2023 Armada Locator 112

The widest ski in the new Locator collection from Armada, the 112 has powder touring ski written all over it. It doesn’t actually, although that would be a pretty sweet graphic in our opinion. The 180 cm reference length in the Locator 112 comes in at 1500 g, which is exceptionally lightweight for a ski this wide. Armada achieves that through their Caruba wood core, which is then supported and enhanced by Carbon Reinforcements and even a Ti Binding Dampener plate. A noteworthy element of the Locator 112 (and the rest of the collection) is its shape. It’s a directional ski, like the outgoing Tracer line, and has a shape that’s clearly designed for soft snow and backcountry terrain. Long tip rocker is paired with early taper, giving the ski a very pointy look to it. That shape generally gives a ski a very smooth, catch-free feel for a variety of different snow conditions, a valuable performance characteristic for technical backcountry terrain. There’s less rocker in the tail, but enough that the ski should swing around nicely through skidded turns.

This doesn’t happen often in our testing, but given the width of the Locator 112 and some limited availability, we only had one person test it long enough to feel comfortable including their feedback. Luckily, that was the ski-testing all-star himself, Bob St.Pierre. Bob enjoyed all of the Locator skis, although his scores for the 112 were perhaps the most impressive out of all. 5 out of 5 scores for both flotation and quickness/maneuverability, lots of 4 out of 5 marks, with only stability and torsional stiffness/edge grip falling to 3 out of 5. Flotation and maneuverability are really the most important criteria in our testing for a ski like this. 1500 g and 112 under foot is never going to be designed as a ripping carving ski with crazy torsional stiffness. It needs to be light, floaty, maneuverable, and fun, and it seems like Armada nailed it.

Bob chimed in with some great written feedback to go along with his scores for the Locator 112. “Way better than expected, and I actually expected something good because I really liked the Locator 104 as well. This 112 was super-easy to get sideways in a slashed and smeared turn/skid, and was a ton of fun to play and maneuver around on. At 1500 grams, it's pretty simple to fling this ski around, but it felt a lot more stable and confident than the weight may indicate, and that's a very good sign for a wider touring ski. Had a Shift binding on this ski and felt totally comfortable in a variety of conditions and terrain. While we didn't get the chance to actually tour and ski fresh powder, it's easy to see that this would be a very strong area for the Locator 112.”

While we would’ve loved to get the Locator 112 into some untouched deep powder in the backcountry, we still have a lot of great takeways from Bob’s testing. It’s agile, it smears turns exceptionally well, yet it remains relatively stable too. Bob’s 225 lbs and a strong skier, so if it supported Bob on less-than-ideal snow conditions, it’s going to support just about anyone, especially if you’re skiing powder on it. We think the Shift is a great choice for bindings, although we certainly wouldn’t steer anyone away from going even lighter with a true tech binding. It doesn’t really feel appropriate with an alpine ski, as it’s just a little too light for strict resort skiing. Armada has skis like the Declivity 108 for that, and we think the Locator 112 is best kept in the backcountry or side country of the resort.