Hospitals and Urgent Care near Joshua Tree

The closest emergency room to Stargaze Escape is at Hi-Desert Medical Center in the town of Joshua Tree, about 15 to 20 minutes from the house. In any emergency, call 911. This page covers what to do if something goes wrong inside the national park, where the hospitals, urgent care, pharmacies and animal hospitals are, and which numbers to save before you lose signal. Hours and services change, so call ahead for anything that isn't an emergency.

Calling for help in the park

The park service's instruction is short: if you have an emergency or witness a crime in Joshua Tree National Park, call 911. If your phone has a signal, the park also lists 909-383-5651 as a second emergency number. Coverage inside the park is very limited and in many areas may be nonexistent, and the park tells visitors not to depend on a cell phone in an emergency. Try 911 anyway, and head for one of the emergency phones below if the call won't connect. Save both numbers in your phone before you leave the house, and write them on a card for the glove box in case a battery dies.

When you reach a dispatcher, lead with two things: what happened and where you are. Inside the park, "where" means a trail name, a parking area, a campground or the nearest named landmark, so notice the signs as you pass them. Rescuers can only move as fast as they can find you.

The two emergency phones

For the moments when nobody in your group has a signal, the park keeps two fixed emergency phones. One is at the Intersection Rock parking area by Hidden Valley Campground, mounted on the north side of the restroom building, in the same busy part of the park as the Hidden Valley Nature Trail. The other is at the Indian Cove Ranger Station on the park's north edge, which you reach from Highway 62 rather than from the main park roads. The ranger station's own hours depend on staffing, but the park lists the phone there, along with the only drinking water in the Indian Cove section. Our Indian Cove guide covers the drive out.

Texting 911

San Bernardino County, which includes Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree and Twentynine Palms, began accepting text messages to 911 in December 2015, among the first in California to do so. Availability depends on where you are and which carrier you use, and the service launch reports said location accuracy varies by carrier and that phones roaming on another network may have trouble. If texting isn't available where you are, federal rules require your carrier to send an automatic reply telling you to call instead. Type your location into the first message. The FCC's advice is to call if you can and text if you can't: a voice call is better when you can make one, and a text is for when you can't talk or can't hear.

How rescues work

A call for help from the backcountry brings a team. Park rangers respond alongside the Joshua Tree Search and Rescue team, known as JOSAR, a team of trained volunteers and park staff who look for lost hikers and help injured or stranded climbers. San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies, county firefighters and the sheriff's helicopter join the larger or harder rescues.

A rescue in November 2024 shows how the pieces fit together. A backpacker in her mid-50s had a medical problem in the wilderness near Samuelson Rocks. Her group called for help, the sheriff's helicopter lifted her out to a road, and a Morongo Basin Ambulance crew drove her to Hi-Desert Medical Center, where she was treated for minor injuries. The park credited San Bernardino County Fire, its own rangers and JOSAR for the joint effort. The useful lesson is a plain one: her group had a way to reach help, and the rescuers knew where to go.

Hi-Desert Medical Center

Hi-Desert Medical Center, at 6601 White Feather Road in Joshua Tree, is the emergency room for the Morongo Basin, and its emergency department is open 24 hours a day, every day. It's a 59-bed community hospital that the local health care district leases to Tenet Healthcare, which has operated it since 2015. In 2017 it joined Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs and JFK Memorial Hospital in Indio to form the Desert Care Network.

Two designations tell you what it's set up for. The county's emergency medical services agency has designated it an Acute Stroke Ready Hospital, meaning it can stabilize and treat stroke patients in the emergency department and prepare them for transfer, and a Level IV trauma facility, meaning staff can evaluate injured patients and start treatment but most serious cases are then transferred. For the most serious injuries, the region's highest-level trauma center is Desert Regional in Palm Springs, covered below. From the house, the drive is about 15 to 20 minutes. Put the address in your map app on the first day, so it's there if you ever need it in a hurry.

Hospitals in the Coachella Valley

Down the hill, about 50 minutes from the house by Highway 62 and Interstate 10, Desert Regional Medical Center at 1150 North Indian Canyon Drive in Palm Springs is the Coachella Valley's only Level I trauma center. It received its Level I designation in 2023, and trauma surgeons are in the building around the clock. The Desert Care Network also describes it as the region's only DNV-accredited Comprehensive Stroke Center and says it has the valley's only Level 3 neonatal intensive care unit.

Eisenhower Medical Center, at 39000 Bob Hope Drive in Rancho Mirage, is about an hour from the house. Its Tennity Emergency Department is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and the hospital lists a Level IV trauma designation.

Should you drive someone down yourself? For anything serious, no. The trip is close to an hour, and an ambulance crew can start treatment on the way. Call 911 and let the responders decide where to take the patient.

Urgent care

For problems that need a clinician but not an emergency room, Yucca Valley has a walk-in clinic. Desert Oasis Healthcare moved its Yucca Valley Immediate Care into larger space at 57725 29 Palms Highway on August 3, 2026. The group says it's open seven days a week, including holidays, with no appointment needed, and that the new site offers cardiac monitoring, same-day lab work, IV fluids and medications, and on-site nursing, and its announcement also lists X-ray, CT, MRI and ultrasound imaging through Desert Advanced Imaging. Some older directory listings still show the previous address at 57840 29 Palms Highway, so use the new one. The announcement doesn't give daily opening hours. Desert Oasis Healthcare is a regional medical group, so call before you go to ask what hours it keeps, whether it takes your insurance and what a self-pay visit costs.

