Summit is a small

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

more frequently referred to by locals as the Loma Prieta Community located partially in

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 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring San Benito County form the ...

, 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 Sa ...

, in the mountain ranges of the

Santa Cruz Mountains The Santa Cruz Mountains ( Mutsun Ohlone: Mak-sah-re-jah, "Sharp Ridged Mountain of the Eagle" or "People of the Eagle Mountain") are a mountain range in central and Northern California, United States, constituting a part of the Pacific Coast R ...

. 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 the

South Pacific Coast Railroad The South Pacific Coast Railroad (SPC) was a Narrow-gauge railway, narrow gauge steam railroad running between Santa Cruz, California, and Alameda, California, Alameda, with a ferry connection in Alameda to San Francisco, California, San Franci ...

which operated until the 1940s, public transportation by bus is also no longer available from the Summit Road area. VTA bus route 76
VTA has been cancelled since June 2010, and the

Highway 17 Express The Highway 17 Express is a regional bus service in the San Francisco Bay Area, operated by Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District, Santa Cruz Metro as part of the Amtrak Thruway network. The route connects Santa Cruz, California, Santa Cruz a ...

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

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...

to receive snowfall and the mountain pass which links the

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is 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 area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

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. San Francisco itself is further north along the coast, by about 75 miles (120 km), accessible via California S ...

is closed at this spot when snowfall is too heavy. The next town to the south is Scotts Valley, California, Scotts Valley and to the north Redwood Estates. The area serves as a rest stop with food for people traveling across the mountains. Before 1906, there were lakes in the area around Summit that locals used for recreation and fishing, but these lakes dried up after the

1906 San Francisco Earthquake At 05:12 AM Pacific Time Zone, Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated Moment magnitude scale, moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli inte ...

diverted their sources. The original road between Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties passed somewhat east of the current site of Summit, which came into being when

California State Route 17 State Route 17 (SR 17, locally known as Highway 17) is a state highway in the U.S. state of California that runs from State Route 1 in Santa Cruz to I-280 and I-880 in San Jose. SR 17, a freeway and expressway, carries substan ...

was constructed in the 1930s. Several businesses can be found in Summit today, most of them dating from the 1950s. Summit straddles the county line with

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, Morga ...

Notes

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