Journey to the Mountains of the Moon - 1994 (12)

We left Bujuku Hut at a little after 10am, setting out for Elena Hut which is at 4540 metres ASL. The trail is boggy to start with. We are above Lake Bujuku but the area is a natural catchment at the head of the Bujuku river valley so gets a lot of seeping meltwater from the glaciers in the mountains above. After negotiating the boggy lower terrain it is steeply up over rocky ground and around cliffs. The ascent includes a ‘via ferrata’ style ladder which must be quite interesting for those who don’t like heights. We had time for a rest in the misty atmosphere at top of the ladder before carrying on to Elena Hut at 2:30pm.

Denisi, Dominic and Me at the top of the ladder
up from Bujuku Hut to Elena Hut

On arrival at the hut we found quite a number of people still there including an American Peace Corp lady who was waiting for her party to return from Margherita Peak. They had left for the ascent at yam and were expected back at around 2pm but they didn’t return until about 5:30pm. There was also a group of four Austrian climbers who were about to set off for Kitandera Hut. It was quite crowded with all those people present as Elena Hut is quite small. It has no sleeping platforms – you basically just slept on the floor which we were quite happy to do. There was no room for porters here so they usually go back down to Bujuku Hut for the night and come up again the following day.

While waiting the American lady was playing cards with two porters to pass the time.
When the Peace Corp party eventually arrived they still had to go on to Kitandera Hut – another three hours walking. Some of them would have stayed but it would have cost them another US$50 each for the night so eventually they headed off.

Elena Hut is near the bottom of the Elena and Savoia glaciers and the view of Savoia Peak and the other surrounding peaks is spectacular when the clouds lift.

Main Elena Hut and Porters Huts

Dominic and I only had soup for dinner as neither of us had any appetite – a side effect of high altitude. We knew we had to try to eat something, however, to keep up our strength. In the event Dominic chucked up some of his meal, reminiscent of his reaction to the dried fish noodles we had eaten at Old Moses Hut on Mt Kenya.

It was obvious that Dominic was suffering from the altitude – he was headachy and cold and very fatigued so we decided that we would not try for Margherita Peak the following day. Pierre and Till were raring to go so they would start off with Denisi early in the morning. We would wait for the porters to come back up and then go down to Kitandera Hut and Pierre and Till would follow on their return from the peak.

Till, Pierre and Denisi near Elena Hut

The outside toilet at Elena Hut sits a little way to the south-east near the edge of the cliff. The eastern side is open and has the most spectacular views of any toilet I have ever used. Facing east it looks out over the Mt Baker peaks about 400 metres higher than Elena Hut and about two kilometres away on the other side of the Scott-Elliott pass.

Elena Hut dunny - best view in the world!