Summit is a small

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

more frequently referred to by locals as the Loma Prieta Community located partially in Santa Clara County but predominantly in

Santa Cruz County, California Santa Cruz County (), officially the County of Santa Cruz, is a county on the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 270,861. The county seat is Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz County comprises the Santa ...

, in the mountain ranges of the

Santa Cruz Mountains The Santa Cruz Mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are a mountain range in central and Northern California, United States. They form a ridge down the San Francisco Peninsula, south of San Francisco. They separate the Pacific Ocean from ...

. It lies at the summit along Highway 17 from which is gets its name. Home to a series of abandoned railroad towns and tunnels from a Los Gatos to Felton route before the 1940s, Public transportation by bus is also no longer available from the Summit Road area. VTA route 76
VTA has been cancelled since June 2010, and the

Highway 17 Express The Highway 17 Express is an Amtrak Thruway route provided by a consortium of entities that provides regional service between San Jose and Santa Cruz County in the South Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. The service is so called because it trav ...

Santa Cruz Metro only stops in Scotts Valley. It is one of the few places in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

to receive snowfall and the mountain pass which links the

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...

and

Monterey Bay Monterey Bay is a bay of the Pacific Ocean located on the coast of the U.S. state of California, south of the San Francisco Bay Area and its major city at the south of the bay, San Jose. San Francisco itself is further north along the coast, by a ...

is closed at this spot when snowfall is too heavy. The next town to the south is

Scotts Valley Scotts Valley is a small city in Santa Cruz County, California, United States, about thirty miles (48 km) south of downtown San Jose and six miles (10 km) north of the city of Santa Cruz, in the upland slope of the Santa Cruz Mount ...

and to the north Redwood Estates. The area serves as a rest stop with food for people traveling across the mountains. It straddles the county line with

Santa Clara County Santa Clara County, officially the County of Santa Clara, is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California, with a population of 1,936,259, as of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring Sa ...

and is south of the unincorporated area of Lexington Hills with which it shares a zip code. The ZIP Code is 95033 and the community is inside

area code 408 Area codes 408 and 669 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) in the U.S. state of California. The numbering plan area comprises most of Santa Clara County and Northern Santa Cruz County, and includes Gilroy, Mo ...

Notes

Unincorporated communities in California Unincorporated communities in Santa Cruz County, California {{SantaCruzCountyCA-geo-stub