Review: We Tried Sammy Carlson’s Pro-Model Armada Whitewalker 116 Skis

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Armada has always prided itself on thinking far outside the box, working directly with their stacked athlete team to create some of the most innovative ski designs we’ve ever seen over the years. Hey, quite a few of them made our list of most iconic skis of all time. Sammy Carlson’s pro-model Whitewalker 116 is the current incarnation of that innovative thinking in Armada’s Signature Series line, culminating in a design that blends a park ski with a powder ski and packages it all inside a touring ski.

It’s Sammy’s daily driver for the backcountry (he prefers the wider Whitewalker 121 for riding in Alaska), and it’s purpose built to showcase his unique style of high-energy freestyle skiing. Want to slash, spin, and butter your way through the backcountry? Look no further.

Armada Whitewalker 116 Specs

• Size skied: 192cm
• Lengths available: 175cm, 185cm, 192cm
• Sidecut: 140cm – 116cm – 136cm
• Radius: 19m
• Profile: freestyle twin rocker, with camber underfoot
• Weight: 1925g

Shape, Flex and Construction

Armada’s lineup of skis is incredibly varied, ranging from super soft park skis, to stiff freeride monsters, reverse sidecut powder skis, and everything in between. The Whitewalker is hard to categorize, but in short, it’s a powder twin tip with a really surfy shape. It falls somewhere on the stiffer end of Armada’s spectrum for freeride/freestyle skis, featuring a medium stiff tip and a very stiff tail. Despite the very rockered tip and tail, there’s a small amount of camber underfoot that extends much further into the tail.

The tip and tail shape are very unique, with a full pin tip and tail, and Armada’s three-dimensional smear tech tips and tails–this is similar tech to Atomic’s HRZN Tech tips and tails found on their powder skis. Given the freestyle bent of this ski, the mount point is very centered.

Inside, the Whitewalker sports a few other features designed to shave weight, including ¾-length sidewalls, a lightweight Karuba wood core, no metal layers, and lightweight 1.7mm edges. These are much lighter and smaller than the thick reinforced edges found on Armada’s park skis, but then again this ski is designed for skiing deep pow, not hitting rails.

On-Snow Performance

Given the skis design intentions, we mostly skied these in the backcountry in deep powder snow, both ski touring and in Jackson Hole’s lift-access sidecountry. I spent a few days aboard them myself but testing was mostly done by Teton-based POWDER Tester Andrey Shprengel, whose skiing style and freestyle skills much better emulate what this ski was designed to do: ski like Sammy Carlson. We mounted a pair of the 192cm skis with both Shift 2.0 bindings and Moment Voyager 16 (an older version of the ATK Freeraider 15 EVOs) for testing.

The Whitewalker 116 offers one of the most unique ride feelings of any ski currently on the market. An extraordinary combination of shape, flex profile and weight makes these some of the loosest, floatiest and surfiest skis out there. Shprengel says, “It’s a very agile ski. Skiing fast in trees is confidence-inspiring because you can turn on a dime, the remarkable light weight also makes them feel more maneuverable–they never feel “locked in” to a turn and are almost automatic to get sideways and slash.”

In deep snow, it’s very easy to pop and ollie out of the snow, take advantage of natural airs, and spin, butter and slash your way through just about any terrain. The Whitewalker 116 takes that old trope of “turning the whole mountain into your playground” to an entirely new level. The caveat? If you’re more of a traditional skier that wants to lean into and drive a ski, you might have a bit of a learning curve getting used to the upright stance that the Whitewalker promotes.

The ski’s maneuverability is paired with a stiff rear end of the ski that lets you get away with a lot, like landing sizable airs backseat (or switch) or suddenly shutting down speed without washing out. “The flex is extremely reliable, I’ve never had the ski surprise me,” says Shprengel. The medium-short turn radius does lose some stability at extremely high speeds, but that quick and slashy feeling paired with the super stiff tails has your back when it’s time to dump speed on a dime like when lining up your next air or when rocketing through tighter trees.

Inbounds, and in chopped-up heavy pow, the ski starts to see its limitations. There’s not quite enough mass to push through weird unpredictable snow. The Whitewalker can still carve surprisingly well on smooth groomers–enough to get you back to the lift with a smile on your face.

Comparisons

Despite the relatively small market for them, there are quite a few backcountry freestyle ski models out there these days. Two great comparisons would be the Atomic Bent 110 (a similar lightweight ski that has been a personal resort daily driver for several years) and the Rossignol Sender Free 118 (a ski with similar freestyle intentions but a very different design).

Compared to the Atomic Bent 110, Armada’s Whitewalker 116 seems like a more specialty tool for skiers looking to unleash their freestyle creativity in deep powder. Despite being a bit lighter, the Bent 110 is a bit more forgiving inbounds, with better hardpack performance and a more predictable feel for skiers coming from a directional ski. However, when it comes to loose, surfy skiing, the Whitewalker 116 wins out by a mile.

Next to the Rossignol Sender Free 118, the French brand’s athlete-favorite backcountry freestyle ski, the Whitewalker 116 feels very different. The Sender Free 118 is much more of a bruiser, offering better high speed stability, particularly in cruddy snow. However, I find that it’s really tiring to ski, and too heavy to reasonably use as a touring ski. The Whitewalker, on the other hand, wants to get tossed around and told where to go, and will respond to your inputs immediately.

What Type Of Skier Is The Armada Whitewalker 116 Best For?

Armada’s Whitewalker 116 is definitely not for everyone, and that’s ok. It’s a very specialized tool, and one of those skis that you’ll either love more than anything or probably want to avoid. In other words, it makes you want to ski the way Sammy Carlson skis, with loads of slashing, popping and agile maneuvers while staying light on your feet. It’s an excellent choice for freestyle-oriented skiers who want to chase powder and ride pillows, spines, trees, and other technical terrain. These deserve a pair of touring bindings, a snowmobile, and plenty of deep powder.