Go for a Hike | CA Wine Country Things To Do

The Napa Valley offers spectacular scenery for hiking.

Hiking options include:

Bothe State Park (only minutes from The Wine Country Inn), boasts six well-maintained trails delving deep into the western hills of the Napa Valley.  Shaded and cooled by the year-round creek, these trails range from a beautiful stroll to hikes that the Innkeeper and his wife still have not seen the end of yet with the longest trail delving 6 miles into the mountains. Beautiful and serene.

Robert Louis Stevenson Park (about 25 minutes from The Wine Country Inn) starts at the summit of Hwy 29 as it ventures over Mt. St. Helena towards Lake County. There are two great hikes from here. The most popular is  climbing up a well-maintained fire road up the face of  Mt. St. Helena to the summit. If you know where to look you will pass the ruins of a little town where Robert Louis Stevenson honeymooned and wrote the short novel Silverado Squatters. This is a 10 mile round trip and is very exposed to sun and wind. The Innkeeper recommends this for a Fall or Spring adventure. Summer hiking on this trail can be brutal.

The other choice here is the Palisades Trail. This trail can be picked up from the south parking area and heads into the cliff-strewn mountains above Calistoga. This a beautiful trail with spectacular views of the Napa Valley and off almost to the coast. Recently, through generous donations, this park was connected with the Oat Hill Mine Trail (talked about next) so that the most adventurous could actually loop all the way from the Napa Valley floor up to the parking lot of Robert Louis Stevenson Park.

Oat Hill Mine Road is actually an old stage coach route that used to run from Pope Valley to Calistoga. The trail head is at the intersection of Hwy 29 and Silverado Trail, in Calistoga. It is unmarked, but obvious if you know to look for it. This strenuous hike garners almost immediate gratification with beautiful views of Calistoga and Napa Valley. Supposedly you can hike all the way over to Pope Valley or up to Robert Louis Stevenson Park at the top of Mt. St. Helena though the Innkeeper and his wife would never be that silly. A great hike as long as you know to watch for poison oak.