101 Hikes in Southern California. Jerry Schad

daisylike flowers are an unforgettable sight in March and April.

      Descending toward the canyon’s mouth, you pass a little grove of native walnut trees and a small, seasonal waterfall. After a final descent, join a dirt road built to haul stone out of the area for the construction of the coast highway, and arrive a few minutes later at the trailhead.

      HIKE 4

      Sandstone Peak

      Location: Circle X Ranch (Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area)

      Highlights: Most inclusive view in the Santa Monicas and volcanic rock formations

      Distance: 6 miles (loop)

      Total Elevation Gain/Loss: 1,400'/1,400'

      Hiking Time: 3½ hours

      Optional Maps: Trails Illustrated Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area or USGS 7.5-minute Triunfo Pass and Newbury Park

      Best Times: October–June

      Agency: SMMNRA

      Difficulty: Moderately strenuous

      Trail Use: Dogs allowed

      Sandstone Peak is the quintessential destination for peak baggers in the Santa Monica Mountains. The 3,111-foot summit can be efficiently climbed from the east via the Backbone Trail in a mere 1.5 miles, but the far more scenic way to go is the loop outlined below. Take a picnic lunch, and plan to make a half day of it. Try to come on a crystalline day in late fall or winter to get the best skyline views. Or, if it’s wildflowers you most enjoy, come in April or May, when the native vegetation blooms most profusely at these middle elevations. In addition to blue-flowering stands of ceanothus, the early-to mid-spring floral bloom includes monkey-flower, nightshade, Chinese houses, wild peony, wild hyacinth, morning glory, and phacelia. Delicate, orangish Humboldt lilies unfold by June. Beware of poison oak growing alongside the trail.

      Sandstone Peak lies within Circle X Ranch, formerly owned by the Boy Scouts of America and now a federally managed unit of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. The National Park Service generously provides free trail maps at the trailhead.

      To Reach the Trailhead: The Sandstone Peak Trailhead is located near the western end of the Santa Monica Mountains, a few miles (by crow’s flight) south of Thousand Oaks. From the Pacific Coast Highway near mile marker 1 VEN 1.00, turn north onto Yerba Buena Rd. and proceed 6.4 miles.

      Or from US 101 in Thousand Oaks, take CA 23 south for 7.2 miles. Turn right (west) on Mulholland Highway, then in 0.4 mile turn right again onto Little Sycamore Canyon, which soon becomes Yerba Buena Road and reaches the trailhead in 4.5 miles. On either approach, you face a white-knuckle drive on paved, but very narrow and curvy roads.

      Description: Start hiking at the large parking lot on the north side of Yerba Buena Road, 1.1 miles east of the Circle X Ranch park office. Proceed on foot past a gate and up a fire road 0.3 mile to where the marked Mishe Mokwa Trail branches right. On it, right away you plunge into tough, scratchy chaparral vegetation.

      The hand-tooled route is delightfully primitive, but it requires frequent maintenance so as to keep the chaparral from knitting together across the path. Both your hands and your feet will come into play over the next 40 or 50 minutes as you’re forced to scramble a bit over rough-textured outcrops of volcanic rock. You make intimate acquaintance with mosses and ferns and several of the more attractive chaparral shrubs: toyon, holly-leaf cherry, manzanita, and red shanks (also known as ribbonwood), which is identified by its wispy foliage and perpetually peeling, rust-colored bark. You also pass several small bay trees. After about a half hour on the Mishe Mokwa Trail, keep an eye out for an amazing balanced rock that rests precariously on the opposite wall of the canyon that lies just below you.

      By 1.7 miles from the start you will have worked your way around to the north flank of Sandstone Peak, where you suddenly come upon a picnic table shaded beneath glorious oaks beside Split Rock, a fractured volcanic boulder with a gap wide enough to walk through (please do so to maintain the Scouts’ tradition). An unmaintained trail on the right leads to Balanced Rock, but you continue on the vestiges of an old dirt road that crosses the canyon and turns west (upstream). You pass beneath some hefty volcanic outcrops, and at 3.1 miles come to a signed junction and turn left onto the Backbone Trail toward Sandstone Peak.

      Pass some water tanks on the right and an unsigned service road up to the tanks. Shortly thereafter, a sign on the right indicates a side trail to Inspiration Point. It takes you about 50 yards to the top of a rock outcrop. The directionfinder there indicates local features as well as very distant points such as Mount San Antonio (Old Baldy), Santa Catalina Island, and San Clemente Island.

      Boney Mountain

      Press on with your ascent. At a point just past two closely spaced hairpin turns in the wide Backbone Trail, make your way up a slippery path to Sandstone Peak’s windswept top. The plaque on the summit block honors W. Herbert Allen, a longtime benefactor of the Scouts and Circle X Ranch. To the Scouts this mountain is Mount Allen, although cartographers have, so far, not accepted that name. In any event, the peak’s real name is misleading. It, along with Boney Mountain and most of the western crest of the Santa Monicas, consists of beige- and rust-colored volcanic rock, not unlike sandstone when seen from a distance.

      On a clear day the view is truly amazing from here, with distant mountain ranges, the hazy L.A. Basin, and the island-dimpled surface of the ocean occupying all 360 degrees of the horizon. To complete the loop, return to the Backbone Trail and resume your travel eastward. Descend a twisting 1.5 miles to return to the trailhead.

      Balanced rock above the Dihedrals

      HIKE 5

      The Grotto

      Location: Circle X Ranch (Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area)

      Highlights: Spooky rock formations and live oak groves

      Distance: 2.8 miles (out-and-back)

      Total Elevation Gain/Loss: 650'/650'

      Hiking Time: 2 hours

      Optional Maps: Trails Illustrated Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area or USGS 7.5-minute Triunfo Pass

      Best Times: All year

      Agency: SMMNRA

      Difficulty: Moderate

      Trail Use: Dogs allowed, good for kids

      The 1,655-acre Circle X Ranch, formerly run by the Boy Scouts of America but now administered by the National Park Service, is positively riddled with Tom Sawyer-esque hiking paths. Chief among those is the Grotto Trail, perfect for young or young-in-thought adventurers. This hike is almost entirely downhill on the way in and uphill on the way back. Plan accordingly and bring enough drinking water.

      To Reach the Trailhead: The Circle X Ranch Ranger Station is located near the western end of the Santa Monica Mountains, a few miles (by crow’s flight) south of Thousand Oaks. From the Pacific Coast Highway near mile marker 1 VEN 1.00, turn north onto Yerba Buena Road and proceed 5.4 miles.

      Or from US 101 in Thousand Oaks, take CA 23 south for 7.2 miles. Turn right (west) on Mulholland Highway, then in 0.4 mile turn right again onto Little Sycamore Canyon, which soon becomes Yerba Buena Road and reaches the trailhead in 5.5 miles. On either approach, you face a white-knuckle drive on paved, but very narrow and curvy roads.

      You may park at the ranger station or drive 0.1 mile down a dirt road behind the ranger station to signed day-use parking. The trailhead is 0.1