The Ecuadoran government had asked the Corps to inspect the suspected logging site - the first time the corrupt forestry department had made such a request. So after a quick breakfast, Carlos and I hiked to Santa Rosa, the nearest tiny village. Five members of the Corps - recruits from a local athletic club - were waiting for us in a red Ford pickup. Three sat hunched in front, laughing and talking. Carlos, the two other Corps members and I perched on the sides of the truck bed, alternately baking in sunlight and freezing in shadow as we drove down the curving mountain road. About 45 minutes later we reached our destination, but the owner of the land we were supposed to inspect - not surprisingly - hadn't shown up. One of his neighbors was more than happy to escort us up the steep mountainside.

It's not like I do this every day. Most of my mornings begin with a walk down cracked, dirty sidewalks to my job in San Francisco, where I spend long days grappling with a million deadlines. But in mid-October, my friend Allison and I traveled to visit my sister Sandy, her husband, Carlos, and their two children at their bed and breakfast on 1,000 acres, high in Ecuador's Intag Cloud Forest Reserve.

Three years earlier, their property had been invaded by a neighboring landholder. Though Carlos had owned the tract of forest for more than a dozen years, his neighbor had torched about 20 acres of the endangered ecosystem and planted corn. He didn't plan to harvest it - he was out to lure the spectacled bear, one of several endangered species native to the Intag. The scheme worked all too well: he killed one of the bears and sold its gall bladder to a dealer in the Asian medicine trade.

When Carlos and Sandy sued, their neighbor allegedly bribed the first judge. They appealed and won, but they're still awaiting a final ruling from Quito. Their lawyers, Byron Real and Marcela Enriquez, are the founders of CORDAVI, Ecuador's first public interest environmental law firm. Through Byron and Marcela, Carlos and Sandy were able to raise money to organize the Green Corps.

That's how I came to be staggering up this mountainside. I ushered everyone ahead of me. Knowing I'd be the slowest climber, I thought it best that I be last. Our guide, a woman wearing a skirt and tiny black shoes, walked up the steep trail as if on a leisurely stroll. My high-tech hiking boots didn't give me the traction I needed, but one of the Green Corps helped pull me up the mountain. The elevation took its toll, but with every ragged breath, I reminded myself that it wasn't every day I could go to battle for a cloud forest.