Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival by Norman Ollestad

My father craved the weightless glide. He chased the hurricanes and blizzards to touch the bliss of riding mighty waves and deep powder snow. An insatiable spirit, he was crazy for the storm.
And it saved my life.

From the age of eight, Norman Ollestad was thrust into a world of competitive downhill skiing and the uninhibited surf culture of Malibu by the intense, charismatic father he both idolised and resented. By the age of eleven he had become a fearless champion and, after winning the 1979 Southern California Slalom Skiing Championship, his father chartered a Cessna to fly his son home to collect his trophy.

Engulfed in a blizzard, the plane carrying Norman, his father, his father's girlfriend, and the pilot crashed into the San Gabriel Mountains and was left suspended at 8,200 feet. 'Dad and I were a team, and he was Superman' Ollestad writes. But now Norman's father, his coach and his hero, was dead.

Climbing out of the wreckage, young Norman begins a gruelling descent, thousands of feet down the mountain. Blinded by heavy snow and faced with a raging wind and below-freezing temperatures, he attempts to guide his father's injured girlfriend to safety. Kept alive by sheer will, Norman summons everything his father taught him about determination and courage to save his own life. Illuminating the complicated bond between an extraordinary father and his son, this powerful and unforgettable true story offers a remarkable insight for us all.

Genres: Nonfiction - Memoir - Biography - Adventure - Survival - Sports