Just my 2 cents. There's plenty of dudes that have killed more elk than I have.
From my perspective, I hunted a new unit this year and I didn't see elk for the first 10 days of hunting (pre, trans, and post rut, early Sep to early Oct, bow and rifle). General tag unit, good amount of pressure. Once we found them we started seeing them every day. Essentially my first 10 days I was eliminating areas that I thought would hold elk and didn't.
So yes, I would definitely sit downwind and see what there is to see for an evening. I would walk the area mid day (not push into the timber) and see what kind of sign there is around. Maybe the elk are there and use the area, maybe they aren't. I go to plenty of spots that I think are going to be sure things...and there's absolutely no elk sign.
And I cover a lot of ground when I'm not seeing elk, maybe even too much. I would camp further away than half a mile. Without seeing the rest of the terrain it's tough to tell, but it doesn't look like it's hard to get there. Only the elevation, but no big timber blocks or anything that you can't work around.
