"I am more and more persuaded that the very best thing for a woman to do is to go away alone."

Isabella Bird was born in 1831 in Yorkshire, England. She was a frail child with many ailments, but a doctor recommended an open-air life, and she learned to ride horses as a young girl. After a surgery at age 19, she suffered from depression and insomnia, and doctors prescribed a sea voyage. So at age 24, Isabella's life of adventure began~ with cousins, she travelled the northeast US and Canada. In this freedom, she found good health, and her place in the world. Her letters home became her first book, An Englishwoman in America. 

Isabella travelled again in 1872, to Australia, then Hawaii, where she climbed Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. There, she dressed practically, wide trousers under her skirts, and rode astride, not sidesaddle like most women then. She came to Colorado in September of 1873 at 42 years old, her destination was Estes Park. Here, she rented a two-room cabin from a Welsh rancher named Griff Evans. An accomplished horsewoman, she worked the ranch and joined cattle drives. Her letters home were published later as A Lady's Life In the Rocky Mountains.

Isabella soon met their neighbor, James Nugent, "Mountain Jim". She wrote, "He is a man of about forty-five and must have been strikingly handsome. He has large grey-blue eyes, deeply set, with well-marked eyebrows, a handsome aquiline nose, and a very handsome mouth... One eye was entirely gone {lost in a grizzly bear attack}, and the loss made one side of the face repulsive, while the other might have been modeled in marble. 'Desperado' was written in large letters all over him." Isabella and Jim became close friends, she called him "splendid company". He was charming and chivalrous, even recited poetry, but was known to be dangerous when drinking. She understood that “His life, in spite of a certain dazzle … is a ruined and wasted one". In early October, with Jim as an encouraging guide, Isabella climbed 14,259' Longs Peak. 

Evans offered Isabella $6 a week to stay the winter at the ranch to cook and clean. Instead, she set off with her mare, Birdie, on an incredible 400 mile solo journey through Denver, Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs, South Park, then back to Estes Park. Riding alone through deep snow and over rugged mountain passes, Birdie was a true companion. "She is the queen of ponies, and is very gentle, though she has not only wild horse blood, but is herself the wild horse... She always follows me closely and today got quite into a house and pushed the parlor door open". 

Isabella returned to the ranch for a few weeks, reconnecting with Mountain Jim. While out riding together, Jim proposed marriage. Isabella was heartbroken but (wisely) refused, and in early December, Jim accompanied her to Greeley where she boarded a train and left Colorado.

Isabella's adventures were FAR from over! She returned to England and soon embarked for Japan, China, Korea and Malaysia. She studied medicine and helped build a hospital in India. She visited and wrote about communities in Tibet, Kurdistan, Turkey and Russia, and was featured in magazines and journals. She learned photography in her 60s, developing plates under open night skies. In 1892, Isabella became the first woman elected a fellow to Great Britain’s Royal Geographical Society. Her final journey was to Morocco at age 70, where she travelled among the Berbers and had to use a ladder to mount her black stallion, a gift from the sultan.

Here, Isabella and Birdie pose together before Longs Peak in Estes Park, Colorado