A view from Howell Mt. Road
Photo Credit: http://wine.appellationamerica.com/images/appellations/features/Craig%20Howell%20web1.jpg
I did a great hill workout today climbing Howell Mt. Road right off the Silverado Trail. There are a lot of great hill workouts in the Napa Valley so I thought I would start a series describing the climbs after I've ridden them. A very good web resource is a page called "Hills of Napa Valley" where author Bruce DeBell lays out his 17 hill rides in the Napa Valley. Howell Mt. Road is #14 on Bruce's list. Bruce does give a very brief description of the ride but not a lot of location information, which could make the ride tough to find for an out of town roadie. I've provided a MapMyRide map that should get you the hill in no time.
You can find the start of this 4.2 mile climb right at the junction of the Silverado Trail just North of the town of St. Helena. St. Helena is located just South of Calistoga. Look for Howell Mt. Road 1.7 miles South of Deer Park Road. The climb is moderate but very scenic (see pic above.) My Garmin showed several pitches above 7% with a total elevation climb of over 1100 feet. I completed the climb, without working too hard, in exactly 23 minutes. This will be my baseline, and I'll now work on lowering that time in future rides. The road is narrow but traffic is very light. The road surface is fair to good. The descent down Deer Park Road is a lot of fun and was also used in stage 1 of the 2009 Tour of California.
Here's my MapMyRide map of the route:
