Angelina Huang is a former Team USA figure skater who made the bold decision to retire from the sport at just 18 years old. After taking a step back to reconnect with herself, Angelina found a new passion—wild ice skating, where her love for the ice was reignited by the beauty of natural landscapes around the world.
Angelina Huang is a former Team USA figure skater who made the bold decision to retire from the sport at just 18 years old. After taking a step back to reconnect with herself, Angelina found a new passion—wild ice skating, where her love for the ice was reignited by the beauty of natural landscapes around the world.
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Angelina Huang:
Your horizon is your limit, instead of the boards around an ice rink. It takes me two seconds to go across the ice and I have to turn around in an ice rink, but wild ice is, I could skate miles and miles and I haven't even hit the mountains on the other side of it, and that's such a freeing feeling. It's what keeps me going back.
Shelby Stanger:
For almost all of her adolescent years, Angelina Huang was a professional figure skater. She won the US National Championship at age 14 and joined Team USA as one of the top skaters in the country. Then a few years ago, at age 18, Angelina decided to quit and stepped away from the sport completely. After taking some time off, she discovered a niche that rekindled her passion. Wild ice skating.
In videos she posts online Angelina coasts over the surface of frozen lakes and rivers in front of wintery cities and snow-capped mountains. She used to be bound by the walls of the rink, but skating outside on wild ice has become an unexpected source of joy and freedom. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-Op Studios production, brought to you by Capital One.
Also, before we dive in, just to note that Angelina's Sport wild ice skating can be dangerous. If you're thinking about going out on the surface of frozen rivers or lakes. Do your homework and make sure that the weather and ice are safe. Angelina Huang, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. You are our first wild ice skater. I'm so excited to speak with you today.
Angelina Huang:
I'm excited to be here. Thank you.
Shelby Stanger:
Really quickly, for those who don't know, what is wild ice skating?
Angelina Huang:
Yeah, so I call it the extreme side of skating. It basically just means you strap on your skates, you go out and ice skate on natural ice, hasn't been touched. It's perfectly frozen the way that it comes.
Shelby Stanger:
And I'm sure there's some risks, there's some adventure with it. You also competed for the US National Team for ice skating?
Angelina Huang:
Yes, I represented the United States. I was on Team USA for a couple seasons and I got the privilege to travel the world, compete, represent our country, and was a national champion one year as well. So very high level competitive in, what I like to think, another lifetime.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. This other lifetime, tell me a little about this other lifetime. I know nothing about being a professional figure skater. What was your competitive career like?
Angelina Huang:
I started skating at the age of six. I just stepped on there, was super recreational. I never really seriously started training until I was 11, which is considered really late in professional skating. Most people are out there full-time training by the time they're 6, 7, 8. So I didn't start until I was 11 and my coach, back in my hometown said, "You have some potential. Do you want to give it a go training elite?" And my parents said, "You want to give it a year? We'll homeschool. We'll try it out and if you hate it, we can come straight back." And I said, "Sure, why not? I might as well." I didn't really know much at the time and went out to train and I qualified for my first US National Championships right then and there and I said, "Well, I feel like there's no turning back now."
Shelby Stanger:
So at age 11?
Angelina Huang:
Age 11, that's when I first started training.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. What did that look like?
Angelina Huang:
Oh. Many, many, many hours in the rink. I was there at about 5:00 A.M. and wouldn't leave around 5:00 P.M. And we also do ballet, varieties of dance, there's cross training, conditioning, all sorts of things. So we're at the facility, but we're not necessarily on the ice. So six days a week, had Sundays off and dedicated my entire childhood to that.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. I'm sorry. I'm a little blown away. That's intense for an 11-year-old lot. So when did you do school?
Angelina Huang:
Honestly, I didn't. I spent all of my Sunday studying and basically did a week's worth of school in one day because we just didn't have a break. It was eat, sleep, skate, eat, sleep, skate. That was my day every day.
Shelby Stanger:
What are some of your fondest memories of the sport?
Angelina Huang:
There was a period of my life where I really struggled with skating. I just had a lot going on and I wanted to quit. I actually did quit. This was before I really even had a career. I just was burning out, but I was starting to be watched by Team USA and they had invited me out to go train out in Colorado Springs at the Olympic Training Center. And so I said, "Sure, why not? Might as well." And I went out to Colorado Springs to just give it a try and I found a coach who I absolutely love, his name's Damon Allen. He has changed my life in so many ways, but he helped me refine my love in skating, at least in the competitive side. So I slowly crawled my way back. I had stopped skating for so long that skills were tough to do and nobody knew that I was still skating and I came back and started competing and I made it to regionals. I made it to sectionals, and I skated horrible at sectionals and I had a moment there where I was like, "I'm done."
