I agree with what others have said. Last year I found elk between 7200-7500 feet in mid-October. At the same time in the previous year, they were on the same ridge at just over 8000.
A few years ago, we were hunting in a different unit that we had scouted all summer. The elk had been at the top consistently, but on the early October opener, there wasn't one to be found (I'm sure the folks driving up closed roads didn't help). After our elk season closed we were hunting deer in the same unit much lower, and found elk. Maybe they had been pushed there earlier. I think it had been a fairly mild autumn.