The weather stayed true to the forecast and there was a dusting of snow when I got up a little after 6:00am to organize and head up the hill to the cathedral for the 7:00am pilgrim blessing/mass. There were about 40 people in attendance, so things are off to a good start. The official opening for most Gites and other places is April 1st, so if you plan to do this try to start after that date, and given the weather, maybe May would be better. The trail out of Le Puy (630M, 2,066ft) climbs off an on all day until Montbonnet, 16km down the road at (1127M, 3,700ft). This makes for a fairly strenuous day and more so with snow, When there was not much wind it was actually quite pleasant, but many sections were very exposed and the wind was blowing snow around making pretty rough going. I used some wool socks as mittens, and had an Icebreaker T Shirt, Icebreaker sweater, LLbean vest and a puffy jacket, and was comfortable when it wasn’t too windy. Luckily, the 16km to my lodging was done by about 1:00pm and the Gite I’m staying at had lunch available, so stumbled in the door and sat down to lunch, joined by Tetsu, a retired Japanese immunologist. Unfortunately tomorrow’s weather is looking much the same, if not slightly colder. Right now it is snowing quite hard. There’s a small peak to climb over right out the town and then a bit of up and down before descending to the next stop.