Phillips and a visitor have been traversing a short, paved forest trail near the Stillaguamish River. She stands up from her battered wheelchair, folds it and tosses it through the hatch of her hard-used Toyota. She was a skilled, passionate mountain climber until she was 40. Then that part of her life slammed shut. A painful condition called fybromyalgia set in, limited her walking to a few yards and turned her sharply focused energy toward forest activism.

She joined the Audubon Society's Pilchuk chapter, named for a mountain near Everett, Wash., discovered a talent for tactics and alliances and soon became Pilchuk's paid director. Recently she has prowled the halls of Congress, wheelchair and all, for the Forest Water Alliance, a consortium of 21 environmental groups.