This paper applies recent advances in crystalline cohomology to the classical case of open elliptic modular curves. In so doing control is gained over the action of inertia in the Galois representations attached to modular forms. Our aim is to study the modular Galois representations attached to automorphic forms modp of weightk≥2. We generalize to higher weightk several results which were previously accessible only in the case of weight 2 where jacobian varieties can be invoked. Additionally we reconsider Gross’s theorem on companion forms in a crystalline context.