Norman Ollestad

“My father craved the weightless glide. He chased 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.” – Norman Ollestad

“Breathtaking.” “Riveting.” “A heart-stopping story, beautifully told.” “Best Book of the Year.” These are just some of the critical reactions to Crazy for the Storm, Norman Ollestad’s powerful memoir of survival. An instant best-seller, Starbucks’ 2009 “Book for the Summer” selection, and in Amazon.com’s Top 10 list of Biographies and Memoirs for 2009, Crazy for the Storm tells the story of Ollestad’s childhood with a larger-than-life father who taught him the essence of survival. Growing up surfing huge, incredible waves and skiing down steep, slippery slopes over and over again, Ollestad was pushed to the brink and encouraged to be the best he could be, conditioned at an early age for extreme circumstances. Little did he know that the lessons he absorbed from his adventures with his father would one day save his life.

In February 1979, an 11-year-old Ollestad was flying in a chartered Cessna with his father and his father’s girlfriend when the plane crashed into the San Gabriel Mountains of Southern California. By the end of his nine-hour ordeal, Norman was the only survivor. At 8,200 feet, he descended the icy mountain engulfed in a violent blizzard. Summoning the strength to get down the mountain, Ollestad realized that his whole life had prepared him for this moment, using the very skills that his father imparted to him on their adventures together. The next day he spoke in a nationally-broadcast press conference, and was on the front page of The Los Angeles Times. “My dad told me to never give up,” was, and is, Ollestad’s message.

Today, Ollestad is a father himself, to his own son, Noah. On their adventures together, Ollestad pushes Noah to find his own inner strength, encouraging him to develop life and survival skills on his own terms.

An extraordinary story of survival, Crazy for the Storm reveals that inner strength can make all the difference in a life. Norman Ollestad shares his powerful memories and the lessons of his father that allowed him to make it down the mountain and live life to the fullest.

A film adaptation of Crazy for the Storm is currently in development with Warner Bros.