New Magdalena district ranger
Priority is to ‘be a good neighbor in the community’
Cibola National Forest’s Magdalena District was without a full-time District Ranger from October 2016 when Dennis Aldridge retired until January of this year.
Welcome District Ranger Kim Obele, who took over the first of the year.
“My priority is to be a good neighbor in the community,” Obele says. “It’s not my district, it’s our district.”
She comes to Magdalena from the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest in northern Colorado where she specialized in range management.
“Now as Magdalena District Ranger I have the opportunity to work with a lot of people in a lot of capacities, whether it is range management, or fire, or roads, or special use permits, recreation, outfitter and guide ...” Obele said. “There are a lot of aspects of working with people on public land that I enjoy.”
“Since I have a field background in range management, I can apply those skills more broadly and work in other areas and get a big overview,” she said. “I like that big overview.”
“I think this district, the Magdalena District on the Cibola National Forest, is unique in that it is four sky islands of mountain ranges, and somewhat rural. It’s kind of a jewel,” Obele said.
She pointed out that Magdalena is not overpopulated like some other districts that “have a lot of people, a lot of recreation issues. We certainly have recreation but there’s a lot more out there. It’s a feeling of personal space on public land. We have 800,000 acres to explore. There are four mountain ranges and two designated wilderness areas in the Magdalena District.”
One of the more popular areas in the district is Water Canyon off Highway 60, which provides hiking trails, picnic areas and the Water Canyon Campground. Over in the San Mateos there are four designated campgrounds: Bear Trap Campground, Hughes Mill Campground, Luna Park Campground and Springtime Campground.
Since starting in January, the middle of winter, Obele is looking forward to seeing more visitors as the weather gets warmer.
“That season is just getting started,” she said. “I am looking forward to interacting with visitors seeking information here at the office.”
Behind the scenes, Obele manages an experienced staff.
“Our main workhorse areas are fire and range. We have over 20 on staff for fire, both permanent and temporary, two engines, and our wildland fire module, Apache Kid,” she said. “The district also has three lookouts — people physically looking for fires — the Davenport Lookout, the Grassy Lookout and the Withington Lookout.”
“Range management includes grazing permit administration,” Obele said. “Those are our two workhorse programs; fire and range. Ongoing programs, and embedded into what we protect by those two programs, are wildlife habitat and heritage cultural resources.”
Although the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the agency running the Mexican wolf recovery program “we are a cooperating agency and we manage habitat, but not actual wildlife,” she said.