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Double-peaked Mount Saint Helena, well-loved for its hiking trails, has an elevation of 4,339 feet with Napa, Sonoma and Lake Counties sharing its rocky landscape.
A black tailed deer on Mount St. Helena
Manzanita flowers on a trail on Mount St. Helena.
A Northern Flicker is one of the birds who live on Mount St. Helena.
The splendor that is Mount Saint Helena in Napa County's northern reaches has a vast geologic, prehistoric and historic past, which includes its storied volcanic activity in the vicinity, Indigenous Wappo trade routes, its mining era and of course, Robert Louis Stevenson's historic stay in a rustic cabin.
Double-peaked Mount Saint Helena, well-loved for its hiking trails, has an elevation of 4,339 feet and extends across three counties, with Napa, Sonoma and Lake Counties sharing its rocky hills.
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Hikers who reach the mountain's peak via the five-mile hike up Robert Louis Stevenson State Park are rewarded with evergreen canyons, forests and chaparral and seasonal plant life such as trillium and buckeye flowers, along with myriad birdlife such as the northern flicker, golden eagles, a variety of woodpeckers and more. On clear days views of the San Francisco Bay Area or even Mt. Shasta are your reward.
Geologists tell us that an eruption over 3.4 million years ago occurred in around a one-mile radius of Mount Saint Helena resulting into the landform we know today; left-overs from intense volcanic activity, but not an actual volcano. Nearby Petrified Forest was left with its famed petrified trees due to that volcanic eruption. The volcanism was loaded with silica and contained magma chambers with unstable gases that eventually exploded with intense pyroclastic flows, blanketing the area with volcanic ash.
So, though not technically a volcano, Mount Saint Helena is set in the Mayacamas Mountains, which are largely volcanic in origin, unlike the rest of the Northern California Coast Ranges. Mount Saint Helena and its Pallisades contain rocks known as the Sonoma volcanics, and plays a large part in the rich soils that result in Napa Valley's quality wine grapes.
The mountain's shape, resembling a volcanic edifice is the reason many take it for a true volcano, but its shape is simply a coincidence. If you could peer inside this landform you would find volcanic breccia, interlayered tuff and other rock which is believed to have formed within a large depression known as a caldera, made when a volcano gives way due to erupted magma.
After the collapse of the caldera, there was a massive uplift of the area and this, combined with tectonic faulting, erosion and further uplift has all combined to create the silhouette we all know and love.
The mountain's State Park is named, of course, for writer Robert Louis Stevenson. Stevenson stayed at the then-abandoned Silverado mine site with his bride, Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne, during the summer of 1880.
One of several mine sites within the Calistoga mining district, silver and gold were extracted from veins of sparkly quartz inside the volcanic chamber's margins. These minerals formed when hot springs made their way through fractures in the volcanic walls.
During the Silverado mine's short operation, beginning in 1872, it attracted more than 1,500 miners, which in turn drew a few saloons and a hotel to its mountain mining camps. Then, there were two chief tunnels into the mountain, which were connected by a vertical shaft up the mountain. Miners toiled to depths of nearly 600 feet, until mining was no longer cost-effective.
Stevenson's book, "The Silverado Squatters" details his stay there. Since Stevenson suffered from ill health, he and his bride took advantage of the mountain air.
In "The Silverado Squatters." Stevenson wrote of the mountain, "Its naked peak stands nearly 4,500 feet above the sea; its sides are fringed with forest; and the soil, where it is bare, glows warm with cinnabar. Life in its shadow goes rustically forward.
Around the foot of that mountain, the silence of nature reigns in a great measure unbroken, and the people of hill and valley go sauntering about their business as in the days before the flood." Stevenson, who died in December of 1894 in Samoa, was only 44 years of age.
The indigenous people who lived nearby, the Wappo, still call the mountain Kana'mota or Human Mountain, and consider it a sacred site today, as they have for more than 12,000 years.
They did not live upon the mountain, but did utilize trade routes as well as hunting and gathering foods and medicines from the mountain. Their homes and villages were located in Knight's Valley with other groups living in Napa Valley and Coyote Valley.
Not long after pioneers arrived in the mountain's vicinity in the 1840s the vast tracts of elk, deer, grizzlies and salmon that graced the river disappeared or in the case of deer, dwindled. Sadly, the indigenous Wappo population was lost as well.
There have been many names given to the mountain over time, including Serra de los Mallacomes by the Spanish. During the time of the Gold Rush, it came to be known as Devil's Mount.
In 1839 Ilya G. Voznesensky, a Russian explorer and naturalist who was associated with the Russian Academy of Sciences and a member of the Russian Geographical Society, arrived in America via the Cape Horn route on a ship called Helena, to collect botanical specimens.
