by W. L. Rusho
Following are most of the extant letters written by Everett from June 1930 until his disappearance in November 1934. They were addressed to his parents or brother or to a small circle of friends. A few of these friends are poorly identified, some only by a first name. An occasional letter lacks even a salutation. The bulk of the collection, however, has been carefully preserved by the Ruess family for fifty years and is in very good condition.
Editing has been kept to a minimum so as to retain the flavor and the continuity of the narrative.
None of the replies—the letters sent to Everett—are included for the simple reason that none exist. The single exception is his father’s reply to some philosophical questions, 10 December 1933. Apparently he destroyed the others in preference to carrying them around in his pack outfit. In his own writing, however, Everett rarely referred to letter comments from others; his focus remained on nature and on his reaction to it. All of this is, of course, our gain in that his letters speak not just to one person, but to us all—now as well as then.
Why did he work so hard on his letters? Obviously he wished to make an impression on his correspondents. More important is that he sought to capture in writing his intense, highly subjective impressions from the landscape. He sometimes complained of the inadequacy of words, but he succeeded with “mere words” far better than he could have realized.
Cypress Grove, Carmel. Blockprint by Everett Ruess.
Pledge to the Wind
Onward from vast uncharted spaces,
Forward through timeless voids,
Into all of us surges and races
The measureless might of the wind.
Strongly sweeping from open plains,
Keen and pure from mountain heights,
Freshly blowing after rains,
It welds itself into our souls.
In the steep silence of thin blue air,
High on a lonely cliff-ledge,
Where the air has a clear, clean rarity,
I give to the wind...my pledge:
“By the strength of my arm, by the sight of my eye,
By the skill of my fingers, I swear,
As long as life dwells in roe, never will
Follow any way but the sweeping way of the wind.
I will feel the wind’s buoyancy until I die;
I will work with the wind’s exhilaration;
I will search for its purity; and never will I
Follow any way but the sweeping way of the wind.”
Here in the utter stillness,
High on a lonely cliff-ledge,
Where the air is trembling with lightning,
I have given the wind my pledge.
—poem by Everett Ruess
At the early age of sixteen, in the summer of 1930, Everett ventured away from his Los Angeles home on his first extended solo trip. Draped with a bedroll and a huge backpack, he hitchhiked up the coast to Carmel and camped out by the Pacific Ocean.
June 28
Dear Mother and Father,
Arrived safely at Morro Bay last night after riding with nine people, including a sailor’s wife, a druggist, a salesman, and a dishwasher. I slept in the middle of a pocket in the sand dunes, building my fire just at dusk. I found that we had eliminated so many things that there wasn’t much to eat. In the morning my blankets were very wet with fog and dew. I rode back to San Luis Obispo with the druggist’s employer, and I am writing this in one of his stores. I am about to leave for Carmel now.
Love from Everett
Within two days of his arrival, Everett wrote in the next letter, “I went to Edward Weston’s studio and made friends with him.” Edward Weston was one of America’s most famous and successful photographers. From Everett’s unhesitating approach to Weston, and from similar events later, it seems that Everett had little natural reticence toward photographers, painters, musicians, writers, Indian traders, cowboys, or Navajos. It has been said that this boldness was a Ruess family trait, but more likely it was but a component of Stella’s aggressive, positive attitude toward anything artistic, which Everett simply copied.
June 30
Carmel
Dear Mother,
I had a jolly time yesterday, tramping up and down the beach. Then I sat in a throne-like place on a rock that was out in the ocean. I didn’t leave until a huge breaker came and splashed over me.
In the afternoon I hiked around the town until now I know it pretty well. I walked a mile or so to the San Carlos Mission and the Carmel River. When I got back in town I went to Edward Weston’s studio and made friends with him. A man who gave me a ride near Morro Bay had told me about him. I saw a large number of his photographs. He is a very broad-minded man.[2]
Love from Everett
I slept among the pines last night. Write to General Delivery, Carmel.
