Armada Basin GORE-TEX® PRO 3L Pant
What we liked …
The fit, major venting, great kick-patches.
What we didn’t …
Minor stuff - can get sweaty under the bib (but options exist to cool down a bit); Lack of mesh in the leg vents.
The Verdict
Our Rating
4.5 out of 5
the Short Read…
The Armada Basin Pant might be designed for skiers but they rock for snowboarders as well.
The Long read …
Ok, so Armada don’t specifically say they are designed for skiers but hey, they are a ski company. But it just so happens that these Basin GORE-TEX® PRO 3L Pants do a great job for snowboarders too. I use them for everything: on the piste, slack-country, touring and snowboard-mountaineering.
For 3L Goretex, these don’t feel super heavy, the material has plenty of flex and never stops you moving as you want.
The fit might be too hipster for some - i.e. not baggy. I think it’s superb, so long as you want a more ‘athletic’ type of fit - plenty of room to move, but no surplus material. They feel pretty minimal.
Starting from the top - the bib. It almost hugs you, which is great on one hand but the stretchy material doesn’t allow a lot of airflow and you can get pretty sweaty under there if it’s fully zipped up. I often ride with the top unzipped for some airflow. That bib has a zipped pocket big enough for a wallet but you’d probably want to keep something slimmer in there.
The bib can be unzipped right off - this makes going for a ‘number 2’ a breeze - undoing it around the waist let you drop your the trousers away from the top, then it’s easy to undo and easy to do up again afterwards.
There’s an elasticated adjustable internal waistband, and poppers for compatible jackets.
The main pants have 3 pockets in the front; one small on the left side below the belt line (for passes or keys maybe) and two large ones on the thighs, one of which has an internal pocket just big enough for a small/medium sized phone, say, and key loop. No pockets in the back.
Venting - there are two big vents per leg in these babies. The two outside ones have two-way zips running from just to the rear of each hip, coming slightly round the side of the knee. The inner two are one-way zips opening from from just below the inside of the knee up into the groin. When all these are fully open, you cool down extremely quickly! However, there is no mesh lining to retard snow ingress, which can be pain if you do need to ride with them open a bit, or just fall over!
Down from there, at the bottom of the legs you have the reinforced kick-pads - for snowboarders they are gold for boot-crampon protection when climbing and rubbing when skinning. These are big reinforced patches covering the inside of your legs 180 degrees from front to back and up to mid-calf. There’s also a 2-inch cuff all the way around, as abrasion-resistance for boot-packing or on the dance-floor. It’s very tough material and has resisted 2 seasons of crampons so far.
Finally, there are the internal elasticated gaiters to go over your boots. It’s a good job that these are elasticated as it can be tight fit over some snowboarding softboots, but I’ve managed on all I’ve tried so far. There is no laces hook to keep them in place, but the friction is enough to hold them in place in all but the most extreme plodding through nads-deep snow.
Being more skier-orientated, they don’t have any micro-fleece or other insulation as an arse-patch. But I’ve found that it’s not such a big deal.
The material, the GORE-TEX® PRO 3L works as you’d expect. You’ll keep pretty dry.
Summing up
I love these pants - you really get a lot of pant for your dollar - and I’m now about to use them as my only riding pant for their 6th season! I’d be hard-pressed to look past the next version of these when I need to renew. I have recently had to repair one zip, and re-attach one part of one leg cuff. Nothing really, given the abuse they’ve been through.
Finally, and not really part of a product review, rather a plug for bibbed-pants over non-bibbed - having bibbed-pants has saved me money on jackets because with the bib I don’t need to get a jacket with a powder-skirt - meaning less bulky and expensive jackets (they don’t even need to be ski-specific!), and, if you need to wear a belt to hold up trousers, you are saved the pleasure of a belt being ground into your coccyx by a heavy touring pack. Bliss!