Jim Jordan, left, and Bob Kotz soak in the view atop the Atascosa Peak fire lookout. The author Edward Abbey was one person who stayed there in the late '60s.

Photos by Dean Knuth / Arizona Daily Star

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ATASCOSA LOOKOUT — A real estate agent might call this place a "fixer-upper."

It's more than 70 years old, tiny, weathered and unadorned with such upscale features as plumbing, running water, phone lines, electricity or access by road.

But get a load of the location: The onetime fire lookout is perched on a pinnacle of rock 6,249 feet in the sky with a soaring hawk's view of vast expanses of Southern Arizona and Sonora.

It's that spectacular setting northwest of Nogales— along with the little hut's colorful history — that inspired members of the Green Valley Recreation Hiking Club and other volunteers to become lookout fixer-uppers.

Periodically since 1996, volunteers have hiked a 2.75-mile trail to the lookout to repair the roof, stabilize the catwalk, install a new door, fix shutters, make safety alterations on a wood stove, paint walls and remove debris.

"The place was pretty much a mess," said Chris Schrager, an archaeologist with the Forest Service, which oversees the work. "The volunteers have been a great help with the preservation efforts up there."

Work isn't currently under way, but three volunteers from the hiking club trekked to the lookout last weekend with a reporter and photographer to assess progress on the project.

Winding through oak woodlands under imposing cliffs, the trail ascends about 1,500 vertical feet — gradually most of the way but steeply at the end.

"Well, the lookout's in better shape than it was before, and I have to tell you that working in a setting like this is not exactly bad duty," said club member Jim Jordan as he savored a summit panorama taking in distant Baboquivari Peak, the Pajarito Mountains and blue-green ranges fading into the horizon.

Bob Kotz, another hiking club volunteer, prowled along the catwalk of the 14-by-14-foot building, inspecting the exterior paint job.

"The first painting was like trying to paint a sponge" because the sun-baked wood was bone dry, said Kotz, noting that paint, tools and other supplies were brought to the site by pack mule and helicopter.

Club volunteer Barry Murdoch said paint-slurping wood was the least of his worries when he and another worker were installing new shingles on the lookout's roof.

Murdoch's co-worker lost his purchase and slid down the roof toward a drop-off of hundreds of feet.

Murdoch snatched the man as he slid by and stopped the fall just in time.

"Whew!" Murdoch said, looking over the drop-off and shaking his head at the memory.

Schrager, of the Forest Service, said the lookout was constructed in the early 1930s by federal agencies.

It served as an active fire-sighting post until the late 1970s, when improved aerial detection of fires led the Forest Service to stop staffing many lookouts.

Schrager said the building, which is unlocked and open to the public, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

It served as a summer home and cloud-top aerie to a string of solitary fire spotters — including a well-known writer.

Author Edward Abbey manned Atascosa during the 1968 summer fire season — describing the lookout as a "flimsy old frame shack" in one of his journals.

A copy of Abbey's journal entries makes up part of the sparse furnishings and décor of the lookout. Other contents of the building, which is usually shuttered to protect its glass and Lexan windows, include two cots, three chairs and a wood-burning stove. Last weekend, items left behind by previous visitors included two Milky Way candy bars, a small and nearly empty bottle of Jack Daniel's whiskey, a half-full bottle of Propel fitness water, a hunk of fresh ginger and a pasilla pepper. Strange party in the making.

A guest log includes comments such as "unbelievable scenery" and "I came. I saw. Friendship and nature conquered." A hiker from New Hampshire scrawled five words: "My Eastern eyes are overwhelmed."

Kotz said he's found hikers using the lookout as a no-fee motel with a heavenly view.

"A couple of them were cooking steak on the griddle of the stove," he said.

Schrager said he considers the lookout mainly as a "day-use area."

"It's not developed as an overnight camping site," he said. "There's no water and no toilet facility."

Meanwhile, Schrager said, he's looking for more volunteers to help with additional preservation work at the lookout and maintenance of the trail leading to it. (See accompanying boxes on volunteering and hiking to the lookout.)

"I'd love to be able to pull together a Friends of the Atascosa Lookout group," Schrager said. "In addition to doing more work up there, members might do some research into the site's history and put together some interpretive information that would be very interesting to visitors."