Big Bend National Park saw more than 560,000 visitors in 2024, setting the park record for the second-most visitations ever, according to data released in early March by the National Parks Service. Year-to-date visitations for 2025 show this year is on track to surpass that number.

The release of visitation data for 2024 came just a few weeks after the Trump administration fired around 1,000 National Parks Service employees. Tom VandenBerg, chief of interpretation and visitor services at Big Bend, confirmed in a March 24 email that Big Bend has since reinstated all their terminated employees, in accordance with an order from two U.S. district judges that required all probationary national park employees to be rehired nationwide. 

Last year was a record year for national parks across America, with 331.9 million visitors in total. Visitation numbers from Big Bend have been climbing since the park’s opening in 1944, peaking in 2021 and 2024. By the end of February 2024, Big Bend had seen just over 89,000 visitors. January and February of this year surpassed that number by over 12,000 visitors. 

“That’s representative of the value that our country, our people, have in national parks,” said Bill Wade, executive director of the Association of National Park Rangers. “That translates into people’s desire to visit national parks and learn about them.” 

The National Parks Service has yet to release visitation data for March 2025, so it is unclear how the Trump administration’s actions might be affecting the most recent visitors. However, mechanical engineering sophomore Emilio Restrepo said he is still planning to visit Big Bend this weekend for his friend’s 21st birthday. After hearing the park might be understaffed, Restrepo said he plans on taking extra steps to make sure the trip goes well. 

“I wasn’t really aware of this, but (when) bringing it up to people like outside of our group … they would warn me, ‘You should look into it more or make sure that to not run into any problems because they’re understaffed, and they’re letting go of a lot of people,’” Restrepo said. “I had no idea, so that made me want to do extra research and all that to make sure that things go smoothly.”

Emily Moore, a geology and corporate communications sophomore, said she still felt supported inside the park, particularly by park volunteers. 

“Our camp host and some of the people at the trailhead and information center were volunteers,” said Moore, who visited over spring break. “We did talk to staff, but it did seem like the park was heavily supported by volunteers.” 

As summer approaches, Wade said he does not recommend canceling any planned trips to national parks, but he does suggest people interested in visiting do research ahead of time and plan accordingly. 

“I would encourage people not to change their plans,” Wade said. “Except I think that they need to do everything they can to get a hold of the park and find out specifically what is going on at the time that they plan to be there.”