MarineHawk,
Considerable good advice on here already, from some hunters who clearly have experience in hunting elk.
From my experience, I definitely prefer the quiet snow like others here have already said. But that crusty snow may not be as detrimental as you might think. I have walked into elk when conditions were not quiet, and it made me think that the crusty snow may not actually be as noisy as I thought. Moving slowly and at an unsteady pace is always a help too.
The phrase crusty snow covers a lot of different snow conditions. If it is super crusty, really noisy, and you are sneaking in the dark timber, you may not have a lot of luck where shots would be close. If the snow is deeper, even though crusty on top, it might be a bit quieter.
If all I had for conditions for elk hunting was crusty snow, I would go out anyway.
As for camping, I doubt a camp a mile away is a big problem unless it is a very noisy camp, or is poorly located where the likely scent stream is pouring down into the hunting area.
Hunting out of a small backpacking tent over 17 days for bighorn sheep did not seem to cause any problems. Sheep are not known for their noses of course, but their noses do indeed work. Other creatures around the tent site were not particularly put off either, although this was at high elevation. Elk tend to be noisy, and a hunter can get away with making noises that a whitetail would not tolerate.
I would certainly try to avoid camping where I expect to hunt the elk however. They are not going to tolerate you being in the middle of their area.
Best is to spot your elk at a distance and then close in on them, if possible.