I qualified for nationals in the very last place that you could qualify. And I was like, "I'm supposed to be this amazing skater. I should just be done. I'm going to get through nationals and maybe I'll just stop skating." And I had actually a news outlet, a skating news outlet, who wrote a story about me and said that I was a very crappy skater and I'm just a very lucky skater because I just seem to crawl on the podium every time. I found that article a couple of weeks before I was supposed to go out to nationals and was obviously livid. I was so mad and I think that really just lit a fire in me and I went out to nationals. I was predicted to get second to last place, that was my ranking going into it. I just really skated my heart out there and really just enjoyed nationals and took it for what it was and I ended up winning. And that's when I became national champion and everyone was shocked. I was shocked, but it's a little comeback story that I'm just super proud of.
Shelby Stanger:
After becoming a national champion, Angelina was invited to join Team USA, which had been a dream of her since childhood. She spent a few seasons on the team as one of the 15 best skaters in the country, traveling the world and competing internationally. But part way through 2021, Angelina had a life-altering realization, skating didn't make her happy anymore. After some reflection, she made the difficult choice to retire.
You are competing all day long at the highest level, high stakes, for your country. I'm guessing you're getting paid.
Angelina Huang:
No, not getting paid.
Shelby Stanger:
You're not getting paid.
Angelina Huang:
We don't get paid.
Shelby Stanger:
You have this prestigious job that's unpaid and you decide to quit. That must've been a big decision.
Angelina Huang:
Yeah, it was very hard. I think the retirement journey is something that most athletes don't talk about, but I think especially the higher level you go, the harder it is. Like you said, it is all that you know. Skating was my identity. Nobody knew what else I was capable of. I didn't even know what else I was capable of. All I knew was skating. It was my life. I've been doing it since I was a tiny child. I knew nothing besides that. I don't remember a life without skating and retirement was very hard. I retired almost on a whim. I had a conversation with one of my coaches, he's a choreographer, and he made me realize that I wasn't happy in the sport anymore and that it was about time to change my life and he really encouraged me to just do whatever I really felt like.
But I think in that conversation I realized that I honestly had accomplished everything that I had dreamed of. My dream as a kid was to make Team USA. I saw one of my teammates put on a jacket and I was like, "I want that." And I'm so lucky to have been able to do that for a couple seasons. And for me, I had done everything that I had wanted to and I was like, "I think it's about time to go search for something else." There's so much in life and all I knew were those four concrete walls and, I call it my concrete ice box, I just spent every day in it and I just needed a change of pace. But it is really tough.
Shelby Stanger:
So how did you get through it?
Angelina Huang:
I'm still working on it. It tore me apart. I'm lucky that I made the decision on my own. It wasn't because of an injury or anything else that sent me out of the sport. I'm the one who said, "I am done, I'm retiring." But even then, I think it's so incredibly tough because you're leaving behind what feels like your entire life. I say it all the time. I felt like when I retired, it was me waving goodbye to my childhood. But I think now I am lucky to have refound my passions in skating through a different life, through wild ice, and that's honestly helped me... While it's still skating, it's helped me form a different identity with skating and as well as just find a love that's out of that competitive world that I knew.
Shelby Stanger:
When Angelina retired, she decided to go to the University of Wisconsin as a normal college student. For many 19 year olds, this would feel like a typical next step, but for Angelina, going to college was quite the culture shock. Instead of being at the rink all day, she was going to class, attending football games and making friends outside of skating. During that first year on campus, Angelina didn't ice skate at all. Then, one winter day, when she was walking near some frozen lakes with a friend, she was inspired to try something new.
So tell me how you found wild ice skating. What was that first time like?
Angelina Huang:
Sure, yeah. So I was 19 years old, post-retirement, didn't touch the ice for nearly a year, and I just happened on my skates in my car. I don't really know why, but I was with a friend and we were just driving around, stopped at the park with a lake for sunset, and I saw six EMTs just walking out on the ice and I had just asked them, I was like, "Out of curiosity, when is it safe to skate?" And they're like, "If you want to skate now, you can." And I was like, "I have my skates in my car. What if I got on and you guys watched me to make sure I was safe? Would that be cool?" And they were like, "Yeah, sure." They were all for it.
And right then and there, I whipped out my skates and got on, and did absolutely nothing but stroked around the ice and that was my very first taste of wild ice. Had no idea what I was doing, was so naive, but just thought it was so cool that I was skating on a natural body of ice. And that was the first time I ever stepped on wild Ice.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. What did it sound like? What did it look like?
