Unit 29 is the big stretch of southern Otero County desert east and southeast of Alamogordo, running clear to the Texas line. Don't confuse it with the timbered Sacramentos up in 34—this is mostly wide-open Chihuahuan desert, short grass and creosote and mesquite and cholla, with the southern toe of the Sacramento Mountains tailing off in the northwest and volcanic plugs like 7,280-foot Wind Mountain standing alone out on the flats. Most of the unit is low rolling country with sparse cover, and the game lives in pockets—mule deer in the canyons and brush, a scatter of pronghorn, Barbary sheep on the rock, and a few oryx that have drifted off the McGregor Range and onto the open BLM. US 54 is the main artery, and you'll jump off it around Orogrande to get into the eastern country; numerous dirt roads branch off but they go a long way to nowhere and your phone quits working almost immediately. The good news is it's mostly open ground—roughly 84 percent public, mostly BLM and state with only a few thousand acres of private scattered through the middle and north—so legal access is way less of a headache here than out in the bootheel. The bad news is that's because there isnt a whole lot worth locking up; this is thin, dry, hard-hunting desert where an exceptional mule deer is genuinely rare and you earn every animal by covering ground and glassing. A 4WD is smart for the two-track but you wont need an ATV. Heads up that the McGregor Range piece of Fort Bliss borders this country and oryx and deer drift back and forth across that line, so know exactly where the military boundary is. Alamogordo is your town for fuel, food, and a bed before you point south; once you're past Orogrande there's nothing but desert and the occasional rancher. Come for solitude, a draw-it-most-years tag, and the oddball chance at an oryx—not for a wall-hanger buck.