The Lone Cypress
Approximate location. Show us where it is
How do I find it? You can recognise it by the steel cables holding it to the rock and the low stone wall built under its roots. It stands alone on a granite headland above Carmel Bay, fenced off, with no other tree on the point.
This tree is a registered trademark. The Pebble Beach Company registered a drawing of it in 1919 and has defended the mark ever since, which makes the Lone Cypress one of very few trees with lawyers. It has earned the attention. It grows out of a granite headland above Carmel Bay, by itself, on rock, in the wind coming off the Pacific, and it is one of the most photographed trees in North America. Nobody knows how old it is. The usual figure is a seeding around 1750, and that is inferred rather than measured, because coring the trunk to count the rings would damage a tree that is already being held up. The longest-lived Monterey cypress on record reached 284 years, so on the usual estimate this one is near the ceiling for its species. The propping started early. A retaining wall went in under the roots in 1941 and steel cables followed in 1948; the cables are still there. Somebody tried to burn it in 1984 and failed. A storm in February 2019 took off a major limb. It has been fenced since 1969, because feet on the root plate were doing what the weather could not. You look at it from a pullout on 17-Mile Drive, a private toll road: about $12.50 for a car, nothing on a bicycle. The fence is as close as anyone gets.
- Species
- Monterey Cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa)
- Location
- 17-Mile Drive, between Cypress Point Club and Pebble Beach Golf Links, Pebble Beach, California (Pebble Beach)
- Access
- View only, from a fenced roadside viewpoint on 17-Mile Drive; the tree itself has been fenced off from the public since 1969 to protect its roots. 17-Mile Drive is a private, gated scenic road with a per-vehicle toll (about $12.50 at last check); bicyclists enter free. About a 10-15 minute drive from central Monterey via the Pacific Grove Gate; no direct public transit reaches it, this is a car trip, not a walk.
- Getting there
- Car only; nearest gate (Pacific Grove Gate, Hwy 68) about 10 minutes from downtown Monterey
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