Cuesta Pass or La Cuesta Pass, colloquially referred to as simply the grade, is a low mountain pass in San Luis Obispo County on California's Central Coast. It crosses the southern Santa Lucia Range at an altitude of 1,522 feet, and connects San Luis Obispo, roughly 5 miles to the south, with Atascadero, Paso Robles, and the Salinas Valley to the north. It is traversed by U.S. Route 101 and the Coast Line of the Union Pacific Railroad, and is better known for the long slope up to the pass from San Luis Obispo, in the canyon of San Luis Obispo Creek, which is redundantly named the "Cuesta Grade".