The range's highest summit is Junipero Serra Peak, 1,784 metres (5,853 ft) in Monterey County and the Los Padres National Forest.

[4] The first European to document the Santa Lucias was Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542 while sailing northward along the coast on a Spanish naval expedition.

Cabrillo originally named the southern portion of the range the Sierras de San Martín, as he was passing the area on November 11, the feast day for Saint Martin.

[9] The first European land exploration of Alta California, the Spanish Portolá expedition, camped on the coast near Ragged Point in present-day San Luis Obispo County on September 13, 1769.

The rough trail required much improvement by the scouts, and it was September 24 before the party emerged from the mountains at the San Antonio River near today's settlement of Jolon.

Small areas of marble and limestone lenses form resistant outcrops that are prominent landscape features, often white to light gray in color.

The Salinian block is made up of highly fractured, and deeply weathered meta-sediments, especially biotite schist and gneiss, intruded by plutonic (granitic) rocks such as quartz diorite and granodiorite.

[15] The Palo Colorado-San Gregorio fault system transitions onshore at Doud Creek, about 7 miles (11 km) south of Point Lobos,[16] exposing the western edge of the Salinian block.

The 40 feet (12 m) waterfall were formed when the stream flowed over the hard gneiss of the Salinian block and encountered the softer Santa Margarita Sandstone.

The Little Sur River canyon is characteristic of the Ventana Wilderness region: steep-sided, sharp-crested ridges separating valleys.

[20] Since at least the 1930s, accounts of encounters with Dark Watchers or Los Vigilantes Oscuros have been associated with the Santa Lucia Range, described as shadowy figures which watch hikers from atop mountain ridges.

These narratives suggest that indigenous communities held knowledge of abundant gold deposits concealed within the untamed terrain of the Santa Lucia Mountains.

The stories if ghosts may be attributed to descendants of and the last residents of the native people who remained hidden deep in the mountains after the missions failed.

The Santa Lucia Highlands AVA, an American Viticultural Area and producer of California wine, is located on the southeastern slopes of the mountains, above the Salinas valley.