Watches And The Great Outdoors¶
Published on Mon, 27 Sep 2021 10:00:00 +0000
It's time for an adventure.
Synopsis¶
In this outdoor-themed episode of the Hodinkee podcast, host James Stacy is joined by Cole Pennington to explore the deep connection between watches and outdoor adventure. The conversation traces the historical evolution of outdoor watches from mid-century mountaineering and diving achievements to modern interpretations, examining how marketing and genuine capability have always been intertwined in watch design since as early as the 1920s and 1930s.
The hosts share personal stories about their most meaningful outdoor watch experiences, from Cole's adventure wearing a vintage Omega Chronostop to Burma's Shan State, to James's summit of Mount Baker wearing his Explorer II. They discuss how watches from the 1950s, despite seeming "rickety" by today's standards, accomplished incredible feats, and debate whether modern outdoor watches have become more about nostalgia and memorabilia (75%) than pure function (25%).
The episode features a fun rapid-fire draft segment where James and Cole select watches for various outdoor scenarios, from diving in the Florida Keys to cycling through the French countryside to chopping wood at a cabin. Their picks range from micro-brand dive watches and vintage Geophysics to field watches and GMTs. Throughout, they emphasize that while modern watches are incredibly capable, the romance and meaning behind outdoor watches often matters more than pure technical specifications. Cole also previews his upcoming article about the Casio Fishfinder watch, revealing that sometimes old-fashioned methods work better than technology. The conversation celebrates both serious adventure and simple pleasures like forest bathing, acknowledging that "outdoor" can mean anything from summiting mountains to a quiet walk in the woods.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| James Stacy | Watches and the great outdoors. If you're like me, or indeed my co-host for this episode, it's a match made in heaven. From famous mid-century successes at the tops of mountains and at the bottoms of the ocean to every conceivable environment in the world. If you want to go outside and do a thing, anything, really, there's likely a watch that was created specifically to do it with you. So kick off your boots, hang up your gear, and get in front of a warm fire. We'll take care of the rest, cause this audio adventure Hey everyone, it's me, James Stacy, and today our show is dedicated to the timeless pursuit of taking your watches on adventures in the great outdoors. And from climbing, hiking, biking, fishing, off-roading, and diving, I'm sure other stuff as well. I'm joined today by one of the most outdoorsy fellas I know. It's uh the Iceman, aka T L E P, Cole Pennington. How you doing, Cole? Doing good. Glad to be here. Not glad to be inside, but uh but all's well, you know. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I've been inside a lot. It's and it was uh raining the last couple days and now it's sunny and I was thinking like oh a good time for a bike ride and then I realized oh no have to do another podcast. That said if I can't go for a bike ride and enjoy the outside I I I do very much appreciate a chance to chit chat with you especially about uh today's topic. Something something I did notice I want |
| Cole Pennington | to address really quick. You said kick off your boots and get in front of a fire. Is it fire season up there in the great north true, strong and free? W |
| James Stacy | ell well no. On a the chillier evenings uh you could you could sit by a fire. I was at you know up at the cottage last weekend and it was cold enough to require a fire. Here in Toronto it's uh high seventies, so probably not exactly fire needs, but I really bend the rules on how quickly I start to enjoy a fire. I'll just sit further back if it's too hot. It |
| Cole Pennington | 's a a primal instinct to start a fire. Absolutely you know, relegate it to winter. We should do it all |
| James Stacy | year round. Yeah, there's no seasonal gatekeeping for fires. Just light something on fire and sit near it. It's fun. Amen. Uh so this week on hodinky.com, we're featuring all sorts of stories that tie watches to the great outdoors. And obviously, if I'm doing an outdoor themed show, not a hard guest to uh or a co-host to kind of pull from with Cole. I thought it would be fun to sit down and kind of set the stage for the week and and establish some tone for what watches and and great outdoors and the rest of it. Cole, you ready to chat watches, outdoor adventure, all that kind of stuff. Let's uh let's jump right in. I I am. That so |
| Cole Pennington | unded a lot like a no. No, I was just thinking like I'm always ready. I'm always ready to you know I've this is this is the kind of in the stories that both of us like to write, this is what we do anyway. If if we had our druthers, we probably would be doing outdoor week, fift |
