Beach Day! Derek and I used to ride up and down the coast a lot when we lived in San Diego. One of the good hill climb days would be to ride up through Torrey Pines Preserve and Mt. Soledad but I don’t think I ever hiked Torrey Pines. During our recent San Diego trip we headed to Torrey Pines to hike around and enjoy the ocean.
There are several different trails in the preserve depending on how far you want to go. None of them are particularly long, but you can combine them or add on a walk along the beach like we did. We parked outside the Preserve in free parking back along the coast highway and then walked up into the Preserve to hike. There are great overlooks on several of the trails so try them all!
This is a popular place so you likely will come across other folks out enjoying the ocean breezes as they hike. We found the Guy Fleming Trail relatively people free but obviously it would depend on when you go. We were there on a weekday at about 11.
The Torrey Pine (Pinus torreyana) is the most restricted and rarest pine in North America. It grows in the Torrey Pine woodland or Pacific coniferous forest. This pine is probably the remnant of an ancient coastal forest which has been reduced during the drying period of the last ten thousand years to the sandy soils of the sandstone bluffs and ravines of Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve and Santa Rosa Island. Somehow we failed to take a picture of one! So embarrassing.
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