When Dom and I planned our wedding earlier this year, we actually started with honeymoon plans and worked backward to decide the actual wedding details. Neither of us can remember exactly how we decided on Montana for our honeymoon, but it generally came from how we:

• Had never been to Montana
• Wanted to do some skiing (there’s not much any skiing where we live in Central Illinois)
• Wanted to try some outdoor / winter activities we’ve never had a chance to do, like cross-country skiing and snowshoeing

We ultimately decided to book our honeymoon at Triple Creek Ranch in Darby, MT and it was without a doubt the best decision we could have made; it was probably the best five days of my life. This post goes over all the details of our time there and why we loved it so much, and at the end of the post I’ve included more details about how we booked and planned for the trip.

Why We Picked Triple Creek Ranch (TCR)

There were a few all-inclusive resorts in Montana that we considered and they were all pretty similar based on their websites, but we decided on TCR for a few reasons:

• The winter activity selection: downhill and cross-country skiing, dog sledding, snowmobiling, fat tire biking, snowshoeing / hiking, horse trail rides
• It’s adults only
• A lot of the cabins have private hot tubs (which I was very excited about)
• It has amazing reviews

In hindsight, I would also recommend it for an all-inclusive vacation because:

• The employees are incredible
• There is beautiful Western art in every building (and pretty much on every wall)
• Every meal was the best food I’ve ever had (a lot more on this later)
• Our cabin was perfect
• It is such a peaceful, beautiful, and relaxing place to get away to

Relais & Châteaux

Triple Creek is a member of Relais & Châteaux and this was mentioned on their site a few times, but I didn’t realize that was important until we arrived. To become a member, resorts basically have to prove they offer an incredible experience with amazing service and phenomenal meals. I had no idea this collection of hotels / dining existed until we read about it in one of the coffee table books in our cabin, but it made the incredible experience make a little more sense. I’d love to try another Relais & Châteaux resort someday to see how it compares to Triple Creek – there are currently 562 properties in the world.

Common Areas at TCR

Most of the common areas at TCR are in in the Lodge or near it, like the fitness center and pool (closed for the winter while we were there).

The Lodge

The Lodge at TCR is a really beautiful log building; the path leading to its main entrance is lined with bronze Western art statues and there are white Christmas lights all over the lodge. There are three floors:

• First floor: front desk, activity center, small gift shop
  • The activity center had a fireplace, puzzle table, couches, and some larger pieces of Western art
• Second floor: dining room and kitchen
  • The dining room is a really pretty space with a large wood burning fireplace, more Western art, and plenty of natural light. This is where we ate all of our meals during our stay
• Third floor: Lounge area – bar, reserve wine cellar, sitting areas, games, puzzles
  • Wine tastings (one of the add-on experiences) happen in the lounge
  • This was the most social area at the ranch – we talked to a really nice couple for a while one afternoon, and the bartenders were super friendly and told us a lot about the ranch and local area. It was a great place to hang out for a while; people frequently ordered snacks and sometimes whole meals there in addition to drinks

Fitness Center

We had some free time on our third day at TCR, so Dom went for a run on the trails around the ranch and I went to the fitness center. They didn’t have a ton of equipment since it’s a little small but everything they had was really nice, and they had a drink refrigerator stocked with water and Powerade. It’s a really nice space and overlooks the pool.

Other Common Areas

A few of the areas and activities we didn’t try out (some because they were closed for winter) include:

• Pool
• Sauna
• Tennis courts
• Frisbee golf
• Trout ponds (for fishing)
• Fit trail

Our Cabin – Rocky Knob

We stayed in the Rocky Knob cabin (seemingly named after a hiking / mountain bike area in Virginia and North Carolina); it’s a one-bedroom luxury cabin and it was absolutely perfect for our stay. It was a little more set back than the other cabins which was nice, and the interior layout divided the cabin into three areas – the living room / kitchenette area, the bedroom, and bathroom. There was plenty of natural light, it was super cozy, and (like every building on property) had gorgeous Western art on the walls. We could have spent an entire day just hanging out in the cabin if we hadn’t wanted to do so many of the the activities.

