I also live at the top of a hill that is difficult to get up in EV mode. Ideally, you want to do just that to drain the battery, and then re-charge on the trip down.

One thing that foils this plan is that when you start up in the morning the engine is cold, so the system will run the ICE until it warms up. That's the time you should be in silent running. Shifting to L helps a bit.