It was wonderful to be talking to Gonzalo Cisternas in Santa Barbara. We first met in Chile, 7,000 miles from the California coast, and this was the second, surprising, chapter of what I hope will be a continuing friendship. Cisternas is chief ranger at Torres del Paine National Park in Chile, and he was here with nine fellow rangers on a tour of California parks, to be followed by a "de rigueur" visit to Washington, D.C.

To explain how I first met Cisternas I must go back to 2002, when my wife, Susana, and I trekked in Torres ("Towers") del Paine National Park, which in many ways is like our Yosemite: a dramatic landscape of spectacular peaks, great cascades and lakes of almost unimaginable colors, raised from the sea floor by the movement of geologic plates along the Americas' Pacific rim, sculpted from sandstone and granite by glacier and wind. Torres del Paine is an International Biosphere Reserve. A rapid upsurge in tourism in the park, however, has provoked serious ecological problems for the country, straining the limited financial resources available for parks. This too, is not unlike the situation in Yosemite some years ago, which was urgent then and still exists today.

On the last day of our walk, nearing the Hostel Pehoé, we were buffeted by strong winds; and while I was walking through a wet spot on the trail, my boot got stuck in a muddy trench and I was blown over, full length into the muck. After I extricated myself I concluded: these trails could use some work.

Three years later, in 2005, we saw a notice in our Sunday paper that the U.S. Forest Service (USFS)--specifically California's Los Padres National Forest--was looking for volunteers to go to Torres del Paine to do trail maintenance. Amazingly, we were being offered an opportunity to work on the very same trail on which I fell!

The details are complex: the program was the icing on a U.S.–Chile trade agreement; we would do trail maintenance for eight days, and have two days off; we would be accompanied by several USFS experts and consultants who would impart to a group of Chilean rangers some of their knowledge of trail layout and construction, and visitor handling in ecologically sensitive areas. The volunteers would pay their own way.

It was a wonderful experience--we bonded through a common love for trails and natural beauty, and if working side by side wasn't enough, an hour or so at the end of each day drinking Chilean wine was the extra that made great friendships.

The Chilean rangers worked with us, and we had many animated conversations with the help of one or another translator. Only a few of the rangers spoke English, and few of us spoke more than a smidgeon of Spanish. We couldn't help but be charmed by their effort, enthusiasm, and quiet manner. Among them, Cisternas seemed most approachable--he was young, outgoing, and spoke English.

We were concerned that the rangers would wonder why we norteamericanos had come to work on their trails. Such volunteerism is uncommon in this part of the world. As we worked, many people stopped to ask, "What are you doing here?" Most of the hikers were foreigners--Europeans, Americans (a large class on a high-school science trip), Australians, and even Brazilians and Argentines--relatively few Chileans get to this remote region near the Strait of Magellan. We explained the personal satisfaction of such work, and learned that for many Chileans "volunteering" is an alternative to mandatory military service.

As we left we all agreed: "Let's bring the Chilean rangers to the U.S." That sentiment was also expressed by a subsequent group of volunteers, in 2006. The needed funds were raised through the effort of our sponsors from Los Padres National Forest (particularly Ranger Rich Tobin) and Los Padres Forest Association, the U.S. Patagonian Foundation and Chilean Fundación Patagonia, as well as support from the two nations' governments, the clothing and gear company Patagonia, and gifts from volunteers and others. Thus the Chilean rangers came for their work-study tour of the United States, and I got to visit with Gonzalo Cisternas again, in Santa Barbara.

At a reception in Santa Barbara he told me he found that the beaches here were as beautiful as the beaches in Chile, but was surprised that the sand here was softer and more fine-grained.

"I have been to the beach where Pablo Neruda had a beach home, south of Santiago," I told him, "and it was just beautiful. To think of this poet sitting there and writing this extraordinary poetry, well. . . ."

"Isla Negra," said Cisternas.

"Isla Negra."

To be continued, maybe at Isla Negra or Torres del Paine, but surely on one coast or the other.

See the website of the Patagonian Foundation (www.patagonianfoundation.org) for more photos of the U.S. volunteers in Chile.