National Park After Dark - The Disappearance of Everett Ruess ft. Locations Unknown Podcast

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

Today we are joined by Mike and Joe, hosts of the Locations Unknown Podcast, as we dive into one of Utah's greatest enduring mysteries. Everett Ruess was a poet, artist, and writer who had dreams of leaving modern society behind to live in and explore the American West. When his family stopped receiving letters from him, and no one heard from or had contact with Everett for months - concern mounted. Search parties scoured high and low, but were left with more questions than answers after what they discovered in the process.Follow Locations Unknown on IG @‌locationsunknown_ ,on their website Locations Unknown and subscribe to their podcast wherever you listen!For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!Skylight Calendar: Get 15% off a Skylight Calendar at SkylightCal.com/PARK Claritin: Head to claritin.com right now for a discount.Storyworth: Use our link to get $10 off your first purchase.Zocdoc: Use our link to download the Zocdoc app for free.For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Monday AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. They live inside Monday.com. So they see the full picture, my work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe, which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff,

knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sundress.

Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. Well, well, well, we're back recording for the first time in a while. Yeah, it's been on our end, I think, three weeks.

Oh, my God. This is almost a record for us. I was like a little nervous. It was like a reverse. Usually you have stage fright if we don't talk beforehand. I do get stage fright. And I felt a little. It's just, it's weird not being in a routine, but we took a couple weeks.

Well, we took one week off for you guys. Last week, obviously, there was no episode. and we were just kind of taking a breather after we returned back from our travels. So we missed you very much and we're happy to be back. Yeah, we're happy to be back. I love a routine. So I am very thankful to be back at work. But yeah, essentially we got back from Peru and took a couple of days just to ourselves. And we're back at it today with a different type of episode, one that was highly requested for quite a while. Yeah, we have been getting a lot of recommendations and e-mails.

comments, messages on Instagram, just asking us to do a collaboration with Locations Unknown and we heard you all. And today we are going to do just that and we're going to talk about a missing person's case within Utah that is also been a highly requested case and we're finally covering it. Yeah, so Locations Unknown just in case anybody out there doesn't know who they are. They've been at it for quite a long time years before we ever even had the idea of beginning our own podcast. They started in 2018 and their two friends, Joe and Mike, who met in college, bonded over a love of the outdoors, very similar to Cassie and I. And their podcast covers specifically missing persons cases and unsolved disappearances. So I know that we cover those from time to time.

That is their bread and butter. That is all they do. So we had the thought of having them cover one of the cases that you guys have been asking us to cover. So, Two birds one stone type of thing. Yeah. We got to learn. We got to laugh, listen to some stories, and now it's your turn. So without further ado, we would love to welcome Joe and Mike to National Park After Dark. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to National Park After Dark. I am Danielle, and I have Cassie with me as always. Hello, hello. But today we're doing something a little bit different. We have a highly requested guest pod on, and that is Locations Unknown. So Joe and Mike, would you like to introduce yourselves? Sure. Well, I'm Mike, and this is Joe. Say hi, Joe.

Hi, Joe. So we're the co-host of Locations Unknown. We've been doing this since 2018. Joe and I are avid hikers, climbers. Before I had two little kids, I had spent over a decade backpacking around the US, Canada, hitting every national park I could. Joe's, you know, got a little more international hiking under his belt and then, you know, Peru and Africa. So, I don't know, tell us a little about what you've been doing. Yeah, so just like Mike, so we met in college and we just fell in love with the outdoors. I think we both were camping beforehand, but when we got together, we got a small group of

our friends that just decided to do like a yearly trip. We'd plan one big trip. And the ideal was to go where no one else. is going. So when you go to national parks, you're always in the touristy areas that's crowded, and it's just, it's commercialized. And it doesn't feel like you're in the outdoors. So we always try to go backcountry hiking. And I'm sure you guys are familiar at that. If some of our listeners aren't by now, it's just when you have to get special permits and you go really far away and you have to carry all your food, all of your tents, everything you bring with you because you have to

survive out in the wilderness. So we would do sometimes a week, sometimes two weeks, out in the middle of nowhere and that's really like the best vacation ever it's a lot of work but we always had a lot of some scares my first hike i ever did we did a multi-week in canyon lands and we ran out of water on like the third day and we're without water for almost two days and yeah back in the early days when we didn't know what we were doing yeah and uh you know thankfully one of the guys in our group was um ex-military and you know he could read topographic maps and got us out of we're in the maize district of canyon lands and yeah, it was a little hairy.

But that was, yeah, my first experience hiking. I probably should have stopped after that. That was your first hiking trip? Yeah. That was over 10 years ago. I'm surprised you kept going. Yeah. Well, we figured we got the tough one out of the way and we survived.

So, I mean. It's only uphill from here. Yeah, it's only positive after that one. Yes. But yeah, it was brutal. But yeah, I love it. You know, sometimes you think like, man, I could be on a beach somewhere drinking like a mojito but um that's boring what's the fun in that i know i know right so

you can only do that for so long yeah yeah so the show really came about um mike mike was really the impetus for it he was always into the missing four-one-one books and the stories um and had a website going about people that were gone missing but whenever we do the backcountry trips the one i remember the most we were at glacial national park it was the bear danger trip where we got stuck with the rangers because there's bears attacking people we could tell that story later that was funny. So anyway, we're getting our permits to go and the Rangers like, oh, the trail you're taking in the last three months, there's been about four people that have gone missing.

So if you see any signs, you don't have to get out early, but if you find clothing or anything, mark it on the map so we can go search where they are. And we're kind of like, oh, crap. Like, what happened to these people? And they're like, well, we don't know. We haven't found them yet. They're like, okay. So when you're out in the back country, you don't have cell service.

You don't have anything to do. What do you talk about? well, we were discussing essentially these cases. Like, where did they go? Who were they? I think one of the guys was a photographer. So we're like, okay, he was on this trail. There's a really beautiful waterfall here.

I probably would have gone there. So we would hike to the waterfall and be like, okay, maybe he went up there to shoot a picture and he could have fell. So we would have these discussions. Then afterwards we'd come out. We'd go hit a bar and get some real food and we'd continue talking about it and talking about it. So I was meeting with Mike and we're in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

I was meeting with him at a bar one time. Like, we should just start recording these. Yeah. It wasn't like meant to be a big show really, but it was more, hey, we have a lot of hiking friends. They like hearing the stories that we tell. Let's just record it and we'll kind of keep it a local thing. And it just started really taken off. There wasn't anything like it in the space at the time because what was it, five or six years ago?

