The morning started with the walk up a vertical kilometer to the Col de la Pierre St-Martin. From here, the remainder of the day was to be very barren - the limestone resulted in no surface water and some of the strangest rock formations I've ever seen. The rock seemed to be very soluble in the rain, and all over was covered in vertical shafts perhaps 5 or 10 cm wide gradually tapering into the ground, too deep and narrow to see the bottom. The stark beauty of the rock was destroyed, however, by the ugliness of the ski resort that now hove into view. Though quite a small resort with only a half-dozen lifts, it was unbelievably ugly and shames me that I go alpine skiing when it causes such harm to the environment.
The ugliness of Pierre St-Martin caused us to extend our days walk by about 70% so that we could escape into the next valley (the absence of water probably helped here too). Passing through the Pas de l'Osque, the highest point on the trip at 1922m to face les Tourelles was very spectacular, though it was not until we also traversed the Pas d'Azuns that we saw in the distance the unmistakable silhouette of the Pic du Midi d'Ossau and found somewhere for the night.