Camp May Road Repaving Begins, Closures Set Through April 30

Repaving crews moved onto Camp May Road last week, launching a stretch of construction that will keep the corridor closed to the public every Monday through Thursday until April 30 as part of Los Alamos County's Jemez Mountain Fire Protection Project.

The closure window runs from Monday mornings through 5 p.m. each Thursday, leaving the road accessible only on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday during this phase. Hikers and recreational users who rely on trailheads off Camp May Road will feel the same restrictions: any trails accessed from the road are also off-limits during active closure periods.

The project scope goes considerably deeper than fresh asphalt. Alongside the repaving, crews are installing underground waterlines, conduit for electric and fiber lines, and vaults for future fiber and electric infrastructure running the full length of the corridor up to Pajarito Mountain. The county positioned the utility work as a long-term investment in reducing outage risk and supporting future electrification and broadband expansion, while the road improvements directly serve emergency and maintenance vehicle access in a region where wildfire response times and fuel-break accessibility are ongoing concerns.

Once the current repaving phase wraps at the end of April, Camp May Road reopens for a summer access window from May 1 through May 31. That break is temporary. Phase III of the project begins June 1, reinstating the Monday-through-Thursday closure schedule and continuing until the full project reaches completion.

The county designated Ernesto Gallegos as the point of contact for project-specific questions, and full details on the Jemez Mountain Fire Protection Project are available at ladpu.com/JMFPP. For week-by-week road impact information and lane-closure calendars, the county directed residents to the Cone Zone page on the county website, where schedules are updated on a rolling basis.

The recurring weekday closures through spring and into summer represent a sustained disruption for anyone whose routine routes or weekend staging grounds run through that part of the Pajarito Plateau. Planning around the Friday-through-Sunday access window will be essential for hikers and residents throughout the project's remaining phases.