Go to the local sale barn and LOOK. KEEP YOUR HANDS TUCKED UNDER YOUR BUTT AND WATCH. Get a feel for the prices. Agree that Craigslist is usually WAY high....and yes, cattle acclimated to your elevation is important.Any friends that can help that have some experience? One other thing, DON'T start with heifers....get some mature cows with calves that already know what they are doing....or better yet get some steers and see how you like it and how they do. Buy in the 5-600 lb range....most likely already weaned and you can put some weight on them and sell at 8-1000 lbs. See if this is what you really want to do. Cows with calves also will need a bull or artificial breeding to get them pregnant for the next calf and are a year round commitment. Steers can be grazed during the good months, and not wintered over if you don't want and are much easier to get your money back out of plus hopefully a bit of a profit while you get your feet wet. Plus one other thing, at those elevations, do you have a predator problem? Smaller calves on a cow are much more suseptible to coyotes, wolves, mountain lions, even a rougue bear, than a 600 lb calf that is fairly fast on it's feet.