A few of the features of the cabin were the:

• Private hot tub on the back porch
• Steam shower
• Wood burning fireplace in the living room area
• Drinks in the mini fridge and a variety of snacks

My favorite part of the cabin was probably the hot tub – it was a really relaxing way to end the days and there were snow flurries a few times which was pretty. Dom loved the steam shower – we’d never seen one before but it was really cool. Overall, I don’t think there was a single thing that could have made the cabin more enjoyable – it felt perfect.

Winter Activities

TCR has a variety of activities that guests can sign up for ahead of their stay; we were able to do a lot of the winter activities and like I mentioned, the variety of activity options were a lot of why we chose to go to Triple Creek. There are a lot of summer activity options that we obviously weren’t able to do.

Hiking & Snowshoeing Around TCR

There were probably dozens of trails through the woods on TCR property and they connected to trails in the neighboring Bitterroot National Forest; we explored them a bit on most of our days. We had fun using the map to find different trails, looking at the views of the ranch and the mountains around us, and also finding a helipad. We wore our microspikes most of the time since the trails were a little icy, but we also tried out TCR’s snowshoes which were nice for trails with deeper snow.

Cross-Country Skiing at Chief Joseph Pass

Dom and I were very excited for cross-country skiing because we’ve never tried it and we both really enjoyed it. I loved that it’s basically a faster version of hiking – we covered a lot of ground – and it’s a bit more of a workout than downhill skiing.

TCR had all of the cross-country ski equipment for us to borrow, and we spent most of our first full day at Chief Joseph Pass – a trail system about 40 minutes from TCR. It was the perfect place to get the hang of cross-country skiing because there were plenty of green and blue trails. The views were beautiful and we had perfect weather – there was some light snow pretty much the entire day. My favorite trail was the Lost Trail loop – it’s one of the longer trails and is basically continuous rolling hills. We also liked Joseph Creek Trail to the Lower Loop – it’s a gradual descent the whole way down to the southernmost part of the trail, so it was a bit of a workout to get back to the other trails.

There’s a warming hut in the middle of the ski area – it’s a small cabin with a second floor that can be rented out by “hosts”. Any skiers can stop by to eat their lunch on the main floor, and there’s a furnace in the middle of the room that doubles as a great place to dry hats and gloves. We were eating lunch (TCR packed lunches for us – more on this later) in the hut when the hosts for the day arrived – they skied in with their sleeping bags, food, drinks, etc. on sleds to hang out for the day and night.

The trails at Chief Joseph Pass are really well marked (there are trail labels and maps frequently posted at trail intersections) which was very helpful, and it’s big enough to spend an entire day there. We ended up going back to Chief Joseph the day we checked out of TCR because we enjoyed it so much; it felt a lot different than our first day because there wasn’t fresh snow and because the trails had just been groomed.

Downhill Skiing at Lost Trail Pass

Lost Trail Pass Ski Area is only about a mile from the Chief Joseph Pass cross-country ski area – so it’s also about a 40 minute drive from TCR. Lost Trail Pass was really interesting for a few reasons:

• It’s definitely a local ski area rather than a tourist destination like Colorado or Utah
• It’s privately owned and operates under permit on national forest lands
• It’s only open Thursday to Sunday
• There are no snow makers on the hills so the snow is 100% natural
• The ski area is partially in Montana and partially in Idaho; at the top of some of the lifts there are signs that mark the state line

We really liked skiing at Lost Trail. They had a decent number of green runs that were all pretty different from each other, so that was fun for me. Dom did a lot of the blues – he said his favorite blue run was Two Dot.

