Communities in Surprise Valley include Eagleville (ZIP Code 96110), Cedarville (96104), Lake City (96115), and Fort Bidwell (96112).

Over the region, opportunities for hiking, exploring dirt roads, birding, stalking antelope with cameras, fishing, camping, and mountain biking are available.

Cedar Pass on State Route 299 is the main east-west road connecting the area with California and the county seat, Alturas.

Wired telephone service in this part of area code 530 appears to work out of a single central office and is provided by Frontier Communications.

The valley is one of the last places in California where Department of Transportation (Caltrans) highway workers have no radio communications coverage.

California Highway Patrol radios were mostly useless in the area until the 1980s installation of a remote-controlled base station intended to cover the valley.

The unvoted base station works over a 76 MHz link to establish radio connectivity from the Highway Patrol's command center to this remote area.