Did you know that Slovakia is the last country in Europe, where the mountains huts are supplied by people? But when I say „sherpa“, don´t imagine the himalayan sherpa. Our sherpas carry only supplies to the mountain huts, not the luggage of the hikers.
Sometimes they also use the helicopters, but only if they need to carry something really heavy to the hut. Other supplies are carried on the back of the sherpas. Usually they carry around 80-100 kg. If you ever walked with 20 kg backpack, you can imagine, how difficult it is. You can meet them on the hiking paths every day. All huts except one are opened through the whole year, so the supplies have to be carried even when it snows, rains or in a storm. Some of the sherpas are so fit, that you can´t catch up with them even if they carry 70 kg.
If you would like to learn more about them and their work, you can watch a new documentary movie called „Sloboda pod nakladom“ (Eng. Freedom Under Load), directed by famous Slovak director – Pavol Barabaš. The documentary Sloboda pod nakladom is about the sherpas in the High Tatras, but there are couple of huts also in other Slovak mountains, that are also supplied by people.
In the documentary you will learn, that the sherpas do this work, because of the freedom they feel during the walk in the mountains.
I definitely recommend to wath the trailer of the movie below
[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4hralYnCro[/embedyt]
The photos used in this post are from the movie.
