Watches of the 14 Peaks: Its not just Rolex!

Welcome to this Everest sized special post from Makalu-minating watches where we fall deep into the crevasse of mountaineering watches where precision engineering and toughness truly reached new heights. Don’t worry I know you all know about the Rolex and Smiths Everest episode - there are Lhotse more watches we will get into today.

So why this topic? Well I recently watched the amazing Netlifx series 14 Peaks: Nothing is impossible featuring Nirmal Purja - known as Nims - and his Nepalese team of climbers that ascended all 14 peaks in the world over 8000m in under 7 months. This truly incredible feat got me thinking about the watches that have been worn by the brave adventurers over the years confronting these giants of nature. Above this altitude is a true sign of resilience as human life is unable to be sustained here - hence mountaineers referring to this as the death zone. Up there - being able to maintain a grasp of the time is critical both in terms of legibility in the extreme conditions and in accurate seizure of narrow time windows for progress. So there is a long association between these expeditions and the watches that accompanied them. In this post we will track Nims path in the series and learn about the watches and the mountaineers that wore them on the different ascents of the fourteen 8000ers.

First up Annapurna.

Annapurna I 8091m / 26545ft

The first 8000er summit by Nims and his team was Annapurna I Main - a mountain in the Eastern Himalayas in Nepal that is the 10th highest mountain in the world at 8091 meters and named after the Hindu god of food and nourishment. This follows history as it was indeed the first 8000er to be ascended of the 14.

In 1950 Maurice Herzog and his team of French climbers - that had been given the permission to attempt summiting either Dhaulagiri or Annapurna - first scouted out Dhaulagiri for 2 weeks but deemed it to be unclimbable or fiendishly difficult. They then had quite an adventure even finding the base of Annupurna.

Members of the trip were: Maurice Herzog: the leader of the expedition and amateur climber, three pro climbers: Louis Lachenal, Gaston Rébuffat and Lionel Terray. Lachenal and Terray were the second folks to conquer the north face of the Eiger so were no joke and Rébuffat climbed all 6 north faces of the Alps. Marcel Ichac was the documenter of the trip, filming footage that would become the film Victoire sur l'Annapurna and writing articles and books on the expedition. Jean Couzy and Marcel Schatz were also accomplished amateur climbers - with the former popping up again later in this post. Jacques Oudot was the doctor of the trip who would have to deal with some pretty significant injuries and Francis de Noyelle was a diplomat who attended the trip

Herzog and Lachenal were the only ones of the party to summit - although there has been some controversy around this I won’t go into. They pushed on despite some obvious signs they were going to have some seriously bad frostbite on their feet, and on the descent back to camp Herzog lost his gloves - not good! Both Herzog and Lachenal ultimately had to have their toes amputated, with Herzog also losing all his fingers. Terray and Rebuffat would have to sacrifice their own attempt at the summit to save their fellow expedition members.

Being very much a French nationalist effort due to this being the opportunity to be the first to summit an 8000er - it of course had to be a french watch company that was the timepiece for the expedition - with Lip duly obliging with the supply of a watch using a manual wound chronometer certified R25 movement with small seconds hand and deploying Elgin’s elgiloy technology for toughness.

Although not branded as such on the actual watches during the expedition - afterwards Fred Lip - a real character that I have provided details on in one of my videos - would brand the watch as the Annapurna and later the Himalaya - with branding links to both Herzog and Terray.

The Himalaya branding would be used in later watches such as the Datolip Himalaya - and within the most recent ownership of the brand there is still a Himalaya watch available, although this is somewhat distantly related to the original Lip brand.

The first winter ascent of Annupurna was achieved in 1987 by Jerzy Kukuczka and Artur Hajzer. Kukuczka was legendary in climbing all the 8000ers in 7 years 11 months - which alongside the other legend that is Reinhold Messner is the bar that was set for Nim and that project possible team that did it in just over 6 months. His watch here looks suspiciously like ana-digi to me - but let me know if you can tell what it is.

