Unit 52 sits up in the far northwest corner of Rio Arriba County against the Colorado line, and it's about the friendliest land-status situation you'll find in northern New Mexico—roughly 92 percent public, almost all of it Carson National Forest. The signature here is San Antonio Mountain, a 10,908-foot free-standing volcanic dome that you can see for miles; hike it from the highway and you climb close to 2,500 feet in under three miles, which tells you everything about how the country goes from flat-looking to lungs-on-fire in a hurry. Most of the unit is high plains between 8,100 and 9,100 feet—grass and low brush with creeks lined in trees—rolling up into pinyon, ponderosa, and then aspen and spruce-fir higher. The 18,000-acre Cruces Basin Wilderness is the crown jewel and a favorite of elk hunters, but it's wilderness, so its boots and horses only once you're inside the line. Lagunitas campground, about 26 miles north of Tres Piedras, is the classic jump-off, with more camps strung along the Los Pinos near the border. The unit has a real reputation for elk numbers, and the archery crowd in particular does well here when the bulls are talking. That popularity is the catch—it draws people, so don't expect the place to yourself, especially on the road-accessible fringes. The play a lot of guys miss is the low-elevation pinyon-juniper; everybody wants to climb to the aspen, but the elk don't always read the script. Tres Piedras is your last real stop for fuel and a phone signal—once your north toward the Cruces Basin and Lagunitas the bars are gone and the roads turn primitive, ATV-on-designated-routes-only, and they get greasy when fall weather moves through. It's a genuinely good public-land elk unit; the trade is that the secret got out a long time ago, and the Cruces Basin backcountry is where you go to leave the crowd behind.