| Dave
Rust: A Life in the Canyons by
Frederick H. Swanson
University of Utah
Press, hardbound, $29.95 In
a life that spanned the years between Clarence Dutton’s geologic explorations
of the Plateau Province and the completion of the Glen Canyon dam, David Dexter
Rust (1874-1963) managed to embody both the desert-wise cowboy and the restless
intellectual. He led pack trips to Zion Canyon, Capitol Reef, the Aquarius Plateau,
and the Escalante Canyons before these exquisite places became well known to the
outside world. Throughout his long career as a backcountry guide and Glen Canyon
river outfitter, he made sure that his clients--who were typically well-educated
travelers from back East--saw the finest examples of the region’s stunningly exposed
geology. Historian Roy Webb,
in his book Call of the Colorado, called Rust “one of the least known but
most interesting figures in river-running history.” Rust operated the first commercial
float trips in Glen Canyon from 1923 to 1939, taking guests to Music Temple, Rainbow
Bridge, the Crossing of the Fathers, and other scenic and historic sights. His
regard for the Colorado River ran deep: he prospected in Glen Canyon in the 1890s,
and in 1906 he oversaw the construction of a tourist trail down Bright Angel Creek
in the Grand Canyon and erected a cable-tram crossing over the river. He ranged
widely throughout the Plateau Province, and from 1928 to 1931 he outfitted archaeological
expeditions under the auspices of Harvard’s Peabody Museum--research that led
to the first recognition of the Fremont culture. Rust’s
career as a backcountry outfitter illustrates many of the changes that have come
over the region during the last century. He began as a tourism promoter, working
with his father-in-law, Edwin D. Woolley Jr., to encourage Americans to travel
to the Grand Canyon via new routes from the north. He finished his wilderness
explorations in 1941 by guiding one young man on an extended pack trip into the
Escalante Canyons, an area the Park Service was touting as part of a proposed
national monument. As federal agencies and the traveling public increasingly turned
toward mass tourism, Rust felt the call of the lonely spaces of the canyon country.
Always one to row against the current, his evolving outlook on tourism and the
art of travel is a major theme of the book.
 |
| A
few of Rust's clients crossing Bright Angel Creek
in the Grand Canyon, about
1909. |
Rust made his living during the
winter months as a teacher, school principal, farmer, and occasional prospector,
living in Kanab, Utah from 1903-1928 and spending the remainder of his life in
Provo. But the outback of the Colorado Plateau drew him every spring and summer,
when he would saddle up his horses and mules and lead guests from all across the
country to his favorite canyons and vista points. He was one of the first to undertake
what we now call “wilderness education”--presenting the deserts and high plateaus
as worthy of study and understanding. Dave
Rust: A Life in the Canyons focuses on Rust’s adventures as an explorer of
the Colorado Plateau, and makes extensive use of his diaries and the journals
and letters of his clients, who regarded Rust as a unique and companionable character.
A brilliant landscape is on display throughout the book as Rust and his clients
trek across desert, canyon, and plateau from the Grand Wash Cliffs to the Dirty
Devil canyons. Dave Rust once
wrote that “I’ve gone through two colleges without receiving a degree except perhaps
an M.D. I am a mule driver.” If so, he was one of the most accomplished and interesting
muleskinners a reader is likely to encounter. His story will take you back to
a time when the landscape of southern Utah and northern Arizona offered some of
the greatest outdoor experiences a traveler could wish for. Photos
courtesy Rust family |