| James Stacy | y-two weeks of the year. For sure. I think I I mean if if it wasn't for the kind of the way the world's been the last couple of years, it definitely would have been more putting watches to their through their paces in the in the outdoor scope. But uh uh tell me about um what stories you've got you you've got coming out this week that that kind of dip into the outside space. Anything exciting? Yeah |
| Cole Pennington | , the the centerpiece story is really about uh Oh, I'm so pumped for this. I'm so glad that the yeah, okay. This is so fun. It's fun, but the ending, which which I'm not gonna spoil anything, but the moral of the story is that hmm, sometimes we shouldn't give in to what folks call tool reliance. And some things are better done the old fashioned way, I will say. Okay. But I don't disagree with that for sure. Yeah, it's a I I bought this Casio Fishfinder watch, which is uh yeah, it's twenty six dollar watch, great deal. And on it it follows the solar cycle, uh the lunar calendar and it's it's so uh some arcane art. I don't even understand it really. And this is partially why I ended up rejecting the watch, but it use it it's not like you dip a tool in the water and it senses fish. It's not like it's not yeah, a fish finder to me is something that goes on a boat and uses uh sonic imaging to find or sonar to find fish, right? This watch is not that. This just is it has a little display on it, which if there are like one, two, three, four, five fish on it or something, you know, it it it's supposed to help you decide when to fish. And w you'll see. You'll see how it all it ends. But it doesn't |
| James Stacy | And so this is the the Casio WS 1200H. That's the one. Yeah. Yeah. So I like this watch just even just purely from a design standpoint, because it is this very sort of core Casio look. It's got contrasting metals. It's kind of got a a two divided screen. So you get a normal Casio function watch on the lower half and then the top half sort of has a faux radar array. Exactly. Yeah. And and then little fish icons show up. And to be honest, man, whether or not it actually finds fish is almost superfluous to to my appreciation for this inexpensive kind of weirdly cool watch. I I would agree. Is it so fun to wear around? Like and and uh here's another question. Are you just like sitting at home on the couch and it's showing you fish all the time? Yes. Depending on the s on the time of day. Literally, like when |
| Cole Pennington | when you look at the screen, it'll either be there'll be one fish, no fish, or a ton of fish, right? So that's fantastic. I |
| James Stacy | might have to buy one of these just for the novelty. Occasionally glancing glancing down, checking the time during a podcast and just |
| Cole Pennington | seeing a fish. That is cool. And I think that the novelty though I just interesting. If you're a Gho-ckS fan. So the honest truth, and this might be the core issue here, is that I am not a huge G Shock guy. I love them. I think the cultural impact that they've had to me is outstanding and so forth. But on the wrist I never really connected with him that much. So like if there were to be a G Shock that I would really get into, it would be this one. And I had to overcome some hurdles. I was the the problem is, you know, like like they say, disappointment is the space between expectations and reality. And I was really expecting this to actually find fish, like use some sonar imaging and so forth. And I was just Yeah, like what's the tech here? How do they do it? Yeah, and it and it's like some hokey farmer's almanac type stuff. And uh, you know, that to me, like when you're fishing, I think after you know a long time doing it, you can read the water, you just know you don't need technology to tell you how to catch a fish. So that's the the the story I did, |
| James Stacy | you know. Do you figure that what this is is more of a in this way more of an affectation to loving fishing than it is a tool of fishing? I think so. And I think this |
| Cole Pennington | that's the main takeaway. Like a lot of gear is, right? I mean, keep in mind. Oh, absolutely. Not even fishing. Almost anything |
| James Stacy | . Like, do you need all this gear? No, you don't. No, and we're we're absolutely going to get into that. I really love this fishfinder watch. Uh but it is funny because you bring up a point that you're not a huge G Shock guy, and the truth is is neither am I. I've had my time with G Shocks, but I've never found one that I loved and couldn't get rid of or couldn't live without. And the closest I ever came to really loving one, and I did love this watch and I I continue to really like it, was in the outside sort of outdoorsy theater. Was when I first moved out west, so I grew up near Toronto, and uh years back I moved to Vancouver and suddenly I had mountains and ocean and uh kind of a limitless outdoors style playground to to access. And uh of course I needed watches to make the most of it. Totally. Uh how else does one function? Uh and and I ended up with uh Rangeman ninety four hundred, which is kind of a big, beefy, military styled watch, but it has all of their ABC features. And this is kind of before the rise of the functionally workable GPS enabled this is before like I think I went from that watch to a Garmin Phoenix 3. So that had that was three generations in which