The Art of Glacier Travel Handbook

We are certain of this: there’s a lifetime of information about mountain travel how-tos and best practices. And in the scroll-through world, in which there are certainly educational nuggets, those nuggets are too dispersed, too disaggregated to do much good in the long term. 

If you are like me, someone who likes to reference how-tos and what-not-to-dos repeatedly, having vital information collected and curated in one place is highly desirable. Alex Geary is a Canada-based IFMGA guide who is no stranger to organizing and writing excellent books on mountaincraft. His The Art of Up-tracking Handbook provides a one-stop place for learning about setting skintracks and its nuances. That handbook is in its fourth edition. This fall, Geary followed up with his new glacier-focused, The Art of Glacier Travel Handbook.

Geary knows and makes this point several times: using the handbook with no actual practice and exposure to glaciers is a non-starter. For beginners, the glacier-focused handbook will create a solid knowledge base and opportunities to learn proper terminology. There is no substitute for reading something like this handbook, tapping into other educational resources, and traveling in the appropriate glaciated terrain to marry knowledge with practice. (This may include enrolling in a formal glacier travel course.) For those who have spent ample time in glaciated terrain, Geary’s handbook may provide another perspective on what to look at and be aware of regarding glaciers.