Torrey Pines State Beach
Windswept coastal bluff sheltering the rarest native pine species in North America.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Torrey Pines State Beach in San Diego opens with a question about how close a species can come to vanishing and still get a second chance, standing among the wind-bent Torrey pines that grow wild in only two places on earth. It traces the tree's slide from obscurity to near-erasure, as ranchers, firewood cutters and early developers pushed the wild population down to barely a hundred trees by the early 1900s. You'll hear how a newspaper heiress and a young naturalist she hired became caught up in the tree's fate. Look closely at the twisted shapes leaning over the trail as you walk.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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