Mavericks: It’s one of the most famed—and feared—surfing destinations in the world. Located about 20 miles south of San Francisco, the waves off the shore of Half Moon Bay rival and sometimes surpass those of Hawaii’s North Shore. Mavericks is such a sight to behold, much less surf, that it not only made Alta Journal’s list of the Seven Wonders of California but is featured on the breathtaking cover. Journalist Steve Hawk has ridden the waves of Mavericks, wrote about the experience for Alta, and joins Alta Live to tell us all about it. Don’t miss this chance to hear why surfers from around the globe head to a small Bay Area beach town to risk life and limb for the perfect wave, what it’s like to brave those chilly, churning waters, and ask an expert all about the legends and the lore of Mavericks.

About the guest:

Steve Hawk is a writer and editor who lives near Half Moon Bay. He previously served as an editor of Stanford Business magazine, the executive editor of Sierra (the magazine of the Sierra Club), an editor of Surfer, and a consultant and writer on the HBO series John from Cincinnati.

Here are some notable quotes from the event:

  • On how Mavericks was first discovered: “It was actually hidden in plain sight here in Half Moon Bay for decades, and it had its coming-out party in the surf world. There was a guy here in Half Moon Bay named Jeff Clark who started surfing it in the mid-to-late ’70s by himself. He grew up here. He had a hunger for big waves. He saw this wave out there, finally dared to paddle out to it, and couldn’t talk any of his friends into coming with him, so he surfed it alone. Not that often, a couple times a year, maybe missed a couple of years, but many times surfed it alone for 15 years.”
  • On the danger of surfing Mavericks: “From a big-wave surfer’s perspective, Waimea Bay, Nazaré—those waves are just as scary as Mavericks. They can all kill you, but Mavericks just has a couple of other things going for it. The water’s cold. Right now, it’s 51, 52 out there. It’s pretty cold. And there are rocks directly short of it, so if you wipe out and get caught inside, you can get pushed into these rocks, and that’s always scary. And it also breaks really hard.”
  • On surfing Mavericks: “It’s one of the most spectacular sporting events you can witness, if you can get close to it, in the world. And as we said, there’s only 8 or 10 really good big-wave surf spots all around the world as it is, and Mavericks might be as good as any of them. And it’s just, it’s so photogenic, and the still photos don’t really do it justice. If you’re out there, it’s a full-sensory-moment experience.”

Check out these links to some of the topics brought up this week.