First Woman to Surf Mavericks....and a neighbor, Sarah Gerhardt
The woman who rides mountains
Landmark surfer never took the easy path
By PEGGY TOWNSEND
Sentinel staff writer
Surfers say waves are born in the mountains of Mongolia.
They begin as storm winds that sweep across the rocky expanse of the Gobi Desert and mainland China, heading toward the Pacific Ocean.
Somewhere in the Northwest Pacific Basin, the winds strike the surface of the ocean like a giant hand, slapping up swells of water that set out eastward, growing larger with each mile, with each lick of wind on the surface of the sea. Lumbering like majestic blue kings, the swells gather weight and power, marching across the Pacific until they feel the touch of land at a spot north of Santa Cruz, a place called Maverick’s. Here, the ocean floor rises quickly, from 66 feet to 21 feet in a matter of yards, and the waves suddenly lift into giants — huge faces of water that climb as high as a four-story building. Once, it has been reported, a wave rose 100 feet high out there.
Standing on a bluff above Maverick’s, a normal person would wonder why in heaven anyone would want to surf those waves. Why a person would risk life and limb to paddle out and ride those monsters of water. Sarah Gerhardt can tell you why. As the first woman to ride Maverick’s, the 29-year-old Gerhardt says it’s the challenge that drives her into the water — the way riding a wave that big and powerful takes every ounce of physical, mental and spiritual strength you have.
The way you have to take your fear and use it to give you energy. The way a big wave is like your whole life. Sitting in her neat, Westside home, Gerhardt talks about her childhood and how she was so sick as a little girl; of how, starting at age 10, she was the sole caregiver for her quadriplegic mother; of her commitment to God; and how, a year ago, she earned her doctorate in physical chemistry. She doesn’t say it for sympathy or pride. It’s just part of the way she explains what she does; why she rides these powerful, skyscraping waves that most people are content only to watch.
"I believe we are never tested beyond what we can bear," says Gerhardt, whose life will be the subject of an upcoming documentary. "For me, the hard path made me grow in a way a nice, cushy life wouldn’t."
Early years
Gerhardt was born in San Luis Obispo County. Her father was a Merchant Marine radio operator who was away from home most of the time. Her mother, Nancy, suffered from muscular dystrophy, a disease that made her muscles waste away so that lifting a pencil was as hard for her as picking up a 50-pound weight. It was a lonely childhood. Gerhardt suffered from asthma that landed her in the hospital about once a month and kept her home for days on end.
"I was just sick all the time and failing school," she says.It didn’t help that, by the age of 10 when her older sister left home, Gerhardt became the one who took care of her mother, getting her out of bed in the mornings, helping her to the bathroom, brushing her teeth, getting her dressed — and doing it again at night.
"It was a challenging life," Gerhardt says, sitting at the dining room table in her house, her leg curled under her. "But my mom was just awesome." When Gerhardt and her older sister were children there were summerlong camping trips in the hills near Pescadero and hours spent talking about the wonders of the world and spirituality and how there really are no obstacles in life. Even though Gerhardt’s mother had almost no use of her arms and legs, she earned a master’s degree in family counseling. Eventually, she got a job working with drug addicts and alcoholics. Her children, she used to say, would never remember her doing dishes or cleaning house, but would they would remember the time she spent with them.
"She maintained an attitude of peace and positive thinking despite her outward circumstances," Gerhardt says of her mother. "...We learned to face difficulty and challenges, instead of turning away from them." "We never really saw obstacles in life," says Gerhardt’s sister, Ruth Miles of Olympia, Wash. So, it made sense, that when Gerhardt first ventured into the waves at the age of 13 and was pummeled like a punching bag, she would stagger out of the water after being hit in the head by her board. "This is cool," she would think. "I want to do this again."
Riding mountains
Before the 1990s, hardly anyone knew Maverick’s as a surf spot. According to a book called "Maverick’s" by Matt Warshaw, the break was named after a German shepherd puppy who ventured into the waves after three Half Moon Bay surfers one day in 1961. The waves hammered the men and when they got back to the beach, they decided the dog, Maverick, had obviously gotten the most out of the experience. They named the spot Maverick’s Point.
Fourteen years later, local Jeff Clark caught the first wave there — a 10-footer that hinted at the power of the place — and became the lone man who surfed its waters.
