The Lone Cypress, Pebble Beach, California

The Lone Cypress is a Monterey cypress tree located in Pebble Beach, California. Standing atop a granite headland overlooking Carmel Bay, the tree has become a Western icon and has been called one of the most photographed trees in North America.

“It stands along famously scenic 17-Mile Drive, raked by wind, swaddled in fog, clinging to its wave-lashed granite pedestal like God’s own advertisement for rugged individualism. … This tree is to the Monterey Peninsula what the pyramids are to Egypt, what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris.”