What a dream trio they make (Picture: BBC/Studio Ramsay/Jill Worsley)
If you were on the lookout for a group of impressive, charismatic and adventurous women to go on a whirlwind trip exploring America together, then you couldn’t do much better than the dream combo of Ruby Wax, Mel B and Emily Atack.
In a new BBC series titled Trailblazers: A Rocky Mountain Road Trip, the trio decided to put their adventurers’ hats on to set off on an unpredictable voyage, following in the footsteps of a pioneering woman called Isabella Bird, a personal heroine of Ruby’s.
Back in the 1800s, Isabella – who was born in Yorkshire – ventured across the sea to the American Wild West, documenting her experiences in several books including a famous 1873 release called A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains.
At a time when women’s lives were greatly restricted, Isabella climbed mountains and faced grizzly bears – with Ruby, Mel and Emily also facing dangers as they followed in her footsteps, they recently told Metro.co.uk and other media.
Emily, 32, who was a runner-up on I’m A Celebrity in 2017 and who starred on programmes including The Inbetweeners and The Keith Lemon Show, admitted that whenever they took on a new activity, she thought to herself: ‘Surely it can’t get more dangerous than that.’
‘Each thing became harder. I think we started with the horses in the mountains, which was scary enough. We’re on the edge, we’re going so high in these mountains on these horses. The last time I rode a horse I was about nine years old. So that was terrifying,’ she recalled.
‘Then we had to sort of practice climbing this mountain because we had to do this huge mountain at the end – Pikes Peak was it? We had to do this small amount of practice, but even that was absolutely terrifying. And then the mountain climb at the end, which was just crazy. It was all overwhelming.’
Emily added that it ‘does her good’ to do things like that, to ‘take myself out of my comfort zone’.
‘I think each thing that we were presented with, I thought, “Oh my God, surely it won’t get harder,” and then it just got kind of harder and harder. I think it was all mad.’
Mel, 47, otherwise known as Scary Spice being an iconic member of the Spice Girls, found one of the most ‘striking’ aspects of their journey being that it was ‘a road trip of a lifetime’.
Each day brought a new, unpredictable, thrilling adventure (Picture: BBC/Studio Ramsay/Jill Worsley)
‘It was almost like you were doing a bucket like list check off, because the places that we went to and the people that we met and the scenery, the scenic view, was just incredible,’ she shared.
‘We followed Isabella Bird’s path as much as possible because at the end of the day, she didn’t really know exactly where she was going. Hence, I don’t think the three of us knew exactly day to day what was going to be happening.’
Mel added that the ‘educational’ aspect of the programme across its three episodes really stood out for her.
‘You’re learning about a woman that has never been put in the public domain in this century,’ she stated.
Isabella Bird lived an extraordinary life (Picture: Elliot & Fry/Royal Geographical Society via Getty Images)
‘But secondly, we were three girls from three different walks of life, coming together, helping each other figure stuff out, and having an absolute blast doing it and making really good TV that actually is informational.’
Mel pointed out that while her 15-year-old was going to watch the show, so was her mum’s generation, and her sister’s child, who’s around four years old, because ‘there’s so many interesting things’ that appeal to people across different generations.
‘There’s so much that catches your eye, whether it be the view of the Colorado mountains or us riding into town or driving a jeep and going all over the place. It’s really hectic, really informational, and a lot of fun,’ she summarised.
Ruby, 69, an actress, comedian and writer, reiterating how ‘authentic’ their experiences were, as they were just going with the flow in as close a fashion to Isabella as they could.
Emily, Mel and Ruby made new acquaintances on their travels (Picture: BBC/Studio Ramsay/Jill Worsley)
‘She was a pioneer woman, and in a sense we are too, because we don’t know where we’re going or where we’re sleeping. So that was authentic, except we didn’t sleep in the snow. We had thermals on, we had the whole of thermality on our bodies, and everybody was still complaining.’ (Although Mel interjected to point out that she never complained about the cold).
Having been born in the US, Ruby found it intriguing to delve into how America has evolved over the years, referencing their visit to Aspen in Colorado.
‘To me that’s a real lesson on America. These miners came and they gouged out the size of the Grand Canyon into mountains and destroyed America, razed it to the ground because they were so greedy. The Gold Rush was the gold rush, and you could say, well, that was all over the world,’ she said.
‘But then when you see something like Aspen and how we completely destroy… you know, they’re ski resorts in Europe, but this was completely demolished, and there’s no morals.’
Isabella’s travels took her around the world, having taken this photo of Yangtze River in China in 1895 (Picture: Isabella Lucy Bishop (nee Bird)/Royal Geographical Society via Getty Images)
Ruby recollected going to a bar ‘where everything was for sale’, including a cowboy hat for £6,000 – and on top of the excessively expensive items, the people that work there ‘get you so loaded’.
‘They make you buy diamonds to put around it and show off that Jeff Bezos wore that cowboy hat to go to space. All the morals are all out of the window and dancing on the bar. So your sugar daddies are coming in,’ she said.
‘It’s such a contrast of what America became. And the greed started for this American dream and then they went too far. And then and then you get these real American towns where there are great Americans who just settled in this authentic western town, and square dance at night.
‘It’s what I love about it and hate about it, and I could see the story of why America became what it became, which is decadent and ruthless. They don’t know when enough is enough.’
‘We did enjoy dancing on that bar though,’ Emily remarked, as Ruby added: ‘I got next to her on a bar and danced.’
Trailblazers: A Rocky Mountain Road Trip begins tonight at 9pm on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer.
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The trio set off on a thrilling journey for Trailblazers: A Rocky Mountain Road Trip.
