I’ll be making a trek from Santa Rosa to St. Helena. I haven’t decided if I want to make the drive at night (after dinner) or in the morning yet. What are the preferred route you guys take? It seems there are a few options:
Option 1) Go up to Healdsburg and cut over on 128 through Calistoga.
Option 2) Go down to Sonoma and cut over on hwy 12 and back up through Napa.
Option 3) Go through the mountain area - either Spring Mountain Road or Petrified Forest, though I’ll have a passenger that’s prone to motion sickness.
Go East out of Downtown on 4th St. It turns into Hwy 12. Turn left on Calistoga Rd at the Safeway and follow that over the hill into Calistoga and turn right towards St Helena. If you are in the north end of SR take 101 north to River Rd exit and turn right and take Mark West Springs Rd up to Petrified Forest Hwy.
Motion sickness? Oops, you’re out of luck. All winding roads lead to St Helena. Mark West to Petrified Forest Hwy is probably the least sickly.
Brian beat me to the answer. I would follow his directions. Depending on where you are leaving from in SR should take you 45-50 minutes. An hour if you get stuck behind a truck going up the mountain.
Driving any of those roads at night will be as slow as being behind a truck during the day, particularly if you haven’t traveled them before. Too fast at night and you either get a deer hood ornament, flight time when you’re going too fast to make a turn or a sudden stop into the hillside.
Taking any of the roads for the 1st time after a dinner (with wine I’m assuming) is probably not a good idea. I’d stay in SR and do the drive in the AM.
If you like old school wine then you have to stop at Smith-Madrone. The comedy routine between the brothers is worth the trip alone. We were just there the week before Thanksgiving and were lucky they had just opened a magnum of their 1997 Chard the previous day. It was incredible! It’s refreshing to buy wine and have the owner tell you it would be best to put it down for a couple of years.
Provided you have good brakes. Mine faded out completely on my 1970 Datsun with three passengers once. I managed to gear down and make it to the bottom without letting on that we had no stopping power.
I made this drive back and forth with Mr Nordhoff 3-4 times last month and one time, I swear he was trying to make me puke. Lovely road but…eat light or drive slow when you hit it!