All animals go where they do to avoid pressure. They don't care if it is a house's backyard, or the Bob Marshall Wilderness.
Now, here is a guy who has been paying attention.
Pressure causes a reaction from elk, and for hunters averse to company. If you see a guy - or gal - out in the remote with you, tip your hat to a person willing to put in the effort. Then try to have a whispered palaver with them so you each know the other's general trajectory. That way you can continue to hunt without stepping on them and vice versa. You might even hatch a cooperative plan.
Where my heart sinks is when I got to a good place by foot and find ATV tracks there - very illegally - before me. If I find the bootprints of another hunter who put in dues to get there, well, must be a kindred spirit. I did once find a guy whose tracks indicated he hunted exactly like I did - same movements, same strategy, same waiting pattern. It was peculiar and interesting to find a phantom whose shadow I was following several days distant in time.
Speaking of shadowing others, you can do worse in a new area to see what other hunters have done, what their approach may have been. Not only can you learn from a guy like the phantom, you will know where someone already blew the elk out.
I hate sharing my chosen area with orange, but it is a short season and limited resource. Especially with those mini-seasons in CO. I so much prefer Wyoming's seasons. Now I no longer have to live a whole year waiting for a mere 7-10 day hunt.
One other comment, 2 years is a pretty short time to accumulate knowledge of elk hunting. Put in more time and you will come to know how to see fewer hunters and more elk. But in CO, there is always a lot of pressure from limited jumping off points.