July 1
Dear Father,
Yesterday I went for a walk and found that I was on the Seventeen Mile Drive. So I kept on hiking for about fifteen miles, stopping to sketch at some picturesque place. At about two o’clock it was so dark and foggy that I thought it was five o’clock. I tramped over the sand dunes and saw six deer, two does and four fawns, going along in a curious procession. They were quite tame.
I also saw two huge gray squirrels. Not following any particular route, I took one road and another and saw an interesting part of the country.
Mr. Weston invited me to supper, and I met his two sons, very nice boys. I slept in his garage, which is empty. This morning I swept it and cleaned it out.
Love from Everett
July 2
Dear Waldo [Everett’s brother],
Yesterday I had great fun with Mr. Weston’s two sons, Neil and Cole. They are both younger than I. There are two other sons who are married. Mr. Weston has a house in Los Angeles, another in Topanga Canyon, and he rents the three houses here. They are all on the same lot. One is his studio, another is where Neil and Cole sleep, and the other is where the cooking is done and Mr. Weston sleeps. There is also a girl named Sonia who does the housekeeping.
Yesterday evening Cole and I went down on his bicycle to the Carmel River and met Neil and a fat boy called Sam, who had caught the limit of trout in the river. I cooked some pancakes for everybody; then we all had bacon and trout. A short time later, we all went swimming in the river, which is quite wide at the mouth, where it goes into the ocean.
Love from Everett
July 4
Dear Mother,
Yesterday I phoned Harry and we met at Point Lobos to do some painting. We each did a marine in watercolor. Then we put our things down and hiked over the rocks. We found three starfish and a huge anemone. Then we watched all the sea lions on the rocks and listened to them barking. We threw stones at rocks down below.[3]
Later we each did another sketch. We saw a six-inch baby garter snake with a brilliant blue tail. Then we started home again. I got a ride home from a lady whose family owns Point Lobos.
That evening I had supper with the Westons and we sat around the fire while Mr. Weston read Moby Dick aloud. When Cole fell asleep we all went to bed.
I’m going out painting with Harry today.
Love from Everett
Wild Coastline. Blockprint by Everett Ruess.
The Crash of Breakers and the Roll of Stones
I awoke with a quiver, nerves tautly on edge. It came again, what had wakened me—the harsh, weird scream of a grey gull swooping low above me in the darkness. A heavy, clinging fog had set in, making the place indescribably desolate. Nothing was visible. I was alone, on the tip of a solitary, knife-edged point of land, which, through some queer whim, I had selected for my resting place that night. My sleeping bag was wedged into a shallow crevice. On one side, the bare granite fell sheer away into the foaming sea. On the other, the rock was joined to the main promontory, but beneath, a narrow, high-vaulted tunnel had been eaten out by the ocean. A slender crevice pierced the roof through to the sky at one point. Each wave that came c
rashed far into the narrow mouth of the cavern, and a swift rush of cold air and spray was shot out of the vent at the top, as if from a bellows.
Behind me, I could hear the low moaning and the mournful crash of breakers, and the roll of stones as the waves turned back from the beach. Once more I heard the sea gull’s scream, fainter, and queerly remote. Then a shrill, high wind sprang up, shearing through the fog like an unseen knife. In a moment, all was glassy clear. The full moon illumined far-off whitecaps and the thundering cresters that shattered to spray in the tunnel, sending the expelled air whistling past my face.
Again I heard the sea gull’s spectral shriek, almost inaudible. I closed my eyes and slept.
—From an Everett Ruess essay
Under the Sea
Flashing between curved sea plants in the sand
There darts a shining company of fish.
Swirling through the sea’s green depths they go,
Gleaming like silver ripples in a pool
That dance and sparkle in the moon’s cold light.
Then they are gone, as quickly as they came,
And the wildly waving seaweeds move
More slowly and at last are still once more.