Here is a more recent mini doc called Living is Victory, which was a Rolex sponsored attempt of Annupruna’s south face by Jean Troillet and his team but they ultimately had to to turn back because the weather was too bad. You can see the Rolex Explorer II’s throughout with both black and white dials.

Dhaulagiri 8167m / 26795ft

The next summit on Nim’s list was Dhaulagiri I, the white mountain - which was Herzog’s teams original target. The actual first ascent was a full 10 years later in 1960 by the Max Eislin led multinational expedition. A plane called The Yeti is a key part of the expedition story with the crash and the escape of the people inside being a bigger focus for Eislin in the account than the summit itself.

The owner of the excellent Vintage Certina website has been able to show with first hand confirmation that Max Eislin wore a Certina DS reference 5601 003 with all of the other expedition members also being given the same model on a Guy Frères metal band with the markings on the back stating Schweizer Himalaya Expedition 1960 . This had the innovation of a movement that was able to float in the case with a tough shock absorbent ring - hence being a great fit for mountaineering. 56 years later Certina would work with Max Eislin on the promotion of the new generation Certina DS and this great video shows him wearing both the old and the new at the same time - suddenly I want a Certina!

Kanchenjunga 8586m / 28169ft

The next peak on Nim’s teams list was Kanchenjunga at 8586m - the third highest mountain in the world. A certain Aleister Crowley was one of the early folks to attempt it in 1905 following a K2 attempt in 1902. I missed that he was a mountaineer amongst his other interesting pursuits shall we say - don’t read his poetry!!

The first ascent in 1955 - 5 ft away from the true summit based on an agreement with the local authorities to not tarnish the true summit - was Joe Brown the long term climbing partner of legendary Mancunian climber Don whillan. Alongside him was George Band who two years earlier had been the youngest climber on the Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Everest expedition. The expedition was led by Charles Evans - also an Everest veteran - with the second wave of summiteers being Norman Hardie and Tony Streather.

What we do know is that both George Band and Tony Streather were Rolex explorer guys as the watches have been up for auction. The reference is 6150 for both. There is also a written confirmation from Charles Evans to reject an offer of supply of watches from another manufacturer as Rolex had struck a deal to exclusively supply the venture with 6150 explorers all marked Kanchenjunga, 1955 with the climbers name.

Everest 8848m / 29028ft

Which leads us to Everest - which Nims and team just slotted into the schedule - capturing a very busy traffic jam at the top on the descent which gives you an idea of how crowded that mountain is these days.

One of the mysteries of Everest is whether George Mallory and Andrew Irvine - who died on Everest in a bold attempt in 1924 - could have reached the summit. Mallory’s body was discovered in 1999 and this is the Borgel wristwatch he was wearing with 17 jewel movement .

Source: https://www.vintagewatchstraps.com/blogmalloryswatch.php

I’m guessing every one of you watching this video will know both that the expedition wore 6098 Rolex Oyster Perpetuals , as well as some Smith models, with it remaining a mystery which one was actually worn on the summit by Hillary. The expedition was led by John Hunt a British army colonel in 1953 , with New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Tenzing Norgay being the first to summit.

Here is Charles Evans Everest Rolex with Rolex Prototype code 29 who along with Tom Bourdillon made the first attempt of the summit: https://www.phillips.com/detail/rolex/CH080217/244

Edmund Hilary’s who was on the second and successful summit attempt was prototype code 28 - with Tenzing Norgay wearing a Rolex he had been gifted on the 1952 Everest attempt that had not been successful: https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/found-the-rolex-sir-edmund-hillary-wore-to-the-peak-of-mount-everest-live-pics-details

Here is George Band’s on his preferred Fixoflex bracelet and Alfred Gregory’s: https://rolexpassionreport.com/5478/original-mt-everest-rolex-worn-by-sir-edmund-hillary-george-band-and-alfred-gregory/

Rolex would shower the expedition members with multiple Rolex’s after this trip that I won’t go into for now - but in passing check out the cool gold date just that Rolex gifted to Tenzing Norgay after the expedition.

