Great climbing spot.
I love this spot specifically because it is a great place to climb. It’s conveniently close to skull rock and discovery trail. Although my favorite part of this campground is how clearly you can see the stars.
I love this spot specifically because it is a great place to climb. It’s conveniently close to skull rock and discovery trail. Although my favorite part of this campground is how clearly you can see the stars.

The view was great! I wasn’t a fan of trying to find a site, but it’s first come, first served. They have pit toilets in every group of sites, and you pay by dropping your money in a box. There’s gravel everywhere, and nice cement picnic tables. It was very quiet, and very dark at night (perfect for photographers!!)

Now, there's probably no such thing as a mellow weekend at J Tree these days, but Jumbo Rocks campground is nice in that it is a little outta the fray (hidden valley, intersection rock). The eastern location of this site means it is almost always faster to head in though the entrance at 29 Palms, or the south- bypassing the mile-long line at JT entrance. Good climbing across the road and easy access to some amazing bouldering (Big Bob's big Wedge) . I wish sites were a little farther apart, but honestly when I come to JTree I try to be out and about most of the time anyway- so just need a spot to crash. Always had cool neighbors anyway :) Another benefit of Jumbo Rocks is that it is somewhat closer to the Cholla garden which is so pretty at sunrise/sunset - just heads up that because it is on the eastern side of the hills in the park the sun sets significantly earlier than the rest of the park- so be sure to hit early! Overall, this might be the best campground/homebase for people coming to the park to do photography.



Stayed in this campground in October. The evening temperature was cool and day hikes not too hot. Campground had a variety of sites and was quiet during the week but filled on the weekend and was busier/louder. Some spots are more secluded near the rocks. Water was available from just a few of the visitor centers and firewood could be purchased from the town outside of the park. Bring in all that you need.


A very beautiful and very busy campground. Jumbo Rocks are a great starting point for anyone new to camping. Campground is quite picturesque, especially if you manage to book one of the sites right next to the rocks. Site 3 is a great find as your hidden below a jumbo rock, giving you that Joshua Tree feeling and also giving you a little bit of privacy. Each campsite has a picnic table, fire pit and bbq. There is a lot of people at any campground in Joshua Tree, so be ready for noise and people around you. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful park and an excellent park, and a definite must for any camper.





















I have stayed at many campgrounds throughout Joshua tree including Indian cove, jump rock and white tank and their all amazing! It’s so much fun climbing up and down those rocks as I’m preparing breakfast or dinner and looking for lizards etc. the only annoying thing was the kangaroo rats that wouldn’t leave our site due to the olive oil I brought with me. I think they liked it! Lol!!
as someone who has been coming to Joshua tree for decades, often as a last minute decision .. I was bummed to find out this giant campground is now by reservations. still. if you plan , this I a great campground. most sites are nestled in between giant boulders and … jumbo rocks. great for viewing gorgeous sunsets and sunrises with minimal effort! across the street offers a few trail, as well as just a few minutes walk down the road.


This popular campgrounds is first come first served so it fills up quickly every day. With just a simple scramble over the rocks, will feel like the entire park is your backyard.
Small firepits, sturdy tables, and pretty flat sites all around.
Cakpgrounds is a shirt nature trail walk away from Skull rock and other awesome trails to split rock, face rock, and other cool features
No hammocks attatched to joshua trees!








Such beautiful and unique terrain with incredible sunsets. Fun bouldering and other various really nice hikes short drive within the National Park. Tricky to get much privacy between campsites, but still highly recommend for a long wkend trip.





Out of the 50+ campgrounds I’ve stayed in within the last year, this one still takes the cake.
Though, keep in mind it’s dry camping with a pit toilet (very clean though!), the price is perfect.
You’re about a 10 min drive to the entrance of Joshua Tree and it’s VERY cheap per night.
The night sky is breathtaking and the view when you wake up is even better!




This place was incredible. We drove down from San Francisco and arrived around 2am. We found an empty site and slept in the car that night. The next day we set up camp and a friendly ranger came by so we could pay for our spot. We spent the next couple days wandering around the park completely floored by how vast and quiet it was. We also stumbled upon a bunch of rock art! The best part of the whole trip was how bright the stars are at night! Simply incredible!



We stayed here right after the new year, and the weather was perfect. This campround is super central in joshua tree national park, very close to most of the main attractions in the park. It is a little busy feeling because of that though. Overall, I do love this campground



I stayed here with a couple of friends on Presidents Day Weekend and it was completely booked! They had just changed the campsite to online reservation a week prior and we didn’t know that by looking online. Anyways, a lovely family with an RV let us stay at their campsite with our tent. There were pit toilets and trash recepticles. No running water was available there. The campground is surrounded with many large rocks you can climb to get a good view of the park around you and especially the sunset! It is also walking distance from skull rock. There was wildlife around, like hares and kangaroo rats. Be aware it can get windy at night!