2018. So. Yeah. A while ago. And we've always wanted it to be to the show to feel like you're just sitting around a bar with your friends talking about, you know, hiking. People going missing. People going missing. And, you know, just keeping it, you know, authentic Joe and I've known each other.

for long over 20 years yes um so uh you know just keeping it authentic um you know we always try to be as respectful as possible to the the people we're talking about i'm sure i'm sure you've probably run into issues where you know we've had family members vast majority of the time will message us and thank us for i think there was one that didn't continuing you talking about you know they're missing loved one but once in a while you do get family members that um don't appreciate you uh you know talking about it So you got to really go into it with respect and realize this is somebody's mom or dad or son or daughter. Well, how would you feel if you were in their shoes? So it is kind of a fine line you have to tread.

But overall, you know, the vast majority of people I think are grateful that their story is still being told. Yeah, it keeps the memory alive. It does. And it's a combination of one of morbid curiosity, which I think is the side that people get upset about. But the other half of that is talking about it. And some of these stories, when you hear them and you learn things and you know when it's going on and you hear dates, that's when new information surfaces. Because people are like, oh, hey, I was there that day. I saw something or I know someone who saw something.

And that's how you get the word out. And I mean, it brings knowledge to people who might not have known about it before. Oh, yeah. In these cases are so fascinating. So we've covered cases where it's literally like the person was. there and then just vanished into thin air. I mean, some of the cases, it sounds crazy to say that, but what Joe and I will go through theories at the end of a case and we'll cover all of the, like, we call them off the deep end.

When you go into like the paranormal where we don't necessarily believe it, but like, hey, there's no other reason. So did they get abducted? They get sucked in the mountain. Who knows? Might as well talk about it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's that curiosity for a lot of these cases because, you know, they're all unsolved

for the most part. You know, the person's still missing. and every normal theory that we've come up with just doesn't explain. There might be one piece of the puzzle that doesn't, you know, flesh out for that theory. And I think that's the draw, too, for why shows like your show National Park After Dark and locations unknown. And there's a ton more of those shows now than there were when we started. But yeah, people just can't get enough of that. There's just so much mystery in a lot of these cases.

And I love talking about them. Human beings like to resolve things and these are unresolvable. So it's just always open-ended. Yeah. I always tell people, I try and be honest. I'm like, if you listen to our show, I'm going to summarize every single episode. Somebody went missing. Here's all the information.

Nobody knows what happened next episode. Like, that's kind of what it is, but they're all just different enough and they have enough, like some of them, you get so close to understanding what happened. And then there'll be a piece that just points you in another direction that it's very compelling. Well, and I guess you won't ramble on too much longer. But growing up, I always like the, uh, the show Survivor Man. So I kind of like mixing in in the beginning of the episode, you know, some information about the location, you know, what to do. We've covered what to do

if you get lost, what to do in the event of a bear attack or, you know, what to do if you have a snake bite, you know, different tips to kind of help people get out there and hike safely. And we've gotten a lot of responses from people that, you know, we have a phone number that people can call and leave a voicemail. And a lot of times we'll get voicemails from people like, you know, thanks for doing the, you know, the show. You've really got me like back out into the woods hiking and now I know, you know, what to do. And, you know, we've had one listener that normally didn't leave itineraries and they actually ended up saving them because they had to get rescued and they left their it. They knew where they were.

And they're like, I did it because of your show. So like, we have one confirmed save. Yeah. That's amazing. One is like you can be happy. Exactly. Yeah. Was it leave the itinerary in the window of your car?

Just with friends and family. Just tell people where you're going to be. Like, that's like if you, I don't tell people you have to go with somebody else. But if you can go with somebody else and let people know exactly we're going to go and then don't deviate. That's like the biggest thing you can do aside from knowing what you're doing when you're out there. Yeah. And then we obviously end every episode by just saying leave no trace because, you know, I wanted. And it's ironic.

Yeah, ironically. Leave no trace, but we need to be able to find you. Yes. Yeah. So maybe leave a little. trace. But yeah, you know, it really bugs me when you go hiking, you see trash, you know, along the trail. So, like, we out, you know, we stress kind of, you know, preserve these amazing parks we have so our kids and their kids and their kids can enjoy it down the road. So, you know, there's kind of a bit

of a, you know, push to, you know, protect the wilderness as well as enjoy it. So we always try to stress that aspect of it to, you know, especially like stay on trail. A lot of parks have, you know, very sensitive habitat that they're trying to, you know, get to grow and spread. And you go trampling around over that and you, you know, you wreck their hard work and you might damage a lot of, like, sensitive ecosystems. Yeah, you're ruining for everybody else. Yeah, and you just stay on trail. Yeah. So, unless you're, yeah, unless you have a permit to do it. So, yeah. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories and the book to screen favorites you've already

read twice. Off campus. L. Every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. Yeah, so I mean, that's kind of a quick summary of the show and why we're doing it. Yeah, well, I can certainly see why our audience align so much and why you have been recommended so many times to us for your podcast because we have a lot of the same underlying messages behind these stories and when you were telling the story of how you both started

your podcast, it's very similar to how Danielle and I started. The podcast too, we used to actually, we're from Southern New Hampshire and we used to go up to the White Mountains to do a lot of hiking trips up there and it took a few hours. So the drive to entertain ourselves or just educate ourselves, we would look up cases or interesting, weird things that have happened in the locations were going or like nearby and we would go through affidavits and indictments and whatever we could find on our drive up to the mountains and then we would get on the trails. Just before going to the same spot by yourselves. Yeah.

And then it morphed in the podcast. Yes. So has any of this deterred you guys from hiking or does it affect you at all? We get that question a lot. I would say for me personally, I am a nervous person to begin with. And I feel like not so much all around. It's more so the animal encounter stories that we have covered just because of the location. I mean, growing up in New Hampshire, obviously we have Black Bear and moose and things like that.

But I've moved over the years to the Pacific Northwest in Colorado and places that have a little bit beefier of apex predators. And that makes me just kind of a little bit more nervous when I'm hiking. I'm not as comfortable solo hiking than I used to be. And I think a lot of it has to do with the show and just learning and researching. But at the same time, obviously, you don't want it to be a deterrent because recreating outdoors just bring so much joy and happiness and peace. So it's kind of a fine line. But I think it's better to be informed than to be blissfully unaware.

