Jenna Robinson

Age: 29
Residence: Rotterdam Junction
Family: Parents, Nancy and Garry Robinson; Siblings, Judd and Jillian; Partner, Manuel (Froggy) Rios
Occupation: Doctorate Student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Primary Sport: Road and Trail Running
Secondary Sports: Hiking, Rock Climbing, Skiing, and Road Biking

“You Never Really Know Your Potential Until You Try”

By Olivia Leonard

If you have ever met Jenna Robinson, you would know that she thrives on challenges. Whether the challenge is mental or physical, Jenna pushes herself to exceed her goals. Arguably, she could have developed into a different person if she had not experienced a life-changing health condition at a very young age.

At the age of eight, Jenna began to experience a health condition that would set her apart from her peers. Jenna was diagnosed with alopecia, a disease that happens when the immune system attacks hair follicles and causes hair loss.

“I lost my hair in second grade. It happened rather suddenly and was scary at first, but I was lucky to have a good school counselor who talked to my class and helped the other kids understand what I was going through,” Jenna said.

Despite the fear and discomfort Jenna experienced, her hair loss motivated her to build confidence, be outgoing, and not be afraid of standing out. Throughout this life-changing condition, Jenna has become accustomed to comfort in uncomfortable situations, which has taught her to push beyond limits and accomplish whatever she puts her mind to. Jenna lives by the mantra, ‘You never really know your potential until you try.’ This has led her to become an adventurous, fearless, and strong woman.

Jenna learned about cross country running in seventh grade when her physical education teacher told her she was a fast runner and should consider joining her school’s team. She had never heard of the sport and it piqued her interest. She began running for Guilderland High School’s varsity cross country team in eighth grade. “I instantly fell in love,” Jenna said. She enjoyed pushing herself and seeing progress because it felt rewarding. This led her to compete in the NYS Cross Country Championships during her freshman, sophomore, and senior years. 

Additionally, Jenna’s final season of high school cross country has also made an impact on her life and confidence today. As many people in Section 2 cross country know, Saratoga is reputable for its outstanding nationally ranked girls’ team. Jenna’s hard work and determination helped guide the Guilderland girls’ team to place second to Saratoga in 2013, which was a big deal! She said, “Second place felt like the gold standard in Section 2.”

Jenna went on to continue her career in cross country and track at Marist College (now Marist University). She specialized in the 800-meter on the track but she was always fascinated by long-distance running. “I focused on the 800 because I was comparatively better than the longer distances, which irked me,” Jenna said.

In 2015 Jenna hiked her first Adirondack High Peaks. She experienced a similar feeling as she did when she began cross country. “I fell in love with the awesome views and how hard it was,” Jenna said. After graduating from Marist, the peaks began to build a path that would motivate her to continue pushing towards that rewarding feeling that comes with great accomplishment. At first, she didn’t intend to become a “peak-bagger,” or someone who hikes for the sole purpose of reaching a collection of summits. Rather, she wanted to hike for the joy of hiking, the love of being in nature, and experiencing the outdoors. She never said no to a hike even if it was a repeat, which truly shows the depth of her love and appreciation for the Adirondack wilderness.

The High Peaks gave Jenna a glimpse of what long-distance trail running looked like. Since graduating college, Jenna has run ultra-marathons, road marathons, and trail races. Some of Jenna’s most memorable races have been the Great Adirondack Trail Run, put on by The Mountaineer in Keene Valley, and Flutters & Foliage Endurance Race held at Peebles Island State Park in Waterford.

The Great Adirondack Trail Run is an 11.5-mile trail race with 2,900 feet of vertical gain and 3,100 feet of descent. To enter the Great Adirondack Trail Race you must call The Mountaineer to sign up when registration opens. The 60 spots are “severely limited” so she spent hours dialing in for an entry and was able to get a spot in 2023. Jenna said, “It was the hardest trail race I’ve ever done. I fell several times and was fangirling over the competitive runners.” If you love a great, challenging trail run and you want to show yourself that you have potential, Jenna highly recommends attempting to get an entry!