Angelina Huang:
Yeah. Well, it sounded terrifying. You can hear the ice creak and bend under the pressure of your skates. And for someone who had never done that before, that was so scary to me. You can see through the ice at the rocks and the weeds underneath and it's such a foreign concept to me, but it was honestly so terrifying the first time I was out there and I just did very basic skating, didn't do any tricks, barely turned backwards, let alone.
Shelby Stanger:
I'm sure your basic skating looks pretty awesome.
Angelina Huang:
Thank you. But yeah, to me it was very easy, easy skating and I didn't push it and just stroked around in circles. It was so cool, you can see the marks you leave, the trails of you, just skating through the ice. With an ice rink because it's white, you don't see it that prominently, but because wild ice is black, the ice is clear, but underneath it's black, so it's super clear the marks you make, and it's just really cool to be seeing my edges out on wild ice.
Shelby Stanger:
So needless to say, you were hooked.
Angelina Huang:
Oh, I was hooked. I immediately searched when the next time I could go out was, and that really just kicked off my first season. I was out there every minute that I possibly got before school. I was out there before classes at sunrise. As soon as I got off of classes, I was out there for sunset and I was out there literally every day that the ice allowed.
Shelby Stanger:
That's pretty freeing.
Angelina Huang:
Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
How did that feel?
Angelina Huang:
Oh, I loved it. It was so nice to just do it on my own time. When I skated competitively, I was forced to get up at 4:00 A.M to be at the rink, but for wild ice, I'd get up at 4:00 A.M so I could be there before the sun had even started to light up.
Shelby Stanger:
It's interesting, I only can relate to your story a little bit, but a lot of my athletic background was a track and a field, and they both have lines and boxes and they're very uniform. And so when I found adventure sports like surfing and hiking, I love the fact that there was no lines, no boxes. It was just so free. And I'm curious, if you also were struck by the fact that the lake is just so different than the ice rink.
Angelina Huang:
So different. Your horizon is your limit, instead of the boards around an ice rink. It takes me two seconds to go across the ice and I have to turn around in an ice rink. But wild ice is I could skate miles and miles and I haven't even hit the mountains on the other side of it.
That was so freeing just to have endless ice and no one around to watch you. And you had the creative freedom and it was your world, because nobody else is crazy enough to be out there with me. It's just me alone in a lake with the nearest person is miles away, and that's such a freeing feeling and it's what keeps me going back.
Shelby Stanger:
Angelina is known for wearing a bright yellow puffer jacket. She performed some of her favorite tricks and choreography on the ice. On social media, she posts videos of herself soaring across beautiful frozen lakes and rivers. Her blades make artistic lines on the surface and her reflection dances beneath her.
When we come back, Angelina talks about how she stays safe on the ice, the most amazing places she skated, and the allure of the first freeze.
Former professional figure skater Angelina Huang rediscovered her love of skating on the frozen lakes of Madison Wisconsin. When she first started, Angelina knew if she saw people standing on the lake ice fishing, then the ice was thick enough to support her too. As she's ventured to more remote places, Angelina has had to learn which surfaces are safe for skating. As you can imagine, it can be very dangerous to skate on wild ice. It's hard to tell how thick it is, and if you fall in the water, you can quickly become hypothermic. One day when Angelina was skating, her foot broke through. It was a scary moment and an important wake-up call.
Angelina Huang:
The ice had looked the same to me at the time. I didn't know a difference. And I was like, but there has to be some sort of tell that the ice was getting weaker. And from there I was like, let me do some research. So I spent all summer along trying to work on just my own knowledge and that's when I started doing self-rescue, testing as well. I kicked off the next season with a bunch of safety gear on me, which was very important. I wear of super flat, thin, I think it's a kayaking life vest, on the days that ice is scary. I take it off when, again, ice is 10 inches thick. You judge by what you know, but I have ice picks that I carry with me in case I fall through. I need to be able to help myself out because nobody else is coming to get me. I'm three miles away from shore. So stuff like that, like a rope, a whistle. I have a whole gear kit now and I take that out with me when I skate.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay, so you did some research on the ice. It's really risky. What did you learn about it that you didn't know? How do you know if ice is safe? How do you know if it's not safe?