Source: https://www.rolexmagazine.com/2019/07/rolex-super-coolness-tenzing-norgay.html

Regarding the Smiths watches this was apparently a Smith De Luxe watch and Hillary wrote the a note to express his contentment with it - which they duly leveraged to the maximum with an advertising campaign for their later Everest line.

One cool one I’ll throw in is that the man who skied down Everest in 1970 Yuichiro Miura and the Japanese expedition were sponsored by Certina watches and they were kitted out with DS-2 Chronolympic watches (Ref. 8501 800) .

This image from 1970 looks like a different watch so not sure what is going on there .

But in more recent years - Seiko has swooped into to collaborate with their Prospex line -> https://www.seikowatches.com/us-en/products/prospex/special/keepgoingforward/friends/miura

Lhotse 8516m / 27940ft

In the same way that Nims and team rather casually slip in a trip up the worlds fourth highest mountain Lhotse - proximate in time to their Everest ascent - there is a nice transition from Everest to Lhotse from a watch perspective too. This is because the same Swiss expedition in 1956 that were the second ascent on Everest, in the same trip were the first ascenders of Lhotse.

Dr Albert Eggler’s Swiss team, inclusive of Ernst Reiss and Fritz Luchsinger who were the two that made the summit - wore Enicar ultrasonic seapearl 600 watches - that would later be branded as Sherpas watches, and ultimately Sherpa - which was the basis for a whole line of amazing watchesthat I have covered in deep dive video recently on my Channel. In addition, Ernst Schmeid wore an Enicar thermograph watch.

Source: https://enicar.org . Further reading at: https://enicar101.com

Writing to enicar about the watches Ernst Reiss stated:

“I can only congratulate you on the quality of your watches, which we wore when we climbed Everest and Lhotse, and I have now been able to experience for myself that your watches are a credit to our Swiss country”

Makalu 8463m / 27766ft

Jean Franco led the French expedition in 1955 that was behind the first successful ascent of Makalu by our previously mentioned friends Lionel Terray and Jean Couzy.

You can see a couple of images here of Lionel Terray on the expedition with a relatively clear view of the watch.

Lip claim that Lionel Terray wore their watches on all his Himalayan expeditions and indeed recently released a Lionel Terray Makalu edition working with his son Antoine Terray.

I note that generally the advertisements show a white dial watch (see above) - whereas in these images from Makalu have what look like black dials - explorer territory - so if anyone knows for sure do let me know! There are some black dialled R25 lip watches but the majority look to be white.

Amazingly enough you can also see a pretty clear shot of Jean Couzy’s watch on the summit of Makalu which looks like its the same as Terray’s with the black dial and what looks to me like a fixoflex bracelet.

Nanga Parbat 8125m / 26660ft

Nanga Parbat - the 10th largest mountain in the world at 8126m - is where Nim’s expedition in the home Nepalese portion of the Himalayas transitions over to Pakistan.

Nanga parbat is somewhat more accessible than other 8000ers so has been a target for climbers for a long time. This was especially so for the Germans due to them being locked out of Nepal and Tibet due to British relationships there. This accessibility probably contributed to the fact that 31 people had died in attempts before the actual first ascent - resulting in the nickname “the killer mountain”. Sadly this still holds true with the death of British climber Tom Ballard there on the mummery spur being the basis for the film the Last Mountain in 2021.

Attempts were made whilst Hitler’s Nazi party were in charge of proceedings, which included the 1939 expedition involving Heinrich Harrer a nazi sergeant in the SS. He would be captured by the British and imprisoned in India before escaping - with his venture being the subject of the book seven years in Tibet - ultimately a film starring Brad Pitt.