Garmin was able to refine that product to the point where people really started to rave about it. And and they are, in my opinion, the go-to outdoorsy watch right now, if if if you care about having any sort of metric or tracking or navigation all on your wrist. Totally. But when I first got out there, you know, you'd go hiking and I wasn't necessarily, you know, I didn't need to know how quickly I did a 10 kilometer hike or how many feet up or down I went or whatever, but it was helpful to have the low pressure warning. So if the barometric pressure drops suddenly, it would give you a little chime to say like, hey, it's there's probably going to be a storm, which can be handy in the mountains. And then uh just the ability to have a compass that was pretty reliable and some of these sorts of things was was great. And I think that's kind of what set the stage for me in terms of actually picking an outdoors watch for outdoor activities. But I think the the the legacy of outdoor watches is almost the inverse. It was making a watch that could handle all of the outdoor activities, but was a watch you wore all the time. Whether that be, you know, uh an early oyster, um, or then you get into things like obviously the Explorer and and all of the fame that surrounds some of these really famous sort of outdoor themed watches. And then I think when when that was kind of established, when we had things like the Explorer and its connection to Everest and you know, these big ties between product and a location and even at the time a lifestyle that wasn't seen as a profession. Let's use mountaineering. Yeah. Right. Like if you go back far enough, rock climbing was a dirtbag activity. It's not something you did unless you were homeless and attempting to live, you know, on bags of wine in Yosemite or something. But people listening should go back and watch uh uh Valley Uprising uh for the kind of the kind of look back at that. But in the European context it it was seen as a little bit more of a of a of a vocation uh than it was in in the North American, at least up until uh recently. And then you you started to get these weird derivations where suddenly it couldn't just be a watch that could go outside and do all this stuff. It had to be for mountaineering, or it had to be for caving, or it had to be just for diving or it had to be for diving even deeper or saturation diving or which I'm gonna call that outdoors, although it in many ways that's an indoor pursuit in an outdoor theater. It really is. Yeah. The funny thing is is a lot of watches, especially a watch made today, could survive almost all of this, regardless of whether it's a dive watch or field watch or a pilot's watch. It could be a dress watch. If it's made appropriately and you you kind of work within its water resistance is probably the big iffy, it's probably would survive. And and and if you've ever held a a really early anything from the fifties and you go like something of this quality made it to the top of Everest, and now you look at what people would say you would need to wear a watch to the top, but it would have to be shock absorbent and magnetic resistance and have an incredible power reserve and be made out of three different types of metal and all of it would be hardened and and it would have this incredible strap that was meant to go on the outside of your, you know, giant parka, when did we go from the kind of I guess purity or the simplicity of making a watch that could do a lot of stuff to wanting the watch that could do really insane things that we never planned on doing. |
| Cole Pennington | So this is very, very interesting and obviously something we both spend a lot of time thinking about. For sure. One data point or period in history, you you touched on the fifties, right? Ascent of Everest and so forth, but something else happened then, which I think points to the sort of the right watch for the right job. So, you know, you're normally the right tool for the right job, right? But having the right watch for the right job, and that was nineteen fifty seven, the the geophysic year. So nineteen fifty-seven a bunch of governments got together and said this is the year that we're gonna explore the poles and so forth, and this is the year of exploration, and this is where the um the geophysic. The JLC. Yeah. So this is where that came from, and a number of other watches too. So and they were named after this event. So as early as the 50s, which is when in our, you know, sort of rose tinted view of the past, there was a little bit of a marketing spin on watches geared for a specific purpose outdoors when it in fact could just be a watch, right? So I my the theory that I kind of have been working on is that almost as early as watches were around, like for instance, and we'll talk about this later, I think, but trench watches were also developed with style and certain applications and so forth that weren't necessarily only to be impervious to the elements. There's always a little flair on all of this stuff. |
| James Stacy | So Well, I mean, you you look you look back at the history of the pilot's watch, it started, you know, with Santos Dumont and and that that was a very a watch that today would be seen as a very the a very dressy take on a sporty sort of idea. And ever |
