Mount Saint Helena: peak #8 of 9

Another flashback to continue catching up with older running stories on this blog. It was on Saturday April 10, Agnès, Max and I picked Greg in San Francisco, on our way to Napa Valley first. As we had other commitments for Easter weekend, that was our last chance to complete PCTR's Bay Area 9 Peaks Challenge over 4 weeks and we were left with the two most remote ones from where we live: Mount Saint Helena and Mount Vaca.

This area is of course known internationally for the quality of its wines but, more recently, for intense wild fires as well. As much as it felt good to see Mother Nature fighting back with its Spring season, the scares of the blaze are still very much present and visible everywhere.

Numerous construction areas remind us of all the work required to secure the roads after such fires.

Mount Saint Helena, culminating at 4,342 feet (1,323m), has an interesting history. With our local strong Hispanic heritage, I always wondered why this mountain was called this way, not Santa Helena. Well, of course, the mountain had a name way before the territory was taken away from Native Americans. Back then, the Wappo tribe called this peak Kanamota, or the Human Mountain (according to Wikipedia). Then it became Mount Mayacamas. In 1841, a group of Russians surveying the area changed the name to Mount Saint Helena, and that did stick. That was to honor Princess Helena de Gagarin.

Fast forward 2021 and it was our time to conquer this very accessible summit. Indeed, like most other high points in our area, the top is home to several communication relays and antennas, constructions requiring frequent truck access and therefore well maintained wide fire roads. We parked at the  trail head.

The mile 2 marker barely survived the fire...

Rocks call for climbers!

With the lack of vegetation except for sparse trees and bushes, the ascent isn't Alpine-style, so dry and rocky already! Greg and Agnès hiked it, while Max did beat me to the summit again.

The weather was perfect, maybe not the perfect and infinite visibility, but still seeing tens of miles away.

At the top we met a group which was hiking the whole Bay Area Ridge Trail, one piece at a time on weekends, albeit not as part of PCTR's Together Relay. They were about 100 miles done, with 290 more to go, wow!

The plaque left by the Russian crew, and the traditional geodetic survey marker:

Agnès and Greg were already up high when we crossed them on our way back.

While I was holding the lead and a fast pace on the fire road, I let Max go ahead in the last mile which has a few tricky sections (stones, roots and sharp switch backs).

Under the tree line, in particular at the trail head, nature was in full bloom!

The corresponding 3D flyover on Relive:

We stayed in Fairfield for the night to get at the bottom of Mount Vaca for our next little family adventure and close on that challenge which made us discover new places!