tangozulu

sorry for venting Rebel,
But I'm just a workin stiff who lives in a small northern town with 6 outfitters. I get pretty tired of the constant drone of airplanes when I get a chance to get out hunting on my own. All hunters should be concerned when our wildlife gets vaccumed up so efficiently. We should expect better from some of these "profesional" hunters. Some are just lazy.
I think the problem starts when hunters demand a very high success rate without wondering how this is achieved. So one outfitter buys a plane and after a few years he is gettin all the game, and all the hunters, so the next outfitter needs to buy one too.This is why hunts are getting so darn expensive.
Most guided hunters are not even aware this is going on. Ask your outfitter if he owns a plane and how he uses it. Where ever we hunt there are resident hunters. The guided hunter needs to stop thinking the resident is the competision. We need to stick together as hunters.
Only concerned hunters can change the situation.
Two days after the season most of these outfitters are long gone.

Fuzzyballs44

This actually looks like a hot spot I hunt in the Idaho panhandle. It does have some hunting pressures so what the elk do is they side hill to their feeding spots. If they get jumped or pushed they fly down the hill and go up the other side into the razor back. If they are pushed from the razor back they head for the bowl and camp their or head up and side hill north towards your imaginary road. They then repeat the process. My first elk was taken by sitting on one of those hiways on the side hill for three hunts waiting for them to cross by me.

Montana Bob

Myself not knowing the area, would side hill it to the left get up on top and spend the day glassing till dark then againin the morning.
From there I would plan my next day's strategy paying close attn to the wind.

SILVERTIP-CO

up the ridges and into the bowls

thats where you'll find the elk honeyholes

MinnFinn

North and East facing grassy slopes, bowls and any relatively flat areas they might be laying down between feeding. Heavy timber nearby these that they can go into to get out of Sun when they get heated up. These areas that are within a mile or so near water (even springs). Get back in away from roads or heavily traveled trails. Use your boots, binos and watch the direction of the wind. If the wind isn't in your face or close to it you better figure out a different approach or you'll for sure be hiking a whole lot longer. Snow is one of your best indicators of recent activity, direction and where you need to go to get ahead of them.

M77man

Either side hug the ridge to glass downthat is down wind for the day if you're considering the whole area, a gps is going to come in handy also unless you are very good at mental land nav because you're probably going to hike about 5 miles each day on a 5 day hunt at the very least.