New Hiking Guides, Maps, and New Website of the PZS Publishing House.
The PZS Publishing House presented book novelties and new hiking maps before the start of the summer season, so that hikers will have enough new ideas for visiting mountains and will walk more safely on hiking paths. This time, the publishing house can boast with the selective guides The Highest Peaks of European Countries and Border on the Watershed, which have already been very well received by users. The publishing house has also acquired a new overview website with a rich archive in its century-long history of operation.
Throughout its history, the PZS Publishing House has issued numerous book editions. It has expanded its recognition with guides and textbooks. In this direction, the publishing house has oriented itself this year as well and will continue with this, thereby encouraging original hiking/mountaineering/alpinistic literature. Last year, it launched a new program in the field of guides. "In the past, we issued a whole series of encyclopedic guides to individual areas within the publishing house, but mountaineering publishing houses in Europe practically no longer issue them. We are following this trend here as well. We have prepared a long-term plan for publications, which is based on encyclopedic editions, but we will present individual areas in publications with selective guides. Encyclopedic guides describe all approaches to a certain area, but are without photographs, while selective ones emphasize the most beautiful tours of the area and have better pictorial equipment. The selective guide The Highest Peaks of European Countries is already one of such guides. This year, a new selective guide to the eastern part of the Julian Alps (east of the Soča and Pišnica) is coming to the market. In the following years, we plan even more such guides," said the editor of the PZS Publishing House Vladimir Habjan.
The second novelty they are preparing in the publishing house is from the field of professional literature. As is known, the Alpine Association of Slovenia devotes a lot of attention to educational areas, which is also followed by publications. For example, this year, the fourth supplemented edition of the Hiking School has already been published, which is the basic program of hiking training. "In the publishing house, we have launched a new program that will present some basic hiking areas with content that will be less 'textbook-like' and more popular and intended for the wider public, that is, all those who are interested in acquiring new mountaineering knowledge. In this sense, we have prepared a new edition for this year entitled Basics of Hiking. In the future, we will prepare similar editions in the field of sport climbing, ski touring, and mountain cycling. One of such editions is also the fresh collection of hiking tasks Hiking from A to Z, collected by the hiking guide Uroš Kuzman," added Habjan.
Some editions have been and will be literary tinted. At the beginning of the year, it published a collection of stories for youth New Adventures in Fairyland, by author Kristina Menih. Literary tinted will also be the book On the Border, by author Iztok Tomazin, in which Tomazin presents dramatic stories of border guards and mountain rescuers in the Karavanks, and in the continuation, vividly describes a special part of his rich mountaineering career. It will be published by the end of the year. By then, the renewed edition of the history of the hiking organization Slovenian Hiking Through Time will presumably be published.
Last year, after a long time, a new climbing guide Modern Multi-Pitch Routes was published, which received a very favorable response. Therefore, in the publishing house, they revived the program of publishing (sport) climbing guides to individual areas. The first guide to climbing sites in Gorenjska is planned for 2022.
Selective Guides
These days, the hiking-historical guide Border on the Watershed, the work of the seasoned hiking publicist Dušan Škodič, came from the printing press. The Rapallo border between the two world wars represented the border between the Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, or later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. "The main idea that guided me in writing the guide was to preserve the memory of a too little known, although not so distant part of our history. Unfortunately, postwar generations did not know much about this period, and physical border markers on the terrain were overgrown with undergrowth. While walking in the mountains near the former border, we also encounter various bunkers and fortifications that raise questions and especially in the Julian Alps cause confusion about who built them and with what purpose," explained Dušan Škodič his decision to write a special hiking-historical guide.
The book collects 61 excursions and mountain tours from Peč on the western tripoint to the Paravič table on the Croatian border. The guide is intended for hikers and walkers who are interested in something else besides the path to the goal, as visiting the described locations is only of secondary importance, nor is it connecting like in border trails. "There is no connecting path along the Rapallo border line, and due to the difficult terrain, there will surely never be one. Accesses to the locations of the main border markers range in difficulty from easy to very demanding in high mountains, and towards the south, difficulty is also replaced by pathless areas in the middle of vast forests and a visit to some Slovenian thousand-meter peak that we would otherwise never step on."
Interesting stories are told by the ruins of buildings that once served the Italian empire. One of the most controversial was undoubtedly the mountain hut on Krn, which the Italians built in memory of the conquerors of Krn during the First World War, and its history is very well described by Škodič.
