Unit 53 is the rugged crown of the Sangre de Cristos northeast of Taos, straddling Taos and Colfax counties up to the Colorado border. This is the real high-country—13,161-foot Wheeler Peak, the highest point in New Mexico, anchors the south end, the Latir Peak Wilderness dominates the north, and there's a big chunk of roadless timber and tundra strung between the two. It runs a little under half public, around 47 percent, almost all Carson National Forest, and you get into it off NM 522 north of Taos, NM 130 to the northeast, and NM 38 between Questa and Red River. Here's the honest split: the wilderness and roadless ground is spectacular and hard, the kind of country that produces some of the biggest Boone-and-Crockett bighorn rams in the state plus solid elk and mule deer—but the logging roads outside the wilderness get absolutely overrun with ATVs come elk and deer season. If you want quality you backpack away from the trucks; if you road-hunt you'll be sharing. HARD FLAG—tribal land. The southern end of the unit butts into the Taos Pueblo Indian Reservation, which is closed to your state tag. That land is outside NMDGF jurisdiction, so you don't hunt it without the Pueblo's own permission, and you need to know precisely where the boundary sits before you push south toward the Wheeler massif. Beyond that line, the country does'nt give anything up cheap—the draw odds are tough, the terrain demands real conditioning, and October weather at 11,000-plus feet can flip from bluebird to snowed-in in a few hours. Questa and Red River are your nearby supply-and-fuel stops with Taos as the bigger town on the southwest corner, and cell service dies the moment you leave the highway corridors. The payoff is genuine: trophy bulls, record-book rams, and some of the prettiest skyscraping mountains in the Lower 48—you just have to earn every bit of it, and your better off planning a backcountry camp than a day-trip.