Kyle Johnson’s office is strewn with boots and other hiking gear, along with maps and books related to his real work area — Glacier National Park’s backcountry.

Among his more than 30 years of working in the park in a variety of roles, Johnson has for more than a decade been involved in wilderness management.

That work was recognized this month by the National Park Service with the director’s Wes Henry National Excellence in Wilderness Stewardship Individual Award for 2011.

Johnson, 51, won a regional award for wilderness stewardship in February and was considered among other regional winners for the national award.

“It’s a pretty big deal,” said Johnson, who has worked for the National Park Service for 31 years. “It’s an individual award but it’s really a team effort for Glacier.”

Johnson sees the award as recognition of a wilderness program that was fostered among others by his predecessor, Roger Semler, and his retired mentor and supervisor, Jack Potter.

“Your respected role and expertise as Glacier’s wilderness specialist include working side-by-side with every park discipline,” wrote National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis in notifying Johnson of the award.

“You thoughtfully contributed to management decisions involving facility management, trails, backcountry campgrounds, concessions management, interpretation, emergency services and resources management. Your knowledge of wilderness policies and laws has made you invaluable to the planning and execution of hundreds of projects and programs that serve to protect wilderness character.”

That’s actually a short list of Johnson’s work in the park.

After graduating from Columbia Falls High School, where he was a star in football, basketball and track, Johnson went to work on the park’s spring road crew in 1981.

“I was told I looked like I could lift heavy rocks, so they hired me,” Johnson recalls, and the rock lifting was for real because he ended up doing stone masonry work on guard walls along Going-to-the-Sun Road.

He stayed on as a seasonal road crew worker and attended Montana State University, graduating with a degree in land and resource management in 1984.

Soon after, Johnson attended a law enforcement ranger academy.

He was hired on as a ranger and assigned to the remote Belly River Ranger Station in the northeast corner of the park in 1986.

It was a learning experience, he said, because “Belly River rangers need to be jacks of all trades.”

The job involved livestock packing, working with grizzly bears, trail and campsite patrols and living out of a wall tent for the summer. Johnson recalls his hikes out of the Belly River after his weekly hitches on duty.

“I thought that was the greatest thing,” he said. “I’m hiking on government time.”

Johnson moved on to work as a seasonal ranger in the North Fork and then the Walton Ranger Station on the southern boundary of the park. He became a year-round park employee at Walton in 1991.

But after only a couple of years there, he was attracted to a backcountry coordinator position on a new Wilderness Management Work Group led by Glacier guru Jack Potter.

“I knew I wanted to work for Jack Potter. Jack was already kind of an icon in Glacier even back then,” Johnson said.

In that position, Johnson covered a lot of ground in the backcountry.

“There’s only a couple of trails I can think of that I haven’t been on in this park,” he said.

Over the years, he has become the park’s aviation manager, coordinating flights for firefighting, search and rescue and equipment and supply transportation. He leads the annual superintendent hikes and has been the park’s backcountry guide for VIPs such as first lady Laura Bush.

He’s also been a steady hand in bear management.

“I’ve had some interesting bear days,” Johnson says with a grin, recalling a particular story from a few years ago.

The park had set its sights on subjecting a family group of grizzly bears to “aversive conditioning” in the Old Man Lake area because the mother had become uncomfortably familiar in approaching people on trails and at campgrounds.

He and John Waller, the park’s wildlife biologist and a bear specialist, set out to radio-collar the mother, with the intent of capturing her by setting out a series of baited leg snares.

When the two went to check the snares, they heard a bear “bawling” in the distance. It turned out to be one of the 2-year-old cubs, and the mother and the other cub were circling in the vicinity of the snared cub.

“We thought, ‘This is kind of our worst nightmare,’” Johnson said.

They decided that the mother needed to be darted with a tranquilizer because the cub couldn’t be approached, but they decided Waller needed to practice a little first with the dart gun, because he would be shooting a dart fitted with a radio transmitter so the bear could be tracked down after being shot.

“The plan is to get her to bluff charge us, which shouldn’t be that hard,” said Johnson, recalling that the two were working in pouring rain.

They approached with Johnson carrying a shotgun for backup, and indeed the bear bluff-charged. Waller fired from about 30 yards away, hitting the bear perfectly on its back hump. A shot to the rump may not have worked, because the bear could have swatted the dart away with a paw.

The bear took off into thick brush, and after a wait, Johnson and Waller pursued it, practically swimming through the brush and rain, not knowing what they might bump into.

“You can imagine, the adrenaline is popping,” Johnson said.

After searching for a while, they came upon the mother bear, “mostly” tranquilized, with the sizable 2-year-old cub sitting on top of her.

Johnson said he and Waller were able to shoo the cub away and eventually approach the mother to fit her with a collar and later returning to release the other cub from the leg snare.

Earlier in the day, they handled another snared bear that wasn’t targeted for management action.

“We worked several bears in a single day,” Johnson said with a tone of satisfaction.

Johnson’s days in the park may be numbered because of a National Park Service mandatory retirement age of 57 for law enforcement rangers.

“I have a great job but I’ll get forced out in six years if I don’t change jobs,” he said. “A part of me would like to try something else. But it’s going to have to be a pretty neat job for me to leave Glacier.”

Johnson and his wife, Mary, live in Columbia Falls. Their son, Parker, just graduated from high school and their daughter, Ellie, will be a freshman this year.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by email at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.