California for sky huggers

Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks — A square, flat concrete slab set in a pile of boulders is the trustiest place to stand atop 10,365-foot Mitchell Peak while taking in the 360-degree view of the central Sierra Nevada. The foothills are to the west. Kings Canyon is a green gash to the north. Jennie Lakes Wilderness is south, and the crests along the Great Western Divide frame the horizon to the east. The grand panorama is just reward for the stiff 3.2-mile hike. Once you get to the top, I can guarantee you won't be thinking about the concrete slab underfoot.

But it's worth noticing; it's all that's left of a tower pulled down in the 1970s, when airplanes and helicopters began replacing lonely fire lookouts. Those that remained generally fell into decline, but lately people have been drawn back to them for the stories they tell and the knock-out views. Thanks to enthusiasts and the U.S. Forest Service, such aeries are being staffed and renovated. Most also are open to visitors, and some can be rented for overnight stays. So last month I visited a handful of them in California, including one in the Sierra and one in San Bernardino National Forest, just as the fire season was about to begin.

Generally, the lookouts don't have electricity, phone service or drinkable water; they're at the end of precarious dirt roads suitable only for backpackers, four-legged animals and high-clearance vehicles.

Overnighters must bring their own cook stoves and figure out what to do if they must answer nature's call in the middle of the night, when they will be many steps above the earthbound outhouse.

But you should see sun-up from a fire tower. You simply can't roll over and go back to sleep when it starts outlining the eastern horizon.

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The early years

ONCE there were 8,000 noble, low-tech but effective lookout towers in the U.S., on the front line of the all-out battle against fire that started about the time President Theodore Roosevelt created the U.S. Forest Service in 1905. Lookout construction became a priority in 1910, one of the worst forest-fire years on record. Five million acres went up in smoke, and 78 firefighters were killed.

Initially, fire towers were little more than windy platforms atop big trees where watchers looked for little fires before they burned out of control. Around 1914, structures in which fire watchers could live were introduced. They had staircases and cozy cabs, generally 14 feet square, surrounded by catwalks.