As Jess Asmussen ties up the laces on his running shoes in the parking lot of his favorite trails, he takes a moment to pause and listen. To hear the people around him and what they are saying. It’s when he hears someone say, “how great it was to be out there,” that he’s reminded exactly why he does what he does in his professional work.
Jess is the local District Ranger for the Forest Service here in McCall—a role where his mission is to help lead and manage the National Forest land we all love so much. And although the role itself is relatively new to him, Jess is not new to the area. He’s been in McCall for over twenty years, and we’re a lucky town to have him call this place home.
Jess was born in Minnesota, but spent many years living all over the U.S., including a 10-year stint in Estes Park, Colorado, where he worked as a climbing ranger for the National Park Service. How cool is that? A climbing ranger??
It was during this time that he took a fire assignment near McCall, where his unit had a short stopover for a few days at Ponderosa State Park. Jess fondly recalls the moment he put his feet in the lake, thinking to himself how this beautiful place reminded him of home in Minnesota. Then he looked up and saw Brundage Mountain and thought about how it reminded him of Colorado, his current home at the time. It was a moment where his two worlds came together.
Later, he and his wife Gwen had a map covered in pins marking all the places they were considering living as they prepared to move on from Estes Park. Because of that experience in Ponderosa, McCall won their hearts. In 2014, they officially made the move to McCall, and they’ve never looked back since.
The main reason they love it here so much? The variety of terrain and recreation opportunities accessible right out the back door. From skiing, hiking, mountain biking, and trail running, to rock climbing, lake life, and all the river sports too—it’s all so accessible, with endless ways to find joy while moving your body outdoors.
So it’s fitting that, over 12 years later, Jess finds himself working to help protect and maintain these lands for everyone to enjoy. Because for Jess personally, he uses them almost every single day. And honestly, most days the only way you can keep track of Jess and his whereabouts is by stalking his Strava feed.
Back in the office, though, he has a similarly varied day-to-day life, handling so many different aspects of his job: recreation, conservation, wildfire mitigation, access, tourism, habitat protection, and more. Just a little bit of everything.
Despite being a job so deeply connected to the outdoors, Jess actually spends much of his time inside. Because when you have over 40 internal employees to help manage, along with numerous external organizations to collaborate with, a lot of your time ends up being spent behind a desk. But he brings the outdoors to him. His office is full of beautiful photos (that he took) of the land around us, maps, and even old trail signs. You can feel the outdoors pulsing through his office, reminding him—even when he’s stuck inside—of the importance of the work he’s doing.
Because whether he is inside or outside when on the clock, the work he is doing is incredibly important. In a place like McCall, where so much of the community’s identity revolves around public land, the District Ranger plays a significant role in the overall health and experience of the area.
For most people, that land is used for recreation, and that was the case for Jess too. But over time, in this role, he’s realized there is so much more to public lands than just recreation. Yes, recreation is a huge part—especially in McCall—but there are minerals worth protecting, timber that needs to be managed, wildland fire mitigation that is critical for our town’s safety, and so much more.
To Jess, if we could all look through the multiple lenses of why public land is important, not just why we personally use it, we’d have a better understanding of both the land and its many uses. Once you understand those different priorities, the challenge becomes figuring out how to make them all work together—especially when they sometimes have opposing agendas.
For instance, this year there will be some logging done near the new Brundage to Bear Basin (B2BB) mountain biking and hiking trail. Initially, the logging companies intended to use the mountain bike trail as their “roadway” to drive equipment and access trees. This would have caused permanent damage to a beloved trail in the area that cost a lot of money to build, and it also would have taken the trail away from users for the summer. But together, Jess and members of CIMBA were able to work toward a solution that kept the trail protected while still giving the loggers access to where they needed to go.
It’s stories like this that the public may not realize are happening behind the scenes—people working together to help find a win for all the different groups using our public lands.
For Jess, though, the number one thing he would ask of the public is to simply “go use the land.” Even if you aren’t someone who recreates on it yourself, just go spend a little time outside. Or head to the Bear Basin pump track and watch the kiddos biking. Because, as Jess says, “how can you not be happy watching that?”
McCall is lucky to have such a passionate and hardworking individual like Jess as our local Forest Service District Ranger. Jess and his team are truly Hometown Heroes as they work hard to sustain the health of the beloved land around us—not just for today, but for future generations ahead.