Angelina Huang:
Ice is safe enough at about an inch and three quarters, if there's no bubbles in them. I know that's super technical, it's hard to measure, but that's the absolute bare minimum that'll support somewhat safely. But with that is, there's a lot of variables to ice, whether that's temperature, that's the biggest one. Wind can play a very big factor, snow, even the currents underneath the lakes and rivers, that plays a big factor. If it's a lake, I try to do research about it way ahead of time so I understand the depths of the lake in certain areas as well as where the currents flow and where wind usually comes in from. Just so I know how safe certain areas of the lake is, because you could be totally fine skating on one half of the ice and it's super safe, it's five inches thick, and you cross a little crack, not even a crack, but you cross a little difference and that ice becomes less than an inch and you're going in.
So it's really hard in the moment to know. So I always try to test a boundary while I'm out there. You can do that using an ice screw to literally drill through and see how thick it is. You can also use a rock, which you just watch it hit and listen and see how the ice reacts. But using a combination of these methods, I try to test a boundary so that I know where I can push and where I need to stand back, because there's definitely places where, really I've skated right up against open water. I'm standing maybe five feet away from it and I'm on ice that's five, six inches thick and I'm totally safe, but because the wind and the currents have ripped apart that part of the lake, I'm literally standing... I could stand there and fish. That's how close I am. And so yeah, I've done a lot of research to try to understand it, but it's not perfect. And I think wild ice is something you have to, when you go out and skate, you have to recognize that you can be as prepared as possible, but there is always a risk, no matter how much and how prepared you think. I recognize the fact that there is always a danger aspect to it.
Shelby Stanger:
Do you have a story of a situation where it was a little bit more dangerous than you imagined or where you did crack the ice?
Angelina Huang:
I have definitely skated where the ice has cracked behind me as I've skated. You shouldn't be doing that. That was a good learning experience for me. I was really pushing the edge of a first freeze. There are times where I've skated over things that I'm like, "I shouldn't be skating on here and let me backtrack the way I came from to make sure I'm somewhat safe." So no close calls, because just because I think my preparation side has been pretty strong. But I wouldn't be surprised if in a little while I do, let's say, plummet through the ice because it is really hard to tell sometimes. But I am prepared for that. So that's where the self-rescue training comes into play.
Shelby Stanger:
What does that look like? Self-rescue training? How do you do that? Who comes with you?
Angelina Huang:
I started doing that recently. I realized that again, if I'm out in these Alpine lakes and alone, I have to be able to save myself. So at least what this past season looked like, I had a nurse on site, like an EMT, and basically they take my vitals beforehand and we run through everything that should happen. I go through the ice, I pull myself out, this is what it should look like. And we pick a day where the ice was weak. We knew it was going to break under just walking out there. And sure enough, I walked out there, plummeted through the ice. Funny enough, not when I thought I was going to, I thought I was going to walk out even further, but that was good because I wasn't a hundred percent prepared for it.
I dropped in and the cold shock came immediately and that's something you can prepare for in the sense that you know it's going to happen, but I didn't realize how bad that hits your body. I had ice picks on me and I forgot that they were there. I was swimming in the water trying to figure out what I was supposed to do and I finally came to my realization when I saw I had ice picks, I was like, "Oh, I need to use that to get out." But I had planned this again and again and again prior to the test, but it's just cold shock is so serious. And I didn't realize it till a test like that when I was like, "Wow, my mind just went blank."
Shelby Stanger:
Angelina prioritizes preparation and safety, which allows her to venture to places off the beaten track like high Alpine Lakes, ice tunnels and even glaciers. She tends to go skating in the freezing cold, like last year, when she was in Alaska, the temperature went down to negative 25 degrees. It was uncomfortable, but for Angelina, the cold is worth the cost of admission.
Angelina Huang:
I went out actually to Fairbanks, Alaska to go watch the Aurora, not even to go skate. And I had extra space in my carry-on and I said, "I'm bringing my skates, why? Don't know."
Shelby Stanger:
Just in case.
Angelina Huang:
Just in case, because I'm addicted to skating apparently. And I went on a hike to a glacier and there's a lake nearby, and I'd brought my skates with me on that hike in hopes to skate on that lake. We had passed a lake and I realized it's covered in 10 feet of snow, there's no way. And we get to this glacier and inside is the smoothest ice to exist and there's just frost on the ceiling of the cave and it's dark all the way at the end. You can hear the running water underneath it. It was such an insane experience. And I, being the insane person I am, was like, "I'm putting on my skates," and I strapped them on and skated in an ice cave and it's so surreal, even now that I speak about it, I'm just like, "I can't believe that's real."
Shelby Stanger:
Okay, I want to go wild ice skate. I could barely ice skate, but it sounds so fun. So are you hiking into any of these places?