As a rough guide, urgent care suits a sprained ankle, a cut that may need stitches, cactus spines buried too deep to get out yourself, a bad cough or a fever. Chest pain, trouble breathing, signs of a stroke, a snakebite and heat stroke are emergencies, and the answer to those is 911.

Heat illness, and when it becomes an emergency

The National Weather Service draws a clear line between two conditions. Heat exhaustion shows up as heavy sweating, weakness or tiredness, cool, pale and clammy skin, a fast weak pulse, muscle cramps, dizziness, nausea or a headache. Move the person somewhere cool, ideally with air conditioning, loosen their clothes, cool them with wet cloths and offer sips of water. The weather service says to get medical help right away if they vomit, or if the symptoms get worse or last longer than an hour.

Heat stroke is the dangerous one: a body temperature above 103°F, hot and red skin that may be dry or damp, a rapid strong pulse, fainting or losing consciousness. Call 911 or get the person to a hospital at once. Cool them down while you wait, and the weather service says not to give them fluids.

Snakebites and other bites

California Poison Control's advice for a rattlesnake bite begins with staying calm and calling 911 at once, then calling the Poison Help line at 1-800-222-1222 for advice while help is on the way. Its list of things not to do matters just as much, because several old remedies make a bite worse:

• No ice or heat on the bite.
• No cutting or slicing around it.
• No trying to suck out the venom.
• No tourniquet.
• No medicines, alcohol or caffeinated drinks.

The poison center says its rattlesnake calls peak from April to October, when the weather is warmer and more people head outdoors. Keep the Poison Help number in your phone for any poisoning question, from a sting to a child who got into the medicine bag. How to avoid snakes, scorpions and cholla in the first place is in our notes on desert safety and Leave No Trace.

Pharmacies

There are no stores of any kind inside the park, so pick up what you need in Yucca Valley. Two pharmacies on Highway 62 in Yucca Valley are about 15 minutes from the house:

• Walgreens. 58133 29 Palms Highway, Yucca Valley. At last check the pharmacy closed at 7pm on weekdays, with a half-hour break from 1:30 to 2pm, while the store itself stayed open later. Weekend pharmacy hours have been shorter, so check before you go.
• Walmart Supercenter. 58501 29 Palms Highway, Yucca Valley. Its pharmacy fills prescriptions, and at last check it opened later on Sundays (10am), so call ahead.

We haven't found a pharmacy in the Morongo Basin that stays open around the clock. For later evening hours, the closest option we found is down the hill: the Walgreens at 14001 Palm Drive in Desert Hot Springs has listed a weekday pharmacy closing time of 9pm, so call to confirm before driving. If you take a daily medication, pack a few extra days of it. If you run short, ask your home pharmacy to transfer the prescription to one of these stores while it's open.

If your dog gets hurt or sick

The house welcomes dogs (see our pet-friendly page), so it's worth knowing where the vets are. In town, VCA Yucca Valley Animal Hospital at 57185 29 Palms Highway lists hours of 8am to 8pm on weekdays and 8am to 6pm on Saturdays, and it's closed on Sundays. It offers urgent care visits, but says those depend on availability, so call ahead.

For a night or Sunday emergency, the closest round-the-clock option we can confirm is VEG ER for Pets at 73495 Highway 111 in Palm Desert, which opened in May 2025 as the Coachella Valley's first 24-hour emergency animal hospital. It's a little over an hour from the house. A newer emergency facility, the Rancho Mirage Animal and Emergency Facility, was reported open in July 2026 and was then running 24 hours a day from Thursday through Monday, with plans to open every day; check its hours before you count on it. If a dog is bitten by a rattlesnake, California Poison Control's advice is to call a vet about antivenom straight away. Where dogs can and can't go in the park is covered in visiting Joshua Tree with a dog.

A short checklist before each outing

None of this takes long, and it's easier at the kitchen table than at a trailhead. Save the numbers below in your phone. Add Hi-Desert Medical Center and the urgent care address to an offline map, since you may be navigating without a signal; our page on cell service in Joshua Tree explains how. Fill in your phone's emergency medical information, which some phones pass to responders automatically when you call for help. Carry your insurance card and a written list of medicines and allergies for everyone in the group. And tell someone at home where you're going and when you expect to be back.

Know before you go

• Emergency. Call 911 for any emergency. With a signal, the park also lists 909-383-5651.
• No signal. Emergency phones at the Intersection Rock parking area (north side of the restroom) and the Indian Cove Ranger Station.
• Nearest ER. Hi-Desert Medical Center, 6601 White Feather Road, Joshua Tree. Open 24 hours, about 15 to 20 minutes from the house.
• Trauma center. Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, about 50 minutes away.
• Urgent care. Desert Oasis Healthcare Immediate Care, 57725 29 Palms Highway, Yucca Valley, seven days a week. Call first about insurance.
• Poison Help. 1-800-222-1222.
• Park information. 760-367-5500, for questions rather than emergencies.
• Pets. VCA Yucca Valley in the daytime, VEG ER for Pets in Palm Desert around the clock.

Save the numbers once and you're set for the whole stay. Then get back to the fun part and check dates at the house.