Camp May Road closes weekdays for fire project through December

Hikers, campers and weekday visitors headed for Pajarito Mountain will lose access to Camp May Road, Camp May and the adjacent trails from Monday through Thursday starting June 15. Los Alamos County is keeping the roadway open Friday through Sunday for recreation travel to the ski hill, but the weekday closure will run until the Jemez Mountain Fire Protection Project is expected to wrap up in December.

The change is more than a convenience issue. County staff say the extra room is needed so Dub-L-EE, LLC can work safely and efficiently on Phase 3 of the project, which includes four water booster stations and new underground fiber and electric distribution infrastructure. The county says the closure also helps limit unnecessary land disturbance, keeps equipment staged in the right areas and preserves access for fire and rescue response if an emergency happens during active work or fire restrictions.

Senior Project Manager Ernesto Gallegos said crews have already seen vehicles moving too fast and not taking the posted speed limit seriously, reinforcing the decision to tighten weekday access. The county is asking anyone using the area to stay clear of staging zones marked with flags and to plan around the fact that only weekend access will remain available for the foreseeable future.

Camp May will not open for the 2026 season, so the usual summer pattern at the campground is gone. Earlier county notices had already limited Camp May to weekend use during construction, with reservations unavailable, and the road and campground entrance locked during the workweek. The county had also said the road would remain closed Monday through Thursday through the end of the calendar year, with winter weather affecting paving and construction timing.

The Jemez Mountain Fire Protection Project is meant to do more than improve wildfire protection at Pajarito Mountain. County materials say it is intended to strengthen regional fire suppression capability on and around the mountain, improve domestic water service and electric utilities, and support supplemental snowmaking reliability in low-snow years. The work is part of a broader collaboration involving Los Alamos County, the State of New Mexico, Mountain Capital Partners and Pajarito Mountain, Santa Fe National Forest and Los Alamos National Laboratory, with project planning including a water tank, a water pipeline, four booster pump stations, fiber optic infrastructure and electrical conduit.

Pajarito Mountain is also doing its own water pipeline and lift repair work, and visitors are being directed to use Townsight trails for hiking instead of the main routes off the Aspen and Mother lifts. The combined construction means the usual access pattern around Camp May and Pajarito will stay constrained through the rest of the year, but county officials say the tradeoff is a more resilient water and fire-protection system for the mountain and nearby neighborhoods.