This is my licence to sneak in the anecdote of the story in the book where Harrer’s companion Peter Aufschnaiter trades his “water tight rolex watch” for food that he had worn on the Nanga Parbat expedition that his father had given to him following his climb of Mont Blanc. In the film there are hurt feelings when it becomes apparent that Harrer actually had three cheaper watches, but Harrer later redeems himself by hunting down the watch and returning it to Peter at a party.

Interesting story is that the prop master for the film has confirmed that they originally intended the watch to be a Mk I Rolex Oyster cushion case fit for the period - which sounds right from the books description - but that Pitt nicked a gold omega chronograph off one of the crew that is now famously in the film due to perceiving the other watch to not be masculine enough for the hero watch of the film .

Source: https://dotwatch.tumblr.com/post/76870138070/seven-years-in-tibet

Example of Rolex Cushion Oyster:

Source: https://www.watchclub.com/rolex/oyster-cushion/thefirstwaterproofwatch-year-1928

But back to the German and Austrian team that actually made the first ascent of Nanga Parbat in 1953 - which was led by Karl Herrligkoffer - with the Austrian Herman Buhl being the man to make the summit solo - the first first ascent where this was the case due to the rest of the team turning back. In the final phase he was doped up on a form of mephamphetine - positioned as protection from frostbite - and without supplementary oxygen - I bet that was an interesting human experience! He would ultimately have to face some criticism from the other climbers due to going it alone and undermining the team summit attempt. The drama was used as the basis for the 1986 film - The Climb.

We have somewhat of a left field watch choice for this trip that I bet none of you knew about which is the German brand Henzi and Pfaff and in particular their Hercules watch. Here is a poster advertising this fact from the time and here is some footage from the actual expedition of them wearing the watches - how cool is that! The brand has been revived under new ownership and is trading hard on this historic link with the new Hercules - including engraving the height lines of Nanga Parbat into the movement.

Gasherbrum I 8068m / 26469ft

Gasherbrum I is across the Pakistan-China border and is the 11th highest peak in the world.

Nicholas Clinch led the first successful expedition and it would be Pete Schoening and Andy Kauffman - the mountaineer not the comedian! - who made the summit. We will come back to Pete later who is a serious hero! This was the first time that two climbers from the US would be the first at the top of an 8000er.

Sadly I wasn’t able to find any confirmation of the watches worn during this expedition apart from being able to see that Nick Clinch is indeed wearing a watch in this group photo. Do let me know if you have any leads!

So in my attempt to at least have one strong watch link per peak - this is as good an excuse as any to bring in Reinhold Messner - legend of 14 peak climbing, climbing without oxygen and solo climbing. The guy is hardcore to say the least. On top of being the first man to climb Everest solo and first without oxygen - the basis of the film Everest unmasked - Messner was part of the third ascent of Nanga Parbat and first of the Rupal face in 1970 with his brother Gunther who would tragically die during the descent. Reinhold himself would lose seven toes - and this story was the basis for the 2010 film Nanga Parbat. Reinhold was very much a Rolex guy - with lots of pictures of him with an Oyersterquartz, Explorer II and Submariner. On the Everest trip without supplemental oxygen climb he would be wearing a Rolex Oysterquartz Datejust alongside climbing partner Peter Habeler.

(For the rest of his Rolex’s see: https://www.rolexmagazine.com/2009/03/reinhold-messner-rolex-explorer-mark-ii.html

But more recently Mont Blanc managed to snag a deal with him -> https://www.watchtime.com/wristwatch-industry-news/watches/montblanc-partners-with-mountaineer-reinhold-messner-for-new-1858-geosphere-limited-edition/

However, for the first ascent of Gasherbrum I in 1975 he was wearing this interesting looking number - and I have no idea what it is. Almost looks like a square mechanical digital jump hour watch - as the crown makes me think it isn’t an LCD digital. Different choice. Anyone any ideas?