This year Jenna is devoting her time to training for the Great Adirondack Trail Run (assuming she gets in), and the Bob Marshall Traverse, a 32-mile trail with a 15,000 foot elevation gain, which includes 13 of the 46 High Peaks.

She is also an avid climber. She has bouldered on the Beckhorn, located in the Dix Range at 4,774 feet. Jenna said, “Two friends and I hiked seven miles up Dix with a giant crash pad. We spent all day trying to climb the crack in the slab and we didn’t make it. The top-out is too sketchy. It’s a very gradual round slab with nothing to grab on to so if you fall beyond the crash pad you would go down a cliff. People were looking at us like we were crazy, especially while we were climbing. It was one of my top three best adventure days.”

Although Jenna has had some amazing experiences in outdoor climbing, she particularly enjoys bouldering at the local climbing gyms in the Capital Region. It was at The Edge in Clifton Park that Jenna found a group of hiking friends. I think it’s safe to say that having alopecia encouraged Jenna to make these friends because she felt comfortable being uncomfortable when it came to putting herself out there. At the time she felt that she had the potential to start her journey of High Peaks hiking and even surprised herself in doing so. She realized that because she opened herself to new friends and new experiences, she had immense potential to become a hiker and trail runner.

As some of Jenna’s friends began to earn their Adirondack 46er patches, she soon realized that completing the Adirondack 46 was being added to her bucket list. Although she did not intend to become a peak bagger, she was inspired by watching her friends finish and wanted to set a new goal to accomplish. Checking off the peaks motivated Jenna, who finished her journey on Esther Mountain on September 10, 2023. 

She originally intended to finish on Whiteface, however, being the lover of a good challenge, she learned that skiing up the toll road and then heading up to the summit (in ski boots) counted as summiting the mountain, so she did Whiteface the previous winter. It was well worth the ski to the summit because as she said, “It was one of the best days of my life.” On the summit there was an incredible cloud inversion: a rare occurrence in which the air near the ground is colder than the air above it, causing the clouds to be lower in elevation than many of the high peaks. It was an incredibly beautiful sight to see.

Jenna’s Adirondack endeavors don’t stop there. She is currently completing her doctorate in limnology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which studies how climate change affects energy processing in lakes (similar to lake ecology). The first chapter of her dissertation took place in Lake George, observing how different landscapes around the lake affect the in-lake processing. Jenna is now a lead scientist and project coordinator on the SCALE, short for the Survey of Climate Change and Adirondack Lake Ecosystems. 

“I started working on the SCALE project, which is funded by New York State. It is a $5 million grant over five years that funds a survey of Adirondack lakes. We’ll survey about 300 lakes over three years and when I graduate, I will be working on the project full-time,” Jenna said. “There was a survey of the Adirondack lakes done in the 1980s that was influential in establishing the Clean Air Act [the law that defines EPA’s responsibilities for protecting and improving the nation’s air quality and the stratospheric ozone layer] in 1992. The survey collected data from acid rain and the project was able to sue other states and essentially say ‘Hey, the smoke caused by your coal production is depositing in our lakes and is wreaking havoc,’” Jenna said. New York was able to sue the other states which led to the Clean Air Act officially being enacted. 

The SCALE project is determined to achieve something similar to the surveys completed in the 1980s. This will allow the state to provide evidence of how continuing fossil fuels use is causing climate change and how drastically it affects the Adirondack Park.

Jenna’s story teaches us to keep going even when life throws roadblocks at us, to push ourselves because we will be rewarded for our hard work, and most of all, “you never really know your potential until you try.”

Olivia Leonard (olivialeonard6@gmail.com) is a UAlbany alumni with an English degree and a concentration on the Anthropocene. She is an Adirondack 46er and lover of all things outdoors – camping, skiing, fishing, paddling, backpacking, trail running – and enjoys incorporating that into her professional work.