It wasn’t until the early ’90s, that Maverick’s became known as one of the premiere big-wave spots — renowned for its huge waves; cold, shark-infested water; and violent hold-downs. In 1994, the break claimed its first life. Hawaiian big-wave rider Mark Foo died while surfing there two days before Christmas. The death sent a collective shudder through the surfing world, but didn’t stop people from paddling out.
By the late ’90s, photos of surfers driving down the faces of 50-foot waves were appearing in magazines and Quicksilver began to sponsor a big-wave contest there called, poetically, "Men Who Ride Mountains." But on a November morning in 1998, without much fanfare, a woman came to ride the mountain. The woman was Sarah Gerhardt.
Pushing the edges
When she was 12, Gerhardt’s asthma started to recede. She began to play basketball and Little League baseball. But it was surfing that captured her heart. "I loved the ocean," Gerhardt says. "That’s where my health was usually the best." By the time, she was 18, Gerhardt was starting to push at the edges of her surfing and an El Nino year helped, sending big waves crashing up against the Central California coast.
John Alexiou, head lifeguard for the city of Santa Cruz, remembers surfing with Gerhardt in those years at a little known reef break near San Luis Obispo. The waves were big and hollow and Gerhardt was the only woman in the water. "She was well-respected by the local crew," Alexiou says. "She learned the ropes and started to charge." "When I was out there, I didn’t think about anything else," Gerhardt says. "I had so many challenges on land, being out there was completely invigorating."
Walking the walk
Gerhardt’s mother died in 1996, ironically from breast cancer and not the disease everyone thought would kill her. Gerhardt, who was 21, was suddenly alone. "I had nothing. No money for rent. I had just broken up with my boyfriend," Gerhardt says. She had no idea what to do. One dark night, driving alone in her car, she knew she had to make a decision. "I knew I had to decide whether I would walk with the Lord or not," says the tall, blond Gerhardt.
But it was not an easy decision. Gerhardt had spent hours as a child reading the Bible to her mother and praying with her. Theirs was an internal, spiritual life.
But Gerhardt knew she could not "walk hypocritically," she says. That she could not be like some people who believed only in the spirituality that fit most easily. If she chose to be a Christian, she would do it all the way. That night, she says, "I decided I was going to live my life day-to-day and rely on God to speak to me and tell me, this is the way to walk in life." It was a decision she does not regret.
"I believe God is a personal God and that he gives you a gift and a purpose in life and it is a matter of listening to Him and to your heart," Gerhardt says. She gave her heart to God that night, she says — and to her twin passions of big-wave surfing and chemistry. "I would say," she says with a smile, "God has stepped through magnificently and gloriously in my life." Last June, Gerhardt was awarded a Ph.D. in physical chemistry and now teaches at Santa Clara University.
And on her trip to Hawaii to hone her big-wave skills, she fell in love with another big-wave rider, Mike Gerhardt. They have been married more than five years. Gerhardt’s passions have shifted just a bit now. She makes the list: Her faith, her marriage, she says, and then surfing and chemistry.
The first time
It was November, 1998, and legendary waterman Jay Moriarity arrived at the Gerhardts’ Santa Cruz home. "Let’s go," he said and the three headed up the coast to Half Moon Bay and Maverick’s. The waves were breaking 25-35 feet that day and Moriarity and Mike Gerhardt were in that adrenaline zone — hearts pounding, music pumping. Gerhardt was pumped too, but in a more quiet way. "I didn’t know if physically and mentally I could deal with it," she says. "Maverick’s is a very heavy wave. There’s no easy entry, and it isn’t forgiving if you have a wipe-out."
She had heard stories of the way surfers were flattened onto the rocky ocean floor by the waves at Maverick’s ,and how they were held down for agonizing minutes until, finally, they clawed their way, gasping, to the surface. She had heard of the great white sharks that had been spotted there. Of men who emerged with broken ribs and bruised bodies after a few hours in the waves. But Gerhardt knew she had to give it a try — not for a photograph or to be the first woman to ride a wave there.
"I just really wanted to surf it," she says. Using a borrowed board that was too big for her, Gerhardt paddled through a place called the Gauntlet — a daunting spot of breaking waves and rough current — then sat up on her board just outside the break and watched. "It was," she says, "the most intimidating place I have ever been." She watched her husband, Mike, catch a wave, and studied the way the surf moved and broke.