| Cole Pennington | ything sort of had that elegance back then. Almost. I mean almost everything had this dressy elegance. Just people were a little bit more stylish. And and things. Like you look at uh even industrial design, streamlined design, like the uh trains of the era and so forth. Everything looked slightly more elegant, the DC three and |
| James Stacy | planes of the thirties. The other thing that I think is worth considering, because I don't think you can look at anything from the fifties outside of the context of it being post-war. And it is an interesting concept because we I think it's easy to say, but it takes some consideration, the point being that a lot was learned about manufacturing of all types during the war, and that included the ability to make a a watch to a specification that could then endure the battlefield and and the rigors of the battlefield. And that had to have informed all of especially watches like that started to come out in nineteen fifty three, nineteen fifty-four, nineteen fifty-seven, like these are things that would have hinged on data and experiences and production methodology that was developed during World War II, no? A |
| Cole Pennington | good example would be you know,, the it's been explained a million times, but milgauss and watches that are impervious to magnetism. I think this is the atomic age, the fifties. And that, you know, like everything, pilot swatches too, and I've talked about this a million times, it's a massive conversation between advancements in society and advancements in watchmaking. With the pilot swatches, I think I've mentioned it where you know you have dead reckoning, then all of a sudden you have GMT when you can cross time zones, and now you have all sorts of uh oh you have the the argon filled watches and so forth. So if we look at almost every watch made for an outdoor purpose. Although there is one thing, I will say the 50s, 50s and 60s, the amount of technology, you know, Worth's law and computing and so forth, and the that was a relatively recent, right? 80s to now, computing power exponentially increased. I think technology and watches exponentially increased in the area you're talking about. So the 50s, once we had that little bit of manufacturing know-how, all of a sudden the watches got that much better and really haven't changed that much yet. But you're right. Most things can can do everything today, right? But how much better than the 50s? I don't |
| James Stacy | know. It's good point. I don't yeah, like you you look back at watches that that people did incre incredible, you know, things with uh including going to the moon and going to the bottom of the ocean and and going to the top of Everest and and and all these sorts of things and you go like, oh, but if I held any of those watches today, they'd feel kind of rickety comparative Yeah. And it it is an interesting thing to see not only just the advancement of watches post-war, but also their continued attachment with the idea of conquering things and discovery and exploration and just raw kind of that like kind of Britishy new world. It's there, so we should go see it and draw a map of it and then, you know, put our flag there and come home, right? Like and I would even |
| Cole Pennington | say during one of JFK's speeches in the NASA mission statement, man's pursuit of the unknown is very exactly is is tied to this idea. And I think that is why we love to get to the real crux of this all, this is why we love watches, because it it's just an encapsulation of this romantic idea that man can conquer nature. Man versus nature is possible with |
| James Stacy | a watch on the wrist. Yeah. And I I also think this is the time in which we started to establish the idea that being able to own something that did something even if I'm not going to do it, but like if I respect the person or or the or the endeavor, the project, the exploration, the whatever, there was like intrinsic value to a brand being able to say, We were the first at the top of Everest, which is even to today a contentious point. And and a topic for a different podcast entirely. But we're we're still seeing that today, whether it's it's um it maybe it's a thinner slice like the latest thing that Mike Horn did gets a watch made, you know, for it or or maybe it's a kind of a wider slice where you look at uh like you know probably the the gold standard in this space is Rolex and and their ability to leverage different environments, including the outside world, the world of science, the world of you know, medical research and and such as theaters for where their watches do real work. You know, to to quote almost exactly quoting their sort of um phrasing around the the topic. But I think the thing that hits me, and I at least I'm not saying it's for everyone, but definitely for me is it works. I like I I have touch points in watches that are almost exclusively tied to the people and the place and and the the crazy thing they tried to do and and it's always kind of spoken to me. I mean that so |
