Good luck coaxing hotspots out of anybody, I mean would you give upyour hotspots to somebody especially an out of state hunter?

DIY is tough not knowing the land and I assume you won't have an opportunity to come out and scout in advance. If you can take at least two weeks you'll set yourself up to figure out the lay of the land the first week and hit it hard the 2nd week. We did a DIY in Montana but had my buddy who lives there scout and find a camping site. We had 4 guys and gear packed in an F350 pulling a motorcycle trailer.. but we only had to drive from WA to MT. We came back with 4 deer and no elk and sore feet and backs (we didn't use the motorcycles much [&:])

You really need to do a lot of research if you're going to pull it off and come back with an elk of any kind although with a rifle you may have better odds than we did archery hunting.. If I was you and wasn't concerned so much about killing a mature bull, I'd go to CO since they have by far and away the highest elk numbers.