Santa Cruz surf legend Frosty Hesson was out that day too."At one point in the session, I paddled over to Sarah just to check in," he says. He’d seen lots of people sitting in the same spot as Gerhardt — many of them scared to death by what they were seeing. "She wasn’t sitting in the channel with her knees knocking," Hesson says. "She was sitting in the channel being analytical, and we began a little discussion about what she was seeing." Later, Hesson drove over to the shop of board shaper Bob Pearson. "Bob," he said, "I believe I have met the first woman who will surf Maverick’s."
The fear factor
It was February before Gerhardt made it back to Maverick’s with her own board (shaped by Pearson) this time, and a desire to give the spot another try. She remembers paddling out and seeing a 25-foot wave rise behind her. She remembers how it felt like some unseen hand had grabbed hold of her board and shoved. "I felt that surge of energy behind me and your automatic response is to stand up and ride it," she says.
The drop seemed to last forever.
She rode to the bottom of the wave for what seemed like an eternity, then climbed back up to the top and kicked out. "It was so cool," she says. Her husband, who Gerhardt says is her biggest influence, remembers waiting to see if she came out of the wave and then cheered when she did. "I was stoked," he says. Outside, the night falls and talk between the couple shifts to other sessions at Maverick’s — to what it’s like to surf the Everest of waves. "I’m constantly pestered with fear out there," says Gerhardt, unconsciously knotting up the strings of her blue sweatshirt. "It’s a chess match out there," Mike Gerhardt says, his fingers tapping on the table. "You’ve got to pick the right wave. You can’t be overly aggressive out there. You’ve got to be smart."
Their hearts, they admit, pound just thinking about the place.
They talk about how the world falls away at Maverick’s, how when you are out there it’s as if there was nothing but you and the wave. They talk about the intensity of the place and how fear can muddle your mind. How it’s amazing to be be able to surf Maverick’s together as a couple, and how spending so many hours running full-throttle, red-lined leaves you exhausted and excited at the same time. It’s always a fight against fear, Gerhardt says. Waiting to go out, listening to the roar of a wave that sounds like a freight train, she will sometimes feel the bitter taste of adrenaline creeping up her throat; feel her legs begin to get weak, her heart to pound and her head seems to spin.
As a scientist, she knows the sensations are a physical reaction to fear and are not good things to have in the lineup. "I talk to myself," she says, "and every fearful thought that enters my mind, I rationalize it and then disqualify it." Fear and adrenaline are only good, she says, if you can use them to make you stronger. And there are days, she says, when you just have to paddle back in and try it another time. It’s not death that she fears out there, Gerhardt says. She has too much faith in God to be afraid of that. Rather, she says, she is afraid of being injured so badly she would not be able to surf or mountain bike or take walks along the beach again.
She grew up with a woman who could do none of those things. She knows how hard that life can be.
Zen moments
Even if she wasn’t the only woman regularly surfing Maverick’s, Gerhardt would stand out. "You drive in (to Maverick’s) and there’s this big social thing in the parking lot," says filmmaker Elizabeth Pepin, co-producer of an upcoming documentary about Gerhardt called "One Winter Story."
"You see the guys drive in, music blaring, but Sarah likes the quiet. She arrives in the parking lot, and you can see her start to go inward, just preparing for what she is about to do by going inside herself." "Her studious approach to surfing Maverick’s, steadily working up to the big days rather than jumping right into it, is worth noting," says longtime Mavericks surfer Grant Washburn. "Sarah is a smart surfer." She’s also tough, say those who know her. They tell of how she used to train for the big waves in Hawaii by carrying rocks underwater to build her lung strength. They talk of how she mountain bikes to build leg strength and how she’s had to undergo plastic surgery on her face twice in order to repair the damage from huge wipeouts.
They say she has pursued her Ph.D. with the same kind of dedication she pursued big waves. She fell in love with science when she was just a little girl, Gerhardt says, believing it was the key to curing disease, like the one that ravaged her mom’s body. Her thesis centered on the way light interacts with cancer therapy drugs, called photodynamic therapy. "Getting my Ph.D. was kind of like surfing Maverick’s," Gerhardt says. "It was so challenging." Gerhardt is not exactly sure why she lives the way she does, why she always goes after what is hard — except, she says, she thinks she would be unhappy if she didn’t.
"There is this quote I love," says Gerhardt. "I don’t even know who said it.
"But it’s this: The path of least resistance is what makes men, and rivers, crooked," she says.