Now through the silent forests of the sea
There slowly drifts in shimmering radiance
A lustrous jellyfish. Suddenly,
From pale pink opalescence swiftly changed,
It turns translucent and is almost gone,
Only to gleam once more, far off, against
Black rocks where shadowy forms move hazily.
There at last it melts into the distance—
Ghostlike, drifting slowly out of sight.
—Everett Ruess
July 14
Dear Father,
I have just received your letter of the sixteenth, including the check, for which I thank you. I have received a dollar for the blockprints so far. One of them will be published next week. I have made two dollars caddying and fifty cents gardening. I am going to saw some wood tonight.
I have just finished doing my wash this morning. Now I am going in to Monterey to save some money on shoe leather. I’ve tried to reach Miss Graham, but the telephone was silent. I shall see her as soon as I get back from Big Sur next week.
As to food, I have consumed four loaves of bread, three jars of peanut butter, and about twelve pints of milk since I have been here. I also have eaten several cans of corn and peas, and about five boxes of breakfast food.
That is fine about Mother’s blockprints and the poetry magazine cover. There is money in Art if you know how to find it.
Yesterday, Leon Wilson [Harry Leon Wilson, Jr.] and I went out sketching on the rocks near Point Lobos. We went swimming in the icy waters of the Pacific, and explored several caves, swimming completely through the peninsula. Some of the caves were quite large, with high, arched roofs. Others were so low that you had to choose your time to swim them. One moment a wave would surge against me, and I would be stationary while I swam. Then a swell would roll up behind me and carry me about twenty feet. We were almost numb when we got out. When we got back to a small sandy beach from which we had started, I lit a fire and we dried ourselves.
Wishing you financial luck,
Love from Everett
July 24
Dear Father, Mother, and Waldo,
Last Sunday I went over to Harry’s house, and we went fishing together. However, we caught nothing but a couple of sea urchins. I read part of a book, The Legend of the Glorious Adventures of Tyll Ulenspiegel.
On Saturday night I was invited by Mrs. Greene to the play at the Forest Theatre, Over the Fairy Line. It was a pretty good children’s play. Mrs. Greene had been given several tickets, but her family didn’t feel like going.
On Monday morning I left for Big Sur, with a pack weighing about fifty pounds, with the blankets. I got a ride from the bridge over the Carmel River to Highlands Inn, four miles away. Then I walked a couple of miles, and got a ride in a lumber truck for ten miles, as far as Glen Deven. It was very cold and windy. The road is extremely mountainous. On most of it, there is not room for two cars to pass.
After the truck ride, I walked a couple of miles until I came to where the road made a long loop inland, to avoid a canyon. Across from me, I could see where the mountain was carved out, and I thought it was the road. Down below, at the oceanside, was a small beach. I decided to eat my lunch there.
So I slid and slipped and tumbled down the mountain ’till I came to a valley at the bottom, through which a small stream meandered. At the beach there were large quantities of driftwood, probably from some wreck. I ate my lunch perched on the arch of a small cave, under which the sea came splashing in. Below me were many brown seaweeds, waving their strands with every motion of the sea, and writhing like octopi.
I started up the mountainside. The angle was about 110 degrees. If I had stood up straight, I would have fallen backwards, overbalanced by my pack. It was a very tortuous climb, but I finally got up, only to find that what I had mistaken for the road was only a path. As I walked along it, I noticed a very large hummingbird moth, with a gray body and orange stripes.
After regaining the road, I hiked on for some distance, until I came to a valley, at the bottom of the Little Sur grade. After a pause, I started up, and entered the redwood forest. I passed a derrick and some men working on the road. A few of them were convicts.
At about four o’clock I was just entering the densest part of the redwood forest. I got a ride from a man who lived in Monterey and was visiting his grandchildren at Big Sur. He knew all the history of the place, so it was interesting to know him. The first inhabitants here were the Spanish 100 years ago. A huge territory was given as a grant to one man. Others soon followed, but now almost all the descendants are abandoning the ranches and farms, or else they are dying out.
