Evan Tanner: Living on the Edge

"The Edge...there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over."

—Hunter S. Thompson

"I've been gathering my gear for this adventure for over a month, not a long time by most standards, but far too long for my impatient nature. 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.

I plan on going so deep into the desert, that any failure of my equipment, could cost me my life. I've been doing a great deal of research and study. I want to know all I can about where I'm going, and I want to make sure I have the best equipment.One more week. I think one more week, and I'll be ready to go." (Source: Wikipedia)

Those were the last words written in an online blog by UFC Mixed Martial Arts fighter Evan Tanner, before he went on an adventure into the unforgiving 118-degree heat of the California desert.

Like most things in life beautiful things can also kill you, it seems as if mother nature has planned it that way...some parts of God's earth are so beautiful that they defy words.

I feel truly blessed to have the great fortune of being born and raised next the cold and brutal North Atlantic Ocean; but even now as an adult I can still remember the sorrowful looks on the faces of my two small cousins, after they were told by their mother that-during a winter storm-their father had been washed off the deck of a fishing boat, and lost at sea.

A week before his death Evan Tanner had bought a motorcycle, a powerful dirt bike, and on Sept. 3, 2008 he rode into the desert to camp and to meditate in the peacefulness and empty solitude of the desert.

According to Tanner's manager John Hayner, Tanner called that afternoon to say that his bike had run out of gas, and that he would attempt to trudge onward during evening hours.

His body was discovered by a search helicopter on Sept. 8.

"I was motivated by my friend Sara's talk of treasure hunting and lost gold, and my own insatiable appetite for adventure and exploration. I began to imagine what might be found in the deep reaches of the untracked desert. It became an obsession of sorts."

Author's note: A special thanks to Doug Jeffrey, whose article "lost without you"—which appeared in the January issue of Grappling magazine—gave me the idea for this article and about nature, and how brutal it can be.

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