Trailblazers: A Rocky Mountain Road Trip

Three generations of trailblazing women - Ruby Wax, Melanie Brown and Emily Atack – come together to retrace the famous footsteps of intrepid Victorian explorer Isabella Bird. Travelling alone, Isabella crossed the lawless American Wild West, riding 800 miles on horseback through the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. She befriended outlaws, climbed mountains, and faced grizzly bears in what was a restrictive era for women in Britain. Using her original 1873 book A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains as inspiration for their own adventure, Ruby, Mel and Emily want to pay homage to this forgotten pioneer. They explore the people, places and curious customs of an ever-changing America, while reflecting on the changes in western society over the last 150 years and their own experiences of womanhood.

Isabella Bird travelled through Colorado in the height of the Gold Rush. In her memoir, she describes the impact of the mining and the worship of the ‘almighty dollar'. Ruby, Mel and Emily investigate the impact of the American Dream, then and now. They visit a ghost town that was 'the richest square mile on Earth' in Bird's time, experience dizzying wealth in the mountains of Aspen, meet members of the Ute tribe, and learn about the genocidal impact of the Gold Rush on indigenous Americans.

The trio are inspired to step out of their own comfort zone as they prepare to emulate Isabella's most impressive feat - summitting a 14,000ft mountain. They also meet the African-American sisters blazing a trail through the male-dominated world of rodeo, howl with wolves at a wildlife sanctuary, and visit the spiritual and religious centres clustered around the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.