We've now stayed here 3 times, and each time was amazing! The best sunsets and sunrises. It's a huge campground! Even when it's full you still have plenty of space! The rocks are huge - fun and easy to climb on! We've seen coyotes near by, an owl in the rocks near one of the campsites, and we've heard bobcats in the middle of the night (they don't sound anything like you think they would, look it up!). This is such a great place. We love the entire park!















We camped here in January, which we had heard is peak season for climbers, and the place might be really busy. On our way into the park, we stopped at Hidden Valley Campground, just to see if there were sites available. It was late afternoon, and we weren't surprised that the place was packed - no sites available.
We drove on to Jumbo Rocks, and we're so glad we did! There were plenty of spots. We chose #16 because it was close to the toilets, but not too close, plus it backed up to a huge boulder, which we thought would protect us from the wind.
What a great spot. We were able to climb high onto the rocks to watch the sunrise and sunset. While the campground did fill up, it never felt crowded. I've read some of the other reviews, and I feel bad for people who had their camping experience ruined by loud and obnoxious neighbors. When we were there, the place was really quiet.
A few things to keep in mind:
There's no firewood available in the park - You have to buy it before you come in.
Jumbo Rocks doesn't have any running water, but you can fill up at the visitor center before you come in.
When we visited in January, it got COLD at night, and we weren't all that prepared. I would recommend staying in Cottonwood if, like us, you aren't ready for winter camping. We found Cottonwood to be 10 degrees warmer because of its lower elevation.
This isn't specific to Jumbo Rocks, but take the Keys (Desert Queen) Ranch tour. It's a photographers dream!










Jumbo Rocks might be a slight drive from the main entrance, but it is totally worth it! Jumbo Rocks is really quiet, perfect for stargazing, and has a lot of great hiking and bouldering spots.
We stayed here for a night. Peaceful beautiful and quiet.
During our five days in Joshua Tree, we felt like we got the full scope of camping options: we camped three nights in park-adjacent free BLM land, and just one night inside the developed campground of Jumbo Rocks.
Jumbo Rocks is named one of the NPS’s best campgrounds for a good reason. The setting of campsites among giant boulders is unbelievable. If you can snag a campsite here, I’d highly recommend using this as your base camp for exploring Joshua Tree.
The only real downside of this campground is its availability, especially during the peak visiting season or on weekends. All sites are first-come, first-served, and new sites often fill up mid-morning. We knew this going in, so we were prepared and stalked the campground until finding campers who were leaving and snagged their site. Almost all sites have an awesome view, but ours came with a giant cluster of boulders we could climb up and watch the sun go down, which was an added bonus.
Other Joshua Tree highlights included the ranger programs (we especially loved the Keys Ranch Tour), hiking -- we loved the Ryan Mountain trail, Panorama Loop, and the Cholla Garden -- and just playing around on the rocks.
You can read much more about our four days in the park on our blog: Switchback Kids (Joshua Tree)







Gorgeous scenery cool looking rock formations. The jumbo size rocks calls out to you. Just about everywhere I stare off into gives me a sense of cool and calm awww. Sunets and sunrises are amazing here. The evening stars are super shimmering shiny. Perfect night time photography location. Fun all around for the kids, teens, and adults. Everyone loves these rocks, hallways of jumbo rocks, and mini caves. Its a Huge Playground.
Clean vault restrooms, no running water, benches and fire pits.
The back yards of camp site 76-79 is a huge gynormous rock formations with so many rock formations to climb crawl Explore and photo! Hidden rock formations can be found around the area. FUN everytime, even when its 100 degrees! Night time weather is perfect! Extremely busy place. Especially spring and fall. The campgrounds pretty much is always Full, says the sign at the entrance to the campgrounds. This year 2017 especially, with all the storms, wildlife has bloomed all over joshu tree making it super super busy
















Campsites are absolutely stunning, each campsite offers unique rock formations, vegetation, fire pit, table, grill and parking for 2-cars easy. The campground offered running water and pit toilets. I had a blast hanging out, scrambling up the awesome rock features and viewing the stars.
There's only a pit toilet and no water but it's the best place to camp--near climber friendly rock formations that iconically define the desert landscapes here. you are near the trails and places to view sunset and sunrises are everywhere. The weather changes are dramatic and crowds can suddenly descend, but this place is worth all the time and trouble for a true experience in this park. Get there early to grab a good spot--we got site #1 and loved it!
This is without a doubt one of the coolest campsites I've ever stayed at. However, being one of the largest in Joshua Tree, it draws in all the families and tourists and a lot of them seem to have never camped before in their lives.
The crowd stays noisy until long after quiet hours and our neighbors actually stole our firewood right out of the fire pit. Like wth man just go into town and buy your own $4 bundle.
Depending on the way the wind is blowing, you get the lovely sent of nearly full pit toilets blowing into your camp. Yum.
Honestly if the crowd would learn some camping ethics, I'll be stoked to visit again. The crazy boulder formations Jumbo Rocks offers is almost worth it. Almost.




