Mount St. Helena

11 October 2009

At the north end of the Napa Valley stands Mt. Saint Helena, elevation 4342 ft. Much of it sits within the Robert Louis Stevenson State Park. Ingrid and I visited yesterday, hiking to the south summit, which is a bit lower than the north peak. The top photo looks north from just below the top of our hike. The photo below shows the view looking south from the midpoint of the climb.



Much of the hiking was on a well-graded dirt fire road, which was okay, but not as nice as a path through the forest. In addition to the views that were in sight for most of the hike, another nice feature was some huge rock outcroppings. The one shown here was one of the best. A few rock climbers were preparing to ascend as we hiked up.

Napa is an easy 40 mile drive from Oakland. From there to the trailhead was another 40 miles through the Napa Valley, passing the towns of Yountville, St. Helena, and Calistoga. The countryside is pretty, but it was slow going. Overall, driving required more than 2 h each direction. We didn't start hiking until about 12:45.

The weather surprised us. It was a cold, cloudy morning in Oakland and the overcast conditions didn't break up until close to noon. Although it was still cool in Napa Valley, the trail up the south facing slope of the mountain was sunny and warm, too warm for how we dressed. Fortunately, the last part of the hike up was in shade and by the time we headed down the sun's intensity weakened. One of the advertised attractions of the hike is the spectacular views; the hazy skies interfered.

Because he honeymooned here in 1880, the state park is named after the Scotsman Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), author of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "Treasure Island." Nothing is left of the honeymoon cabin, but there is a memorial tablet at the site in the form of an open stone book on a concrete pedestal. The memorial was placed here in 1911 and it's visible to the left of Ingrid in the photo at right.



We also found a terrific spot to stop for lunch, on the back side of the outcrop shown above. On a flat spot, in the shade, we enjoyed some wonderful salads and bread we had picked up at Sunshine Foods, a high-end supermarket in St. Helena. In all, we hiked about 4 hours, covered 9 miles and climbed about 1200 feet.