There were two things we didn’t realize about Lost Trail before we arrived, but they weren’t a big deal:

• It is a very popular place for local schools to have field trips, so the rental equipment was pretty picked over when we got there in the late morning; it would have been better if we’d gotten there right when they opened. It was easy to get the equipment and lift tickets with the forms and instructions that TCR gave us before we left for the day
• The ski lifts were all very slow compared to other ski areas we’ve been to, but also they don’t really slow down much at all at the top or bottom of the lift which was unexpected – it made getting on and off the lift a little more intense than anywhere else I’ve skied

I looked around the lodge for a minute and it was okay – they had a variety of food and beer but honestly the whole building smelled a little funky. We sat outside on benches to eat our packed lunches since there was really great weather.

I took the photo on the left of Lost Trail Pass while we were driving to Chief Joseph; it was cool to see it from a distance.

Guided Hike at Lavene Creek

Lavene Creek is an area is owned by TCR – it’s a few miles away from the main property. Our guide, Sean, picked us up at the ranch and took us to Lavene Creek for a guided hike.

We were supposed to do fat tire biking on the trails since there was a decent amount of snow, but it didn’t work out with the guides while we were there – one was away because he was getting married, and Sean had unfortunately recently broken his arm and had it in a sling which obviously would make biking very difficult.

The guided hike was really interesting – Sean was incredibly knowledgeable about the area and nature. He pointed out all kinds of things with the trees, told us about some of the cool things they’ve found while cleaning out the forest to make the trails, and answered all of our questions.

Trail Ride

I was super excited to ride the horses at TCR because I was obsessed with horses (or more so, the idea of them) growing up. When we checked into the ranch on our first day, we signed a waiver for the horseback riding and filled out a form with information like how much experience we had with horses and how comfortable we felt around them so the wranglers could choose appropriate horses for us. Dom’s horse was Trigger – he was very old and very slow, so Dom felt really comfortable with him. Mine was named Brave and he was a lot of fun and a little stubborn; at one point he wanted to show me his barn instead of following our wrangler and Dom.

We weren’t able to do the full trail that the wranglers usually take people on because there was a lot of snow the day before, but we really enjoyed the part that we were able to do. It was really relaxing and we had great conversations with Ben, the wrangler that took us. He told us where he was from, how he ended up at TCR, how he trained his horse and the different kinds of jobs he’s done with his horse. Overall, the trail ride was one of the highlights of TCR for me.

Yoga

Our yoga instructor was Kelly (I’m like 95% sure that was her name) – she was great. She spent some time at the beginning of class asking us how familiar we were with yoga, asking if we had any specific requests for the practice, and deciding what kind of flow to do with us. She gave us tips when she noticed we weren’t doing something correctly and overall we really enjoyed the practice. The yoga room at TCR was also really nice – there were huge windows so there was a lot of natural light and a pretty view of the forest.

Western Art Tour

Dom and I didn’t realize that the Western art collection at TCR was such a major part of the ranch, but it was really obvious and caught our attention as soon as we arrived. Like I mentioned, there were bronze statues lining the walkway up to the lodge and there were also tons of paintings and statues in all of the buildings on the ranch – in all of the rooms, even the bathrooms. (Dom really liked a buffalo painting in one of the restrooms in the lodge).

Before we left for downhill skiing, we were talking a bit with one of the Activity Directors (Catharine). We had heard that TCR closes for the month of March and I asked if it was to do some remodeling and touch-ups. She explained that there is some remodeling and said it’s also when she goes with the owner of the ranch – Craig – to a few art auctions to purchase new Western artwork because he’s a collector, and they also move the art around the ranch periodically. Dom mentioned that it would be really cool if there was an art tour where we could learn more about the art, and as we were about to leave she asked for my email address and said that she was going to see if Craig was available to give us an art tour that evening. I definitely didn’t think it was actually going to happen, but when I got off one of the ski lifts and had a little signal, I checked my emails and sure enough – it was all arranged.

