Visitors to Joshua Tree National Park should know that the busy season is coming to the park, and that could lead to crowding and limited camping/Kurt Repanshek file
Winter holidays and the spring months are the busiest times of the year at Joshua Tree National Park in California. Crowded conditions create limited parking, full campgrounds, and lines at park entrances.
The three best ways to prepare for your visit to Joshua Tree National Park, according to park staff, are:
Buy a digital pass ahead of time by logging onto www.recreation.gov.This pass will make entry to the park quicker and easier.
Avoid entering the park between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. and avoid exiting the park around sunset.
The most crowded days in the park will likely be the day of and around Christmas, New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Day, and Presidents’ Day. Every weekend in the spring is also extremely congested. Skip these days for a more relaxing visit.
Other tips to prepare for your park visit:
The park may become drive-through only as the parking lots reach maximum capacity during times of extreme visitation. Visitors may be turned away from popular parking areas.
Be flexible with plans. The best hike may be the one where parking is readily available.
Visitors can park along many, but not all, roadsides. Never drive over a curb to make a new parking space.
Weekdays are usually less crowded than weekends—consider visiting the park Monday through Thursday.
Make a reservation at www.recreation.gov to reserve one of the 350 reservable campsites in the park. If there are no reservation sites available, there likely will not be first-come, first-served sites available when you arrive. Look to one of the private campgrounds adjacent to the park.
Many campgrounds intersect with hiking trails. Campers can hike trails that connect to their campground to avoid busy parking lots.
Find a new favorite spot to explore in the park. There is no one best campsite, trail, or sunset spot.
Comments
Southern California has gone into a full shutdown as of December 7, 2020. Joshua Tree National Park campgrounds are closed. Hotels and vacation rentals are only supposed to accept lodging bookings for essential workers. We'll likely be on lockdown until next year.
The camogrounds at Joshua Tree are closed as tourists have been overcrowding (and abusing the land) increasingly during the pandemic. Please stop encouraging people from all over the planet to tour our gateway town with like 4 ICU beds total.