Torrey Pines State Beach

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.