Armada

Norwalk Ski

Fully rockered skis are the bee's knees when you're surfing untouched pow, but let's be real: more often than not, you're going to be skiing sections of fresh with a good amount of chop, chunder, and leftovers thrown in, so you'll be better of with a ski that has some backbone. Something like, say, the Armada Norwalk. Armada's big-mountain board, the Norwalk sports a generous tip rocker and a wide platform to make short work of deep and soft snow, but has camber underfoot and a traditional tail to give you plenty of turning power, edge hold, and stability when you're punching it down big faces or hammering through day-old chop at lip-flapping speeds.

Armada stiffened the Norwalk's Hybrid Ultralight wood core up with a fiberglass laminate matrix, which provides torsional and fore-aft stability without stacking on the ounces, and built it using AR50 hybrid cap and sidewall construction—there are burly, powerful sidewalls underfoot and a lightweight cap in the tip and tail—to provide plenty of edging power while keeping the ski nimble and the swing weight low. The sintered Comp Series base and 1.7mm Impact Edges keep you ripping and gripping, too, so you can send all the lines on your huck-it list without worrying if your gear can take it.