It’s never been the way she’s gone.
Landmark surfer never took the easy path
By PEGGY TOWNSEND
Sentinel staff writer
Surfers say waves are born in the mountains of Mongolia.
They begin as storm winds that sweep across the rocky expanse of the Gobi Desert and mainland China, heading toward the Pacific Ocean.
Somewhere in the Northwest Pacific Basin, the winds strike the surface of the ocean like a giant hand, slapping up swells of water that set out eastward, growing larger with each mile, with each lick of wind on the surface of the sea. Lumbering like majestic blue kings, the swells gather weight and power, marching across the Pacific until they feel the touch of land at a spot north of Santa Cruz, a place called Maverick’s. Here, the ocean floor rises quickly, from 66 feet to 21 feet in a matter of yards, and the waves suddenly lift into giants — huge faces of water that climb as high as a four-story building. Once, it has been reported, a wave rose 100 feet high out there.
Standing on a bluff above Maverick’s, a normal person would wonder why in heaven anyone would want to surf those waves. Why a person would risk life and limb to paddle out and ride those monsters of water. Sarah Gerhardt can tell you why. As the first woman to ride Maverick’s, the 29-year-old Gerhardt says it’s the challenge that drives her into the water — the way riding a wave that big and powerful takes every ounce of physical, mental and spiritual strength you have.
The way you have to take your fear and use it to give you energy. The way a big wave is like your whole life. Sitting in her neat, Westside home, Gerhardt talks about her childhood and how she was so sick as a little girl; of how, starting at age 10, she was the sole caregiver for her quadriplegic mother; of her commitment to God; and how, a year ago, she earned her doctorate in physical chemistry. She doesn’t say it for sympathy or pride. It’s just part of the way she explains what she does; why she rides these powerful, skyscraping waves that most people are content only to watch.
"I believe we are never tested beyond what we can bear," says Gerhardt, whose life will be the subject of an upcoming documentary. "For me, the hard path made me grow in a way a nice, cushy life wouldn’t."
Early years
Gerhardt was born in San Luis Obispo County. Her father was a Merchant Marine radio operator who was away from home most of the time. Her mother, Nancy, suffered from muscular dystrophy, a disease that made her muscles waste away so that lifting a pencil was as hard for her as picking up a 50-pound weight. It was a lonely childhood. Gerhardt suffered from asthma that landed her in the hospital about once a month and kept her home for days on end.
"I was just sick all the time and failing school," she says.It didn’t help that, by the age of 10 when her older sister left home, Gerhardt became the one who took care of her mother, getting her out of bed in the mornings, helping her to the bathroom, brushing her teeth, getting her dressed — and doing it again at night.
"It was a challenging life," Gerhardt says, sitting at the dining room table in her house, her leg curled under her. "But my mom was just awesome." When Gerhardt and her older sister were children there were summerlong camping trips in the hills near Pescadero and hours spent talking about the wonders of the world and spirituality and how there really are no obstacles in life. Even though Gerhardt’s mother had almost no use of her arms and legs, she earned a master’s degree in family counseling. Eventually, she got a job working with drug addicts and alcoholics. Her children, she used to say, would never remember her doing dishes or cleaning house, but would they would remember the time she spent with them.
"She maintained an attitude of peace and positive thinking despite her outward circumstances," Gerhardt says of her mother. "...We learned to face difficulty and challenges, instead of turning away from them." "We never really saw obstacles in life," says Gerhardt’s sister, Ruth Miles of Olympia, Wash. So, it made sense, that when Gerhardt first ventured into the waves at the age of 13 and was pummeled like a punching bag, she would stagger out of the water after being hit in the head by her board. "This is cool," she would think. "I want to do this again."
Riding mountains
Before the 1990s, hardly anyone knew Maverick’s as a surf spot. According to a book called "Maverick’s" by Matt Warshaw, the break was named after a German shepherd puppy who ventured into the waves after three Half Moon Bay surfers one day in 1961. The waves hammered the men and when they got back to the beach, they decided the dog, Maverick, had obviously gotten the most out of the experience. They named the spot Maverick’s Point.
Fourteen years later, local Jeff Clark caught the first wave there — a 10-footer that hinted at the power of the place — and became the lone man who surfed its waters.
