Windswept pines above the cove
Torrey Pines State Reserve · 7 March 2026
Dead and living wood tangled together at the crest of the bluff at Torrey Pines, the standing skeletons likely victims of the bark beetle outbreak that has killed a significant share of the reserve's namesake pines over the past two decades.
Drought-stressed trees have far less resin to fight the beetles off with than a well-watered one would. The Torrey pine is the rarest pine in the United States, growing wild only here and on one of the Channel Islands, a few thousand trees in all.
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