Nation's oldest park ranger, 93, considers future With a can of bear spray on his hip and hearing aids in both ears, Lyle Ruterbories whistles and hums as he tends to this patch of wilderness along the Canadian border. For 20 years, he has been the ambassador, manager, accountant, anthropologist, botanist, historian, traffic cop, landscaper, handyman and rules enforcer of Kintla Lake. He still hauls gravel, mends fences and wields a chain saw to clear fallen trees from the road to the most remote encampment a visitor can drive to in Glacier National Park. But he doesn't overdo it. He is, after all, 93 years old. What's it like, a visitor asks, to be the oldest ranger in Glacier? Not in Glacier. The whole park system. The oldest working ranger in the whole park system. That includes everything," Ruterbories said. He once heard about another ranger near his age in Washington, D.C. "He was handing out pamphlets," Ruterbories said, with a smile. Sitting at a desk, handing out pamphlets. Not exactly what I'm doing here, pushing wheelbarrows with gravel in it. But Ruterbories' story is about more than longevity. This Sept. 5, 2013 photo shows Lyle Ruterbories pointing out routes on a map with a visitor to the Kintla Lake Campground in Glacier National Park, Mont. / AP Photo/Matt Volz It is, in fact, two love stories: One between a man and a woman, which ended sadly and too soon; the other between that man and a beautiful stretch of wilderness, which may be coming to an end as well. Ruterbories' first career was as a manager at Rocky Flats, a nuclear weapons manufacturing facility back home in Colorado. But starting in 1962, he and his wife, Marge, spent every summer in Glacier. Eventually, they became the hosts at the popular Avalanche Lake campground along Glacier's Going to the Sun Road. In 1991, new North Fork District Ranger Scott Emmerich needed a host at the Kintla Lake campground, someone who didn't need constant supervision in the isolated area east of the North Fork of the Flathead River. Emmerich was familiar with Ruterbories from his time working in the Avalanche Lake area. Nation's oldest park ranger Ruterbories' age - he was then 71 - was not a worry. He could still hike 28 miles in a day. At first, the two were not easily convinced to leave Avalanche Lake for the remoteness of Kintla, Ruterbories said. But just two years later, he turned down seven other job offers in Glacier to become Kintla's seasonal ranger so he and his wife could stay there together. For the next 12 summers, they lived in the little red ranger's cabin on the lake's shore, she as the campground hostess, and he as the ranger. Then, in 2005, Marge Ruterbories died of a stroke. In his grief, Ruterbories slept through most of the days that followed and could muster little will to do anything else. A grief counselor told him he needed to get back into a routine, and part of that meant going back to Kintla. That first day back was the worst day of his life, he said. Every step reminded him of Marge. The reason I come back here, she called this a paradise on earth. She really meant it. When I walk down through these trees, I still remember that," he said. And so his life began again.