WY general elk low elevation hunt help

Let me first give a little background. My father, good friend and I drew a general elk tag and just returned from the Medicine Bow. I was fortunate enough to kill a spike and my buddy had some great encounters with some nice bulls in the thick stuff. We were hunting right around 9k and up and camp was set right around 8,900. Although my dad, at 66 years young, is in pretty good shape, the altitude really kicked his butt. He took it easy the first couple of days, but by day 3 he was in pretty rough shape. We went out early on the third day and my dad couldn't get the energy to get out of bed. He even said he heard a bugle really close to camp at around 8am and wanted to get out after the bull, but just didn't have it in him. When we got back to camp for lunch he had thrown in the towel. We drove him to Laramie where he caught a flight back Philly. You could really see the disappointment in his eyes when we parted ways. As soon as he got to lower elevation, even in Laramie, he was feeling much better. Just a couple thousand feet made all the difference.

When he picked me up yesterday at the airport he wanted to know if it made sense to find a general area that's low in elevation (5 - 6k) where he could go back and kill a bull. He's not picky so I'd imagine he'd kill a spike if he had the opportunity. I'm not sure the elk will be down low by the end of October where we hunted in the Medicine Bow so I'm thinking another general unit in the state, something like 126 and a trespass fee might be a good option. He's not going to solo camp so it would have to be a motel hunt. I'd go with him, but I think my wife would have my hide if I even suggest the idea after being gone for 12 days. I doubt he'd go guided as he balked at my suggestion of a cancellation hunt, but I suppose if the price is right he'd consider. He's already invested a considerable amount for this hunt only to lay in camp for a few days so money is a bit of an issue. He'd easily be in for a few more bucks with a flight and car rental.

I'd really appreciate any suggestions, advice or ideas. Feel free to PM me. Thanks in advance.

After this last week hunting in the general Utah archery hunt my brother and I decided that the elk will be where they want to be and don't think about elevation too much. If you can find some good habitat down lower give it a shot. My cousin that lives close to where we were hunting told us that his buddies each got a bull in an area we didn't bother going to because we thought it would be too low for this time of year but they were there. After spending 5 days up in elevations 9000 feet and above, we heard some bugles but only saw one cow. To get to our homes on the wasatch front in Utah it is fastest to go through Wyoming, when we got off the mountain and onto the highway in Wyoming I looked to my left and what did I see? a big 6 point with his cows down in the sagebrush at about 7000 feet 100 yards off the highway.

Appreciate it. I have a couple lower elevation areas that I'm looking into for him.

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Good luck. Used to hunt elk at 4000 ft in Az, so it's possible to find them wherever they have food, water and security. On a side note, people die all too often here in Co from altitude sickness. One was a young female from PA several weeks ago. Be safe and get low asap if you or someone you're with experiences it again. Scary stuff