Angelina Huang:
Yeah, sometimes. It depends. I try to pick places that I can just drive up to, mostly because it's really cold and I want a place to sit later to take off my skates. But sometimes, yeah, I'm hiking a couple miles in to get to these lakes. I'm thinking this season I might be pushing some 5, 10, 15 mile hikes just to get to a lake that I want to skate at. So depends, but sometimes it is a drive-up situation. Sometimes it is like a hike all the way in for a beautiful lake.
Shelby Stanger:
Where are the best places to be a wild ice skater?
Angelina Huang:
So anywhere that the lakes freeze. But I would encourage people who do want to get into outdoor skating for the first time to go somewhere where it is maintained. Here in the Midwest, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, there are places where they do maintain the ice and make sure it's safe, and I think that's a great place to start. But true wild ice skating, I love Colorado, to be fair, that is home for me, but just being on Alpine lakes in the mountains is surreal. I'm biased, I love Madison, that I think will always hold a special place in my heart, it's where I started wild ice skating. It's my home wild ice. And it's just such a beautiful scenery that you get, somewhat of nature as well as a skyline in the background, which is just really cool.
Banff is one that's really popular, and if you can catch that first freeze, which don't try this at home, but for someone like me, if you can catch that first freeze, it is supposed to be miraculous, which is what I'm going to chase this season. But I would definitely recommend, as long as it's safe, anywhere in Canada, anywhere where lakes freeze really, you can make wild ice your own.
Shelby Stanger:
What is the allure of the first freeze? I mean I'm a San Diego person, nothing about snow and ice, is it because you can see so clearly below you?
Angelina Huang:
Yeah, partially. Part of it is that with the first freeze, it's usually very, very smooth because it's just glazed over. The wind hasn't touched it, the snow hasn't touched it, temperatures haven't changed. And if you can get that first day where it's skatable, it's gorgeous. And if you're skating somewhere like Colorado, Banff, literally anywhere in the mountains, it's such blue, clear ice that you can see through it. It is one of the coolest things. I saw it for the first time this past season in Colorado, and I got to see through the ice and the rocks were, probably, my guess, 30 to 40 feet underneath me, but they looked like they were right up against the ice because it was just so clear and it was so beautiful. You could see fish underneath your skates. Such a cool experience. It's so untouched. Even nature hasn't had time to go mess it up, and that's what I try to chase every season.
Shelby Stanger:
What do your parents think of this change in path for you?
Angelina Huang:
They're so supportive. They're terrified half of the time. I don't tell them half of the things I do until after the fact. But actually what's funny is, at the start of every season, it's just become a little tradition, I'll skate out to the middle of the lake as far as I possibly can. This is always on the very first time I'm out on wild ice and I'll FaceTime them from the middle of the lake and I won't say anything. I'll just hold up my phone and you can just see I'm on the ice with just nothing around me. I call them at five in the morning while it's barely the sun's up and I'm just like, "Hi." And they're like, "You're crazy." But I mean, they're so supportive of it. And they even drove me around Colorado to go chase ice so they're super awesome. But I do scare them, I think.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah, you'd probably give me a heart attack as a child, but also good for your parents for letting you follow your passions.
Angelina Huang:
Oh yes. They know I'm a little wild, so they let me run free.
Shelby Stanger:
So you were totally burned out on ice skating as a competitive skater, you found wild ice. How did it change everything for you?
Angelina Huang:
Changed my life. I wouldn't be here living the life I am now if it wasn't for this transition. And honestly, skating has given me so many opportunities in life. Even through competitive skating, it's given me such an amazing career, but especially the transition to wild ice I think has been so pivotal in my life. Learning how to love skating for what it is again, I really lost that through especially the last couple of years of my competitive skating and finding wild ice and learning what it's like to skate for myself again was so important. I think it brought out that childhood... The little girl who first stepped out on the ice when she was 6 years old, that came back to me. And sometimes I'm out on these lakes goofing off and smiling and just dancing around and doing whatever I want. And it doesn't matter, one, no one can see me. But also it really truly doesn't matter. It's just what makes me happy. And it's given me such a beautiful light into skating that I honestly, I don't know where I would be without it, so I'm very thankful for my pivot from competitive to wild ice. It's definitely changed my life.
Shelby Stanger:
I admire that Angelina has reclaimed the sport that she's always loved and made it her own. She has some exciting projects in the works, like taking a helicopter to remote lakes in Alaska and hopefully skating in Banff National Park. If you want to stay up to date on those adventures and watch her carve it up in her yellow puffer jacket, you can visit her on Instagram at theworldwithangelina. Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas and Sam Piers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producers are Jenny Barber and Hannah Boyd. Our executive producers are Paolo Motila and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow the show, take time to rate it and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.