Main Gate RV Dump Station

Stopped here just to dump. Didn’t see a place to pay, so I’m pretty sure if you are just dumping you don’t have to pay. I could be wrong. Very clean dump station with a threaded spigot to rinse your black tank and one to fill your potable water. A few benches there under some awnings that are very clean as well.

The only con is that the potable water spigot is right next to the dump. I prefer it when they separate these so the clean water spigot isn’t mistakenly used to rinse black tanks. After spraying the spigot with Lysol, we went for it and I will say that the potable water tastes amazing.

I stayed here one night so that I could take my truck and scout out where to camp in the area. You have to drive 3 miles to the Aquatic Center (city swimming pool), and fill out a form, to get the $10 camping permit.

It's just a parking lot beside a busy highway, and right off the end of the county airport runway. I would certainly never stay here again, even for one night. I went scouting in my truck, and found that the boondocking locations in the area were not suitable for my trailer, so I moved to the White Rock Visitor Center, and stayed there for a week. I highly recommend White Rock, whether you plan to stay one night or longer.

The dump station was clean, and free. There is fresh water, but no dumpster.

PROS:
Low Cost - $10/night
Dump station
Two frost-free waterwayer sources: Dump station water and potable (blue handle) water
Only 2 miles from town
Great views
Beautiful Trail into town
Many atomic bomb science, history and native american cultural exhibits in town
Coop Market within walking range

CONS:
It’s a parking lot
Car dwellers who don’t pay. One has parked here a year, although she had a nice car.
Constant flow of traffic on the road and campsite during the day. Quieter during the night.
Back up to barbed-wire fence

This location is now known as "Main Gate Park" after the land was transferred to Los Alamos County from the Kiwanis Club. The county has added a facade in front of the bathrooms that give a historic image of what a security entrance looked like back in the Manhattan Projects days. Everything else is pretty much the same. The RV parking fee is $10 for an overnight stay.

It was originally intended as a place for lab contractors to park their RVs overnight. Overnight RVparking is still allowed after getting a $10 permit from the county. Call the Aquatic Center Front Desk at (505) 662-8170 for more information. You can pay the $10 and get your permit at the Aquatic Center Front Desk, when it is open [ 2760 Canyon Rd, Los Alamos ].

It's a bare bones paved parking lot with a heated bathroom with running water and flush toilet. It's right next to the highway into Los Alamos and so it is has a lot of road noise. It is used by a lot of contractors working at the national lab who don't care much about having a pretty place to stay in their RVs, but views are great from here. There is a health-food co-op market less than a mile west along with a paved bike trail that starts across the street from the market and goes into downtown Los Alamos. You can easily walk to the market.

I asked about the Kiwanis Entrance Park at the Chamber of Commerce in town and got a blank stare followed by a "we don't have a Kiwanis Park" response. That led me to do some research. The small entrace sign did mention Kiwanis. The map in the Visitor Guide calls it Eastgate-Sunrise Park which isn't even mentioned in the table of parks shown in the same document. The table of parks shows it as Entrance Park which makes sense when you see the picture.

In addition to the dump station (which has threads on the flush water spigot!), there is a covered ramada with two picnic tables, a comfort station, and a large parking lot where you'll have to turn around since it's a dead-end facility. I didn't ask about overnight parking, but there was one 5th wheel set up in the corner that looked like it had been there a while.

No matter what it's called, the price is accurate, and even if the folks in the Information Center don't know about it, it's located just off the east end of the airport on the road coming into town.