The Ranch at Rock Creek
The Ranch at Rock Creek
If you've only pictured canvas in summer, The Ranch at Rock Creek makes a good case for winter. Two of its creekside canvas cabins stay open all year on a 6,600-acre ranch outside Philipsburg, Montana.
The ranch began as a 19th-century homestead. Owner Jim Manley found it in 2007 after 25 years of looking across the West, opened it in 2010, and in 2013 it became the first guest ranch in the world to earn a Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star Award. There are lodge rooms, log cabins, and barn suites too, but the ten canvas cabins along Rock Creek are the glamping side of the ranch, and the reason it's here.
What the stay is actually like
Trapper is the more secluded of the two winter cabins, set right on the creek. It's 750 square feet of canvas, wood, and stone, with in-floor heating, a gas stove, a king bed, a kitchenette, and a stone-tiled shower. Outside, a cedar soaking tub sits on a stone patio.
Sweet Grass is the big one: 1,300 square feet, sleeping up to seven, with two private suites off a central living room. Each suite has a king bed, a full bathroom, a claw-foot tub, and a gas stove, and the shared room has a dining table, a kitchenette, and a wood-burning stove. It has its own cedar soaking tub by the creek, and it works well for a family or two couples.
The ranch is all-inclusive: breakfast, lunch, afternoon hors d'oeuvres, dinner, drinks, and in-room snacks. Menus change with the season and lean on Montana beef, wild game, and regional produce.
Your days here
Most activities run from 9 to 5, with gear from the Rod & Gun Club. Horseback riding goes all year. Winter adds snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, fat-tire biking, sledding, ice skating, hockey, snowmobiling, and horse-drawn sleigh rides. Rock Creek is a Blue Ribbon trout stream, and guided fly fishing carries on through winter for anyone willing.
Downhill skiing is at Discovery Ski Area, about 25 minutes away, with a ski concierge for ranch guests. Evenings bring the Silver Dollar Saloon (bowling lanes, billiards, a movie theater, karaoke), bonfires with s'mores, and the Spa at Rock Creek with its cedar sauna.
Planning a winter stay
Trapper and Sweet Grass are the canvas cabins open in winter, so ask for them by name when you book. If you want to be there for the holidays, the ranch runs Christmas programming and New Year's stays with skiing, live music, and fireworks.
Lighted paths connect the cabins to the rest of the property, and the ranch encourages walking, so bring proper winter boots. Share any dietary preferences before you arrive.
The property
