trailblazers a rocky mountain road trip television show

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Trailblazers: A Rocky Mountain Roadtrip

BBC2 & iPlayer

Three trailblazing women - Ruby Wax, Melanie Brown and Emily Atack – come together to re-trace the footsteps of intrepid Victorian explorer, Isabella Bird, whose exploits have largely been lost to history.

At a time when most explorers were men, Yorkshire born Isabella was a trailblazer. Being prescribed mountain air to cure her malaise, in 1873 Isabella set off on her travels across the globe to find exactly that. Travelling alone, she 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 historic American 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 experience of womanhood.

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Trailblazers: A Rocky Mountain Road Trip — start date, cast, historical inspiration, trailer and all we know

Trailblazers: A Rocky Mountain Road Trip sees three celebs following in the footsteps of a pioneering explorer.

Trailblazers: A Rocky Mountain Road Trip is a new factual series for BBC Two where three female celebrities from different generations embark on the trip of a lifetime through the Rocky Mountains, following in the footsteps of a historical pioneer and hoping to have some exciting new experiences along the way.

Here's everything we know about the series so far...

Trailblazers: A Rocky Mountain Road Trip air date

The BBC has confirmed that Trailblazers: A Rocky Mountain Road Trip will start on Monday, November 28 at 9 pm on BBC Two. The three-part series will air weekly on Monday nights.

Trailblazers: A Rocky Mountain Road Trip cast

The three stars taking part in Trailblazers: A Rocky Mountain Road Trip are writer, comedian and mental health activist Ruby Wax, singer and Spice Girl Melanie Brown, and actress and comedian Emily Atack.

"I come into my own when I'm physically and mentally challenged, and it does me good to get outdoors and push myself," says Emily. "When I'm stripped of my comforts, I always seem to find a better version of me. It was amazing."

"We are three girls from three different walks of life helping each other, figuring stuff out, and having an absolute blast doing it and making really good TV!" says Mel. "It's hectic, informational and a lot of fun."

Trailblazers: A Rocky Mountain Road Trip historical background

The inspiration for the series comes from pioneering Victorian explorer Isabella Bird, who made a name for herself as an adventurer at a time when most explorers were men.

Born in Yorkshire in 1831, Isabella had a number of health conditions that impacted her life including headaches and insomnia. After a doctor suggested that mountain air might improve her health, she embarked on various overseas trips, including one to Colorado in 1873. Despite it being almost unheard of for a woman to travel alone in this era, Isabella crossed the Wild West, travelling for 800 miles — befriending outlaws and climbing mountains along the way. 

Isabella wrote a book based on her adventures, called A Lady's Life In The Rocky Moutains , but many of her exploits have been lost to history — and Ruby, Mel and Emily are hoping to help a new generation to rediscover her.

"Isabella Bird is my heroine," says Ruby. "We were tracking her 800 mile journey on horseback through the Rocky Mountains. She actually walked and travelled the equivalent of three times around the world throughout her years. She rode with only a backpack, sometimes slept in the snow and faced constant danger, either from the wild desperados or wild animals. She climbed 15,000ft mountains and wrangled cattle throughout the state. She had no fear, and yet most people have never heard about her. Hopefully now they will."

Is there a trailer for Trailblazers: A Rocky Mountain Road Trip?

There is! You can check it out below.

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Steven Perkins is a Staff Writer for TV & Satellite Week, TV Times, What's On TV and  whattowatch.com , who has been writing about TV professionally since 2008. He was previously the TV Editor for Inside Soap before taking up his current role in 2020. He loves everything from gritty dramas to docusoaps about airports and thinks about the Eurovision Song Contest all year round.

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Trailblazers: A Rocky Mountain Road Trip Season 1 Episodes

• Documentary, Travel, Reality
• Watchlist Where to Watch

Mel B, Ruby Wax and Emily Atack go on a historic, raucous road trip.

Season 1 Episode Guide

2 Episodes 2022 - 2022

Mon, Nov 28, 2022 60 mins

Three trailblazing women, Ruby Wax, Mel B and Emily Atack, retrace the famous footsteps of intrepid Victorian explorer Isabella Bird through the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

Mon, Dec 12, 2022 60 mins

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.

• Nov 28, 2022
• Dec 5, 2022
• Dec 12, 2022

• Web Channels

Trailblazers: A Rocky Mountain Road Trip

Mel B, Ruby Wax and Emily Atack go on a historic, raucous road trip.

