Hayden Butte, more commonly known as A Mountain, is a staple to the Arizona State University Tempe campus. Every year, freshman hike A Mountain and paint the A with white paint to symbolize a new beginning. According to Marshall Terrill, a reporter from ASU Now, this tradition has been going on for over 80 years! Additionally, A Mountain is apart of American Indian ancestral homelands and is a place of “reverence and respect for our tribal communities” (Terrill).

When I hiked A Mountain to paint the A my freshman year, it was about 9am and already super hot outside, as you could expect in Arizona. There were over 4,000 of us out of our incoming class of 10,000 that attended this event! We each grabbed a cup of paint, poured it on our hands, then rubbed our hands on the “A”, hiding the yellow paint underneath. Afterwards we all had white handprints on our legs, because what else were you supposed to do with the extra paint! Overall, it was a really cool way to start off my freshman year!

A Mountain is a very popular spot to watch the sunset on campus! I’ve done it a few times this past year and it is absolutely beautiful. As the sun is setting, there are planes that are flying in to land at the Phoenix Airport, and it looks as if they are flying into the sunset!

The first time I hiked A Mountain for the sunset was with my friends Rita and Lexi, and that was when we came up with the crazy idea to hike Camelback Mountain for the sunrise the very next morning! (See my post for Camelback Mountain for the story!) What we didn’t know at the time, was that this hike was the beginning of (what I call) our Sun Saga that weekend. Our Sun Saga consisted of hiking A Mountain for the sunset, followed by hiking Camelback for the sunrise the very next morning, and ending with watching the sunset at Hole in the Rock near the Phoenix Zoo! It might seem like a lot, but for us when we come up with an idea, we keep adding to it and then we get so excited we can’t just not do it!

I also hiked A Mountain with my friend Ian before flying home midway through the spring semester due to COVID-19. It wasn’t my ideal ending for freshman year, I would’ve loved to finish it on campus, but it was nice to watch the sunset one last time before heading home. I think a lot of other student had a similar idea because there were a lot of people up there that night!

A Mountain is a great hike for anytime of day. I haven’t hiked it for the sunrise yet, but you have a 360 degree view of Tempe at the top so I know it would be beautiful!

Location of A Mountain: 33.427, -111.937.