| Cole Pennington | one watch would never be as it would always be as good as the next watch if that weren't the case. Right. So I think this is kind of like uh I was this who said this? Was it Shelby or Enzo Ferrari? Somebody said win on Sunday, |
| James Stacy | sell on Monday. That sounds like a Shelby, but I don't want to miss a tribute uh you know, cause uh you know the it could have been the Deuce, it could have been Iacoka. Exactly. Yeah, you're right. And it could've yeah. There's there's some guy there's some pretty quotable folks in |
| Cole Pennington | the part of the world for sure. In this era. But this idea that obviously you put a watch on the moon, whatever, and it sells a ton of them, that we're we can't figure this out why we love watches, right? We just do. For this very reason. It can you see through the marketing? Sure. You can. Do you want to? Exactly. Yeah. Why bother? Like it's kind of nice |
| James Stacy | to know. And I think that there's nothing wrong with that. So within that, what what are some of your either most memorable or earliest touch points between the connection uh probably a marketing connection in most cases, but then I don't think that makes it less legitimate. It just gives it a different tone. Your connection between watches and adventuring. Anything anything stand out when I when those sorts of words come up? Yeah, I think I |
| Cole Pennington | remember getting a Swiss Army watch back in the day and um it you know it's the classic field watch formula. This was like maybe single digits or like early 10 eleven, something like that.. Yeah And remember reading the copy or oh my god, yeah, that's what it was. It was an in-flight magazine or something that got sent to the house. You know, one of these like old school mailers or something like that. For sure. And part of the very mall catalog or something? Yeah, something something chooggy. But um part of the verbiage was that this I think the watch was called the Calvary and it kind of conjured up images of men on horseback roaming around and and so forth. And I don't know why, I just thought that was kind of nice. And uh I guess early on the the first watch I ever got into or appreciate or whatever was yet was a field watch, which to me is the quintessential outdoor watch, even though that's hard to say. That's just a you say outdoor watch, I say field watch, you know |
| James Stacy | . Yeah, I would agree, absolutely. Yeah, my my my earliest touch point with it was like m the first watch I bought with it was a Timex expedition. My very first Timex from my parents was a was a an Iron Man, an early Iron Man IndieGlow. And then I went on and and the next one I got was this like gray expedition with red buttons. I still remember it. I I really love this watch. It was a super cool thing. And then years later, the watch that actually kind of brought me to I guess Capital W watches was a Columbia field watch. So not only was it a field watch style, a very simple Svelte case, Arabic numerals on a kind of salmon colored dial, but it was from a, you know, I got it because And those two things were like the easiest it was like I think if I had been born ten years earlier, I would have bought one of those LL beans that they made with Hamilton that had the birds on them or whatever, right? Like those are so cool. So good. Yeah. Those watches and and I think it exists in higher end watches too, but those watches have that little spark of like uh like the Boy Scouts or the Girl Guides, like like this this introduction to this big world. The world's a big place and it requires a little bit of gear to get the most out of it, and that includes a good field watch. First point, did you write about that, Timex? You wro |
| Cole Pennington | te a pretty great article, yeah. I remember reading something about this. I wrote a piece about my the first one, yeah. The Iron Man. The Iron Man, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Great piece. Second thing. Regarding Boy Scouts and so forth. And that we can blow this concept up. But you know how stoked you get? Like let's say you have a trip planned or whatever, the gear up process, like researching every bit of gear and so forth. I think the watch is the ultimate piece of gear in the larger kit. Not the most essential. I mean, you're gonna need an ice axe if you're going ice climbing. But the watch is the one that does the least but means the most in the entire setup. So researching all these watches and so forth, the same feeling, the same giddiness you were saying like kind of the Boy Scout vibe and so forth, the same giddiness from buying your first uh Swiss Army knife and carving a oh yeah pinewood derby car and stuff like Slicing deep into one of your fingers. |
| James Stacy | Yeah, and that that happens. I mean that's a rite of passage. Find me someone who didn't who didn't do that in the first couple of days with |
| Cole Pennington | their with their Swiss Army night. Only get the the stuff only gets bigger and unfortunately more expensive. As time goes on. So this is there's more stitches too. The knives get bigger. And it might not be your hands |