I agree completely. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, in the reality of it, people that go missing and don't get found is pretty rare. Yeah. I mean, our show and your show and a lot of those shows talk about, that's all they talk about. Yeah, we're taking a small percentage and putting them all together. So it looks like it happens more than it does.

Yeah, when you're talking about, you know, millions, tens of millions of visits to national parks every year. Most of those visits are in and out, the people are happy and had a good memory of the park. So we stress that too, like, so people don't just freak out and think, like, you go to the park. That could be our overall goal to thin the parks out. So there's less people when we go. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. So your podcast obviously just covers, I mean, like I just kind of alluded to, we do,

we sprinkle in a different theme of episode week to week. But you guys obviously just focus on missing persons within wild spaces. Yeah, that's the majority. Yeah. And there's a, I know you guys have a case for us today in a little bit. But I just had to ask before we get into that. Because you've been doing this for so many years and you've covered so many of these cases, is there one in particular that's stuck with you the most?

You go first, unless you're thinking. I'm thinking. I'll go. This one is funny because we do mostly those. We'll throw in, we've tried different things just for fun because me and Mike always say, we're going to do stuff that we want to do because this is a fun thing for a student. As soon as this feels like a job, I don't want to do it anymore. So we'll do like the famous paranormal stories from each state sometimes.

We'll just do like three from each state. We did one where it was her name was Gwen Hasslequist. It's one of my favorite cases. It was a four-part series we did that we're convinced she was murdered. It was ruled a suicide. And it's still open. And since airing the show, we've gotten in FedEx deliveries of cases of boxes and things that people refuse to go on the record because they're afraid of her

ex-husband that they think did it. And it's friends of the husband. It's all these people that think he murdered her. This was, he's out. I'm, hold on. Hold on. Oh, yeah. But they'll send us text messages, screenshots and all this information that we can't share because

they're saying, I need to remain anonymous. And if you share this with your guests, they're going to know it's from me because they're that close to it. So we've had family members, friends call in and we have all this stuff. And we're, I mean, Mike, you've reached out, done freedom of information act requests. We've reached out to the police departments to try and reopen the case because we have have legitimate stuff that could be used to help further the case, and it's not moving. And we

have people constantly mailing us, and we just can't move the ball forward. Yeah, and this case is definitely out of our real house of normal cases. But a friend of ours, who's a lawyer, one of his friends, reached out to him about this case and asked if we could cover it just because it wasn't getting any traction. And it happened during COVID, the beginning parts of COVID out in Washington. And yeah, I mean, all of the evidence points towards foul play, but, you know, we won't get into the details of it. But yeah, it was really interesting. We did a multi-part. We interviewed her sister. And we've, yeah, we've tried to, we've filed FOIA requests. We've called the police department coroner, everyone we could. And we're kind of, you know,

at a dead end now. Yeah. It was like died of COVID, didn't die of COVID, then the dog died of COVID. Then they found the body. Then the guy was married a month later to a woman from Africa. Then he was moving out of the country. Now his kids are living in Wisconsin. It's weird. There's a lot of wild stuff. And everyone's like, that's a suicide. No, look the other way. Yeah. So that one sticks with me. That's yours. That's mine. And it's relatively recent, too, because you're saying COVID. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. One of my favorite cases was we did one last year, Randy Morgensen. He was the backcountry park ranger with 28 years of experience that went missing in King's Canyon National Park. And was he like special forces, then a park ranger or something? He was Army Ranger or something like that.

No, no, no, that was Kim Crumbo. Okay. That's a different guy. But no, it's just a really interesting case. Someone that experienced could just go, you know, could still go missing. So that, you know, that's one of the cases that kind of stands out for me that I find interesting. But I mean, every one of these cases is interesting. I could talk about them all night. Yes. Well, we know that you have one today. That's brand new that we have had requested quite a bit over the last couple of years.

But it's just always been on our, I know how you, you probably know how we feel this list, never-ending list of topics and cases and episode ideas. So it's on there. But when we decided to do this collaboration, we just thought that this. This was like the perfect kind of crossover area for an episode. So without further ado, I'm really interested because people have suggested it and I know very little about it. But it seems really intriguing. Yeah. So this one, I'm not going to do our normal intro.

So if you've listened to our show, we have like all the music and stuff and do this thing. But this is the case of Everett Ruiz. He was a young artist and writer and explorer who set out after high school to navigate Native American quiff dwellings near Escalante National Monument. It was November 20th, 1934. He was a genuine explorer. He would go off and preferred to live in the wild. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. But basically, he was expected to be out of contact for a few months from his parents.

And when he stopped writing after those few months, they went out searching. And they found basically instances of places he've been, but they've never recovered him yet. So what Mike's going to do, what we typically do, he's going to go over what we call a location profile. So he'll talk about the area where the cases. is based. Sometimes we'll do fun facts. We'll do safety things in the area, what you would expect if you were to be hiking in that area. And like you said, Mike was hiking in that area before. So we'll give sometimes firsthand experience of what it's like. And then we'll talk about Everett. And then as much of the case info as we have, and then we will all just kind of discuss what we think could

have happened. So we'll jump, yeah, we'll jump right into locations. So he went missing, they think, in an area called Davis Gulch, which is in the Glen Canyon National Recreation area. area. It's pretty big. It's 1.25 million acres, so it makes it slightly larger than Grand Canyon National Park. It's kind of centered right in the middle of several really cool parks. So borders Capitol Reef National Park, Canyonlands National Park, which I've hiked the Grand staircase Escalante National Monument, Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, and it does border a bit of Grand Canyon National Park and the Navajo Nation. So a lot going on in the borders of this area. Davis Gulch is in Utah and Glenn Canyon is in Utah, Arizona.

Established on October 27th of 1972. It sees about 5.2 million visitors a year as of 2023. As Joe said, sometimes you sprinkle in some just fun facts. I only have a couple here, but I didn't know this, but Salt Lake City, Utah is home to the nation's leading manufacturer of rubber chickens. So that's very interesting. That is a fun fact. Yeah, I had no idea. Why?

Yeah. Who knows? They're dry, aren't they? Like, they can't drink alcohol? Is that Utah? No, that's the Mormons. It's not all Utah. Not all.

