Boots are recommended, but not mandatory, for this four-mile, one-way saunter through the fields and hills of the Santa Monica Mountains. Because parking at Paramount Ranch is (currently) free, we start there with a short tour of their reconstructed Old West movie set, then set off across the Reagan Ranch, ending up about 3.5 to 4 hours later at the parking lot in Malibu Creek State Park, from where we car-pool back to Paramount and have lunch. Along the way we see beautiful skies, trees in leaf, flowers in bloom, water in the creeks and birds singing everywhere. If you’d like to see some of the local “back country” of several of our state parks, I can’t think of a better way to do it. Along the way we pause a lot in order to examine the flowers and birds we come across. Led by wildflower aficionado Peggy Burhenn (neé Mueller) and birder Chuck Almdale, you don’t miss much. (Asterisked* flowers below are introduced non-natives.)