It wasn’t until the early ’90s, that Maverick’s became known as one of the premiere big-wave spots — renowned for its huge waves; cold, shark-infested water; and violent hold-downs. In 1994, the break claimed its first life. Hawaiian big-wave rider Mark Foo died while surfing there two days before Christmas. The death sent a collective shudder through the surfing world, but didn’t stop people from paddling out.
By the late ’90s, photos of surfers driving down the faces of 50-foot waves were appearing in magazines and Quicksilver began to sponsor a big-wave contest there called, poetically, "Men Who Ride Mountains." But on a November morning in 1998, without much fanfare, a woman came to ride the mountain. The woman was Sarah Gerhardt.
Pushing the edges
When she was 12, Gerhardt’s asthma started to recede. She began to play basketball and Little League baseball. But it was surfing that captured her heart. "I loved the ocean," Gerhardt says. "That’s where my health was usually the best." By the time, she was 18, Gerhardt was starting to push at the edges of her surfing and an El Nino year helped, sending big waves crashing up against the Central California coast.
John Alexiou, head lifeguard for the city of Santa Cruz, remembers surfing with Gerhardt in those years at a little known reef break near San Luis Obispo. The waves were big and hollow and Gerhardt was the only woman in the water. "She was well-respected by the local crew," Alexiou says. "She learned the ropes and started to charge." "When I was out there, I didn’t think about anything else," Gerhardt says. "I had so many challenges on land, being out there was completely invigorating."
Walking the walk
Gerhardt’s mother died in 1996, ironically from breast cancer and not the disease everyone thought would kill her. Gerhardt, who was 21, was suddenly alone. "I had nothing. No money for rent. I had just broken up with my boyfriend," Gerhardt says. She had no idea what to do. One dark night, driving alone in her car, she knew she had to make a decision. "I knew I had to decide whether I would walk with the Lord or not," says the tall, blond Gerhardt.
But it was not an easy decision. Gerhardt had spent hours as a child reading the Bible to her mother and praying with her. Theirs was an internal, spiritual life.
But Gerhardt knew she could not "walk hypocritically," she says. That she could not be like some people who believed only in the spirituality that fit most easily. If she chose to be a Christian, she would do it all the way. That night, she says, "I decided I was going to live my life day-to-day and rely on God to speak to me and tell me, this is the way to walk in life." It was a decision she does not regret.
"I believe God is a personal God and that he gives you a gift and a purpose in life and it is a matter of listening to Him and to your heart," Gerhardt says. She gave her heart to God that night, she says — and to her twin passions of big-wave surfing and chemistry. "I would say," she says with a smile, "God has stepped through magnificently and gloriously in my life." Last June, Gerhardt was awarded a Ph.D. in physical chemistry and now teaches at Santa Clara University.
And on her trip to Hawaii to hone her big-wave skills, she fell in love with another big-wave rider, Mike Gerhardt. They have been married more than five years. Gerhardt’s passions have shifted just a bit now. She makes the list: Her faith, her marriage, she says, and then surfing and chemistry.
The first time
It was November, 1998, and legendary waterman Jay Moriarity arrived at the Gerhardts’ Santa Cruz home. "Let’s go," he said and the three headed up the coast to Half Moon Bay and Maverick’s. The waves were breaking 25-35 feet that day and Moriarity and Mike Gerhardt were in that adrenaline zone — hearts pounding, music pumping. Gerhardt was pumped too, but in a more quiet way. "I didn’t know if physically and mentally I could deal with it," she says. "Maverick’s is a very heavy wave. There’s no easy entry, and it isn’t forgiving if you have a wipe-out."
She had heard stories of the way surfers were flattened onto the rocky ocean floor by the waves at Maverick’s ,and how they were held down for agonizing minutes until, finally, they clawed their way, gasping, to the surface. She had heard of the great white sharks that had been spotted there. Of men who emerged with broken ribs and bruised bodies after a few hours in the waves. But Gerhardt knew she had to give it a try — not for a photograph or to be the first woman to ride a wave there.
"I just really wanted to surf it," she says. Using a borrowed board that was too big for her, Gerhardt paddled through a place called the Gauntlet — a daunting spot of breaking waves and rough current — then sat up on her board just outside the break and watched. "It was," she says, "the most intimidating place I have ever been." She watched her husband, Mike, catch a wave, and studied the way the surf moved and broke.