Gasherbrum II 8035m / 26362ft

Gasherbrum II is the 13th highest mountain in the world and was first ascended in 1956 by Austrians Fritz Moravec, Josef Larch and Hans Willenpart by the Southwest Ridge. Sadly I can again find no evidence of which watches were worn on this expedition beyond this photo showing the Larch did indeed wear a white dialled watch on a dark strap.

Source: https://sbgv1.orf.at/magazin/leben/thema/stories/149554/index.html

But our friend Reinhold Messner comes back to the rescue again - with him and Hans Kammerlander conquering both Gasherbrum I and II in the same trip in 1984 without returning to base camp documented in a film by Werner Herzog. In the film I’m almost certain that this is Messner wearing a good old swatch basic. TGV would also approve that they are rocking some FILA mountain wear throughout too.

Another link to Gasherbrum II is that Cory Richards - the first American to climb Gasherbrum II alongside Simone Moro who is very much a Garmin guy and Denis Urubko. Here is Simone Moro wearing his Garmin Fenix in 2013 and he prominently displays his Garmin sponsorship throughout the expedition.

The expedition was featured in the 2011 short film “Cold” that is worth a watch. Richards would subsequently go on to attempt to climb Everest for a third time via the North East Ridge route wearing a special prototype Vacheron Constantin Overseas Dual-Time developed especially by VC for the trip. First time I’ve seen their name pop up within the mountaineering arena!

Source: https://www.phillips.com/article/51310441/the-watch-built-for-everest-the-vacheron-constantin-overseas-prototype-worn-by-adventurer-cory-richards

K2 8611m / 28250ft

We’re back to one of the big boys -the mountain of mountains - the beast that is K2 at 8611m. This was also the scene of major history from Nims and his team who completed the first successful winter ascent of the mountain.

A story I couldn’t help but mention involves our friend Pete Schoening from Gasherbrum I - from a failed 1953 attempt of ascending K2 in an expedition led by Charles Houston. When expedition member Art Gilkey collapsed on a ridge 7600m up with DVT - they all decided to descend to try and save him. Whilst Schoening was belaying down Gilkey - George Irving Bell fell stripping off 6 of the expedition members - and Schoening manage to save them with the use of a now famous ice axe wedged in the snow. This is now simply known in mountaineering legend as “the belay” with there being generations of children and grandchildren saved by Pete’s actions. Pretty awesome right?

The summit was reached for the first time by the Italian climbers Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni, on the 1954 Italian expedition led by Ardito Desio - with Walter Bonatti and Amir Mahdi also playing major roles in the success. The respective roles have in fact been the subject of much dispute over the years, which I won’t go into. What isn’t in dispute though is that the watches the team wore were from the swiss watch manufacturer from Le Chaux de Fonds: Vulcain - with the Cricket - which had a loud alarm function that they launched in 1947.

Source: https://www.watchonista.com/vulcain/news/historical-background-ascent-k2

This watch has some seriously legit expedition cred from other trips too. Outside of its mountaineering prowess - the Cricket is known as the President’s watch as other notable wearers included Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon - and Vulcain would gift a cricket to most other US Presidents.

In addition to the Vulcain Cricket, the team also had Rolex Oyster Perpetuals with Achille Compagnoni, stating : “Your Rolex watch was with me during the whole expedition and worked perfectly, even above the 8,000-metre mark.”

Broad Peak 8047m / 26400ft

Broad Peak is the 12th highest mountain in the world. It was first ascended in June 1957 by An Austrian led expedition, with Marcus Schmuck as a leader and expedition members Fritz Wintersteller, Kurt Diemberger, and Hermann Buhl - the man from Nanga Parbat. Here is an image of Herman Buhl on Broad Peak with a cool looking watch with flat pushers - perhaps a chronograph - if you have any ideas what it is please let me know!

