I agree with you. There is nothing more frustrating than to hike all morning only to find trucks/ATV's at the top of far mountain you just hiked to. A few years ago, in Eastern Idaho, things got really bad. We had hunted the area for years and had a good idea where all the road and trails were. We hiked for about two hours early one morning to get on top of the continental divide. As we crested the ridge, we noticed a guy in a truck driving along the divide in front of us. He wasn't on a road, just out driving wherever the hell he pleased. We mentioned this and several other instances of this to the fish and game and I am happy to see this year they finally made a law requiring trucks and ATV's to stay on roads. Hopefully they will enforce this and we can be sure nobody will drive to the top of our hunting spots no longer.
To answer your question about the hike, we usually hike about 1 - 1 1/2 miles in during the dark and then hike about 1 mile hunting. We go in a big circle so the total hike is usually less than 3 miles all together.