The Great Watch Climb: Mountaineering Watches
This article was originally written by watch journalist Roberta Naas and published in the May/June 2022 Issue of the WatchTime print magazine.
In the past decade, we have witnessed more and more professional climbers and explorers tackle the world?s tallest and most treacherous mountains wearing rugged timepieces designed to withstand unfathomable extremes. It is a phenomenon, though, that will reach far into the future.
For just about a century, top watch brands have been inextricably linked to explorers and mountain climbers as they strived to reach new heights, conquer new summits and explore Earth?s greatest mountains. Each expedition in real life, where watches went to extremes with explorers brave enough to push the boundaries, resulted in better, stronger, more precise timepieces. Today, watch brands continue to accompany climbers to mountain tops worldwide with timepieces that can go the distance.
The Rolex Explorer continues to accompany adventurers, scientists and explorers around the world. This Oyster Perpetual Explorer is created in Oystersteel and yellow gold with black dial and Chromalight display on the numerals.
Almost 70 years ago, in 1953, Rolex made history on the wrist of Sir Edmund Hillary when he and Tenzing Norgay became the first explorers to summit Mount Everest. For that successful climb, Rolex (which had begun furnishing expeditions to the Himalayas with watches decades earlier) equipped the expedition with Oyster Perp...
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