In the UK we’re impressed at people completing the three peaks challenge which is doing the 3 biggest peaks in the UK in under 24 hrs. Well Krzysztof Wielicki - Lord of Winter - put that to shame in 1984 making the first one day ascent solo of any 8000er in 21.5 hours. Have a look at his resume if you want to see how hardcore he is! Here he is wearing a particularly funky looking 80s number - looks like a swatch to me - but I’m not familiar with the model and I literally did the YouTube video on 80’s swatches.

Cho Oyu 8201m / 26906ft

Cho Oyu is the 6th highest mountain in the world, and of the 14 8000ers is generally considered to be the most attainable summit for those considering an ascent of one of them, with it being the most summited mountain next to Everest.

The first attempt contains many of our Everest friends with the expedition being led by Eric Shipton with team members including Edmund Hillary, Tom Bourdillon and George Lowe. They did it the year before Everest as somewhat of a preparatory trip. They ultimately were unsuccessful due to some danger on the mountain and threat from Chinese military forces. These folks were all issued with Rolex Oyster Perpetuals with Rolex sweetening up the members before the Everest expedition. For the 6 members of the team that were on the Cho Oyu expedition they would actually keep them and use them for the following years Everest expedition, with only the new members getting new watches - hence a difference in the serial number format between the two batches of watches.

Details here: https://rolexpassionreport.com/907/my-rolex-mount-everest-expedition-quest/

The first successful ascent was in 1954 by an Austrian team led by Herbert Tichy with expedition members Joseph Jöchler and Sherpa Pasang Dawa Lama. Sadly I’ve found no record of the watches linked to the expedition.

Manaslu 8163m / 26781ft

Next is Mount Manaslu - the 8th highest peak in the world at 8163m. From my perspective, the biggest link to watches is that it is the basis for the Casio Protrek logo. This mountain is very special to the Japanese due to the first ascent being by a Japanese expedition in 1956 led by Maki Yūkō, with Toshio Imanishi and Gyalzen Norbu being the summiteers after 4 unsuccessful attempts from different Japanese expeditions from 1950 to 1955.

We can see Toshio Imanishi wearing a watch here - but sadly no idea what it is

The next ascent was also a Japanese expedition in 1971 led by Akira Takahashi, with the summiteers being Kazuharu Kohara and Motoyoshi Tanaka but again sadly no watch details. I would like to think they would have worn the Seiko alpinist - born as the alpinist laurel in 1961 - as it was specifically designed for such a purpose.

Absent hard evidence for Manaslu the best I can do is show you the cool Casio Protrek 60th anniversary Manaslu editions celebrating the first ascent

Shishapangma 8012m / 26285ft

Which takes us to the last (and I suppose least in terms of height the 14th 8000er): Shishapangma in Tibet. It was the last mountain claimed by Nims following a long campaign to get approval to climb from the Chinese government. But it was also the last 8000er to be climbed historically with this only happening in 1964 by a Chinese expedition led by Xǔ Jìng. There are no records I know of for the watches they were wearing - but the year reminds me of one of my favourite watches the Seagull 1963 chronograph worn by the Chinese military, which I think would have been a nice choice (especially as I own one).

The second ascent wouldn’t take place until 1980 with the German expedition led by Manfred Abelein. The first summiteers were Michael Dacher, Wolfgang Schaffert, Günter Sturm and Fritz Zintl. Here is Michael Dacher a couple of years after with our friend Reinhold Messner when they were climbing Cho Oyu. Anyone know the watch?

And last watch of this expedition is our muse Nirmal Purjas Bremont S300 with a black and white nato he wore on Shishapangma on the day he completed the project impossible project. Kudos for Bremont - a British company - for getting that collaboration.

And that is the end of our own expedition - I really hope you’ve learned some things and enjoyed the post. A subscription to my YouTube channel would be appreciated if that is the case.

This was a slightly edited version of my normal YouTube script as I thought this may be interesting and useful to a broader audience. This builds on another excellent WatchCrunch post from @DukeMo . Let me know what you think! The references aren’t perfect here, but they will be well maintained in the video so do look to there for more sources if if you are missing them.