He's a longtime resident of the island, and when he resumed tours in the wake of the May 2007 Island Fire, he found that his emotions kept catching in this throat. ''I could hardly talk it was so depressing,'' he said recently while standing outside his tour bus at Catalina's Airport in the Sky. ''Having seen it for so many years, and how pretty it was . . .'' His voice trailed off.
Then a hopeful smile. ``What's amazing to me is the way the trees are coming back.''
The island, indeed, is in the midst of a remarkable recovery, one that might have been unthinkable in the aftermath of a blaze that burned about a tenth of the island and raged to the very edges of Avalon.
But in the past winter, a progression of frequent but gentle rainstorms sprinkled the burn area, without producing the feared mudslides. The trees and shrubs proved resilient, too, their deeply buried roots and long-stored seed banks surviving the inferno. With the refreshing drink of winter and the sunny days of spring, regeneration has been swift.
Catalina is coming off a resplendent wildflower bloom. The full flush of that has passed, but there is still plenty of color to be seen: Mariposa lilies, Indian paintbrush, chamise, St. Catherine's lace, Catalina liveforever, manzanita, red bush monkey flower, bush mallow.
These and other encouraging signs of rebirth are there for anyone venturing into the interior, whether on a Discovery Tours outing, one of the Catalina Island Conservancy's Jeep Eco-Tours, or on a hike, bike ride or camping trip.
''No trails are closed, no campgrounds are closed,'' said Carlos de la Rosa, chief conservation officer for the conservancy, which is the steward of 88 percent of the island. ``Everyone who wants to see the plants coming back is going to have a real treat.''
De la Rosa recently led a visitor into the burn area to relate some of the success stories -- and to outline the considerable challenges that remain for Catalina's recovery.
''We did lose the forest, but we didn't lose the trees,'' he said as he paused next to the blackened skeleton of a toyon tree. These and other trees have begun to sprout around their bases, because their root systems survived.
But survival and maturity are two different issues. At the Laura Stein Volunteer Campground, a facility that houses people who aid the conservancy with its work, it was disheartening to walk through a blackened grove of tall island scrub oaks. Yes, they'll come back, but it will be 100 years before they achieve their former majesty.
Elsewhere, it was encouraging to observe the vitality of ''fire followers'' -- plants that flourish when the land has been swept free of other vegetation. In one gully, wild cucumber was so prolific that the area looked like a botanical garden, as the vines carpeted the ground, wriggled up tree trunks and bore fist-size fruit.
The conservancy scientists anticipated these effects, but it was a real leap of faith for others. As conservancy publicist Bob Rhein drove up Stagecoach Road, he said, 'After the fire, you looked up there, up this canyon, and said, `What hope is there?' ''
Even de la Rosa admitted that one area near Middle Ranch ``looked like a volcano, because the fire moved so fast through here. At night, it was covered with embers.''
The fire began on a flat ridge top where radio station KBRT has its transmitter. A contractor is charged with illicitly using an open-flame torch to cut some steel cable and accidentally setting the grass on fire. A brisk wind was blowing directly toward Avalon at the time. And 4,800 acres of chaparral, grassland and woods, parched by two years of drought, went up like a wad of newspaper.
After any such blaze, stories of minor miracles seem to surface. One involves Roy Rose's lovingly tended native-plant garden on an inland hilltop. The longtime Catalina resident had a big plastic water barrel above the garden for irrigation purposes. An ember flew into the enclosure and melted the barrel at its base, triggering a flood of water that saved all the plants.
Not all of the botanical regeneration on Catalina is celebrated. The conservancy's mission is to nurture the island's native plant population, including eight endemics found nowhere else in the world.
But invasive non-natives are among the ''fire followers,'' too, including the insidious flax-leaf broom, a yellow-flower bush that expels thousands of seeds. They're being pulled up as quickly as they sprout on conservancy-maintained land, but it is an endless task.