Okay. Yeah. But there are a lot of Mormons in Utah. But maybe that has something to do with that. So, like, we're like, we're just going to make chickens. I don't know. I mean, there's obviously. Rubber chickens instead of alcohol.

Yes. Yeah. I mean, there's a demand for it, I guess. I don't know who buys rubber chickens. But another fun fact. Yeah. We'll Google that later. So approximately.

75 million years ago, Utah was part of a landmass called Lermidia. The landmass was hot, swampy, and full of dinosaurs, which makes Utah one of the best places in the U.S. to find fossils. In fact, the world's largest raptor lived in Utah, known as the Utah Raptor, measured over 23 feet long, making it larger than any other known raptor. And that sounds terrifying. Yes. So. A 23-foot-long raptor. No, thank you.

Yeah. I'm glad we live now and not 75 million years. hiking. So normally in episodes, we'll spread this piece out, but we kind of condensed it for time's sake. So we'll just jump into kind of the climate, a high level overview. So the weather in Glen Canyon is usually summers are extremely hot with little, if any shade, winters are moderately cold with nighttime lows off and below freezing. Definitely felt this when I was hiking in Canyonlands. The sweat just kind of evaporates. It's so dry. It just evaporates right off of you. And you don't realize you're getting dehydrated because you're not like all sweaty.

It's just it's that kind of hot and dry. That's a big thing too. People think you got to wear like short sleeves and exposed skin and that's like the worst. You want to cover all that up. We always say, you know, what did like John Wayne wearing those old Westerns? They're not wearing, you know, shorts and you don't want this. Just light colored clothes, light clothing that covers you. No black clothing.

No, nothing that absorbs light. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So spring weather is highly variable and unpredictable with extended periods of wind. Fall weather is usually nice and mild. And it's usually a good time to get out there and kind of beat the heat. Temperatures can range from 110 degrees Fahrenheit in July to zero in December and January.

And they get very little rain, usually less than six inches annually. And a lot of times that rain all falls relatively close together in what usually they call kind of like the monsoon period. So yeah, it's a cool area to hike. You really got to know where, you know, where you're going to get your water from if you go hike it. Canyonlands, there are some little, I guess, geysers that were marked in the ranger station that are usually flowing. So there are spots where you can fill up, but you really got to take a lot of water with you.

Yeah, and always talk to the rangers. They know if rivers are flowing, if they've dried up. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you always want to, if there's a ranger station, stop in and talk to them. It's always good to just get a lay of the land and, you know, get. you understand what's going on. So animals you might find in the park,

there are four species of venomous rattlesnakes. Those are the only snakes in the park that are venomous to humans. Bobcats, coyotes, gray fox, big horn sheep, three species of bats, 106 species of birds. And if you're not a fan of arachnans, they've got a few of those. They've got the desert tarantula, the Western Black Widow, giant crab spider, the Arizona bark scorpion. the black hairy scorpion, to name a few.

Oh, man. Glad I didn't know that when I was in Canyonlands. Joe, you've been bit by a scorpion. I got stung by a scorpion before it's not fun. Not fun. It doesn't sound it. No. No.

So real quickly, before Joe gets on to the character profile and timeline, I'm just going to go through some kind of tips to make your hike through Glen Canyon a little more enjoyable and make sure you don't become an episode on our show. So one of the things you got to worry about is lightning. So desert thunderstorms carry double the threat because they have flash floods and lightning. So if you've ever been hiking in anywhere with canyons, flash floods are something to be very mindful of. You know, I can't remember because we've canyered in one of the areas near here too. But it could be raining, you know, 10.

In Zion? Yeah, Zion. It could be raining 10 or 15 miles away. And there could be a flash flood risk in the canyon you're in if you're down. screaming of that. So you just got to keep an eye on the weather report. That's where we listened to the weather essentially. We were canyering in Zion and in the Ranger Station, they said, you're going to want to be out of there by noon because there's rain to the north or something like that. It was like two days they're telling us. Like we were the last permitted group to go in. Yeah. So we're like, okay,

let's get out by 10 because we don't want to be last minute. And there was a group of five or six that went in after us and they all died. Yeah. It was the most death that Zion had in its entire history was in the night we were there. And because they just got so much rain and they got caught while they're in the slot canyons with all the flash flood. Yeah. We were up on the north rim during the storm and it was like, I mean, sideways rain and it was wild.

It was wild. What year was this? Oh, man. When did we do Zion 2015 maybe? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was big news because, uh, yeah, I actually, I like got onto the top of a plateau and got

cell signal just to call home because there were, I knew it was going to be on the news and I have a big Italian family. So they, I, like, my head I told the guys is like everyone in my family is going to be calling Cassie if they see this on the news. Cassie's my wife so not you. And just say, isn't Joe there? Isn't he? And, you know, make her words. I have to get in touch with her and tell her I'm okay because we knew what had happened. And it made national news because remember just South, it hit a Mormon town and killed like two vanfuls of kids. Like the flooding was so bad. Yeah, it did a van got swept away.

Yeah. It had like Mormon school children on it. Yeah, it was really bad. There was a lot of people died that day. The sad part about it was the people that were canyering that passed away in this were all very experienced and they were told by their climbers coming out of the canyon that told them to turn around. Yeah. And said, you should not go in there. There's bad weather coming and they didn't heed the advice. And unfortunately, what happened happened. But yeah, it's just, you know, flash flooding is no joke. Everyone thinks, oh, it's just water fast. Like, no, it takes cars with it. It's powerful. Yeah, when we were hiking inside, I mean, it's scary. It is scary. You, um, what was the top down hike we did?

Uh, the, um, the narrows. The narrows. We did the narrows top down. And when you're, it was like just a little trickle of water and except that one spot where we had to swim, but you can see the water line and you see these boulders the size of like ground buses that and they've, there's trees wedged into the wall. Like they're like piercing the wall. Like someone stabbed the rock with a tree.

Like that's how forceful it is. It's pretty, pretty gnarly. Yeah. And you would, you would not want to be down there. No. Yeah. It wouldn't be fun. But yeah.

So just, you know, keep an eye in the weather. and listen to, you know, park rangers and other people around there. If they say, you know, turn around, listen to them. Obviously, drink plenty of water. You know, you can lose large amounts of water in real dry air like that. And, you know, it's recommended to at least have it one gallon or four liters of water per person per day. So, and, you know, I would bring more if you can. It's heavy and it's a lot of weight, but you'll be glad you did it.

