RE: What does it take to hunt out West?
Well sounds like you just started!!
Couple of questions to get you to the next step:
1) Price range. Pick it now. For fully guided elk hunts for example, they can be found for $3000/week on up to VERY high. With the higher price comes private land, bigger bulls etc. also keep in mind when you see an outfitters price it usually does NOT include licenses and they are expensive out west.
2) What animal(s) do you want to hunt? If school is a factor you might restrict it to August which I think means antelope, probably (guess here) lower end of the $$ scale and higher end of the success range.
3) Guided or not? Tightly couples with #1 and #2. If you are going deer/antelope hunting you will be familiar with what to do "after the shot" however, going for elk, are you ready for 800lbs of dead animal laying there? Guided also gets you knowledge of the animal, tactics, use of his equipment and his help getting the critter out of the woods. is a drop camp ok? fully guided is nice, but $$
4) Are you willing to wait for drawn tags, or over the counter only? Some states have OTC, others have draw.
As to how to find them? Good question, browse forums like this, huntinfo.com has outfitter reviews, as does bowsite.com. Are there local hunting/fishing shows over the winter you can go to (this is how I found the elk outfitter I've used).