Here’s a reason not to stay in a hotel:
I live in a town that’s in “elk country.” I have locations that I could drive to that are as close as 10-20 miles away. Most of those spots take 2 hours to get to, maybe a couple I could drive to in an hour, but that’s just drive time. Then it’s minimum of 2 hours hiking to get to a location I’d want to be at first light. If I told you that, on likely the physically hardest thing you’ve done in your life up to this point, you could get an extra 10-20 extra hours of sleep over the course of 5 consecutive days, do you expect that would be a game changer?
I once took an inexperienced elk hunter out for 2 days leaving from town. We had to leave at 3 am both days in order to have productive hunts and this was parking off the highway. I was completely toasted after that weekend and that was 3rd rifle, I had already been out on 2 trips that season. The difference between getting up at 4 am vs 2:30 for days in a row is considerable and in many areas, you’ll be looking at more like a 1:30 am alarm clock and rolling back into town pushing 9 pm. You’ll be driving 7 mph up a FS road, swerving rocks and spilling coffee thinking about what it would feel like to be toasty warm in a sleeping bag catching Zs, something you can easily set yourself up with for less than the cost of staying in a hotel room for a couple of nights.
You can get yourself a Mtn Hardware “Bozeman” 0 degree bag for $139 + nice basecamp pad for about the same. Coleman 2 burner stove, a cast iron skillet from home and a French press. Add a buddy heater and a $25 tarp, or be “fancy” and get a Mtnsmith Bear Creek 2p tent for $139 and you are all set. Have your meals all pre cooked and aim to be in bed within 30 minutes of returning to camp. That whole setup is cheaper than 5 nights in a cheap hotel.