How many watches have scaled earth’s highest peaks, traversed the lengths of our horizons and ventured to the deepest depths of our oceans? Rolex has accompanied mankind’s foremost explorers to the summit of Mount Everest, across long perilous flight routes and on record-setting dives, which are testament to the precision, utility and durability of Rolex timepieces. I’d like to make a case as to why Rolex’s contributions to the advancement of science, exploration technology and ecological research, cannot be overstated.
TERRA
You might be familiar with the names Sir Edmund Hillary and Sir Tenzing Norgay, a Kiwi mountaineer and his Nepalese counterpart who were the first to reach the top of Everest, at 11:30am on May 29, 1953. This heavily pursued feat had claimed the lives of many before them, but the pair were unperturbed.
A non-mountaineer like me can only imagine what climbing to an almost nine-kilometer altitude might feel like. The temperature atop Everest can drop to around -50°C and pressure, which is about 760mmHg at sea level, falls to approximately 253mmHg at the peak of Everest. While the physiology of a mountaineer might be confused and struggling to adapt to these extreme conditions, it also has to deal with the acute decrease in oxygen, which can coerce the brain to slip into unconsciousness. To re-emphasize, the year was 1953, which means Sir Hillary and Norgay achieved their momentous victory while relying on navigation, insulation and oxygenation technology that wasn’t even close to what we have today.
Part of their triumph can be attributed to the Rolex Oyster Perpetual watches that they wore to the top. An important precursor to modern Rolex watches like the Air-King, Explorer and Explorer II, the Oyster Perpetual had been equipped by Rolex to numerous participants of various expeditions since the 1930s. Each of these expeditions was an opportunity to test and improve the reliability and robustness of Rolex watches, using the world as a living laboratory.
