I've seen rooms start out at high-bucket, so booking early doesn't always guarantee a low-cost ticket.
While booking holiday travel on the SWC six years in a row, I noticed the rooms would generally open up at a fairly high cost and then dip after a couple of months. Then they'd fluctuate, depending on demand/cancellations. I checked the prices every week, and as it got closer to autumn, I'd check every day.
Unfortunately, this backfired on me one year. I waited until mid-September to book for Christmas, and the rooms were completely sold out. Despite checking multiple times per day, every day, between late September and twenty minutes before departure, we were stuck in coach on the trip from CHI to ABQ.
Luckily, we were able to get a room for the return trip.