Yeah. Obviously, we talked about how to dress, you know, areas like this, but also, you know, one thing to do, we tried to do this in Canyonlands is, you know, don't necessarily hike during the peak heating of the day. So, you know, maybe take a break between 11 and 2 and find somewhere shady and just, you know, have some water, eat some food and just relax and then hit the trail, you know, get up before the sun comes up and hike, take a break and then, you know, hike until, you know, dusk. But if you can avoid hiking in the peak heat of the day, that's the best, especially in places like this, you know, and then finally just kind of

understand the symptoms of heat stroke and hypothermia, which you can get in a desert. So heat stroke is caused by prolonged exposure to high temperatures or by doing physical activity in hot weather. Symptoms include high body temperature, lack of sweating, flush skin, rapid breathing, and unconsciousness. And hypothermia is obviously when your body loses heat fast and that can replace heat. And it can occur in temperatures above freezing. Symptoms include uncontrollable shivering, slower slurred speech, memory lapses and incoherent. and exhaustion. So those are things you want to look out for if you're hiking.

Yeah, people don't think about that one in the desert. It gets really cold at night. So you got to be prepared for it. Yeah. So, Joe, why don't you go into character profile and then tell us about the timeline? So we'll talk about Everett. So he was born March 28, 1914,

and went missing presumably around November 20th, 1934. As we said earlier, it was, he was supposed to be gone for a few months, so they don't know the exact date. So he's about 20 years old when he went missing. missing. And up until that time, he spent a lot of time exploring different parts of Western America. So he was an artist, a poet, and a writer. He carried out a ton of solo explorations in the high Ceras along the California coast and most of the deserts of the American Southwest.

So at that time, that was really just kind of paving the way. Doing what he was doing at his age with the equipment that they had was crazy. But the types of things he would do, he did woodblock, watercolor, wood carvings, clay modeling. And he would try and sell him. his art to basically fund his exploration. And I didn't get too deep into what his parents did, but basically what he couldn't sell, his parents actually covered. So they really encouraged his exploration. He did have some famous mentors. He spent time with Ansel Adams, Maynard Dixon, Dorothea, Lang, and Edward Weston. So a lot of writers, Pollitz, explores. Yeah, very creative crowd. So he had a lot of really cool mentors. And his hometown, he was from L.A. He attended

UCLA and he went on four major solo journeys. So the area, the specific areas he went to, the Sierra Nevada's, Northern Arizona, Southern Utah and Southwestern Colorado. So Everett, I mean, to this day, I learned a lot about him after you guys suggested the case. I really enjoyed reading his stuff. He never wrote any books, but they turned a lot of his journals into books. And there's been songs written about him. He's kind of like the Chris McAndalus of that time. He's the, he's the one that went missing in Alaska. Yeah. It's just a very poetic, existence and a love for the outdoors and a tragic end. And he did all of this, you know, by 20. Before 20. Yeah, exactly. Wow. Yeah, so he continues to be an inspiration to young and old explorers alike,

to poets, he lived his life very much against the grain for what was common at that time. You know, people were trying to get out of that life, of, you know, getting into cities and things. And this is one of his quotes I really like. He wrote, I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it. Always, I want to live more intensely and richly. Why muck and conceal one's true longings and loves? When by speaking of them, one might find someone to understand them. And by acting on them, one might discover oneself. That's deep.

Yeah. Well, he goes on. And this one I really liked, and I tried picking out that he's so many good ones. And they, I think what carries his legacy on is when I read it, I'm like, wow, I feel like that now. He like speaks to me now from a time that was nothing like what it is today. And he wrote, as to when I shall. visit civilization, it will not be soon. I think he wrote this to his brother. I think I have not tired of the wilderness. Rather, I enjoy its beauty and the vagrant life I lead. More keenly all the time.

I prefer the saddle to the streetcar, the star sprinkled sky to the roof, the obscure and difficult trail leading into the unknown to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities. Do you blame me then for staying here, where I feel that I belong and I am one with the world around me? It is true that I'm misintelligent companionship, but there are so few with whom I can share the things that I, that means so much to me that I have learned to contain myself. It is enough that I'm surrounded with beauty. So yeah, I feel like that right now. I look outside my back window. I'm like, I don't like any of this. I want to go live out in the wilderness. Yeah, you look like you're right in the city. Oh, we're right downtown Milwaukee. Yeah.

So we have like the street corner, which it's fun when we're doing the show because people do weird stuff in the window and it makes for good content. But yeah. I have to admit, I have watched some of the people walking by you since we started this. Oh, as it gets warm out, they'll just stand there and stare at you. It's very unsettling sometimes because you don't know what they were to do. There was a guy earlier doing it. There was someone standing right behind you. I was like, what's going on over there? Yeah, we kind of feel like zoo animals in a sense. We have a festival in June summer fest. It goes for two weeks and during that time people are millions of people down there. Tons of people and a lot of them are drunk and they come by the window and do all kinds of like crazy stuff.

It's pretty fun. Yeah, they'll start yelling stuff. We're like, we're like, we're recording an episode here. At least there's a glass between you. Oh, yeah. Oh, they'll pound on it. They just start hitting it as hard as they can. Man,

it's funny. Wild over there. We drink too much here in Wisconsin, and sometimes that inebriated people don't make the best decisions. Yes. Hey, colder states are known for that. Yes.

Oh, yeah. It's the only thing you can do in the winter. Yeah. So we'll talk about a little bit of Everett's experience. Starting in 1931, he traveled by horse and donkey through Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, exploring the high desert at the Colorado Plateau. He wrote Broncos, branded calves. He investigated cliff dwellings.

He explored Sequoia in the 70 National Park. In 1934, he worked with the University of California archaeologist near Kienta and took part in Hopi religious ceremonies, and he learned to speak Navajo. So he had limited success trading his prints and watercolors to pave his way, but he was always very interested in the new cultures and kind of learning about the area and the people that lived in those communities essentially. If he hadn't gone missing, what do you think he would have accomplished?

I feel like there'd be a park named after him. He's done all of this in like three years. I know. It's crazy. And it's just off of just like a wanderlust and curiosity that I think we all feel, but he acted on it. And I'm always intrigued by those types of people.

