Review: 2027 Armada Whitewalker 108

When making a new ski, a manufacturer typically goes one of two ways: make an approachable ski that a ton of people will enjoy (and hopefully spend their hard-earned cash on), or make a specialty tool that caters precisely to a very specific kind of skier. Armada’s new Whitewalker 108 falls squarely into the latter category. It’s the third descendant of Sammy Carlson’s pro model lineage, and it takes direct design cues from the pow-specific Whitewalker 116 and 121. It’s also a ski that left us scratching our heads a bit, left me with a dislocated thumb, and put huge smiles on a few of our tester’s faces.

There’s no way around it: the new Armada Whitewalker 106 is a really weird ski. Given that Sammy Carlson isn’t your everyday skier, that shouldn’t come as a surprise. It’s a genre-bending ski that thinks way outside of the box, also something that shouldn’t come as a surprise from a ski maker like Armada.

The extremely tapered pin tip/tail twin-tip construction paired with a surprisingly stiff construction make these very pivoty and slashy. Don’t expect to be able to carve well, and if you’re a front-of-the-boot type of skier, you’re going to have to adjust your form pretty significantly. But if you’re willing to do that, and channel your inner Sammy C, you’re going to have a ton of fun.

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2027 Armada Whitewalker 108 Specs

• Size skied: 186cm
• Lengths available: 168cm, 174cm, 180cm, 186cm
• Sidecut: 134mm, 108mm, 129mm
• Radius: 16.5m (180cm)
• Profile: twin rocker, camber underfoot
• Weight: 1750g (180cm)

Shape, Flex and Construction

Like the wider Whitewalker 116 and 121, the new Whitewalker 108 features a very distinct twin-tip shape with extremely tapered tips and tails, pronounced twin rocker, and a lightweight construction. These aren’t meant to perform like a typical ski, hence they’re built very differently. 

The main story on the shape is the taper, with contact points very far back from the tip and tail of the ski. Interestingly, the Whitewalker 108 is both quite stiff and very light, with a Karuba wood core and thinner edges and base material. I would have expected a burlier construction given that these are likely going to see a ton of time in the park.

Mount point is unsurprisingly quite centered, and I’d leave it at the line. Going any further forward will send you straight over the bars on these!

On-Snow Performance

I’m going to tell you a little story about a little thumb (mine) that had an unfortunate incident when I went faceplanted on these skis. It was the first day of Powder Week ‘26 at Grand Targhee and the early arrivals took a few skis out for some slushy afternoon groomer laps. I was having a TON of fun sliding and slashing around aboard the Whitewalker 108, airing rollers, riding switch, and generally goofing off. It was Day 1, so I was feeling energetic and wanted to lay into a few high-angle carves in the soft snow afoot. That’s when disaster struck. 

In one of the weirdest crashes I’ve ever had, I pushed into the front of my boot as I would on any other ski, expecting the edge to hook up and bring the tip into a carve, but somewhat terrifyingly, the ski disappeared from underneath me and I ate a faceful of soft snow. I tomahawked, but got up, brushed myself off, and kept skiing. A few turns later, the exact same thing happened again, unfortunately taking my thumb with it. Luckily, I was able to reduce it immediately and ski away with my tail between my legs, but it got me thinking (and talking with my fellow testers) about why this happened. We even had video footage to review, and review we did. A few days later, more or less the same thing happened to another tester (his thumb remained intact). Then it happened again on someone else’s feet. The tips of these have so much taper that there isn’t anything push into and hook up. If you’ve ever skied a reverse-sidecut ski, it’s not quite the same, but it feels pretty similar. You have to stand centered and power the ski through your heels, not the front of your boot.

Does that make this a bad ski? No. It just makes it a weird ski that requires a very specific touch to actually control. Some of the more traditional skiers might scoff at the “modern” park-rat technique required to make this thing do what you want, but I’ll leave it at “it’s different.”

Tester Peter Brigham puts it more specifically, “It is very easy to slide and slarve on. When standing in the center, you could ride the sidecut and break free from turns but its inconsistent turn initiation mutes the ability to push hard and trust the ski to listen to a pressured tip. I think there is so much taper in the ski that it becomes unpredictable.”

On the other hand, tester Ian Greenwood absolutely loved them. “They were the funkiest ski I tried by far, which I ended up loving. My favorite thing is that no matter the pace or snow, you can easily put them sideways,” he says. “I heard them described as ice skates or roller skates, and I think I’d agree. I had to rethink my form but once I did that, I had a great time.”

While they’re pretty weird and somewhat unpredictable on groomers, they really come to life off piste. The somewhat surprising stiffness means they don’t get bounced around too much. But the lightweight gives them an uncanny comfort in the air. “In chop and bumps, I found I was constantly looking for rollers to pop off and make airplanes turn…and they pivot easier than every other ski I tried, so shutting down speed was easy,” says Greenwood. “They don’t have the locked-in feel of a more traditional charger, and really rewarded getting weird with it and experimenting with turn shapes. They aren’t, however, energetic. Don’t come in expecting a traditionally floppy jib stick.”

Comparisons

The Whitewalker 108 is a tough ski to compare, as the extreme taper paired with the twin-rocker profile make for a very unique shape. It makes a ton of sense in deep backcountry snow, as we learned with the wider Whitewalker 116, but it’s pretty weird in the resort. 

On paper, the numbers and construction aren’t too far off from the Atomic Bent 110, but these skis are very different on snow. While similarly playful, the Bent 110 performs very predictably on groomers and firmer snow. Push into the ski, and it pushes back. The Whitewalker 108 just doesn’t do that. It does, however, provide a much looser, surfier feel off piste. 

If anything, it’s a ski that simply breaks the mold and begs not to be compared directly, because the whole point is to be different. 

What type of skier is the Armada Whitewalker 108 best for? 

Obviously, like the rest of the Whitewalker series, the Whitewalker 108 is for Sammy Carlson. The man has developed an extremely distinct style of skiing, and that demands extremely distinct skis. For mere mortals, this is a ski for skiers who love to slash and spend as much as time in the air as possible.