Voznesensky left Fort Ross in 1841 when he ascended the mountain, leaving an inscribed copper plate. Another Russian party is said to have climbed up its peaks in 1841 too, naming the mountain for Princess Helena de Gagarin who was the wife of Alexander G. Rotchev, Fort Ross' commanding officer.
From its summit, near the commencement of the Napa River headwaters, through the Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, established in 1949, more than 400 plant species grow in its grasslands, woodlands and evergreen forests grow on Mount Saint Helena.
The popular nature app, iNaturalist, along with Ken Stanton's excellent book "Mount St. Helena & R.L. Stevenson State Park," both cite prolific lists of mammals, reptiles and amphibians, too.
With the spring season soon upon us, you'll want to take the opportunity to appreciate everything this mountain has to offer.
The Robert Louis Stevenson Museum moved to its current location kitty-corner to the St. Helena Library in 1979.
Some of the surprising objects at the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum in St. Helena are the toys of the author from his childhood in Scotland. Here is Stevenson's toy tea set. The museum is staying open late every Friday in June.
The personal library of the author is now housed in a new archival storage system at the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum in St. Helena.
There are many handwritten manuscripts by the author of “Treasure Island” and “Kidnapped” housed in the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum in St. Helena.
This ornate writing desk, belonging to Robert Louis Stevenson, is said to have traveled with him around the world. One wonders how many adventurous tales were written by Stevenson on its desktop. The desk is now on permanent display at the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum in St. Helena.
“Silverado Squatters” was a travelogue written by Robert Louis Stevenson while he and his new wife, Fanny Osbourne, were honeymooning in a deserted bunkhouse on the side of Mount St. Helena in 1880. This first edition of the journal did not appear until two years after Stevenson had achieved fame with the publication of “Treasure Island” in 1881.
Robert Louis Stevenson and his new wife, Fanny Osbourne, honeymooned on the side of Mount St. Helena in a deserted miner’s bunkhouse in 1880. The adventure was documented by Stevenson in his travelogue “Silverado Squatters,” published in 1883 after the author had achieved fame with his adventure novel “Treasure Island.”
From Library Lane, where the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum sits kitty-corner to the St. Helena Library, one can get a clear view up to Mount St. Helena at the north end of the Napa Valley. Yet few visitors to the valley are familiar with the connection of the author of “Treasure Island,” “Kidnapped” and “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” with the Napa Valley.
The Robert Louis Stevenson Museum moved to its current location kitty-corner to the St. Helena Library in 1979.
Some of the surprising objects at the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum in St. Helena are the toys of the author from his childhood in Scotland. Here is Stevenson's toy tea set. The museum is staying open late every Friday in June.
The personal library of the author is now housed in a new archival storage system at the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum in St. Helena.
There are many handwritten manuscripts by the author of “Treasure Island” and “Kidnapped” housed in the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum in St. Helena.
This ornate writing desk, belonging to Robert Louis Stevenson, is said to have traveled with him around the world. One wonders how many adventurous tales were written by Stevenson on its desktop. The desk is now on permanent display at the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum in St. Helena.
“Silverado Squatters” was a travelogue written by Robert Louis Stevenson while he and his new wife, Fanny Osbourne, were honeymooning in a deserted bunkhouse on the side of Mount St. Helena in 1880. This first edition of the journal did not appear until two years after Stevenson had achieved fame with the publication of “Treasure Island” in 1881.
Robert Louis Stevenson and his new wife, Fanny Osbourne, honeymooned on the side of Mount St. Helena in a deserted miner’s bunkhouse in 1880. The adventure was documented by Stevenson in his travelogue “Silverado Squatters,” published in 1883 after the author had achieved fame with his adventure novel “Treasure Island.”
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Registration is now open for Bothe-Napa Valley State Park's Summer Day Camp, which runs from July 25-29, for ages 8-12.
The River Otter Ecology Project will celebrate 10 years of conservation and restoration with a gala at the Hans Fahden Winery in Calistoga May 1.
It was Calistoga, 1913, and the Nationals of Camp John E. Klein were stationed in a field near the original Springs grounds between July 3 - 13, training to fight in WWI.
The name “Silverado Trail” won in a naming contest hands-down. Results were submitted to the Napa County Board of Supervisors in 1921, and the Silverado Trail was born.
Double-peaked Mount Saint Helena, well-loved for its hiking trails, has an elevation of 4,339 feet with Napa, Sonoma and Lake Counties sharing its rocky landscape.
A black tailed deer on Mount St. Helena
Manzanita flowers on a trail on Mount St. Helena.
A Northern Flicker is one of the birds who live on Mount St. Helena.
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