Dom and I were really excited but also a little nervous because not only was Craig the owner of TCR, he was also the CEO of Intel for about 7 years – so the whole thing was a little intimidating. He was so nice though; he started with pouring us glasses of wine so it was a proper art tour (which was absolutely terrifying to carry through the nicest house I’ve ever been in with walls covered with amazing original artwork). Craig walked us through almost all of the rooms in the house and told us about dozens of pieces and artists. One of the most interesting parts to me was the wall along the stairs that led down to the basement – there were dozens of small ink sketches by Charles Russell. Craig explained that many of them were basically just something Russell would sketch in the evenings and then throw away, but his wife would pick them out of the trash, then iron and keep them. They were all framed but we could still see the wrinkles and some of the burn marks from the iron.

The art tour was probably the biggest highlight of our whole honeymoon because it was so unexpected and unique.

Other Activities

When Dom and I were talking about TCR more toward the end of our stay, he mentioned that one of his suggestions for anyone going there would be to do the add-on activities. We didn’t do any of them because we had a pretty full schedule and weren’t super interested in them, but in hindsight we would have given them more consideration. Some examples include:

• We saw a couple doing a wine tasting – for how good all of the wine was, this would have been a lot of fun
• Like I mentioned, we expected the food at TCR to be good but had no idea how absolutely fantastic it was going to be; if we’d known, we also would have considered doing the Chef’s Table Dining Experience. This is probably at the top of my list for recommendations to splurge on while there
• Spa services – I’m not much of a spa person but we heard great things while we were there from a few of the other guests we talked to, so it seemed like this would have been a good addition too

Meals

This is a big section of the post because everything we ate was absolutely phenomenal. I constantly looked forward to the next meal while we were there.

When we booked our stay, TCR asked about dietary restrictions so we mentioned we were vegetarian; we figured we would just order around any meat on the menu. We were wrong – the chefs actually had full-sized vegetarian menus for every lunch and dinner, and they seemed to do this for all dietary restrictions depending on who was there – there were vegan and gluten-free menus as well. Some of the vegetarian items were modified versions of the normal menu; others were completely unique items.

Since TCR is an all-inclusive experience, all food was included and there was a great selection of included wine, champagne, beer, cocktails, spirits, and non-alcoholic drinks. There were special reserve wines that could be purchased by the bottle – we saw a few people order them, but generally people seemed to stick with the included drinks.

Food was available all day – breakfast started at 7:30a, the menu transitioned to lunch at 11a, and then there was a large snack menu from 2p – 6p between lunch and dinner. There was a lot of flexibility with meals – instead of eating in the dining room, anything could be ordered as room service or at the bar to eat in the lounge.

Breakfast

• Each evening, the breakfast menu for the next day in a bag on the door of our cabin. The bags also had the weather forecast printed out, candies from a Montana candy company, and cards with quotes / song lyrics about the West and Montana
• During breakfast there was a counter near the entrance of the dining room with a spread of bakery items and mason jars with fruit
• There was fresh squeezed orange juice and grapefruit juice as well as coffee and espresso drinks.
  • A nice detail – Dom would order a French press coffee at breakfast and then again with dessert at dinner; at breakfast they would bring him a normal sized mug but with dessert they would bring him more of a teacup-sized mug to use since typically people don’t want a ton of caffeine before bed
• The breakfast menu always had a Ranch House Breakfast – a classic breakfast of eggs, hash browns, and bread / meat options; I think I got this three times because everything was so good
• Breakfast didn’t seem like a big event – the dining room was typically pretty empty when we were there. I think a lot of people ordered room service

Favorite breakfast items:

• Jess: fresh squeezed orange juice, breakfast burrito, toast with strawberry jam, lattes
• Dom: banana hazelnut French toast (coincidentally the only repeat item while we were there which he was very happy about), coffee, and the tabasco sauce that he used with a few of the breakfast items (he swears it had to have been a special brand but the waitress said it wasn’t made in-house)

