Jason Tristan
July 2024
Jason Tristan wasn’t always passionate about the Appalachian Trail. In fact, he remembers rebelling against outdoor experiences in high school.
But his mom loved the A.T. and after a trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 2016, Jason started to feel differently about the outdoors and the Trail.
“I fell in love with the Trail,” he remembers. Now, that trip has turned into an annual tradition. The experiences, the memories, and the community he has found on the Trail has inspired him to give back.
Jason recognizes that when people think about volunteering on the A.T., they often picture carrying tools, moving rocks and dirt, and clearing vegetation. However, there are numerous ways individuals can volunteer on the A.T. and Jason found an opportunity that would allow him to use his data management experience to benefit the A.T.
“I was looking for someone to tackle the time-consuming job of entering old thru-hiker records from paper records to an Excel spreadsheet,” explained Monica Mogilewsky, ATC’s Visitor Use Management Data Manager. “From our very first meeting, Jason’s enthusiasm for the A.T. and data was obvious.”
Digitizing paper records is a vital but sometimes tedious task, and Monica is grateful for Jason’s skills and willingness to take on this project. “Data on paper tends to be ignored and eventually lost, but data in a spreadsheet can be visualized, analyzed, and leveraged for effective management,” she said.
“Jason recognized the value of visitor use data trapped in those fragile paper binders and offered to protect against data loss by scanning them sheet by sheet.”
Even though Jason has relocated to Denver, CO, he’s still able to fulfill his desire to give back to the A.T. “As of now, I’ve scanned four years of records. Now comes the fun part, turning those 950-plus pages of thru-hiker registrations into data that the ATC can utilize.” He meets via Zoom with Monica on his progress, who reports that Jason works cheerfully and steadily on preserving thru-hiker data.
“I always look forward to hearing his latest update,” she shared.
Jason’s motivation to take on this project extends beyond his own enjoyment of the Trail. Some of his favorite people are thru-hikers and he sees his work as a way of recognizing the achievements of long-distance hikers. “I think that if people are spending five to six months hiking and doing something so monumental, it’s the least I can do to memorialize it in some way,” he said.
Jason is also interested in helping ensure that the A.T. experience endures long into the future so that his nieces and nephews can enjoy it.
He encourages those interested in volunteering to “just try it.”
“You may not be single-handedly clearing the trail of downed trees or lugging materials deep into the backcountry, but every bit of time and effort you can give will make a difference to both you and the Trail. You won’t ever regret trying.”