Another challenge is presented by the 2,000-plus deer that live on the island. They have plenty to eat now, conservancy scientists say, but as the grasses begin to brown with the arrival of summer's heat, the deer will seek out the tender, green sprouts -- of endemics, Channel Islands natives, even the growth at the base of trees that is trying to come back.
''We have little seedlings of ceanothus,'' de la Rosa said, ``and if the deer go through there, they'll mow them down. The bush mallow is also very tasty for deer. It's a salad bar we want to protect.''
To that end, the conservancy is installing eight miles of 8-foot-tall fencing to create five ''exclosures'' -- protected areas that endeavor to keep deer out. They're to be in place for five years, which should be enough time for the plants within to grow above what is called browsing height.
Deer aren't native to Catalina Island. Neither are the bison that roam the interior. But they are crowd-pleasers for residents and visitors alike, so eradicating either is utterly out of the question. (In fact, a buffalo sighting is considered the big-game trophy for anyone taking one of the inland tours, and the guides keep a keen eye out for them.)
In recent years, the conservancy did, however, remove the feral pigs and goats that once chewed their way from one end of the island to the other. The grumbling about that action intensified after the fire, because the tall grasses provided so much fuel for the flames.
Poncel, the tour driver, noted that a T-shirt was available in town showing a goat, accompanied by the words ``Catalina Firefighter.''
The conservancy is understandably defensive about this -- and issues a persuasive rebuttal: The pigs and goats were voracious consumers of the endemic plants and other natives, to the point of threatening some with extinction.
''Goats don't eat grasses, they eat shrubs,'' de la Rosa said -- while observing wryly that one shrub they don't eat is the stubborn flax-leaf broom.
He continued: ``It's like saying if we paved all the mountains we wouldn't have a problem with fire, but is that what we want -- to eliminate a unique ecosystem just for fire prevention?''
No, it's obvious that Catalina Island is much more appealing in its current state -- sprouting, leafing and flowering, as it gamely rises from the ashes.
GOING TO CATALINA ISLAND
• Tours: Discovery Tours, operated by the Santa Catalina Island Co., has three tours that venture into the interior of the island and provide a good sense of what is happening with the burn zone's recovery. The most popular tour is the two-hour Skyline Drive Tour, which basically just runs out to the airport and back, but provides a good overview of the eastern reaches of the island. It costs $34 for adults, $25.50 for children and $30.50 for seniors. Discovery Tours also has two four-hour tours that take in more sights and island features. www.visitcatalinaisland.com; 310-510-8687.
The Catalina Island Conservancy's Jeep Eco-Tour, a three-hour excursion, costs $98 per person, with a minimum of three paid seats required. Private, chartered half- or all-day tours are also offered. 310-510-2595, Ext. 0.
• Activities: Hikers must have a permit issued by the Catalina Island Conservancy. The permits are free and issued on the day of the hike from the Conservancy House at 125 Claressa Ave., Avalon (a short walk from the ferry docks). The conservancy also offers HIKE, a guided outing that costs $35 per person; upcoming hikes are June 7, July 5, Aug. 2 and Sept. 6. Mountain bike permits are also issued by the conservancy, and cost $20, good for two days. For information on hiking, biking and the Jeep Eco-Tour, visit www.catalinaconservancy.org and click on ''Recreation'' in the left menu.
Permits for camping in the island's developed campgrounds -- including Blackjack in the interior -- are issued by the Santa Catalina Island Co. The cost for a campsite is $12 per adult, $6 per child, assessed per day. www.visitcatalinaisland.com/avalon/Camping.php.
• Resources: If you're interesting in surveying the regeneration of Catalina's botanical world through any of the above methods, a handy guide is the laminated, pocket-size Plants of Santa Catalina Island, produced by the conservancy and available at its Conservancy House for $6.95. There are also guides to wildlife and birds. And if you do take a tour that stops at the airport, be sure to spend some time at the Conservancy Nature Center, which includes information panels and a native plant garden.
• Information: Links to ferry boat companies, island lodging, tourist offerings and other services may be found at www.catalina.com. The Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau is also helpful: www.catalinachamber.com, 310-510-1520.