Lunch

• There were a few staple items that didn’t rotate, but most of the items changed each day. The snack menu was always available through lunch also
• The lunch menu was simpler than dinner but everything was still creative and delicious; the difference between lunch and dinner helped make dinner more special
• There was always a basket of individually-wrapped, fresh cookies near the door; Dom might have taken five oatmeal-raisin cookies on our way out of our last lunch to get us through the next few days of driving. As he took them, he explained to me that he didn’t want to have any regrets about our stay
• The dining room was pretty empty at lunch, too; I think a lot of people had packed lunches since there were always people snowmobiling, cross-country skiing, and downhill skiing

Favorite lunch items:

• Jess: vegan chili, angel hair pasta, fries (and the ranch was amazing)
• Dom: broccoli sandwich (he added a little ranch to it)

A few things about the packed lunches:

• We filled out sheets with our packed lunch selections the night before we needed them. They had a lot of different sandwich, chips / sides, drinks, and dessert options
• The only purely vegetarian option was PB&J, but we could have created our own sandwiches from the other sandwiches. We had PB&J on both of our packed lunch days because it was amazing – the jam was a local huckleberry jam
• The lunches always included a couple mini chocolate bars, a peppermint, a toothpick, hand sanitizing wipe, salt and pepper, and tons of water bottles
• Everything was packed in a backpack for us and was ready to go in the morning when we left for our activities
• On our downhill ski day, TCR packed us to-go mugs with hot chocolate and apple cider packets so we could have gotten hot water at the ski lodge and used those. I would have done it if it was colder out – we just didn’t need to because it was a surprisingly nice day

Dinner

• Dinner felt really fancy but there was no dress code or table assignments; we could sit wherever we liked which was nice – we tried a few different areas of the dining room
• The chefs worked on the menu from around 2p – 5:30p and then started cooking. Everything was always super fresh
• It was always a several course meal and most courses had two options to choose from:
  • Bread service with a butter or oil
  • Amuse-bouche (a single, bite-sized hors d’oeuvre)
  • Starter (typically soups)
  • Salad
  • Entree
  • Dessert
  • Bite-sized truffle
• No matter what time we arrived, the dining room was busy at dinner. It was the only time we were around a lot of people at the ranch
• We could ask for more of anything; I asked for extra bread several times because it was delicious and bread is one of the best food groups
• We ordered “duos” a couple times – smaller portions of both entree options
• We only tried the vegetarian options obviously, but everyone talked about how good the different meats were

Favorite dinner options:

• Jess: garlic bread, broccoli cheese soup, any of the arugula salads, pasta with marinara, creme brûlée dessert, mashed potatoes with truffle sauce
• Dom: amuse-bouche with a cilantro mayo and half candied grape, rice bowl, curried lentils, baked potato soup, arugula salads, biscuit, s’mores dessert, apple cider donuts

Drinks / Snacks

• The drink and snack menus didn’t seem to rotate; they may seasonally, but they were the same each night we were there
• Bottles of wine / champagne / small bottles of spirits were available to take back to our cabins; we picked up a bottle of champagne on our first night
• The cheese / cracker / fruit tray on the snack menu was my favorite snack; sometimes it came with an extra whipped herb cheese of some sort that was phenomenal
• Housekeeping replenished cookies in our rooms every day which was very fun. The flavors rotated – my favorite was the macadamia nut and Dom’s was the oatmeal raisin
• The drink menus were great – there was a great selection of included wines and a few specialty cocktails, and they would mix any typical drinks as well

Booking and Planning

The TCR website was really informative – we didn’t have many questions when we booked. We filled out the contact form on their website to request a reservation, heard back the next day about which cabins were available for our dates, and then we called back to officially book and pay the deposit.

A few days later, we received a call from TCR’s pre-arrival concierge to work on our activity itinerary for the days we’d be there; again, the employees were the best at helping us out before and during our stay.

The only thing that we were a little disappointed to miss out on was dog sledding, but it was already booked for the days we were there when we made our reservation. We could have done snowmobiling instead but decided against it because it would have taken a full day; we had already planned to leave for most of two days with cross-country skiing and downhill skiing and we didn’t want be away for most of a third day.

