Salida
It rises from the banks of the shimmering Arkansas River and juts some 750 feet toward the azure sky, a towering mound of dirt that proudly displays a gigantic letter S for Salida. It’s a landmark in this peaceful valley town, a beacon to travelers and a monument to, well, to giant mounds of dirt with great big letters on them.
It’s called S Mountain. Or Tenderfoot Mountain. Or Tenderfoot Hill. Or Christmas Mountain. It’s a cherished part of the town history and the hub of its holiday celebration.
The hill’s annual shining moment comes on the night after Thanksgiving when a 500-foot-tall red-light outline of a Christmas tree on the ground gets an electrical charge from the man himself, Santa Claus.
“There’s a parade and the whole town gathers and looks up at the mountain,” veteran volunteer Christmas light-stringer Stew Brown said. “Then Santa throws the switch and everybody says ‘Ooohhhhh.”‘
This year, though, the “ooohhhhh” was nearly silenced. The hill is owned by real-estate broker Judy Everett. She and her husband have been locked in a land-swap proposal debate with the town for years. A builder has offered to buy the property and would give the mountain to the city in exchange for a few buildable lots at the bottom of the hill. The city has balked.
And so earlier this year the Everetts – well, they canceled Christmas is what they did.
“Enough was enough,” Everett said. “We felt the city was stonewalling us. So we said to hell with it. I told them to get it resolved by Nov. 1 or the lights come down, period.”
The date arrived. The townsfolk didn’t hold their breath, because at 7,080 feet, you can pass out doing that. But they were worried.
Everett said the holiday spirit made her flinch.
“I love the Christmas tree on the mountain,” she said Monday. “And we didn’t want to be grinches.”
So this Saturday, Brown and other volunteers will again scale S … Tenderfoot … Christmas Mountain and finish the decorations.
It’s not easy.
“It’s loose rock up there,” said Brown, who also volunteers with the town’s chamber of commerce. “And it’s a 45-degree angle. The rocks slide out from under your feet. And when the wind blows hard you have to get down on your hands and knees to get around.”
Brown is 71. He holds on tight.
“I’m careful,” he said. “I don’t want to screw up my ski season.”
On Nov. 24, when the sun dips below the Rockies, the town will once again gather in the twilight.
“They close off the streets and hundreds and hundreds of people show up,” Brown said.
And when Santa hits the switch, a tradition that began 74 years ago will light up the town.
The S – 80 feet long by 40 feet wide, made of concrete and given a new coat of white paint every few years – was the work of Salida High School’s Class of 1932. The mountain, though, was already famous.
In 1906 the town built a gazebo atop the hill to attract tourists. By 1923 a strange road had been built circling the mountain, a road described that year in the Newcastle, England, newspaper as the most unusual road in the world. Spiral Drive wraps around the mountain four times, like the stripes on a candy cane, and ends at the gazebo.
This year’s holiday events will also mark the 200th anniversary of a visit by sometimes-lost explorer Zebulon Pike to the land where Salida now sits. The festivities will carry a Pike theme. The volunteer head of the town’s Zeb Pike committee is, of course, Stew Brown.
Today, of course, the great explorer Pike would only have to look at the big letter on the hill to know he was in Salida.
Or Steamboat Springs.
Staff writer Rich Tosches writes each Wednesday and Sunday. He can be reached at rtosches@denverpost.com.
