The "Flaming" W/ Mt. Ogden Hike (2) Markers

Weber State's W first burned on this mountainside in 1937 — students hauled up a hundred cans of kerosene and lit burlap wicks to blaze the letter for homecoming. Rocks, plants, and flares followed, until flares sparked a brush fire in 1957 and the pyrotechnics ended. An electric W revived the tradition in 1979, strung up each October for homecoming week, and in 2025 a permanent W built of solar panels finally fixed the letter to the mountain — glowing white each night, flashing purple after Wildcat wins, and generating more power than it burns.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Snowbasin — 1.7 mi
  One of the country's oldest ski areas and a 2002 Olympic downhill venue — world-class terrain that somehow still skis uncrowded.
• Ogden Union Station — 5.0 mi
  A grand 1924 train depot turned museum complex
• Hill Aerospace Museum — 6.8 mi
  Over 90 military aircraft displayed indoors and on the tarmac
• Powder Mountain — 13 mi
  The largest ski resort in the United States by acreage — a famously uncrowded "PowMow" now remaking itself under Netflix's Reed Hastings.

More markers nearby

• Malan Heights — 3.4 mi
• The First Hundred Years... — 3.5 mi
• Ogden Canyon Toll Gate — 3.5 mi
• First Toll Gate in Ogden Canyon — 3.5 mi