A method comprising: establishing, with an upstream router, a point-to-point (P2P) label switched path to a downstream router, wherein the upstream router and the downstream router are included in a multipoint LSP; either establishing with the upstream router, when the upstream router requests link protection for a direct link between the upstream router and the downstream router of the multipoint LSP and when the P2P LSP is established along a path that avoids the protected link, a targeted adjacency session between the upstream router and the downstream router, or sending with the upstream router, when the upstream router requests node protection for an intermediate router of the multipoint LSP between the upstream router and the downstream router and when the P2P LSP is established along a path that avoids the protected node, a next next hop label request to the intermediate router of the multipoint LSP, and receiving in response to the request a next next hop label for the downstream router from the intermediate router; installing an alternate next hop with an associated label stack into forwarding information of the upstream router, wherein the label stack includes a P2P LSP label associated with the P2P LSP and either a targeted adjacency session label or the next next hop label associated with the multipoint LSP; forwarding multicast traffic from the upstream router toward the downstream router along the multipoint LSP; and upon detecting a failure of the protected link or node of the multipoint LSP, tunneling the multicast traffic from the upstream router toward the downstream router along the P2P LSP to the alternate next hop with the associated label stack. establishing, with an upstream router, a point-to-point (P2P) label switched path to a downstream router, wherein the upstream router and the downstream router are included in a multipoint LSP; either establishing with the upstream router, when the upstream router requests link protection for a direct link between the upstream router and the downstream router of the multipoint LSP and when the P2P LSP is established along a path that avoids the protected link, a targeted adjacency session between the upstream router and the downstream router, or sending with the upstream router, when the upstream router requests node protection for an intermediate router of the multipoint LSP between the upstream router and the downstream router and when the P2P LSP is established along a path that avoids the protected node, a next next hop label request to the intermediate router of the multipoint LSP, and receiving in response to the request a next next hop label for the downstream router from the intermediate router; installing an alternate next hop with an associated label stack into forwarding information of the upstream router, wherein the label stack includes a P2P LSP label associated with the P2P LSP and either a targeted adjacency session label or the next next hop label associated with the multipoint LSP; forwarding multicast traffic from the upstream router toward the downstream router along the multipoint LSP; and upon detecting a failure of the protected link or node of the multipoint LSP, tunneling the multicast traffic from the upstream router toward the downstream router along the P2P LSP to the alternate next hop with the associated label stack.