Mount Saint Helena

The drive up to the trail and the starting point of the trail itself are beautiful. Trail starts in a lush meadow with an immediate climb through an old growth forest, and then opens up to a fire road after about a mile. There are good rock climbing spots and unique rock formations on the first mile of the fire road, and lots of wildflowers. We saw many purple irises! Climb steadily gains elevation without any one section being too steep. While the hike up is beautiful, the summit itself isn’t the greatest because of all of the radio towers at the top, which make a surprising amount of noise and obscure a 360 degree view.