On November 20th, 1934 is when Everett set out alone into the Utah desert with his two donkeys as pack animals. Earlier in 1934, he told his parents that he'd be unreachable for nearly two months. But after three months of, after his last correspondence, they started receiving their son's unclaimed mail. So, you know, back then, there was an email. There wasn't phone. So it's everything slow. So they wrote a letter to the post office of Escalante, Utah on February 7, 1935, and a commissioner of Garfield County, Jennings Allen, the husband of Escalante's postmistress, saw the letters and decided to form a

search party with other men in the area. They actually found. found his donkeys near the north side of Davis Gulch. They were just grazing. They were perfectly healthy and they, uh, they even said it was almost as if he had just left them. So they were healthy. They were grazing. Yeah. And the only signs of him were his donkeys in the corral he made and a cap site in Davis Gulch. And he left an inscription, uh, the search party found nearby with the words Nemo 1934. So Alan reported the discovery of the donkeys and the inscription to his parents in a letter dated March 8th, 1935. And on March 15th, after completing a last attempt to find Ruiz in the Keparoids Plateau, Alan wrote a final note to the family

saying they're calling off their search efforts. So this wouldn't be the last search that they did. Later searches occurred in May in June in 1935, including an aerial surveyed land from 12,000 feet covering the ground from Lee's Ferry to Escalante. I read that. That kind of seemed funny to me. They're 12,000 feet. I've, you know, my dad's a pilot and I've been up a lot with him. You're not going to see anything. You can't really see much for 12,000 feet. That's pretty high up. But they just had planes for the first time and they wanted to use them.

Yeah, they had no real plan. Yeah. We'll just fly around and just look over the edge of the plane. So on the ground, though, there was a party in nine horseback riders that joined a search, but was discontinued after a week. So there was one, and I put it in here, and sometimes we don't, we research this a lot. I found one instance in one article that mentioned a she, Perter reported seeing him on November 19th in 1934 near Escalante Creek in Colorado,

or where Escalante Creek flows into the Colorado River. I couldn't find any source, and it was on, there's Everettruis.net, and it's basically a website dedicated to his life. So I have no source other than it was written on that website. So you'd take that one with a grain of salt. Later, there was a discovery of a grave site on Combe Ridge near the town of Bluff, Utah, which added to the mystery. An elderly Navajo claim that Ruiz was murdered by two men, who wanted his donkeys, bones and teeth were found in the grave that allegedly matched his race, age, size, and facial features. So in April 2009, so we're getting a lot more recent now, comparison DNA from the remains of that of his nieces and nephews, and the comparison of the

skulls to photograph seemed to confirm that the remains were Everett. Two months later, though, Kevin Jones, who was a state archaeologist of Utah, advised that the remains were probably not Everett since dental records from the 30s did not match those published photographs of the body. And then on October 21st, 2009, the Associated Press reported that DNA tests conducted by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology concluded the remains were not those of Ruiz. They identified them as being likely Native American origin, a later article in National Geographic Adventure Magazine identified problems in the DNA matching software as the source of the error. However, if you go on to National Geographic, there's an article from 2009 that is different.

definitively claiming that they are the remains of Everett. Yeah. So it's like a big to do in this community of people that follow this case that there's a story that said his remains have been found. This is them. And then there's these other DNA people like, no, the methodology that you use and the software used was incorrect. And it was kind of like they rushed to get an answer because they wanted to, I think

it's when DNA really started becoming popular. They wanted to prove that like, we can solve unsolvable cases. So that is all of the information. That's why this was a great case for this episode because there's not a lot of detail there. I did want to end on almost what I would consider a foreshadowing. This is one of his poems that he wrote, say that I starved, that I was lost and weary,

that I was burned and blinded by the desert sun, foot sore, thirsty, sick with strange diseases, lonely and wet and cold, but that I kept my dream. Wow. So like that almost makes you feel like he went out there to not come back. He disappeared on purpose. Or he, I've read a ton of his poems and he talked about, there was one I didn't put in here.

It was very long, but he basically ended that said when he was old, he would rather die in the wilderness in like a terrible way than not in the wilderness essentially. Like in a nursing home. Well, or whatever they had back then, you know, just in your house. Yeah. Of some sort of terrible disease that we don't have vaccines for. So I'll run through a couple of quick theories kind of that are floating around. on the internet and then I guess we could open the floor and just start talking about the case.

So unless you either of you have theories that you want to before I mention any of these that you're already thinking about or I mean this is kind of this is a puzzling case. My first thought was when you talked about the indigenous woman who said that he was murdered and it was for his donkeys. My first question was but why were his donkeys just found if someone murdered him for the donkeys. And that was one, that's one of the theories online, um, cattle rustlers.

I had to look that up. I didn't that's cattle thieves. That was one of the theories he was killed by cattle febes. But then like you said, that makes it. They didn't take what they murdered them for. Yeah. So it was the point if that really did happen. Yeah, exactly.

So I, that theory is out. Yeah. Like that one does make sense. Yeah. We're striking that down. Officially. here now. You've heard it here first. We're cutting it. Yeah. And I had a question, I guess, regarding the inscription. And I don't know if this is coming back around in one of the theories,

but you said that they found some sort of inscription. He wrote Nemo 1934. Do we know, I guess I have two questions. Do we know for sure that he wrote that? And also, a follow-up, what does Nemo mean? Do we know anything like connected to him? There was not. nothing that I saw. Okay. And it was listed as probably left by him. And it's probably because of the remote area and it was in his camp. Okay.

So and what's the explorer? Nemo, was he in that time though? What's his name? No, I'm forgetting. He was like always at sea. I don't know. I was just looking. I think there's an explorer that has a name Nemo.

Nemo. Yeah. It's not ringing a bell. Captain Nemo. Captain. Yeah, from 1828 to 1905. I don't think he was real though. So not 19.

Yeah, he was a character created by a French novelist, Jules Verne. So maybe it was some kind of... Yeah, 20,000 leagues under the sea. That's what I'm thinking of. Yeah, it was Captain Nemo. So it could have been like a reference to like... Poetic reference to like an explorer. That's what I thought it was at first.

Okay. That's my guess. Okay. So that's my theory. Okay. So a couple other theories just quickly before we talk about the case again is a lot of people have speculated suicide by drowning in the Colorado River. Though, again, suicide? Yeah, I mean, that's one of the theories. Again, I don't, you know, nothing I've read about Everett

would strike me as someone who is suicidal. He seemed to love life and loved being out in the woods and nature. And I mean, you know, a lot of people suffer in silence with, you know, that kind of stuff. So it's possible. But that was one of the theories. Another very interesting theory that was mentioned in multiple places was he faked his death and took a Navajo, ride living the remainder of his life in private seclusion. He did mention how he wanted to learn their language. Yeah, he did learn some of it. At one point.

Took part in their traditions. I mean, I guess that's a possibility. I mean, I don't know how we would ever prove it or disprove it. Yeah. I think the most logical theory. And this is one that a lot of people were talking about was he died from exposure or a fall and fell into one of the slot canyons that's pretty narrow that wouldn't normally get a lot of foot traffic from hikers, which is why his remains have not been found yet.

Yeah, and that's 1930s foot traffic, which is nowhere near what it'd be even today. And today, it's rare. Yeah, and you're talking about, you know, all those canyons when it rains, you know, the flash floods are moving boulders, the size of, you know, buses. The remains from somebody who might fall into one of those after a flash flood will be washed away. We even, when we talked to the PIO from Joshua Tree, he mentioned remains, you know, during the monsoon season.

It being moved like half miles sometimes. Can get moved, yeah, far away from the search area. I think, I mean, I would say that is the most logical explanation. I don't know. There's probably some, you know, deep end theories. I don't know. What are you guys? What's everyone think?

Well, I guess first starting with the theories you presented, the first one, suicide by trying to drown in the Colorado, seems very violent way to end, especially. especially because your fight or flight would kick in in those final moments. And it also, I just feel like that's not a guaranteed death either. So it's just like that seems, along with his poetry is not, it doesn't sound like it's that dark and he was adventurous. So I think that that one, I don't believe that at all. Yeah.

I agree with that. I agree to. Yeah. And then as far as the marrying an indigenous woman and going off grid and out of light, out of like the light, that seems interesting to me as well because it sounds like he had a lot of big connections who shared his dreams. And it seems like he also lived a reclusive lifestyle anyway. It seems far fetch that he preferred it. Yeah. It seems like he didn't really need to disappear to live the life that he was trying to live. But if there was something where his family or someone wouldn't

have approved of a marriage like that, maybe. I need to know more information on that. I could imagine that time period probably would have issues like that. I don't know anything, but I would just imagine that, you know, it sounds like his family is more affluent. You know, they're buying his artwork when he couldn't. He's going to college and he's able to explore. You'd have money to do stuff like that back then.

I feel like there would be like a sign, though, like, hey, check out my new girlfriend and then being like, oh, no, and then him disappearing and, you know, like, I feel like there would have been something that led up to that. Yeah. Yeah. I think we need to know, yeah, more about his relationship with his family because I think that would obviously kind of steer you one way versus the other, because it seems like he was in pretty constant communication with writing back and forth to his family members throughout his different travels and expeditions throughout the years. So to even if he decided to make a life-changing decision such as marrying an indigenous woman and, you know, kind of saying goodbye to his old life, I think there would have been some

sort of communication about that or like heads up. Unless it was for the moment. Yeah, like a shock on wedding type of thing. I don't know. Yeah. But I don't know. I totally lean towards just for that reason and also kind of like you guys touched upon when contemplating the suicide, whether or not that could have been at play. I think that just he had so much based on what you shared, even just the small amount that you shared of his writings, his passion for exploration and life and adventure and finding out more of what the West in this country has to offer, I feel like to just end his own life is out. And even if he did want to go off and marry someone else, like he would have communicated that. I don't know.

I think that he definitely got into some sort of accident that ended his life. And like you said, his remains just haven't been found or maybe, you know, someone came upon them at some point but had no idea who he was. And kind of like you mentioned with that one grave, it's like we don't even know who that was. So how many people have been like, oh, yep, that's just an old grave and gone on their business. So I don't know. I think he got into an accident. I'm with Danny on this one.

Yeah. I think logically speaking, he probably had a mishap. And I mean, you have a mishap now with the technology we have today. It can be life or death. You know, back then when you're out of contact. Yeah, that and like the time that went by, like you said. it could have been around November 20th of 1935. We have no idea. So did it happen November 20th? Did it happen three months later? Like just the timeline and the gaps of missed information is just, I think it's pretty confident that unless somebody comes across something, we'll probably never know.

Yeah, basically a month after he was supposed to be back in contact, three months from then is when they started the search. So there's four months from when he was supposed to be back that they even. started looking. And we're talking, you know, a search and rescue operation. Yeah. Yeah, from 19, the 1930s. Yeah. Obviously, search techniques have gotten very, you know, sophisticated in present day. But back then, I mean, you read about, you know, some guys on horseback. They're flying at 12,000 feet. I mean, I'm sure everyone searching was very, like, they wanted, like, they were doing the best they could, wanted to find him. But I just think probably the search methods used back then. It was probably just ride around. Yeah. I mean, like, look, like no grid pattern.

Maybe his remains were still present in the area at the time, but the search was just inadequate for, you know, just inadequate. And then, you know, flash floods come in. I think all bets are off. It's going to wash away any remains and scatter them. I really think it had to be probably a freak accident because we're talking about someone who's super experienced. And, I mean, he made a corral in a camp so good as donkey survived by themselves for four months. Yeah. Essentially, like, all of his stuff was still there.

So, like, he knew what he was doing. Yeah. So it had to have been. A lot of time we deal with these cases where it's you can tell the people are just not experienced and getting in over their heads. With him, I feel like it definitely had to be some sort of freak accident or, you know, the lower percentage came across someone he shouldn't have. Well, even the most experienced people, you know, we cover that case in the Maroon Bells. Yeah. With that really experienced climber that went missing.

I mean, he was really experienced. And so that just tells you that happens. It happens. And it can happen anyone. And I think this, I mean, this guy sounds like he did more in three or four years of his life than, you know, most people do in their entire lives, which is really cool. I mean, yeah, I would love, I would love to live that life. But yeah, I think, I think we're all in agreement. I think the logical theory is some mishap. And that area is so remote. I mean, I've ever hiked it. I mean, it's remote and unforgiving. Remote and unforgiving. And the fact that he has, he had a whole camp set up. Yeah.

