Glacier Mountaineering Society

Sat, Sep 19 2026 - Running Rabbit, Snowslip & Shields (View Original Event Details)

Coordinator(s):		Brendan OBrien, Dabney Langellier
Participants:		Brendan OBrien, Dabney Langellier, Deborah R, Jean Petrangelo, Luke Z

Write Up:
A very pleasant ridgewalk on a beautiful fall day! Brendan, Dabney, Jean, Deborah and Luke started up from Goat Lick parking area at 7:30 shortly after sunrise. The day began with a relentless 3600' gain, following the numerous goat trails up the side of Running Rabbit. Route finding was fairly straightforward with abundant "light" bushwhacking that let up after the first 2500' vert. After about 4 hours we hit our first summit and stopped for a quick lunch. From here we enjoyed a nice day in the sunshine making our way to Snowslip and Shields, staying along the ridge and following the general description in Passmore vol 5. The only route finding issue was where to get off the summit and taking the ridge from Snowslip to Shields, which was obvious when looking back at our path from below. Staying as close to the ridge as possible and avoiding the hardpan and thin scree to your right would be my advice for future coordinators. We descended the open ridge as far as possible from Shields dreading the bushwhack in the gully between ourselves and the railroad tracks. Not 500' after entering the trees we hit a well tracked game trail, with Brendan remarking that it resembled an "elk highway". We stuck on it and it brought us all the way to the abandoned train tunnel shown in the Passmore book (48°16'09"N 113°27'15"W for anyone wondering) and followed the tracks back to the Fielding trailhead, completing our day in about 11.5 hours. The only notable wildlife was sighting of an Elk bugling one ridge over from us on our descent of Shields.

Have some photos from this event that you'd like to share in our photo album? Please forward them to Tim Anderson at twamontana@gmail.com. Please note that we prefer to receive the photos in approximately 640x480 or 750x500 pixels - do NOT send original high-res photos. If you have a LOT of photos, please submit up to twenty of your favorites (only) for a day event, or up to forty of your favourites for a multi-day event. Thank you.