Ink Grade, Angwin, CA

Ink Grade is the NorCal Rossi’s Driveway. (If Rossi has a driveway, this would be it.)

If you’ve ridden both (i.e. Highway 229 at Creston is the original Rossi’s Driveway), you’ll get the reference; if not, consider this your marching orders. Tracing its origins back to the late 1880s long before automobiles, this ‘grade’ was carved out of the rugged Howell Mountain terrain by rancher Theron Ink. Originally built with basic tools for horse drawn wagons and to move livestock between his land in Pope Valley and the Napa Valley side of the ridge, it was originally a utilitarian ranch route rather than a modern highway with numerous orchards and rows of grapes.

For years, the climb on Ink Grade into Angwin, CA was a bumpy, patched, and long-forgotten goat trail. Not anymore-it was repaved in 2025. To find it, look for the tiny hilltop community of Angwin, best known for the Seventh-day Adventist Pacific Union College, based in Angwin since 1909, and find the "squiggly-ist" line on the map.

Avoid the traffic on Howell Mountain Rd and instead seek out this narrow, no-center-line ribbon of new asphalt that wiggles through small homesteads & vineyards with zero guardrails and steep drop-offs.

It is best ridden uphill, starting a short distance north of Pope Valley. We love this road so much, we have included it on our Coast Range Motorcycle Tour; it’s common for us to hit the summit, turn around, and ride it back down the other way just so we can experience it twice.

https://www.pashnittours.com/coast-range