The Old Veteran of Point Lobos

Raymond Yelland painted this cypress in 1879, and he was early rather than first. The Old Veteran has been one of the most painted and photographed trees on the Monterey Peninsula ever since, which is an odd career for a tree with almost nothing to stand on. It grips a rock outcrop at the cliff edge above a cove at Point Lobos, roots into granite, branches worked over by the onshore wind. The best age anyone offers is probably 200 to 250 years, from an observer writing in 2024, and it stays a range because nobody has dated it. Much higher figures circulate for this tree; none of them has been confirmed, and repeating one here would be guessing with a decimal point. Set a recent photograph beside an older one and the tree is visibly thinner. A prominent limb has gone, and the same 2024 visit described it as looking increasingly stressed. It was alive and standing on that visit, which is the most recent word on it. Point Lobos is a state reserve, so this one costs a parking fee and a walk on a public trail rather than a toll gate. It is about twenty minutes south of Monterey by car, near Carmel: an old cypress on the last few metres of land before the Pacific, still holding on.