Find below response to your queries:
1. Are there many steps to climb during a visit to Ajanta and Ellora?
- There are around 50 steps to enter in Ajanta while Ellora does not have any steps as such.
2. How steep is the gradient to walk to the caves ?
- Internally there is no steep move apart from a few exclusion to enter certain cave, you can easily move in between caves.
3. What is the approximate distance to walk in order to make a worthwhile tour of the caves?
- Caves along with lake and garden below it forms around 2kms walk/ move distance.

You can take carry assistance to enter in caves and then walk on own if you feel comfortable.