A Tribute to the Legendary Ron Olevsky

The legendary Ron Olvesky passed away in the early morning hour of July 23, 2025 at

4.20am from natural causes at age 71.

If you were a climber in southern Utah in the 80’s and 90’s there is a good chance you

had an encounter with Ron Olvesky that you might always remember, fondly or

otherwise.

Ron was born in the east to a virtuoso violinist father, and despite his outlaw

appearance had sophisticated taste in art, food, wine, spirits, music, guns and weed.

The west is where Ron belonged, and early in his life he found his way to the Colorado

Plateau and the St George area.

Ron left his mark on the climbing community by pioneering many mega classic lines,

usually solos.., in and around our area.

Some of his more notable FA’s include Touchstone Wall, Spaceshot, Sunlight Buttress and Prodigal Sun in Zion National Park. Pygmy Alien, Leopard Skin and Babes in

Thailand in Snow Canyon State Park. He also claims the FA of Pervertical Sanctuary

on the Diamond of Long’s Peak Colorado. I must say that he was as talented at naming

his routes as he was finding them!

I was told a funny story about Ron that I’ll share. Many years ago, Ron outfitted a

canoe with a small motor and was about the business of exploring every mile of

shoreline of Lake Powell for FA’s. Some boaters thought it was a good idea to harass

the guy in the little motorized canoe and attempted to sink it by doing circles around

him. Ron naturally didn’t think it was funny, and to send them away, pulled out his

semi-automatic Mini 14 and fired off a handful of rounds in close proximity to the

boaters. This was highly effective, however a short while later the National Park Service

arrived and confiscated Ron’s gun but let him continue exploring. Encounters with the

law were nothing new to Ron, he hired a skilled attorney and got his gun back.

I remember a family trip to Lake Powell back in the day when water levels were high, I

brought my rack and a hand drill with hopes of bagging my first FA. I spied a beautiful

splitter crack up Navajo Canyon that was accessible from a boat and looked right in my

wheelhouse. When I topped out on a nice ledge, my FA’ glory instantly evaporated as I

noticed a couple of rusted baby angle pitons. No doubt Ron had snagged it years

earlier.

Regardless of what you think of Ron, he had a great eye for classic lines and 100% is in

my “desert rat” hall of fame.

RIP my friend. We’ll see you on the other side.

A History of Adventure in Southern Utah

"Chuck-a-walla" Wall

In 1992 Jorge Visser bolted the first 3 routes on a “secret” crag on the far outskirts of St. George. Never mind that there was a road that you could drive any vehicle to within car radio hearing distance from the crag, and the ground around the cliff was littered with nails from frequent redneck pallet parties. So not very secret to anyone except Jorge.

While projecting Jorge’s routes, (which were all 5.12) it was obvious that the wall needed some more moderate terrain to warm up on.

Armed with a modified sledge hammer, and hand drill, Wayne Harding and I installed a top anchor on what we thought was an attractive section of the wall and began the process of attempting to climb up what was basically a sheet of loose rock. Over the course of 2 days we removed enough holds to build up an impressive little pile of red sand at the base of the cliff that was high enough to eventually allow us to reach a higher set of opening holds. We began calling the route “Red Rain”, and eventually decided that the tactics of pulling off the only holds was not an ideal route development technique.

Over the course of 2 days of attempts we would hike up and down a gully on the far right side of the wall to install and remove the top rope. Each time we climbed the gully there were 2 Chuckwalla lizards in a horizontal crack that retreated into the fissure as we approached. After several encounters I suggested the name "Chuckawalla wall", for the crag. It seemed to catch on as the wall became more popular. Climbers referred to their afternoon sessions as, “laps at chuck.”

Eventually as the spaces on the wall began to be filled in, and concurrent with the nascent growth of other climbing areas in the region, in 1994 Tim Duck and I produced a guidebook that included the 10 routes at Chuckawalla Wall.

In those days word processors ran off a program called DOS. Spell check was probably 10 years in the future, and so whatever spelling you came up with was fine with the computer. As a primarily uneducated rock climber spelling was never my strong suit, and I put an additional “a” in the middle of the word, and by the time anyone pointed out my mistake years later it was too late. So even though the wall is named after Chuckwalla’s, it is called Chuckawalla Wall, and the difference is only due to my lack of education.

A Tribute to the Legendary Ron Olevsky

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