Provisioning recovery paths in a mesh network

A system and method for of pre-provisioning recovery paths in a mesh network including creating i) a working path between a head end NE and a tail end NE of the mesh network and ii) a recovery path between the head end NE and the tail end NE, wherein the working path and the recovery path include one or more intermediate NEs; provisioning the working path in an activated state, including establishing cross connects of each of the NEs of the working path; provisioning the recovery path in a pending state, including establishing cross connects of each of the NEs of the recovery path; after provisioning the recovery path, detecting a failure along the working path, and in response, allocating and reserving link resources along the recovery path; and activating, by the NEs along the recovery path, cross connects of the recovery path into respective hardware associated with the NEs.