Chuck Patterson is an inspiring person. He is 6’2” and weighs 220 pounds. He competes at the pro level in five different sports: stand up paddling, tow-in surfing, kite surfing, skiing and snowboarding. His bronze skin, perfect set of white teeth, sun-bleached shock of blonde hair, and a body that appears to be made only of muscle completes the image. Chuck wows fellow athletes, sports fans and spectators with a seemingly godlike ability to gracefully play with the natural world’s violent waves and snowy mountain cliffs.

The extreme athlete and I are having breakfast at a local diner in Dana Point, California. He’s ordered a plate loaded with fluffy French toast. His food is getting cold as he recalls the day earlier this year that he rode Maui’s turbulent 40-foot waves in the same manner one would thunder down a snowy Alaskan mountainside on skis. Instead of using the customary surfboard, Patterson startled the sports world by using a pair of Starr surf skis, and to complete the image, he wielded a set of ski poles. A lifetime of physical and mental training and perseverance folded into one very intense moment where Patterson would either take the nascent sport of surf skiing to a whole new level, or be toppled by a wave and risk personal injury and humiliation.

That day at Maui’s most renowned big wave surf site, Jaws, Chuck was being towed by a jet ski into the choppy water as people watched from their boats. The Red Bull crew was filming him. Fifty other teams shared the water. Everybody noticed he was wearing what looked like snow skis. His friends were confused why he wasn’t using a board to surf Jaw’s heartless waves. Had Chuck become bored with the already exhilarating sport of tow surfing? Were Jaws’ legendary waves no longer challenging enough? “Everybody thought I’d lost it,” Patterson says, “and if I wiped out, I’d be the laughingstock of the sports world.

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