In April, the guide The Highest Peaks of European Countries, the work of Jože Drab and Andreja Tomšič Drab, saw the light of day. The authors have been hikers since childhood. The idea for a slightly different guide was born to them when a long tour to the highest peak of Sweden was behind them. The guide describes 46 peaks of all 48 countries that make up Europe. They limited themselves to the border of Europe that runs on the Caucasus and Ural, along the North Sea, Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Black Sea. The guide has already received nice media response at the time of publication, which is also noticeable in sales. Why has it received a good response? "This is our first such guide abroad and has no competition. It is also a fact that Slovenians like to travel and are eager for such nicely collected information in one place, and we don't have to search for them on the internet. Last but not least, of course, are the interesting descriptions of the experiences of both authors on these tours, which spice up the usual presentation of tour descriptions in other such guides," opines Jože Drab.
The guide contains all standard descriptions needed to be as informed as possible for the excursion or ascent (starting point with access, altitude difference and walking time, possible huts on the path, maps …), in addition, you will have GPS coordinates of the highest point and starting point in hand. The descriptions are concise and contain all important orientation points.
The guide is not only instructions for the path, but the authors have recorded some interesting encounters with locals and experiences on travels in it. "To the highest peak of Norway (Galdhøpiggen) lead two paths - one goes from the east over the glacier, the other is longer, which does not lead over the dangerous glacier, but along the southern ridge beside it. We went on the longer one because we didn't have a rope. We were very early, and at 9 a.m. we were the first on the summit that day. Usually local hikers and tourists start the tour quite late. Soon after us, four Slovaks came to the summit on the shorter path over the glacier, with a rope, and somewhat disappointed confided to us that they were convinced they would be the first that day on the summit. We were on the summit alone for quite a long time and chatted with the shelter caretaker, then the Slovaks invited us into the rope team, and we descended together on the shorter path. Below the summit, we met the first ascending rope teams or real mega rope teams, as each guide ties 40-50 people on a long rope. And there were at least 6 such rope teams. It looked like in winter 1915 on the Isonzo Front," shared an interesting experience Jože Drab.
New Hiking Maps
To make the path even safer, use a hiking map. In the PZS Publishing House, this year they issued three new maps Kamnik and surroundings, Domžale and surroundings, and Smrekovec, Raduha, Olševa, Peca, Uršlja gora. Recently, the renewed map of the Kamnik-Savinja Alps in scale 1:50,000 came from print, which is a long-term bestseller of the publishing house. "It covers the area of the entire Kamnik-Savinja Alps, Olševa, Raduha all the way to Peca. Quite a bit of mountains in Austria are also shown. For these latter areas, our expatriate compatriots helped us in obtaining field and local Slovenian names, so with this map, we hope, we also contributed to the preservation of such cultural heritage. We are just completing the preparation of the hiking map of the entire Julian Alps in scale 1:50,000. With this new map, we are again showing the area of almost the entire Western Julian Alps all the way to Tablja (Pontebba) in the west. Also with this map, we closely collaborated with expatriates and tried to record as many Slovenian field names as possible," summarized the general secretary of PZS Damjan Omerzu.
Immediately after the release of the map of the entire Julian Alps, the renewed edition of the map of Triglav National Park will follow. In autumn, the hiking map of the Cerklje and Škofja Loka hills in scale 1:50,000 should be published. "We are also negotiating with partners for the production of the Zasavje map. For the Pohorje area, we have prepared plans, but we are still looking for suitable partners. Our long-term goal is to cover all hilly areas of Slovenia with quality hiking maps," concluded Omerzu.
Parallel with the issuance of printed maps, we offer all hikers information about hiking paths with the help of the maPZS application (
https://maPZS.pzs.si), which everyone can download for free on their computer or smartphone.
New Website
The Publishing House, which has been operating within the Slovenian Mountaineering Society or today the Alpine Association of Slovenia since its establishment, experienced an online presentation for the first time in its history this January. On the website planinskazalozba.pzs.si, it presents the organization of book publishing, the history of the publishing house, novelties, e-books, the area of maps, and a search engine by editions. "We are especially proud that electronic copies of some of the oldest editions of the Publishing House are available to the wider hiking public, among others the book Climbing Technique by Mira Marko Debelak from 1933 and Janez Gregorin Blessing of Mountains, collected work from 1944. With the search engine, which is made after the model of the search engine for publications in the Mountain Herald, it is possible to find all book editions and all maps that have ever been published by the publishing house, including the cover and link to the Mountain Shop page, where you can also order the book or map if it is still available for sale," added the editor Vladimir Habjan, who these days is marking the twentieth anniversary of editing the Mountain Herald, the oldest still published Slovenian magazine.
Congratulations on the anniversary and excellent work!