Santa Cruz surf legend Frosty Hesson was out that day too."At one point in the session, I paddled over to Sarah just to check in," he says. He’d seen lots of people sitting in the same spot as Gerhardt — many of them scared to death by what they were seeing. "She wasn’t sitting in the channel with her knees knocking," Hesson says. "She was sitting in the channel being analytical, and we began a little discussion about what she was seeing." Later, Hesson drove over to the shop of board shaper Bob Pearson. "Bob," he said, "I believe I have met the first woman who will surf Maverick’s."
The fear factor
It was February before Gerhardt made it back to Maverick’s with her own board (shaped by Pearson) this time, and a desire to give the spot another try. She remembers paddling out and seeing a 25-foot wave rise behind her. She remembers how it felt like some unseen hand had grabbed hold of her board and shoved. "I felt that surge of energy behind me and your automatic response is to stand up and ride it," she says.
The drop seemed to last forever.
She rode to the bottom of the wave for what seemed like an eternity, then climbed back up to the top and kicked out. "It was so cool," she says. Her husband, who Gerhardt says is her biggest influence, remembers waiting to see if she came out of the wave and then cheered when she did. "I was stoked," he says. Outside, the night falls and talk between the couple shifts to other sessions at Maverick’s — to what it’s like to surf the Everest of waves. "I’m constantly pestered with fear out there," says Gerhardt, unconsciously knotting up the strings of her blue sweatshirt. "It’s a chess match out there," Mike Gerhardt says, his fingers tapping on the table. "You’ve got to pick the right wave. You can’t be overly aggressive out there. You’ve got to be smart."
Their hearts, they admit, pound just thinking about the place.
They talk about how the world falls away at Maverick’s, how when you are out there it’s as if there was nothing but you and the wave. They talk about the intensity of the place and how fear can muddle your mind. How it’s amazing to be be able to surf Maverick’s together as a couple, and how spending so many hours running full-throttle, red-lined leaves you exhausted and excited at the same time. It’s always a fight against fear, Gerhardt says. Waiting to go out, listening to the roar of a wave that sounds like a freight train, she will sometimes feel the bitter taste of adrenaline creeping up her throat; feel her legs begin to get weak, her heart to pound and her head seems to spin.
As a scientist, she knows the sensations are a physical reaction to fear and are not good things to have in the lineup. "I talk to myself," she says, "and every fearful thought that enters my mind, I rationalize it and then disqualify it." Fear and adrenaline are only good, she says, if you can use them to make you stronger. And there are days, she says, when you just have to paddle back in and try it another time. It’s not death that she fears out there, Gerhardt says. She has too much faith in God to be afraid of that. Rather, she says, she is afraid of being injured so badly she would not be able to surf or mountain bike or take walks along the beach again.
She grew up with a woman who could do none of those things. She knows how hard that life can be.
Zen moments
Even if she wasn’t the only woman regularly surfing Maverick’s, Gerhardt would stand out. "You drive in (to Maverick’s) and there’s this big social thing in the parking lot," says filmmaker Elizabeth Pepin, co-producer of an upcoming documentary about Gerhardt called "One Winter Story."
"You see the guys drive in, music blaring, but Sarah likes the quiet. She arrives in the parking lot, and you can see her start to go inward, just preparing for what she is about to do by going inside herself." "Her studious approach to surfing Maverick’s, steadily working up to the big days rather than jumping right into it, is worth noting," says longtime Mavericks surfer Grant Washburn. "Sarah is a smart surfer." She’s also tough, say those who know her. They tell of how she used to train for the big waves in Hawaii by carrying rocks underwater to build her lung strength. They talk of how she mountain bikes to build leg strength and how she’s had to undergo plastic surgery on her face twice in order to repair the damage from huge wipeouts.
They say she has pursued her Ph.D. with the same kind of dedication she pursued big waves. She fell in love with science when she was just a little girl, Gerhardt says, believing it was the key to curing disease, like the one that ravaged her mom’s body. Her thesis centered on the way light interacts with cancer therapy drugs, called photodynamic therapy. "Getting my Ph.D. was kind of like surfing Maverick’s," Gerhardt says. "It was so challenging." Gerhardt is not exactly sure why she lives the way she does, why she always goes after what is hard — except, she says, she thinks she would be unhappy if she didn’t.
"There is this quote I love," says Gerhardt. "I don’t even know who said it.
"But it’s this: The path of least resistance is what makes men, and rivers, crooked," she says.
It’s never been the way she’s gone.