so these worries were behind him. He wrote and sent two letters before arriving at Davis Gulch, to his parents, Stella and Christopher, and another to his brother, Waldo. To his parents, he wrote that he would be unreachable for a couple of months, and would return before the end of the year, but to Waldo, he said that he would not revisit civilization soon, foreshadowing the uncertainty of his disappearance. When Everett did not return to Los Angeles by late December, Stella immediately sent him a Christmas card. However, one month later the card came back to Stella, and the heartfelt message now read “Unkown” and “Return to sender.”
Stella and Christopher’s first objective was to call up Escalante Postmistress Mildred Allen and ask if there was any information on Everett’s whereabouts. Unfortunately, Mildred had not heard from Everett, and neither had anyone else. Next, the Ruess family contacted every Postmaster across the Southwest in search of any sign of Everett but were met with no hope. Their third step was to contact all newspapers and radio stations in the region and ask them to spread awareness of Everett’s disappearance. The first newspaper account of his disappearance was on Valentine's Day, February 14th, 1935, by the Los Angeles Evening Herald, just over three months after he left Escalante. Everett Ruess was now officially missing.
In March of 1935, a man named Gail Bailey spotted two burros deep in Escalante Canyon at Davis Gulch. The trail to Davis was hard to access, meaning that Everett must have scaled the labyrinth of the carved desert to get to the bottom of the canyon safely with two burros, which posed challenges before when he lost a burro in 1932 while climbing out of Canyon del Muerto.
Searches for Everett began soon after Bailey’s report, one led by the Postmistress's husband, Jennings Allen. Found among his burros were some of his belongings, but not a diary, watercolors, or other supplies. After searches ended, the most significant marking left behind was a carving, “NEMO 1934” at the top of a Moqui trail–hand and foot holds carved into rock–next to a large pictograph deep in Davis Gulch. In 1963, The Bureau of Reclamation constructed Glen Canyon Dam, which quickly flooded the canyon, making it harder to search Davis Gulch for Everett Ruess.
To this day there have been many rumors about Everett’s disappearance including a debunked case of his potential remains found in 2008. A quote from one of Everett’s letters summarized his final journey, “I’ll never stop wandering. And when the time comes to die, I’ll find the wildest, loneliest, most desolate spot there is.” Everett’s life ended in solitude, as he always wanted.
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