How many visitors crowded into Joshua Tree National Park last year? 3.2 million

Joshua Tree National Park saw a record-breaking number of visitors in 2023, with a whopping 3.2 million people piling into popular — as well as remote — swaths of the park, according to new, preliminary data from the National Park Service.

Located 130 miles east of Los Angeles and less an hour from Palm Springs, the park, named for an iconic, multi-limbed desert tree that appeared like the arms of Joshua upraised to heaven to 19th century explorers, surged into a welcome haven for people seeking to escape COVID-19 lockdown before visitor numbers dipped slightly in 2022. But those numbers rebounded last year, with an estimated final count of 3,270,404, up from 3,058,294 in 2022, and up by nearly 200,000 additional visitors over 2021, the previous record-setting year.

Even before the pandemic, the park had doubled its visitor numbers in a decade.

With the increased popularity have come long lines at the popular West entrance, camping grounds and parking lots brimming to maximum capacity. There's also been an increased need for senior park staff to clean and stock heavily used restrooms on occasion.

Superintendent Jane Rodgers, who, along with her team, have been handling the recent discovery of a missing hiker's remains, didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. But in a newsletter earlier this month, she wrote: "Our team is small but mighty, and we are so proud and honored to care for one of the most-visited national parks in the country."

The park has received funds and awarded a contract to enlarge and relocate the West entrance further into the park, with construction expected to begin this year. Residents of the town of Joshua Tree near the existing entrance now endure long back-ups on their once-quiet side streets, and even curious visitors hiking through their yards. Parks officials suggest using the slightly less popular north and south entrances.

Preliminary planning is also underway for potential new lands, to expand the northwestern park boundary at multiple locations between the city of 29 Palms and Yucca Valley. Information regarding existing trails, wildlife, vegetation and sensitive resources is being collected, and opportunities for public engagement will be announced this year.

Visitation rebounds nationally, too

The numbers at the popular desert park mirror trends at some big-name parks across the West, notes Jonathan P. Thompson in his Land Desk newsletter. He highlights Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, writing "Last year more than 5 million people visited the recreation area, smashing the previous all-time high record."

That might be because some once-popular boating harbors and marinas at Lake Mead, lower on the Colorado River, were closed, with access roads and ramps converted to hiking trails due to historic drought.

In Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, visitation spiked in 2021, before falling off dramatically in 2022 following devastating flooding, but Thompson notes the downturn appears to have been temporary, with last year’s visitation "right back up to near-record levels."

"It seems safe to conclude that the national parks of the West remain as popular as ever. Which, on the one hand, means they are more crowded and surely are suffering under the strain of all of those people. Yet it also means more people are experiencing the wonders of America’s protected public lands, and may in turn become advocates for those landscapes."

Gas prices, permits may affect numbers too

He also writes that in some of the most popular parks, "the data appear to indicate that reservation/permit/timed-entry systems work to alleviate the crowds somewhat. What doesn’t show up in the data is how much spillover there is to public lands adjoining the parks, places where there are fewer protections and far less enforcement of existing rules."

Joshua Tree National Park requires permits for some popular trails and campsites, but not to gain entrance.

Overall, Thompson writes, "At about this time last year I asked: 'Are the national parks crowds subsiding?' The answer, it now appears, is 'Hell no!' While the post-Covid visitation surge to the national parks ... did die down a bit in 2022, it bounced right back — in most cases — in 2023. That leads me to believe that the temporary easing of the crowds in 2022 was due to high gas prices, not an ebbing desire for that Insta image of Delicate Arch" (in Utah's Arches National Park.)"

Janet Wilson is senior environment reporter for The Desert Sun and co-authors USA Today Climate Point. She can be reached at jwilson@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: How many visitors crowded into Joshua Tree National Park last year?