Official site: www.bbc.co.uk

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Previous Episode

Episode 1x03; dec 12, 2022.

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 ro …

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Emily Atack

Mon 2 Sept 2024

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Trailblazers: A Rocky Mountain Road Trip, BBC2, review: Penis jokes and shrieking spoil Isabella Bird’s feat

Bird's story would make a remarkable documentary - we didn't need a girly gallivant to support it.

In Trailblazers: A Rocky Mountain Road Trip , three sassy women from three different generations headed to Colorado to follow in the footsteps of Isabella Bird, a British explorer who moved to cowboy country in 1873.

But somebody at the BBC thinks women won’t be able to relate to the story of a pioneering Victorian, who left her sickbed in England to scale the Rockies, without riotous giggles at horse’s willies and girly renditions of “Wannabe” in the back of a badly driven Range Rover (women drivers, right?).

So wedded to this puerile perception of “girls do adventure travel” is this commissioner that they have even recruited an actual Spice Girl. Mel B, aka Scary Spice, aka Melanie Brown, joined Ruby Wax and Emily Atack , a comedian/actor best known for her role in The Inbetweeners , for the journey .

Bird initially hoped the fresh mountain air would improve her ailing health and ended up travelling over 800 miles on horseback and taking up with an infamous one-eyed outlaw known as Mountain Jim. She’s a fascinating character who challenged societal norms, communing with nature and herding cattle with cowboys. Combined with the magnificent terrain and the oddities of America’s interior (The Rocky Mountain oysters served to the gang early on? Turns out they’re bull testicles), the entertainment value of this three-episode show should have been a shoe-in.

But the insistence on girly chat and comical timidity felt like misogyny masquerading as feminism (like much of the 90s/Spice Girls era, in fact). “Who’s going to sob first?” cackled Wax as if they were about to be put in solitary confinement for three weeks rather than go on quite a nice jolly around one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

There was a lot of discussion about Atack’s love life and much singing to Whitney Houston and Lizzo. What could have been a moving discussion about Atack’s concerns over her fertility felt diminished by quick platitudes and the speed at which the show moved on to sillier stuff.

Our intrepid trio herded cattle and learnt that a third of Colorado’s ranchers are women but, of course, back in Bird’s day none of them would have been. They got sore thighs riding astride, just like Bird, and they all (presumably not like Bird) laughed at one stallion’s phallus, helpfully pixelated for the modestly minded viewer.

Wax, Brown and Atack eventually attempted to climb (with the help of ropes and a professional) a local peak. The latter two were in fact pretty good, making their way to the top of quite a sheer rock face. And yet, still, the focus was on their shrieks of terror and their jokey attempts to motivate each other by invoking a sort of bitchy competitiveness.

One can’t help but feel much of the problem was in the editing. The three women did show a real appetite for the climbing, the fishing, the horse riding. They appreciated the extraordinary views, Bird’s courage and Atack gamely knocked back those bull testes. And there’s nothing wrong with some good girly chat.

But a disproportionate amount of camera time was spent on them whingeing as they squeezed into fishing outfits or shrewdly observed things like: “It’s hard to imagine someone coming here before there was any kind of civilisation at all. No Starbucks.” Trailblazers felt like a deliberate attempt to make women seem naturally ill-suited to the terrain and for viewers to be extra wowed when they were able to give it a go anyway.

The attempts to draw parallels between Bird and our female hosts were clunky (isn’t societal pressure to consider your fertility constraining?) and the thing is, we didn’t need it. The very premise of the show – three female entertainment stars tracing her steps 150 years later – is evidence of how much has changed, not how much they might have had in common. Bird’s story is remarkable all on its own.

Wax and Brown have an OBE and an MBE between them, and Atack is a successful comedian in a male-dominated industry. All three women could be seen as feminist trailblazers, yet little of their prowess was on display here.

Still, the history and the views were nice.

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Trailblazers: A Rocky Mountain Road Trip (2022)

All Seasons

Cast & crew, tv show details.

Air Date: November 28th, 2022

Last Air Date: December 12th, 2022

Genres: Reality , Documentary

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...Road Trip. Episode 3. Ruby Wax, Mel B and Emily Atack howl with wolves and attempt to climb a 14,000ft mountain. Contains some strong language.

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