Bellrose
Mountain builder. BBC-featured.
From engineering safer mountain touring vehicles in Colorado to building an off-grid lodge at 8,150 feet in Montana — Brandon Bellrose has spent thirty years doing things that didn't exist until he made them.
Elev 8150' build site · Flint Creek Mountain Range · Anaconda, Montana · 8,150 ft
what everyone else ignored.
Brandon Bellrose studied Industrial Design Engineering at Southern Illinois University, graduating with the Rickert-Ziebold Award — the department's highest recognition for design excellence. The award wasn't academic decoration. It reflected the way Bellrose thought: not just about what a product does, but what happens when it fails to do what it was actually needed to do.
That instinct drove his first major venture. In the mid-1990s, Brandon pioneered mild-to-extreme Hummer H1 tours in Durango, Colorado under the company name Hummer Extreme Adventures — a direct response to an engineering problem he watched play out daily across the region's tour market.
"The jeep platform was engineered to transport four adults off-road effectively. Tour guides were loading eight or more passengers — overloading every single element of the vehicle's engineering."
— Brandon BellroseSoon after AM General released the H1 to the civilian market, Brandon purchased one and began designing what a truly safe mountain touring vehicle could look like. Hummer Extreme Adventures launched — and immediately changed what off-road touring in Colorado meant.
HEA's national media success caught the attention of AM General, their largest dealership Lynch Hummer, and the Hummer Club. Together they created an annual two-week event — H1 owners pushing equipment to the limit, guided by Bellrose, with real-time corporate mechanical support on site.
Brandon on Instagram ↗
to the screen — and back again.
Hummer Extreme Adventures' reputation reached Rebel Adventure Tours in Las Vegas, who subcontracted with HEA for overflow bookings and marketing strategy. That relationship evolved into something larger: Bellrose became the operating CEO of Media Gremlins, an online advertising company catering heavily to the Las Vegas real estate market — at its peak employing over forty people.
It was successful. It was also the wrong life. Working behind a desk managing internet technicians, Brandon found himself far removed from the terrain and the work that defined him. He resigned.
"He wanted to reconnect with the world he actually understood."
What followed was fourteen years of deliberate backcountry travel. Brandon and his family loaded into self-built full-time camping rigs and clocked thousands of miles throughout the western United States — building not a business, but a body of knowledge about how to actually live off the land.
@tinyhouseonasteelsoldier ↗Pioneers safe H1 touring. National media coverage. Official partnership with AM General and The Hummer Club.
Built a 40-person online advertising company. Led internet marketing for Las Vegas real estate. Resigned to return to outdoor life.
Thousands of miles in self-built camping rigs. Deep off-grid expertise built in the field, not a classroom.
The family finds land in the Flint Creek Mountain Range. No utilities. No road. The right place.
Six years of construction. BBC featured. Victron Energy partner. Lodge pad excavated. Chef trained.
without outside funds
Anaconda, Montana
travel & living
Season 21 · 2026
Media Gremlins
Everything led here
The engineering instinct that redesigned off-road touring. The entrepreneurial experience that scaled a 40-person company. Fourteen years living in the backcountry. A BBC documentary crew that showed up uninvited because what they found was undeniably real.
None of it was accidental. All of it is now pointed at a single destination: an off-grid mountain lodge at 8,150 feet that is already under construction.
lodge at the top of Montana.
Six years ago the Bellrose family claimed land at 8,150 feet in the Flint Creek Mountain Range outside Anaconda, Montana. No utilities. No road. No outside money. They have been building an off-grid mountain lodge, a chef-driven restaurant, and a tiny house estate with their own hands ever since.
The BBC came and filmed it for Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild, Season 21. The UK's Daily Mirror ran an exclusive alongside the premiere in January 2026. Victron Energy — the world's leading off-grid power manufacturer — named Elev8150 a flagship installation case study.
The lodge building pad is excavated. The restaurant pad is dug. Chef Alayah has completed culinary training at The Ranch at Rock Creek. The structure is real. The work is real. The people are real.
Building pad excavated. Victron solar system planned. A full destination lodge at genuine elevation.
Chef Alayah drives a serious culinary program — from private dining to high-end events, trained at The Ranch at Rock Creek.
Off-grid individual stays — built for the traveler who wants to actually be somewhere, not just pass through it.
We will build it anyway.
Brandon Bellrose has spent his career doing things that required more patience, more risk, and more physical endurance than most people would find reasonable. The lodge at 8,150 feet is the culmination of all of it. If you want to be part of what gets built — not just a spectator — the right place to start is one dollar.
A founding reservation costs $1, is fully refundable, and puts your name on the list that will matter when Elev8150 opens its doors. Two hundred spots. Forty-seven claimed.
$1 is fully refundable at any time. No questions asked.