TMB Day 5 - Courmayeur to Rifugio Elena

Our plan for the day was to walk from Courmayeur to Rifugio Bonnati, then to Rifugio Elena to spend the night.  Courmayeur to Rifugio Bonnati is about 14km, with a height gain of 1720m.  That is a lot of climbing.  Because Alpine Exploratory could not get us beds at Rifugio Bonnati, we had to stay Rifugio Elena, another 7km away.  This means a total of 21km for one day, going up and down the mountains.  Earlier in the week at the Auberge du Manoir we met a young couple who had just finished the TMB.  They told us that they skipped the Courmayeur to Rifugio Bonnati part because it's straight climbing for 3 hours.  We were told there's a better solution.

We decided to take a bus from Courmayeur to Anurva and climb 320m for a distance of 2.5km to Rifugio Elena.  It took us about two hours of hiking and we arrived at Elena at around noon fresh.  It was one of the best decisions that we made because we saved our legs and energy for the later parts of the hike.

Bus taking us from Courmayeur to Anurva

Campground at Anurva

Start of trail up to Rifugio Elena

View of Mont Blanc on the Italian side

Places where glaciers used to be

Beautiful clouds above the mountains

Looking down into the valley

Glaciers have almost disappeared

TMB marking showing where the trail is

Crossing a glacier-fed stream on a wooden bridge

View down the valley

More view of Mont Blanc

Rifugio Elena looks like a fairly new facility.  The building and the furnishings all look new.  I tried to get our own room but was not successful.  I told the manager that I snore at night and I don't want to wake up others.  Being one of the first to check in at 2pm, she gave us a corner bunk bed.  This worked out very well, even though it's a look walk to the bathroom.

Entrance to Rifugio Elena

The food here was quite good considering that this is a mountain hut.  We had a nice lunch and was later served with a dinner that came with the bed.  In the morning we were served with a decent but not great breakfast.