White Sands travelers face two planned U.S. 70 closures Monday

Can you still get to White Sands on Monday? Only if you timed U.S. 70 around two planned closures that could shut the main approach twice in the same day and turn a simple park outing into a clock-watching exercise.

White Sands Missile Range said it would block U.S. 70 at 8:25 a.m. and again at 12:25 p.m. on April 27, 2026, with each closure expected to last about an hour. Organ Mountain News reported the roadblocks at Blue Block, about two miles east of the access road near mile marker 172, and Brown Block near mile marker 192. San Augustin Pass and the Las Cruces gate were not affected, but Nike Avenue was.

That mattered because U.S. 70 is the corridor most day-trippers use for White Sands, Holloman and the broader Tularosa Basin. A traveler who left Las Cruces early enough to clear the first block could still have made the park before the 8:25 a.m. closure, but the noon block meant a round-trip plan had to be built with real margin. The safer sequencing was to either arrive before the first shutdown, stay put through the midday window and leave after 1:25 p.m., or simply avoid trying to cross the range during the closures at all.

White Sands National Park says the highway between the park and Las Cruces can also close during military testing, even when the park itself remains open. The park’s visitor center and gift shop stay open during some of those test closures, but the access road can still be cut off without much warning. Officials also said roadblocks are subject to change without notice and pointed travelers to state road information and 511 updates before heading out.

That uncertainty hits a destination built around short, flexible visits. White Sands protects about 275 square miles of gypsum dunes, and visitors come for hiking, sledding, ranger programs and sunset runs on the sand. The nearest restaurants and gas stations are in Alamogordo, 13 miles northeast of the park on U.S. 70, which makes highway access part of the trip, not just a detail at the edge of it.

The stakes go beyond one Monday. White Sands National Park logged 729,096 visitors in 2023, with visitor spending estimated at $44.5 million in nearby communities, supporting 595 local jobs and generating $53.4 million in local economic benefit. White Sands Missile Range, an active Army installation and the largest military base in the United States, has long posted roadblocks on public highways including U.S. 70, U.S. 54 and U.S. 380. On this corridor, the road itself can decide whether the day trip works at all.