Heady Choice of Vistas High Over Napa Valley

While winter is not the most popular season for touring the Napa Valley, it is the best time for looking down at it from the top of 4,434-foot Mt. St. Helena.

Crisp, clear winter days mean breathtaking views of the wine country, the High Sierra and San Francisco Bay. Local Sierra Club members schedule an annual New Year’s Day hike up the mountain--surely an invigorating way to welcome the year ahead.

Most of the summit and broad shoulders of Mt. St. Helena are protected by Robert Louis Stevenson State Park. Stevenson, the novelist best remembered for “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and “Treasure Island,” honeymooned in the summer of 1880 in a cabin tucked in one of Mt. St. Helena’s ravines.

Stevenson Memorial Trail is particularly enjoyable for the first interesting mile as it winds through the forest. The next four miles of trail are a bit monotonous, but the grand vistas more than compensate.

Directions to trail head: From downtown Calistoga, at the junction of California 128 and 29, head north on the latter road. Highway 29 ascends 8 1/4 miles to a summit, where you’ll find parking at turnouts on both sides of the highway for Robert Louis Stevenson State Park. The trail departs from the west side of the highway. Hint: If you find yourself rapidly descending on 29, you overshot the summit and the state park. Carefully turn around and return to the summit.

The hike: Just above the parking lot is a picnic area. In Stevenson’s day, a stagecoach stop and the Toll House Hotel were located there. The Stevensons came down from their cabin to buy provisions.

Signed Stevenson Memorial Trail switchbacks up a shady slope forested with oak, madrone, bay and Douglas fir. A pleasant mile’s walk brings you face to face with the Stevenson memorial, itself something of a historical curiosity, having been erected by “The Club Women of Napa County” in 1911.

To continue to the peak, scramble up a badly eroded hundred-yard-long stretch of trail to the fire road and turn left. The road soon brings you to a hairpin turn and the first grand view en route. You can admire part of the Napa Valley and surrounding ridges, as well as two aptly named peaks: Turk’s Head to the west and Red Hill to the south.

The road continues climbing moderately but doggedly, up the mountain. Wind-battered knobcone pine dot the middle slopes of Mt. St. Helena. Three miles from the trail head, you’ll pass under some power lines, and another half-mile’s travel brings you to a junction with a spur trail leading three-eighths of a mile to Mt. St. Helena’s South Peak.

Half a mile from the summit, the road passes through a forest of sugar pine and Douglas fir, then begins the final climb to the peak.

Take a hike with John McKinney’s guidebook: “Day Hiker’s Guide to Southern California” ($16.95). Send check or money order to L.A. Times Syndicate, Dept. 1, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053.

Napa Valley Wine Country Stevenson Memorial Trail WHERE: Robert Louis Stevenson State Park. DISTANCE: 2 miles round trip to Stevenson Memorial; 10 miles round trip, with 1,300-foot elevation gain, to summit of Mt. St. Helena. TERRAIN: Dramatic, knobcone pine-dotted slopes of Mt. St. Helena. HIGHLIGHTS: A journey into California’s literary history, the secluded canyon where author Robert Louis Stevenson honeymooned. And some terrific views of Napa Valley, the High Sierra and San Francisco Bay. DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY: Moderately strenuous. PRECAUTIONS: Dress for cold temperatures, high winds. Occasionally, snow closes trail to the peak. Hikers should bring their own water; no water is available on the mountain trail. FOR MORE INFORMATION: Contact Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, c/o Bothe-Napa Valley State Park, 3801 St. Helena Highway, Calistoga 94515, (707) 942-4575.