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on the water and the wing became like another appendage. At the end of August when it was time to return to the Bay Area, MacDonald learned that his freshman year of high school in Marin County was going to be online, so he chose to remain in the Gorge, enrolling in Hood River’s Options Academy online program.

“ e best freestyle spot is right here at the Hatchery. It’s perfectly set up with the swell and the wind,” MacDonald tells me while chatting in the dining room of his family’s new Hood River home, where we can see the Hatchery from his living room window. A few days later, I venture across the river to watch him on the water. MacDonald, wearing his signature yellow helmet, is persistent at mastering his tricks, which today are a 1080 and Rad-7, a double- ip corkscrew maneuver. “I tried about 50 times and got half of them,” he says when he’s back on shore after his session.

Adventure photographer Richard Hallman has been watching and photographing athletes for decades. He compares MacDonald to Kai Lenny. “Once in a while, if you’re lucky, you get to see somebody who de es the norms of what is possible,” he says. “In adventure action sports, these people come along and rede ne the nature of a particular sport. I have had the good fortune to witness this in a young and talented kid named Kai Lenny. When he was just 12 years old, I saw a kid who was going to change the face of windsur ng, kiteboarding, and then big wave sur ng. Kai took those sports and grew the level of freestyle accomplishment in them. I see this again with a young winging phenom named Chris MacDonald. Watching Chris on his wing is watching the next generation of watersports athletes. He is out there going higher and farther than all his contemporaries.” In the winter, the MacDonald family migrates south to La Ventana, Mexico. ey used to stay for a few weeks, but since 2020 when school went online and MacDonald’s passion for winging soared, they opted to camp out for many months. is gave MacDonald the time to hang with a posse of groms (the a ectionate term for young watersports enthusiasts) who have helped MacDonald develop as an athlete and put in the 10,000 hours needed to master the sport.

“We have a lot of fun pushing each other to new levels,” MacDonald says. One time, when the groms were sailing downwind in Baja, MacDonald crash-landed a 360 and felt a sharp kick. He thought his foil had hit him, but he knew that wasn’t possible since his board was bobbing more than ten feet away. He looked down and saw a two-foot-long barracuda latched to his calf. “I punched the sh,” he says, nonchalantly. e sh bit not once, but twice, piercing MacDonald’s skin. Back on land, he was rushed to the hospital, an hour away in La Paz, where he received twenty stitches and now has the scars to prove it.

Adversity breeds strength. As MacDonald competes against riders from all over the world, he recognizes that he came to the sport at the right time. Indeed, he is at the forefront, pushing the boundaries and inventing all kinds of tricks. MacDonald has a simple piece of advice for anyone wanting to get into wingfoiling. “Don’t give up right away,” he says. “It’s worth it!”

Follow Chris MacDonald on Instagram: @chris.mcdddd

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