Blanka Sepulveda

Born 29 September 1975 in Czech Republic

I grew up near the Beskydy mountains in Czech Republic. I did not spend my teenage years skiing but horse riding! Later I became totally addicted to rock climbing and mountaineering which changed my life and eventually brought me to Chamonix in 2003. I discovered skiing and ski touring here and became super passionate about it. As well as my friends, it is the mountains, our local playground, that is keeping me here in Chamonix!

Favourite activities: off piste skiing, ski touring, ski mountaineering and rock climbing.

The Schwarztor: Versatile and joy to ski

During the last weeks I had the opportunity to test Ogso´s Schwarztor Ski during a few resort ski-days and (for me more important) on a lot of skitours in the mountains of Upper Austria.

The print on the sidewall says “Climb high and Surf” and that’s truly the case with this ski. It is exceptionally light and therefore amazing for the ascend, but also offers true downhill performance. The shape of the ski is very interesting – it has a very long Rocker, a short chamber and a slight tailrocker as well, which in combination allow for good turn-initiation and turn-control, as well as speed control. I had a lot of fun skiing it in trees where good control is needed, as well as in open terrain where I could go really fast and the ski offered exceptional stability in longer turns. It is very forgiving when your body-position is slightly off or you aren’t perfectly balanced on both skis, but it still remains very responsive for changes in pressure or stance.

The width of the Schwarztor (106mm under foot in my case) is not very wide but plenty enough for our powderdays in the eastern alps. It makes up the “lack” of width with the very long rocker shape that offers a lot of floatation. A small detail that I really like is the flat Tail that allows easy attachment of Skinclips for the uphill.

It really impressed me how easy it is to ski this ski in different snow-conditions and how little effort it takes to do so. On the other hand you can charge hard on the Schwarztor if you want to. The fact that you can save a lot of energy on the uphill due to its little weight and you still have very good downhill performance make up for a perfect touring ski for the downhill oriented backcountry-skier who also climbs a lot of vertical meters.
For me it is my go to ski for almost all skitours.

The best

The best … The best skis I have ever ski thank you 🙏🏽