This campsite was the most amazing and breathtaking thing I ever experienced. I have made the 3000 mile trek twice from my east coast home just to feel as I did my first visit to this campground. It has my favorite rock climbing and boldering paths-- right outside of your tent none the less! The star show though-- that is what totally floored me. On a clear night- this place has the most awe inspiring sky. I happened to be visiting during a meteor shower- I saw some the size of my fist with the brightest colors i had ever seen! This place is an outdoor lovers dream. Pit toilets, climbing for days, rock formations that will blow your mind and the clearest skies in the universe.












I love this campsite! Although busy the rocks create little nooks for privacy for each campsite and the Joshua trees create a truly whimsical feel. Also sunrise and sunset are absolutely stunning so be sure you don't miss those!
One of the largest campgrounds in the park with 124 sites. However, it is first-come, first-served so you have to get in early (especially on the weekends) to get a site. This is a little annoying as you don't know if you'll be able to get a site as people are still packing up and leaving as people are trying to find themselves a site. Then it's a little disturbing in the morning as people are then searching for a site themselves....and you are a bit close to other sites as they pack them in there to maximize the numbers. Pit toilets. No water, make you bring enough as you'll end up using more than you realize in the desert... Great location close to all the bit sites.
This is a wonderful campsite for meeting people and having a large group in one area. You can't stay together at a campfire but the turnoffs hold 4-5 sites so you can take over an entire loop if you're able to. The hiking from there is great and the scrambling is good for all ages. There is a great nature trail that takes you Skull rock that is right next to the sites and it is centrally located in the park. Perfect site!



I have camped here two times. Once on Thanksgiving weekend and once on New Years weekend. I really like this campground. The large rock formations in the park help to isolate the campsites from each other even though they are pretty close to one another. I would consider most sites to be "tent sites", but I have seen some 25'+ RV's in the campground. There are a couple of nice trails that start at the campsite which allows you to explore the area without having to drive anywhere. The Skull Rock trail starts near the middle of the campground and is a really nice hike, especially at night. You can also walk out into the desert for a nice view of the sunrise. There are several bathrooms placed throughout the campground and they are as clean and pleasant as you can expect a pit toilet to be. It is worth noting that because this is one of the more popular camps in the park, it fills up quickly and doesn't take reservations. Happy camping!








This campsite is everything I dreamed of when I first saw pictures of Joshua tree. Although the campsites are close to each other there is enough privacy provided by all of the large boulders around the site. Each campsite has a fire pit and a picnic bench and plenty of space to park a car or two. There is also a central area with water and bathrooms if you need. The campsite was pretty packed when we were there but we still had a great time and explored all the boulders around the area. Because of the shape of the rocks they are really easy to climb on and you can basically get to the top of any of the piles with a little willpower. I highly suggest being up on top of one of the large boulders around sunset time as the purple sky is truly incredible.






I will not let my firsthand experience be the final conclusion of how my stay here with friends was on March 20th-21st. Our trip was planned months ahead but did not put into thought about Spring break. We got there Friday but it was PACKED. It was nice of this one large group to let us setup camp for the night until the other part of their group arrives the following morning.
View at night is Stellar (Picture Attached) i barely had any sleep because i was up most of the night taking pictures. Depending where/which site you end up with Rocks provide a nice shade and covers/hides other campsites from view. By day it does get hot but nice enough to enjoy a hike down one of the many trails nearby, even rock climbing! TIP: if you ever luck out on sites there's always the BLM just outside north or south of the park. A map with directions can be had from the JTNP Park Gate.

Visited in July, so it was fairly warm (but still unseasonably cool due to recent rain) and crowded. Due to quiet hours being set at 10pm, our "alpine start" was a big rough as folks were blasting music well into the night. Depending on the wind, the campsite ended up smelling like a vault toilet. The vaults themselves were somewhere between "well used" and filthy. One nice part was the very clean and unobstructed views for star gazing.
All that said, I still enjoyed Joshua Tree NP itself, but I wouldn't camp at that campsite again if I had a choice.