Victoria Wang: Texas Lady Crusher's Member Spotlight

Name: Victoria Wang

Current Location: Austin, Texas

Favorite State or National Park: Victoria’s absolute favorite park is Big Bend National Park. She’s been there 6 times and has incredible memories with friends and family. As for Texas state parks, Victoria recommends a visit to Garner State Park!

Victoria's first outdoor sport climb was at Railay Beach in Krabi, Thailand, and it was incredibly beautiful. At the time, she had no idea it was such a popular climbing destination and how lucky she had been to experience it. Ever since then, she's been hooked on climbing. Immediately after returning from her trip, she got a climbing gym membership. In addition to climbing, you can find Victoria hiking, backpacking, and scooting around Austin. Victoria's advice to new climbers is to get out there and climb hard. Don’t worry about judgment or taking up your belayer’s time on a route - everyone has been a beginner at some point, and we’re all happy to support you and be a part of your climbing experience.

Victoria has been able to use climbing to help with depression, as it’s been a constant through some really rough years and it is the perfect stress reliever both physically and mentally. Victoria struggles with chronic depression, and when it flares up, climbing is usually one of the few things that can get her out of bed. Tater tots are usually the other, but climbing is arguably better. Victoria's first year in Austin was pretty hard, but a friend helped to celebrate her birthday by climbing at Reimers. Being surrounded by all these badass women while spending the entire day outside climbing made her feel so refreshed and alive, and that was exactly the motivation she needed that year.

In addition to climbing, Victoria is also a badass teacher. She has a podcast about teaching called #TeacherLife, where she interview teachers and give them a safe space to share their stories and experiences. She actually spent a couple of months on a national road trip interviewing teachers all over the US while visiting some cool cities and parks. Feel free to ask her about it the next time you see her.

Victoria is also the Austin ambassador for the local Women Who Explore group, which is an awesome community that strives to make the outdoors accessible and affordable for womxn. Last but not least, Victoria is a huge fan of tater tots.