Curing Jill's Cabin Fever

Jill has been a real trooper through the pregnancy. She's eaten well, taken care of herself and even given up her beer (we're all a little shocked frankly). She missed out on all of the ski season, and now the glorious months of sunshine and 80 degree temps are here and she is 7.5 months pregnant. Well today we took a calculated step towards curing the cabin fever, at least temporarily.

Last night we scouted the maps and topos looking for a more manageable hike for a 7.5 month pregnant woman. Shockingly there aren't too many webpages declaring "Great hikes for a pregnant lady", but we found a suitable route. We found the Bierdstat Lake loop in Rocky Mountain National Park, and decided it was manageable so we loaded up this morning and headed for the park.

Not a bad start to the morning.





The hike up to the lake is about 1.5 miles, with a paltry 600 feet of elevation. That was doable and the 9400 feet of elevation at the lake was just slightly outside the recommended range for us. Jill wore my Polar heart rate monitor and we closely watched her heart rate, and took lots of breaks, as to ensure she wasn't pushing too hard.

Lots of opportunities to stop and take some pictures


Has Blake Doerr been hiking this trail?



Our destination was pretty uneventful, a small lake and some cloud cover made it a bit underwhelming, but Jill was just giddy to be out of the house. We took a couple pics and then headed down another trail to create a loop back to our car.

The lake with the peaks shrouded in early morning clouds


Another opportunity to pose for a picture


This tree seemed to be mocking Jill





The trail back down was really steep, but very cool and offered some great views of the big peaks that split the park. We took our time and snapped loads of pics as we made our way down the trail.

Good views abound




Wildflowers starting to make their yearly appearance









We ended up getting in just under a 5 mile loop, with something in the neighborhood of 750 feet of elevation gain. We took it very slow, but it was nice to be able to really soak things in and take lots of pictures. Jill was so happy just to be out, and I was really pleased that at 7.5 months she still felt good enough to do something like this. Lots of plans are already being made for Cooper's summers for the next 18 years, lets hope this kid likes the outdoors....