"My first trip to the Alps was a great success but the second trip was a disaster, my confidence and burning desire to be like Walter Bonatti meant that as a naïve 19 year old, I was in for some hard lessons. Over the course of the summer we were benighted on routes, had rockfall rain past our ears and had a very close encounter with lighting; all these close shaves brought me back to earth with a bang but none of these events really dented my enthusiasm! I learnt from them and over many more years went on to feel more and more at home in the Alps. It was however, falling into a crevasse on almost the very last day of the trip that has haunted me for the last 20 years. I occasionally relive the very moment the snow collapsed around me, how I swung upside down into the dark blue hole and smacked so hard into the sidewalls; I bounced back and spun slowly to halt dangling uncomfortably above an abyss that felt like the very gates to Hades. However, it wasn’t just about me, my partner was catapulted through the air landing on his face, before being dragged helplessly almost to the edge of the hole he had seen me vanish through like a Star Trek transporter.

With hindsight, of course I can see how many of the rules we had broken and how we could have avoided the whole terrifying event. I still feel very uncomfortable on glaciers, when my boots sink into the soft snow my body tenses incase I am about to re-enact the whole plunging swing.

Travelling on foot or skis across a glacier is a committing activity, the glaciers in Europe are old and although they are not at their prime, they are impressively big; the Geant icefall is approx. 600m thick. Because of global warming these glaciers are starting to change and are less predictable than several generations before. To help us cross these rivers of ice here are some simple guidelines to steer you in the right direction and hopefully keep you on the surface.

Go Tooled Up

The balance between the right amount of equipment and having too much or too little is difficult to get right. Too little kit and you risk not being able to look after yourself in a crevasse or be able to pull your partner out of one. You also don’t want to look like a Christmas tree or sound like a punter. In general strip your glacier gear down to the minimum, you don’t need your climbing rack till you’re across the glacier, so leave it in your rucksack with all your other spare kit.

The bare essentials for you to have on your harness are:

• 2 Ice screws on small karabiners, 1 worn on either side of your harness.
• 2 prusiks, 6 or 7 mm tied loops approx. 30cm long.
• 2 slings, 120cm
• 3 screw gates, HMS work best
• 1 small pulley or DMM revolver, either screw or snapgate but, this little extra carabiner will be worth it weight in gold if you need to hoist your partner out of a crevasse.
• Ice axe, you’re not going to hold a crevasse fall without one so get in in your hand and keep it there.
• Ski Stick, personal choice here but I favour a single stick, handy for keeping your balance in the soft snow and very handy for prodding dodgy looking bridges.

Whilst we are on the subject of what equipment we need, long sleeves and gloves are essential. It can get really hot on glaciers in the afternoon but don’t be tempted to strip down to your beach clothes. If you fall into a crevasse you will be very cold very quickly and if you’re on the surface with bare arms and hands, you will be dragged through the snow rubbing the skin of your arms and generally making a really bad situation, worse.

Go Low

There are many, many ways of tying off your chest coils and it doesn’t matter what system you favour. The only hard and fast rule is that they are tied off with a ‘hard lock’ that will not slip. There is a growing fashion to use a system referred to as ‘soft locking’; this might be convenient, simple and quick but under load this system has been proven to slip, slowly tightening your chest coils like a Boa constrictor till you asphyxiate - and you thought falling into a crevasse was bad.

The golden rule with chest coils is to keep them neat and tidy, take time in the morning to get them right and keep an eye on them during the day.

Once you have a neat set of chest coils, finished off with a hard lock you must now lower the point of pull. It’s a bit like pimping up your rig, but simply lowering the height of where you will hold the load, even by a few centimeters will make a huge difference as to whether you can hold your climbing partner or end up face down in the snow. I personally favour using an overhand knot in the rope clipped back to my carabiner. Other solutions could be a clove hitch, prusik or mechanical device like a Petzl Micro Traxion.

Go Big or Go Home

The Alps is a great playground and as you travel about on glaciers you will see every type of rope distance imaginable. You will stroll past teams roped so close they bump into each other, teams roped so long the lead climber summits before the second has left the hut and you will see plonkers (no other word for it) wandering around un-roped. The key to success is to agree how you and your partner are going to work and stick to it, no matter what anyone else is doing.

It is without a doubt that glacier travel 1:1 is the most serious proposition and should not be taken lightly. A good rule of thumb for travelling as a pair is to put out more rope: 16 – 21m between you. It is of course better to travel as a bigger team, 3 or 4 with 12 – 15m of rope between climbers.

These rope distances will feel big and cumbersome but sticks to your guns – all the recent research from the Alps suggest that these distances are the minimum not the maximum; you should also consider having some small knots in the rope. Knots will help jam the rope in the snow on the lip of a crevasse making it easier to hold a fall.

Be aware of the conditions. If it is hot or the glacier is covered with fresh snow go even longer and if possible team up with other climbers at the hut or when about to cross a glacier at the end of the day.