It just something happened quickly. There wasn't any disturbance in his camp. Like I feel like because there was no disturbance in his camp, I think that it's also probably less likely that he came across someone he shouldn't have unless he came across them while out hiking or doing something on his own. Something, you know, like if you're coming across someone like that, either you're, there's going to be some type of struggle and evidence of a struggle inside your camp. or they're going to steal your stuff,

or especially in the early 1900s, 1914, it just feels like. He could have taken anybody. It had to have been an accident. Yeah, it had to have been an accident. No one could have taken it back. And you think, too, like back then if, like, cattle thieves would have tried, you know, tried to steal his donkeys and then, you know, kill him,

they're probably not really going to worry about cleaning up the crime scene. Yeah. They're just going to take the donkeys and leave. Yeah. So they would probably find his remains there if they were, been some kind of like foul play. I would be curious to know more about the woman who said that he was murdered by an indigenous group or someone down there because I would be curious to know why she thought that

or where that information is coming from because it is so remote. So anything could happen and we don't know. That's what stinks about some of these old cases. It's just like even that one or it said somebody, a sheep herder saw them. It's like, okay, where'd that come from? Well, it was word of mouth. Like definitely like somebody said. something.

The cool history lost to time. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, the cool thing about this case, though, are there, there are a lot of books out there about it. Yeah. So I think, I mean, if you were one of those people that, you know, maybe there's some shows that do like a whole season on one case, I think if you bought all the books and

you really, you know, put the hours into it, the days and weeks probably researching it, I think you could probably really piece together a great story of this case. Oh, yeah. we scratched the surface. This is a whole rabbit hole you can go down about his entire life. They talk about what he used to do when he was 12. He would be writing poems at 12. He was just a deep.

He was an old soul for the time. It was definitely, he knew what he wanted and he went after it right away. That's one of the downsides of, you know, when we're doing the podcast is some of these cases do have a lot of information. You've got to really condense down, you know, condense it down and kind of summarize the key points.

because I feel like, yeah, with a case like this, and we've covered other cases where you could do a multi-parter on it and then still probably not get to the bottom. Yeah. And then it just be unresolved at the end anyway. I think you could read 15 books on Everett and still not get to the bottom of what happened to them. Yeah.

I think you can just logically, what's the, what's Occam's razor? Oh, the least, are the most likely snare is probably the one. Yeah. Yeah. Probably just had an accident and succumb to the elements. Yeah. Yeah. It's nice to, you know, obviously consider all possibilities and get into rabbit holes and things like that.

But I agree, I think, with this one. It's just, I don't want to say it's cut and dry because obviously it isn't. This has been an unsolved case for decades. And a lot of people have a lot of different theories. But I do have, I mean, like I said, I don't know much about it. But I do have the book sitting on my bookshelf. So I know there's a lot of them. But I looked up the one I have.

It's Finding Everett Ruiz. The Life and Unsolved Disappearance of a Legendary Wilderness Explorer by David Roberts. So I feel like I could read that whole thing next week and then text you guys and be like, yeah, so I don't know. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, read the books, but you probably don't need to read the books at the same time to get to the same conclusion that we don't know. Mike's very against reading.

No, against reading. Well, he seems like a really interesting person to read about. Oh, absolutely. So I feel like there's a lot to uncover just about his life and his, I mean, he would be in good company here. Obviously, all of our audience has a very similar outlook on life that he did. Oh, his poems, at a minimum, go look up his poems. They're all, they're beautiful. They're beautiful for like such a young man at that time.

There's such, the writing is very profound for that age and that time and how it still resonates today. Yeah. And I would just, I guess the only other thing is I would just be curious to see like, So I know you kind of mentioned that there's two opposing schools of thought about the remains. Like it is or it isn't and they're going back and forth. But yes. It is not correct. That's the last.

I mean, DNA experts said it wasn't. And there is still, I think I put the notes in one of the note things I put the link. You can go, if you look it up, there is an article from 2009 that says his remains have been found. And they haven't updated the article or retracted it at all. but it's, you look elsewhere and they just say, no, like the real deep fans of Everett, like talk about how it's a disgraceful that they're even doing it. It's like very, very tumultuous community over the DNA results. And it's clearly not his.

Like the dental records don't line up at all. And it was basically a rush to show what they could do with DNA. And they wanted an outcome. So they kind of made an outcome happen. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. I mean, kind of like confirmation bias type of thing.

Yes, very much so. I mean, it's interesting, too, that there's a community of people that are that diehard about this case that, I mean, the case in 1934, it's almost, you know, almost 100 years old. It's Utah's most popular wilderness mystery. Yeah. So for good. Thanks for, yeah. Thanks for sharing. This is a rubber chickens. They make rubber chickens and talk about Everett Lewis. Those are their two things. So that, that's the story. Thanks for having us on. It was fun to do this. I had a really. I had a really good time talking to you guys about this. I'm glad we did it. We had that one fan that said she was crying, screaming, and vomiting. She was so excited that we were doing a crossover. So hopefully. That's a lot of things happening. I hope she's okay. Yeah, we had so many phone calls of people that

were like frustrated that we didn't do yet. And I'm like, it might happen. I don't know. It's coming. It's coming. Yeah. Well, we are also going to be doing another episode together. that's going to be coming out on your feed in May, May 24th. May 24th. We're looking for the release date. So yeah, stay tuned. Yeah, so for that one girl who's screaming, crying, and throwing up. Keep it together for another one.

Cool. Yeah, well, thanks for coming on and sharing everything. And people know what book to go to if they want to know more. And we have a big book audience. So I'm sure a couple copies. Oh, they'll love the poetry then. Yeah. So good.

No, thank you very much for. having us on and we can't wait to do this again with you guys. This is a lot of fun. Well, we'll see you soon. Yeah, we'll see you in a couple weeks. Yep. Excellent. See you. Everyone, thank you for listening and we hope you enjoy the view, but watch you back. Bye, everyone. Bye. Thank you so much for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale or story suggestion, send us an email at Stories at NPAD Podcast.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD Podcast.

Join our Outsiders only community on Patreon or Apple subscriptions to listen ad-free, unlock monthly bonus episodes, and exclusive content. And remember, when you support our sponsors, you are supporting our show. For our exclusive discount codes and source information from today's episode, check out the show notes. For more information on our show, our book recommendations, merch updates, and more. Visit our website at npadpodcast.com. And please rate, review, and subscribe from wherever you listen to podcasts. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you may not know yet.

Drivers who switch and save with Progressives save over $900 on average. Pop over to Progressive.com, answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit Progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025.

Potential savings will vary.