The road was very difficult indeed to make. The first settlers had to do it all with pick and shovel, and lay it out without surveying instruments. The country is almost inaccessible by water, as the shores are too rocky. Out on the ocean, I could see a wreck of a Japanese boat which had been there for three months.
Finally arriving at Big Sur (the post office, that is) I made my camp beside the river (also Big Sur) and prepared my supper. I picked up a stone for my fireplace, and there was a large snake under it. I cooked a can of peas, but in removing them from the fire, I burned my fingers and spilled most of the peas. Soon after, I started to crawl into my blankets and wind them around me. Just at that moment, a man with four small boys and girls arrived.
It turned out that I had camped on the wrong side of the river, as one side was semi-public while the other was private. But, since I had already camped, the man said it would be alright for me to spend the night there. Soon after, I was asleep beneath the sycamores and alders.
Tuesday morning, I hid my pack under an oak tree, and hiked to the ocean. For a long distance, along the beach, there were inner tubes scattered here and there, washed up from the wreck. All were broken across or punctured by the seawater, but the rubber was unharmed.
I made a watercolor under the most difficult conditions I have yet endured. The wind blew sand into my paint and on my picture all the time I was painting. The sand is still stuck to the picture, and produced an interesting effect, but I don’t think there will be much color left on the picture when the sand comes off.
Later in the day, I climbed up in the mountains, following little canyons filled with very picturesque oak trees. I sketched a few of them. There were also clumps of redwoods and sycamores. In many places, the ground was covered with thistles.
One time when I stopped to contemplate some oak trees, a curious little hummingbird flew by within an inch of my face, and perched on a twig a foot away. At night I camped above the highway in a little hollow.
I got back to Carmel by noon. Then I went to the Weston’s house, and Neil and Cole and I went down to the beach to meet Mr. Weston, who was photographing
kelp. Then we continued up the coast. We finished up by having sixty starfish in one small pool. They were of all sizes, and colored red, brown, purple, blue, yellow, and vermilion.
Love from Everett
August 1
Dear Father, Mother, and Waldo,
I am leaving for Yosemite this Sunday, and thence I will go to Mono Lake. I have earned $14 this week, $12 of it in three days. I don’t intend to waste any more time on money, this summer, but will spend the test of it painting and traveling.
Another of my blockprints was used by the Carmelite, and I am going to cut one for it today.
At the Criley place there were large coveys of baby quail. Every few minutes, I would see a shadow pass by on the ground below me (I was up working in the pine trees), and the mother quail would cluck in alarm. She would tell her chicks to stay still until the hawk passed by. No doubt the hawks got several of them.
Love from Everett
August 5
Dear Family,
Yesterday night, at sunset, I arrived in Yosemite. The valley hardly seemed real at first.
I forgot to tell you that some tramp found my pack in Carmel and ate a pound jar of peanut butter on the spot, as well as half a box of Pep. He did not molest anything else.
I found a camping place in Camp Seven, made my bed and had supper. Then I went over to another camp where the rangers and some of the campers were giving an entertainment. There was a large crowd. We sang some amusing songs and listened to some harmonica selections. Then a Scotchman played the bagpipes while a girl danced. He announced some different tunes, but they all sounded the same to me. I never have known such a deadly monotonous sound as the bagpipes. He wouldn’t stop playing them, it seemed.
After the firefall, I went back to my camp, but I had a very difficult time finding it in the dark.
This morning I have just bought some groceries, paying a pretty good price for them. I don’t expect to do much hiking today, but will walk around the valley and take it easy. What a relief it is to be here at last! Although the falls are mostly dry, everything is cool and green. The deer are as tame as dogs, almost. I shall have to be careful that the bears don’t find my bacon.
