Reaching the TOP

Keeping track of time is important in everyone’s life, but when it comes to climbing Mount Everest, it is absolutely vital. The summit is 8,848 meters, or 29,028 feet high, and once climbers pass 8,000 meters they have entered what some call the “death zone.” Oxygen is so limited, temperatures so low and winds so high that life is truly endangered. The brain and lungs can swell. Ribs can crack. It’s a place to get in and out of fast and then begin the arduous descent down the mountain before darkness sets in.

Every second counts, which is why Rolex has accompanied several history-making expeditions, helping mountaineers keep life-saving track of time. In doing so, Rolex has tested its timepieces under the harshest conditions imaginable, analyzing their performance. Then experts apply that research to the watches that end up on the retail market for watch lovers whose most difficult climb may be up the corporate ladder.

For the 50th anniversary of the Explorer and in celebration of the latest Explorer II, Rolex pays homage to the men and women who tackled Mount Everest, battling limits on time, the body and the spirit.

Improvising When Every Second Counts

The mission: Install the highest weather station in the world to provide crucial information on climate change. More than one-fifth of the world’s population, some 1.6 billion people, get their water from glaciers in the Himalayas. Within the next 80 years, an estimated one-third of those glaciers, and the water they provide, will disappear because of global warming.

This is where Rolex steps in. The company introduced its Perpetual Planet Initiative in 2019 to support the explorers and expeditions seeking to collect data to protect our endangered planet, whether the mountains, the rain forests or the oceans. Perpetual Planet is assisting the National Geographic Society in efforts to find solutions to safeguard the environment, particularly ways to stem climate change and preserve the glaciers.

In 2019 a National Geographic-led team of 30 scientists developed five weather stations to be taken to Mount Everest and installed at various elevations along the climb. The team set up camps and began the ascent, carrying the disassembled pieces of each weather station along the way. The higher up the mountain they went, the shorter the actual time involved in installing each station grew because of depleting levels of oxygen, brutally lower temperatures and punishing winds.

National Geographic offered a vivid account of the expedition. The goal was to install the final station at the summit. The day when conditions allowed the climb, the trail was slowed because too many climbers were blocking the way. The unanticipated shortage of time meant the weather station would have to be installed at 8,400 meters, still in the so-called death zone. With every second counting, there was no room for more setbacks. If only…

No one had anticipated that the batteries for the drill needed for assembly might freeze. But freeze they did, until one clever team member stuck them under his armpit to warm them up. It worked.

The troubles didn’t stop there: The weather monitors had to be attached to a pole, and someone forgot to bring the pole. Again, fast thinking was called for. One man realized that the handle of the shovel he was carrying could do the job, if its oval shape was battered into a circle and wrapped in duct tape (to decrease the size of the opening). Thanks to that last-minute ingenuity, the world’s highest weather station was assembled and data was sent by satellite from the mountains of the Himalayas to Washington D.C., in impressive time.

The Key to Survival: Time Management

Ed Viesturs, a Rolex Testimonee, has climbed all 14 of the world’s peaks that are over 8,000 meters high (about 26,000 feet) without supplemental oxygen, and he has climbed Mount Everest seven times.

Strapped to his wrist on each ascent: his Oyster Perpetual Explorer II, which he credits with having a direct impact on his safety and success.

oxygen can become serious issues.”

“My watch, and the time it tells, is the key to my safety.”

Pushing the Limits of Body and Mind

Dr. Christine Janin was the first Frenchwoman to climb to the top of Mount Everest. A former Rolex Testimonee, she later became the first European woman to reach the top of the highest peaks on all seven continents. And as if that weren’t enough of pushing her body, fortitude and determination to the limit, she next became the first woman in the world to reach the North Pole on skis, without the aid of sled dogs.

How does she do it?

Ed Viesturs

“I have a Rolex Explorer II that I received in 1994 when I had climbed three of the 8,000-meter peaks,” Viesturs said. “I wore my Explorer II every single day, since that moment, on all my climbs, and I still wear it today. It has never failed me. It’s probably the most important piece of equipment I have with me.”

“When climbing, time management is the most significant factor in my success, and ultimately my survival,” he continued. “Each half-hour counts.”

He calculates timings for the entire day, he explained, including the time he needs to begin his descent.

“I have a rule of turning around by 2 o’clock in the afternoon at the latest, whether or not I have reached the summit,” he said. “Some climbers have found themselves in life-threatening situations because they turned back too late. The cold, darkness, fatigue and lack of

“The key to a successful climb or expedition is to be in excellent shape when you set off,” she observed. “For that, you must have trained very thoroughly and have begun preparing several years earlier in order to gain sufficient experience and adapt the body to the conditions you are going to face.”

Not only does the body get stronger, but the spirit does, too. "Summits are conquered meter by meter, breath by breath,” Janin said. “On the way we discover qualities we didn't know we had that enable us to get to the top. We then feel immense joy in realizing that we know how to face up to dangers and overcome challenges posed by the environment." This is a philosophy that Janin has shared to help others through her foundation, À Chacun Son Everest! To Each His Everest! She helps both children and adults recovering from cancer and has arranged for more than 6,000 people to climb the French Alps, to discover how successfully challenging physical limits can make a person stronger in body and soul.