{"id":219462,"date":"2026-03-14T10:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T10:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/219462\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T10:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T10:26:13","slug":"california-national-parks-set-attendance-record-despite-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/219462\/","title":{"rendered":"California national parks set attendance record, despite controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Despite morale-sapping staff layoffs, bizarre executive orders and a 43-day federal government shutdown<\/a> last fall, the grandeur and serenity of national parks in California remain irresistible to outdoors lovers looking to unwind.<\/p>\n

The nine national parks in the Golden State \u2014 including Yosemite, Death Valley and Joshua Tree \u2014 attracted nearly 12 million recreational visits in 2025, according to statistics<\/a> from the National Park Service.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s up more than 800,000 visits from 2024 and up more than 300,000 from the previous record set in 2019, according to the data, which stretches back to 1979.<\/p>\n

Nationally, visits were high, at 323 million, but down a couple of percentage points from the record set in 2024, according to a park service press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica\u2019s national parks continue to be places where people come to experience our country\u2019s history, landscapes and shared heritage,\u201d said Jessica Bowron, acting director of the NPS.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are committed to keeping parks open, accessible and well-managed so visitors can safely enjoy these extraordinary places today and for generations to come,\u201d Bowron added.<\/p>\n

President Trump\u2019s critics beg to differ.<\/p>\n

Since Trump resumed office in January 2025, his administration has slashed the NPS workforce by nearly a quarter, buying out or laying off hundreds of rangers, maintenance workers, scientists and administrative staff across the country.<\/p>\n

And last year, as part of his war on \u201cwoke,\u201d Trump instructed the park service<\/a> to scrub all signs and presentations of language he would deem negative, unpatriotic or smacking of \u201cimproper partisan ideology.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also ordered administrators to remove any content that \u201cinappropriately disparages Americans\u201d living or dead, and replace it with language that celebrates the nation\u2019s greatness.<\/p>\n

That gets tricky at places such as Manzanar National Historic Site in the high desert of eastern California \u2014 one of 10 camps where the U.S. government imprisoned more than 120,000 Japanese American civilians during World War II.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also hard to dance around disparaging details at Fort Sumter National Monument, where Confederates fired the first shots of the Civil War; Ford\u2019s Theater National Historic Site in Washington, D.C., where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated; and Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Park, which commemorates the assassination of the country\u2019s best known civil rights leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis administration is actively erasing the history, science and culture that our national parks protect,\u201d said Emily Douce, deputy vice president for government affairs for the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Assn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Douce argued that morale among staff at the parks \u2014 a string of 63 federally protected natural wonders often described as \u201cAmerica\u2019s best idea\u201d \u2014 has never been lower. <\/p>\n

But the fact that employees still showed up, including without pay during last year\u2019s federal government shutdown, demonstrates their commitment to keeping the beloved parks flourishing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe enduring popularity of America\u2019s national parks is not surprising,\u201d Douce added. \u201cWhat\u2019s shocking is this administration\u2019s relentless attacks on these places and their caretakers, which threatens their future.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

The National Park Service is routinely ranked among the most admired branches of the large and sprawling federal government. Even Americans who have never watched a minute of C-SPAN, or get a little lost in the alphabet soup of other agencies, will probably never forget standing in Yosemite Valley and admiring a towering waterfall.<\/p>\n

There were 4.3 million visits to Yosemite in 2025, 2.9 million to Joshua Tree and 1.3 million to Death Valley, according to the data.<\/p>\n

The 323 million visits to America\u2019s national parks in 2025 are more than twice the attendance \u2014 135 million \u2014 at professional football, baseball, basketball and hockey games combined.<\/p>\n

Of course, it\u2019s a lot cheaper to get into a park. U.S. residents pay between $20 and $35 per vehicle for a day pass, or $80 for an annual pass. The Trump administration recently raised the annual fee to $250 for foreign visitors. <\/p>\n

National Park Service officials did not respond to emails requesting comment on California\u2019s 2025 attendance. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite morale-sapping staff layoffs, bizarre executive orders and a 43-day federal government shutdown last fall, the grandeur and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2672,100471,7625,71977,7,9,100467,8,7363,100469,418,7036,100470,42334,1410,3020,100468,118],"class_list":["post-219462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-administration","tag-administrative-staff","tag-america","tag-attendance-record","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-national-park","tag-california-news","tag-country","tag-emily-douce","tag-history","tag-last-year","tag-manzanar-national-historic-site","tag-national-park-service","tag-place","tag-president-trump","tag-recreational-visit","tag-yosemite"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}