Mountain: Life At The Extreme - The Rockies

Breathtaking photography and the latest high-speed-camera technology reveal the extraordinary animals and remarkable people who make a home on three of the most iconic mountain ranges in the world, in a brand new series for BBC Two.

Episode one focuses on The Rockies: the spine of North America, running for 3,000 miles from the southern United States to the edge of the frozen north of Canada.

This beautiful wilderness of snow-capped peaks and hidden valleys is the home to some of the most revered animals on the planet: the grizzly bear, wolf, bison and elk. As the cougar hunt in abandoned ranches, the wolverines search the deep snow for food and grizzly bears hunt in the high mountain meadows, we follow these elusive winter specialists.

In the dry hot summer, fires rip through with 900,000 acres going up in flames every year, but in winter it can drop to minus 40c - cold enough to freeze the mercury in the thermometer.  Both animals and people have to adapt to these ever changing mountains.

The Rockies are also home to people, including adventure sports athlete and wingsuitor Jeff Shapiro, who dives off one 3000m high cliff, allowing us the chance to film his stunning and rarely seen aerial view of the Rockies; as well as Hilaree O’Neil, a professional mountaineer and extreme skier who lives in the Colorado Rockies, who is attempting to ski one particular couloir for the first time, where the conditions are far from perfect and avalanches are frequent.

The Grizzly Mountain race team are competing in a breakneck horse race, a fast-action bare-back race that is a specialty of the North American native tribes. It is fast and furious and requires split-second precision timing. The film follows them as they take part in the race as the highlight of the North West Montana Fair in Kalispel.

The Mountain Diaries follows cameraman Casey Anderson in his quest to film the elusive mountain lion in the mountain of Montana.

Publicity contact: EM