In the month or so leading up to our stay, TCR stayed in contact with us to verify details like when and how we would arrive. They asked us if we wanted to arrive early on our check-in day so we could eat lunch and / or do an afternoon activity, which we did – we had a great first lunch and went snowshoeing / hiking to get to know our way around the ranch.

Getting to Triple Creek Ranch

This section is more informative – putting it out there for anyone interested in staying at Triple Creek.

Driving

We were a little concerned about driving to TCR because we weren’t sure what road conditions would be like in February, so a few weeks before our trip we called and asked if we would need snow tires or chains. The person we talked to at the ranch said we wouldn’t and while that was technically true, there were two chain-up areas between Idaho Falls (where we stayed the night before we arrived) and TCR so if we’d been unlucky and there had been a ton of snow, it would have been a tough drive. One of the chain-up areas was very close to the ranch, so anyone driving from the south would have to go through it; I’m not sure if there are any chain-up areas north of the ranch since we never drove over there.

Two other things to note for driving to TCR from Idaho Falls (from the southeast):

• There are very few gas stations. We didn’t know how many there would be so we filled up in Idaho Falls, and we were really glad we did. We stopped at one about 20 miles from the ranch to get a little more gas also since we knew we’d be driving to and from the ski areas during our stay
• There wasn’t any cell signal for most of the drive from Idaho Falls. We were using Google Maps and when the GPS tried to reroute at one point (after we pulled into the gas station 20 miles from the ranch), it couldn’t pull the route back up. We knew what it said before before it rerouted so it was fine, and we ended up getting a little signal when we got to Conner, MT (about 5 miles from the ranch) so the route restarted then. In hindsight, I probably should have downloaded the offline map on Google Maps or taken screenshots of the route instructions beforehand, just in case. I ended up downloading the offline map once we got to the ranch since we were driving to the downhill skiing and cross-country areas and that worked fine the whole time

Flying

The closest commercial airport to Triple Creek Ranch is in Missoula, Montana – it’s about 1.5 hours away. The TCR website has all of the details on getting to the ranch from the Missoula airport – you can pay for someone from TCR to pick you up or rent a car and drive down on your own.

It looked like TCR specifically recommends renting a car in the summer to get to some of the summer activities; for being there in the winter, we were glad to have our own car for added flexibility of going to and coming back from the two ski areas on our own time. Using TCR’s shuttle service for the skiing might have been a little stressful mostly because there wasn’t cell signal at the ski areas (other than at the top of the mountains) – if we were running late or wanted to be picked up early, it could have been tough to contact them.

I did hear that if you pay for the shuttle service to pick you up from the Missoula airport, they will bring packed lunches; also everyone we talked to at the ranch is incredibly friendly and knew a lot about the area, so I imagine the conversation on the way back from the airport would make the drive pass quickly.

Arriving at TCR

There’s a really pretty stone sign that says “Triple Creek Ranch” at base of the road that leads up to TCR, so it’s impossible to miss. The drive up to the lodge climbs up quite a bit and there were tons of elk in the horse pastures out front – it was a really pretty view.

We went to the lodge to check in and before we went to our cabin, one of the activity directors had us finish signing waivers, showed us where a lot of the activity equipment was (snowshoes, cross-country skis, games, movies, etc.), and fit us for the boots we needed for cross-country skiing.

Employees

I can’t emphasize enough that one of the biggest reasons we loved TCR was because of how amazing the employees were throughout our stay. They were always asking us if we we needed anything, went above and beyond to make sure everything was going well, and were just generally so nice to talk to. Some of them were:

• All of the activity directors – especially Catharine for organizing a Western art tour for us
• Jack – our waiter for most of the dinners
• All of the other waiters and bartenders throughout our stay
• Ben – the wrangler that took us on the horse trail ride
• Sean – our guide for the guided hike
• Kelly (I think?) – our yoga instructor

Again, it was probably the best few days of my life and it was the perfect honeymoon destination – we were so glad we went there and were able to have that experience.