As we waded into Rock Creek in February, our guide advised us to only go up to our knees; during winter the fish too stayed in the shallows. My partner and I had decided to go fly fishing, one of the 45 activities offered at the Ranch at Rock Creek. With seven species of fish running through the creek; westslope cutthroat, rainbow, cut-bow, brown, brook, bull and the Rocky Mountain whitefish, a little luck (ours) and a little skill (our guide's), meant an afternoon spent catching and releasing a handful of fish each.
Between casts I checked the Rivian app. The truck was plugged into 110V and taking on a mile of range an hour. Time to full: 74h 14m. I texted the front desk to see if we had other charging options. We had less than 48 hours and a roughly 200-mile drive ahead of us. We had been road-tripping in a Forest Green Gen 2 Rivian R1T Tri-Motor, (a badge Rivian retired in August when it renamed the configuration Performance for 2027), from Bozeman through the mountain passes of western Montana to the Ranch at Rock Creek. On a single charge, the truck handled beautifully, making quick work of the narrow, winding road through Anaconda and into the 6,600-acre property outside Philipsburg.
Photo: Rivian
Open year-round as a working cattle and guest ranch, it has spent more than a decade as a Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star property, which the brand bills as the first guest ranch anywhere to do so. In August it joined the Leading Hotels of the World, and it has just opened bookings for winter 2027. We didn't know it when we picked up the three-motor, 850-horsepower truck with an EPA-estimated 371 miles of range, but we'd also be testing the staff's late-night electrical know-how.
Photo: The Ranch at Rock Creek
Photo: The Ranch at Rock Creek
Photo: The Ranch at Rock Creek
Our itinerary covered everything: four days and three nights at the ranch, with enthusiastic guides for lope rides and sporting clays, a Nordic track to Echo Lake, and four miles of private trout water, then east to Big Sky for the FAT Ice Race and the debut of the Rivian Adventure Department. Every meal was multi-coursed at Granite Lodge, and we spent our days chasing snow, fish and targets.
We were staying in the Ponderosa Cabin, complete with a clawfoot bathtub overlooking Mount Emerine, a wood-burning fireplace in the living room, and western décor that included a smattering of antlers throughout the cabin. Collected by the equestrian team at the Rod & Gun Club, the meeting place for all activities, they dotted the interiors and exteriors of the property.
Photo: The Ranch at Rock Creek
After dinner and after dark on our second night, the temperature had dropped and the rain started sticking when the ranch's lead handyman thought he'd found a charging solution. Despite two Tesla chargers the property had for years, our adapter wasn’t working. A different adapter that would have solved the problem wasn't in stock anywhere in the state, a fact we discovered when one of the hotel staff went looking for it on our behalf. That left 220V, and the question of where this working cattle ranch had one.
Charging is often at the forefront of electric vehicle decisions. Rivian knows this, making finding a charger easy through its charging stations map, which is integrated into the in-vehicle navigation system. The vehicle app also provides real-time charging updates, which is how I knew we needed to sort out something different. The handyman took charge.
Having been a travel writer for nearly two decades, I am often asked to define true hospitality. For me, this was it. The willingness to find a solution when there doesn't appear to be a straightforward one, or, in other words, never hearing the word no. Where the ranch didn't know it had any, after a persistent search he found us 220V, which is about what most Level 2 chargers do run on. It worked.
Photo: Rivian
Photo: Rivian
We awoke to a 72% charge and a winter weather advisory, which I considered an improvement on the avalanche warning we took to bed. The cold front had come through the day before with snow squalls, gusts near 40 miles an hour and a max temp of 32 degrees, which by the standards of last February was a cold snap.
By the time we made it to a full charge, a part of the ranch road remained closed, which meant a night at the Silver Dollar Saloon, complete with bowling lanes, horse saddle bar stools, a pool table, ping pong, shuffleboard, karaoke; it's a veritable all-season, all-ages camp.
To make up time, we rode at dawn. We opted for Conserve mode and pointed east to Big Sky.
The R1T's Gear Tunnel, a 65-inch pass-through between the cab and the bed with a door on each side and a 110V outlet and a 12V socket inside, kept our luggage out of the weather but also out of the cabin. The Tri-Motor comes with what Rivian calls the Ascend interior: quilted seats, plaid floor mats, deep bronze hardware, and a cabin that stays warm. Conserve mode, which parks the rear axle and runs the truck on its front motor to stretch the range toward 405 miles, felt anything but conservative on Homestake Pass.
Photo: Rivian
We pulled into Big Sky with 22% remaining. Rivian had been shuttling skiers up the mountain in R1S and R1T vehicles since mid-January and was about to spend the weekend on a frozen golf course at Moonlight Basin, where FAT International had built an ice race track. FAT is Ferdi Porsche's revival of the Austrian ice races at Zell am See, brought to America in 2024 in Aspen and this year, for the first time, to Montana: vintage racers, modern performance cars, and a new Rivian Quad-Motor R1S sliding around with all of them. The 2027 race is set for February 26 and 27.
Big Sky was also where Rivian introduced the Rivian Adventure Department (RAD), the in-house crew tasked with pushing the limits of its vehicles (the 2023 Rebelle Rally win and two Pikes Peak records are theirs). But before RAD met FAT, I had a Rivian adventure of my own.
This post has been updated.
