Everett Ruess — Wandering Artist Vanishes Into Utah Canyonlands at Age 20

In November 1934, 20-year-old Everett Ruess, a young artist and writer who had spent years wandering the wilderness of the American Southwest on his own, departed the small Mormon community of Escalante, Utah with two burros and headed into the canyon country. He was never seen again.

Ruess had been exploring the deserts and canyons of the Southwest since age 16, writing lyrical letters home and producing artwork that captured the desolation and beauty of the landscape. He was known for his romanticism about wilderness solitude and had written about his willingness to die alone in the canyons he loved. His final letters were characteristically ecstatic about the scenery.

A search found his camp at Davis Gulch in what is now Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. His burros were grazing nearby, still hobbled. His food and equipment were in camp. His journal was gone. Carved into a doorway of an Anasazi ruin at the site was the word "NEMO" — the pseudonym he had recently adopted.

Decades of searches found no remains. In 2009, a team of researchers announced that they had identified bones found in a canyon as Ruess's through DNA comparison — but subsequent independent analysis of the bones found they likely belonged to a Navajo man, not Ruess. The mystery was not solved. Several books and films have been dedicated to the story of Everett Ruess, who has become an icon of the romantic lone wanderer.