Joshua Tree is getting impossible for anyone who actually works at night

Drove out to Joshua Tree last weekend for a two night shoot. Got to my usual spot off Park Boulevard around 10pm and counted seven other photographers already set up, most of them running constant headlamps and phone screens while they waited for their tracker mounts to do the work. One guy was playing music from a speaker.

I get it, the park is public land and everyone has a right to be there. But five years ago I could plan a session around the Milky Way core transit, set up in the dark, and not see another soul for hours. Now it feels like a trailhead parking lot. Half the light panels I saw were clearly for social content, not actual long exposures.

Anza Borrego is starting to go the same way, though it's not as far gone yet.

Is anyone else finding their reliable dark sky spots in SoCal getting overrun? And is anyone willing to share alternatives, or are we all just quietly guarding whatever locations still work?