What Makes the Ranch at Rock Creek One of the Best Spas in the World
Just like nirvana, the Ranch at Rock Creek is hard to get to. The ranch stands tucked outside of Philipsburg, Montana, formerly a mining town, currently with a population of 921, largely employed by the ranch, and it feels completely remote. The main lodge and attendant barns and cabins stand sturdy and unassuming, appointed with Western-inspired prints and gingham amenities, and they are spotless. But clean or not (and God, is it clean), the focus here is not on the accommodations; it’s on the main event: the Great American Outdoors. The light starts and ends early, and the sky spans bigger than your imagination, filled with more stars than could possibly exist.
The days are stacked with activities outside — just you, yourself, Mother Nature, and an expert guide whose very happiness seems to rest on your own success at being an outdoorsman. Cowgirls with long, ratty hair, sun-worn smiling eyes, and necklaces strung with sapphires they found from the Sapphire Mountains let you gallop horses through the miles of sagebrush. (Speaking of the jewels: At least five people told me that a sapphire in one of Queen Elizabeth's crowns came from right here in Montana.) Kind young men in sun-protective bucket hats direct you on the ideal fly-fishing stance. Yoga corrections happen on open platforms set under the aspen trees.
The horse barn is guarded by three charismatic goats named Gummy Worms, S’mores, and Fruit Snacks, who seem to be under the impression that they are dogs — who also have the ability to scale steep walls. And the horses are majestic. They’re good-tempered and patient and just as ready to take a stroll as they are to lope across a field at many miles an hour.
To qualify as a working ranch, an establishment must have at least 50 head of cattle, which the Ranch at Rock Creek does — at least 50 well-fed, loved cattle live out their days roaming the hills — though working is a misnomer. The Ranch is halcyon days of Americana gone by — all the glory of cowboys without dehydration or broken bones. Everyone says "hello" and "good morning," waving with one hand from their bike.
For each activity, there is a self-indulgent reward. Did you spend all day on a horse? There is a saddle soak massage in which you lie in a bathtub filled with essential oils and salts and drink a most delicious apple-cider- and-lemon tincture. Then you get rubbed down in CBD cream. Been fly-fishing all day directly beneath the punishing sun? Impossible — your guide would have insisted you wear SPF — but there is also a fisherman's special facial that focuses on exfoliating and soothing, with cream lovingly tapped over your T-zone. The pièce de résistance is a massage in a freestanding wagon styled with wildflowers and parked next to the river. Rain began to fall. Birds chirped. I spent a full hour staring at rushing water, feet planted in the silt of a riverbed, thinking about nothing more than what the light looks like.
The final morning, there was a cowboy breakfast in the foothills, served on picnic tables overlooking the landscape. It's the most elegant breakfast I can remember. Hours later I traveled back to the East Coast, proudly wearing my cowboy hat. As soon as I sat down on the plane, I fell asleep.
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