JAUNTS : Hike to the Heights for View From the Top : A Park Service ranger on Saturday will take participants to the highest point in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Sandstone Peak is the highest point in the Santa Monica Mountains. If you want to see the view from the top, join a hike Saturday led by a National Park Service ranger.

Actually, the hike isn’t a straight shot to the top of the 3,111-foot peak, but rather about a six-mile circuitous route that also takes walkers into the canyons and wide-open spaces of Circle X Ranch.

The ranch is off Yerba Buena Road near the coastal border of Ventura and Los Angeles counties. Hikers should meet at the Backbone Trailhead at 9:30 a.m.

Led by ranger Jaquie Stiver, the jaunt is almost entirely over ground ravaged by fire late last year. However, that shouldn’t stop hikers. The area has lost much of its eerie blackened look, and new, bright-green growth is sprouting along the trails and hillsides.

Circle X Ranch straddles Boney Ridge and offers the only spot where camping is allowed in the Santa Monica Mountains. Nearly 50 years ago, it was a working ranch owned by some gentlemen ranchers, including movie actor Donald Crisp, who starred in “How Green Was My Valley.”

Then, in 1948, the Los Angeles-based Exchange Club purchased the 160-acre ranch and gave it to the Boy Scouts as a wilderness retreat. It gets its name from the emblem for the Exchange Club--a circled X.

The Boy Scouts acquired more land over the years and, by the time Circle X Ranch became part of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in 1989, it had grown to about 1,600 acres.

Saturday’s hike starts on the Backbone Trail, then, after one-third of a mile of climbing, veers off to the right onto the unmarked Mishe Mokwa Trail. Along the narrow trail, hikers will see a peculiar sight: charred spindly trees with peeling reddish bark. These are tree-like shrubs called red shank that normally grow between Palm Springs and northern Baja.

The climb into Carlisle Canyon takes walkers past some amazing red volcanic rock formations. Among them is the aptly named Balanced Rock--a gigantic hunk of rock precariously balanced on a cliff. It looks as though a strong wind could blow it over.

The trail descends into a shady grove of oak trees known as Split Rock, named for the huge split rock nearby. A stream trickles through the grove and picnic tables make it a good place for a food break.

Be on the lookout here for hordes of ladybugs that cluster on stumps and tree trunks. “Last year, there must have been millions in huge clumps,” Stiver said.

From Split Rock, hikers rejoin the Backbone Trail (actually a fire road), which takes them in a roundabout way to the turn-off for Sandstone Peak. Here, the climb is steeper and more rigorous, but it’s only a short trek to the rocky summit where the Channel Islands are visible on a clear day.

Sandstone Peak is actually a misnomer because the peak isn’t sandstone at all, but rather volcanic rock. And the plaque at the summit calls it Mt. Allen, after Circle X benefactor Herbert Allen. That’s bogus too. The Boy Scouts tried to rename the mountain after Allen in the 1960s, but because he hadn’t yet died, the request was denied. So the Boy Scouts unofficially named the peak after him.

At the top, hikers can sign an informal sort of register--a weathered notebook that includes the musings of other hikers who made it to the top. “I have once again conquered the mountain,” one wrote, only to be topped by another hiker who added: “Try Yosemite some time.”

From Sandstone Peak, the hike back to the Backbone Trailhead is 1.5 miles, a drop in elevation of about 1,000 feet.

Details

* WHAT: Santa Monica Mountains hike led by a National Park Service ranger.

* WHEN: Saturday, 9:30 a.m. Because of stops along the way, the hike of about six miles takes up to five hours.

* WHERE: Circle X Ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Take Yerba Buena Road, located off Pacific Coast Highway just north of the Los Angeles County line. Drive inland about five miles to the ranger station. Then drive one more mile to a parking area on the left, the location of the Backbone Trailhead where the hike begins.

* PHONE: (818) 597-9192.

* FYI: Bring water, food and wear sturdy shoes. Beware of poison oak and rattlesnakes.