“Come on, guys,” Tanner wrote on his site. “This isn’t a version of Into the Wild. I’m not going out into the desert with a pair of shorts and a bowie knife, to try to live off the land. I’m going fully geared up, and I’m planning on having some fun.”
Tanner set about preparing for his trek. He bought an enduro-style motorcycle, which he and Gayoso reconfigured for hard cross-country travel. They upgraded gaskets and put sealant in the tires. Rejetted the carburetor, attached aftermarket racks for his gear.
Meanwhile Tanner made a careful study of the desert, reading a whole stack of books about outback navigation, finding water, desert terrain. He shaved his beard and prepared to enter a landscape he called “crisp and clean, pure and shimmering.”
He studied satellite images of the area where he planned to camp, marking a nearby spring from which he could replenish his water supply. And he gathered all the proper equipment, from batteries to water containers.
“Being a minimalist by nature, wanting to carry only the essentials, and being extremely particular, it has been a little difficult to find just the right equipment,” he wrote online. “I plan on going so deep into the desert that any failure of my equipment could cost me my life.”
On September 3, Tanner waved to a friend as he left his beach apartment in Oceanside, saying he might return in three days or three weeks. He planned on seeking peaceful solitude in the desert, however long it took.
He rode several hours inland, to the Palo Verde desert mountains, where he left the road and traveled across dry creek beds and through scrub brush. He pushed deep into the desert, into a valley. During the dry season even small animals struggled to survive on the washboard landscape, and signs in the area warned of a military bombing range.
There Tanner unfolded a small cot and chair, a sleeping bag, a water bladder, a handheld GPS, his journal, and two pens. He set up a tarp overhead, to ward off the sun.
—-
On September 4, the day after Tanner left his apartment, Jorge Gayoso was wrapping up an afternoon’s work at the waterfront, loading tools into his truck, when he received a text message that stopped him cold. It came from Tanner’s phone:
If I don’t contact you by 8 am, send out search and rescue. I am at Clapp Spring in the mountains west of Palo Verde. I set up camp a little south and east of Flat Tops.
As Jorge stood staring at the message — search and rescue? — a second one arrived:
I am out of water. Waiting for the sun to drop, then will try to hike the five miles back to camp. I feel like shit, but I’m okay. Gimme till 8 am, then worry.
Gayoso stared again. What had happened out there? He dialed Tanner’s phone.
“Hey,” Tanner answered. “I’m here, and—”
The connection broke.
Then Gayoso’s phone rang.
“Man, it’s so hot here,” Tanner said. “I’m at Clapp Spring, but there’s no water. So I’m just sitting here under a tree in the shade, waiting for the sun to drop.”
Gayoso pieced together what had happened from what his friend told him next. On his first morning in the desert Tanner had decided to walk five miles to the spring he’d seen on the satellite images, where he could refill his water bladder. Five miles meant nothing to him; as an athlete he could jog five miles and hardly get winded.
“But it’s just so hot here,” Tanner repeated. By midday the temperature had reached 115 degrees. Even worse, outdated satellite imagery had deceived him; he had arrived at the spring to discover it was dry. So Tanner decided to hide from the sun beneath one of the desert’s malnourished trees.
Worry rose in Gayoso’s mind, but he spoke lightly. “Well, what are we doing here?”
Tanner said he planned to walk back to his camp after dark. Back to his motorcycle. He’d had enough of the desert.
The two friends bickered. Gayoso argued that Tanner should start walking out before dark so he could see any snakes, holes, or rocks, and wouldn’t get lost.
Tanner, normally the gentlest friend imaginable, seemed annoyed. He noted he had a GPS. He’d be fine at dark.
“Do you have a flashlight?”
“No.”
The connection broke again.
—-
Heat is a strange thing. It makes men behave in strange ways and think strange thoughts.
Cold works in a more merciful way. When a man finds himself caught outdoors, exposed to very cold weather, his body urges him to slow down, to hibernate. He falls asleep in the snow and slips away.
Heat drives a man forward. It challenges him and awakens his mind. It makes him stagger forward, instead of falling asleep.
“People tend to fight for it, in heat,” said David Pascoe, a professor at Auburn University and an authority on how the body reacts to temperature change. “Your body wants to unload that heat, which means increasing circulation. Which means movement.”
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January 14th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Impressive and awesome article about an amazing and enigmatic man. It’s strange that the more remarkable things about him people share, the more facts and details that come out, the more mysterious he seems.
