Short summary -- heat not a problem.
However, cold was another matter! After a so-so dinner and a restless night in a dorm room with the other three (although not due to them... I don't know why I couldn't sleep -- the altitude maybe?), we set off around 7:30AM. The weather was cloudy and cool, and after a few minutes it began to rain softly... and it continued to do so for almost all of the rest of the 940m climb up to the Pas de la Cavale. Climbing while wearing raingear is never my favorite thing... but it was cool enough that I didn't sweat too much. The climb took a little over two hours... for all of us other than Thomas, who rocketed up in an hour and forty minutes (thirty minutes ahead of the rest of us). He was, however, appropriately rewarded for his hubris: he got to wait in the windy cold until we arrived, and by then he was shivering. We all felt quite sorry for him. Honest.
It was so cold up top that we left as soon as we could. There followed a short 20 minute traverse to the 2760m Col d'Aup Martin, around the steep mountainside that I has been worried about the day before... but it turned out to be quite easy. I think that it was indicated as a difficult passage on the map because if it had been covered with snow, it would have been deadly. The far side of the Col was a very steep descent down a slope of fine shale that appeared dangerous and would have very much bothered any one with even a light touch of vertigo, but that in fact was quite firm underfoot.
And then the path went down... and down... and down.... After a few hours we got to a road. Valentin -- having dented a shin on a rock a few minutes earlier -- accepted a lift offered by a friendly French couple -- said lift being heroically declined by Russell, who in the absence of Valentin's injury would have accepted it in a split second! Thomas, Russell and I then followed the road down for another couple of hours. Then a path that led even further down. And finally, at around 1160m we hit bottom, and "enjoyed" a steep climb of about 250m up to Puy Saint Vincent... arriving at 5PM, after over 8.5 hours of walking.
Phew. About time for a rest day.
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