On Their Shoulders: A Book about Those Who Carry a Somewhat Heavier Load

On Their Shoulders: A Book about Those Who Carry a Somewhat Heavier LoadThis isn't a book of legends, heroes or badges. Nor an encyclopedia of Tatra portering. It's a book of perspectives and lived experiences. People who love the mountains and have chosen to carry and sometimes to shoulder a little more than most would dare. Conversations with porters about the freedom they find under a load. About humility before the mountain. About why someone takes this work on of their own accord. And about why the mountains aren't

This isn't a book of legends, heroes or badges. Nor an encyclopedia of Tatra portering.

It's a book of perspectives and lived experiences. People who love the mountains and have chosen to carry — and sometimes to shoulder a little more than most would dare. Conversations with porters about the freedom they find under a load. About humility before the mountain. About why someone takes this work on of their own accord. And about why the mountains aren't for everyone.

Written by journalist Samo Marec, who spent his entire childhood in the Tatras, and by Gretka Čandová, who documented it all — in the huts, under the loads, from a coffee at Bilíkova to the fog on Téry's. She met twenty porters, hut keepers, mountain guides, and backpack makers. Photography by Jakub Čaprnka, drawings by Ivana Čobejová, plus a historical chapter on how portering in the Tatras came to be.

256 pages, 280 × 215 mm, cloth-bound. The second book in Žurnál's mountain trilogy (after Up There).

Selected among Slovakia's 20 Most Beautiful Books of 2023. Over 2 000 copies sold.