We ,miss you so much Evan. I often wonder if you had any idea how much you were loved by so many…
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Zach Reply:
January 15th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Not a fan of UFC, but the article can be summed up in one word, “amazing.”
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January 14th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
What a great read
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January 14th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Awesome writeup.
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January 14th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
The finest article about Tanner i’ve read yet. Informative, respectful and honest. Too bad Zuffa and the suits at UFC couldnt or wouldnt offer this pioneer a tribute fitting of his accomplishments, corporate or otherwise.
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January 14th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
amazing man thanks for giving your time to sharee this
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January 14th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
This article is much appreciated. Tanner’s story and message have been a great inspiration for me as of lately and I hope it spreads to others as it has to me- “exponentially” to others as he might say.
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January 14th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
awesome…i hope evan’s name is one that lives on for years in peoples minds and hearts…and i hope more articles like this continue to come out…so many question’s left unanswered…
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January 15th, 2009 at 2:22 am
Ummmmm … there’s lots of folks with screws loose with substance abuse problems who do interesting things and die in bizarre and fascinating ways. I guess just about all of them don’t waste a freakish amount of genetically granted athletic prowess, nobody wants to hear about them.
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Frankie Reply:
February 25th, 2009 at 6:21 am
If that’s all you got out of this article, then you really should take some reading comprhension classes.
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Joe Reply:
December 17th, 2009 at 9:18 am
Reality, you are a Dumbass without the courage to write your name on a post. Evan Tanner was a good man. He did things you wish you were man enough to do. He faced his demons and won the challenge and was a great role model for todays youth. You are a spineless little ferret who hides in shame behind a keyboard!
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January 15th, 2009 at 10:13 am
beautiful in every way, if only all men and women had such clarity, including myself.
People like Evan Tanner live within all of us.
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January 15th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Evan Tanner was one of the first fights I remember seeing on UFC. I can’t believe they didn’t do anything to honor the guy. Shameful.
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January 15th, 2009 at 11:27 am
I was lucky enough to meet Evan after the Grove fight. He was nice enough to sit down and talk with me a while. I won’t forget that kindness.
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January 15th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Great powerful moving artical about a great man who wanted nothing from anyone but him self he will be greatly missed but this world and its sad that we will never get to see what a great man he would turned out to be
RIP EVEN TANNER
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January 22nd, 2009 at 4:14 pm
I always loved Tanner. I used to joke about his raspy voice, but it was cool because he was unique. When he spoke after a fight, win or lose, he was always very humble. You will be missed Evan, may your Lord give you peace.
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February 8th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Sad. Evan was not one of my guys I follow that much ,but I always noticed him and admired him. Sad that so many young men have so many demons in their minds. Life is fun, live it that way. I try to tell young people stop putting so much stress, drama, tension and things that will cloud the real fun things in life. Be happy. Rest young man you have reached many people, be happy.
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February 12th, 2009 at 12:01 am
Not many people know that before becoming a fighter Evan used to seek the readings of pshycics. I still remember Evan trying and get me to go along even offering to pay for it. I never did go but I asked him one time what she had told him. Never a guy that boasted or bragged. In fact he rarely talked about the amazing things he had already done back then. She told me I would become famous. He said, Something about the stars planets and dates. I would have LMAO at anyone else but I knew Evan. Is there something to that crap after all? I dont know. I thought the writting was on the wall the whole time.
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March 10th, 2009 at 8:39 am
Wow! One of the most moving articles i’ve ever had the honor to read… Gone but not forgotten… BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF ONE… What a beautiful life… What a beautiful ending!!!
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March 14th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Evan was an amazing, brilliant, light in this world… I would love to know how I can get a copy of this write up. A truely great work of art.
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May 30th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
I believe Evan…
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July 16th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
This was an amazing post and I know my brother Dan Elliott had all his heart in this! Dan loved Tanner very much like a brother and I know he will miss him so. He is with the Lord now so he is doing better than us!
Love you brother.
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November 25th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Shit, I’ve never even heard of this dude before tonight and I am ashamed of some of the things I do and I’m still alive…..
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November 30th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
I didn’t know Evan at all, just what I had seen on T.V. and what I read after his untimely death.
Your article fills in some of the questions I had about him before his life in fighting.
Seemed like a normal guy with gifts and curses like many of us.
I wish I would have known him.
RIP Evan.
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December 23rd, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Great writing, the compassion and respect that his life warranted comes thru in the article. Also, excellent medical description in explaining the mechanics of how his body ultimately wore down in the desert.
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