| James Stacy | . Yeah, for sure. I think it's an interesting thing that that that's kind of where it starts. And then like in some ways and in and I guess this it's marketed to kids that like even like a watch has a sort of an adventurous quality. It's there's some freedom that comes with it. And I wonder at the time if this kind of like 50s perspective that was that was kind of connecting watches with these kind of big events in the outdoor theater, what like I said, mountains, ocean, all these sorts of things. I wonder how much of that was tied to a traditional perspective where watches and time were always important on things like expeditions. The first piece I ever wrote as |
| Cole Pennington | a like a full-time hooding game ploy. It was about this long jeans traveling crate. But it was all right. So basically imagine a wooden crate where someone opens up a wooden crate, pulls out this display case of all these legendary longines using aviators. Okay. So like thirty, forty people. And it would show their and this was the thirties. This was mainly the thirties and a little bit earlier. So I'd say late 20s all the way into late 30s, just pre-war. As early as that, Longines was packaging their ambassadors and naming their achievements on this display showcase along with the watch. So a traveling salesman would come open up this thing, present you a wooden uh tr I don't even know, no, it's not really a tray, but a display piece with the watch and the aviator that's tied to that watch as early as that time period, the 30s. Right. So that even as early back as that, we were still tying these watches to achievements like flying around the world or transatlantic crossing or right or a a military connection or yeah Byrd was on Admiral Bird even. So all of all of these things. And that was, you know, uh polar expeditions and so forth that he was doing, in addition to many other things. But it goes to show you that even as far back as the twenties and thirties, we were seeing this tactic. Uh, it's not a new thing. That's that's like when we, yeah, the latest Braymont or the latest Hamilton or even the Vacheron Overseas celebrating Corey Richards achievements. Like this is a tradition that dates back a century. |
| James Stacy | And I think we we forget that. Yeah, I think that's true. I hadn't considered it in a as having stretched that far. You know, I in some ways I see the the Everest and the you know challenger deep dive in in um sixty as as these kind of pillars of of where watches were solidified as being more than something that just tells time. Yeah. An outdoors piece. Yeah. They like became these totems to wild adventure that you could then sell to somebody that was like t ten percent memorabilia and ninety percent of uh just a solid watch that you could wear every day. And I think we're doing the same thing now. It's just that that memorabilia part isn't ten percent, especially in the last decade where we're making all our watches look like they were made in nineteen sixty and and and that kind of thing. I think now it's like the watch thing and and and the quality of watches is so high, generally speaking. I would say that the the mix is now like 75% memorabilia or nostalgia even, and twenty-five percent the watch that you plan to wear. And if you're selling a watch to enthusiasts, you gotta know they might wear it thirty days a year. They got other watches to wear, right? Gotta keep the rotation going, yeah. Yeah. So it it it's a funny thing, but I do wonder uh to kind of ground uh pun intended the the conversation, when I say a time, you know, you when you had a great time with a a watch in some sort of an outdoor theater, what jumps to mind? So this |
| Cole Pennington | one this is interesting. This will go back to your point of you might think the watches back then were rickety. So I had a and this is gonna sound weird, but I'll try and explain it the best I can. There is a there's something called the Shan State of Burma, which is like a rebel-held territory, and it's it's a state within a state. And myself and a buddy went on a trip up to the crazy places that, you know, you have to get permits to go to, dah dah, da. Back then I went through the process of yeah, deliberating like what watch should I bring for this? And you know, some trips are easy. It's a dive watch and so you're gonna bring a dive or a dive trip, so you're gonna bring a dive watch. Right. This was not, this was sort of an overland trip, it's sort of just a I don't even know what to call it, like a trip into the middle of the jungle where it's like pack in, pack out, and these people like their whole face is tattooed and so forth. Okay. And uh a few days before this I actually was shopping at a market and came across an omega chronostop. An old, you know, 70s chronostop, which was a budget watchy And yeah, it's got a polycrystal, it's a vintage watch and all this stuff. And I was about to, you know, go into a place that is not easy on watches. And I was thinking, should I do this or not? It's a beautiful vintage watch. It still has its radial brushing on the case. And I was like, F it. Let's do it. So I just I brought the watch. I brought the watch and it was absolutely fine. Totally fine. Yeah. And I mean, it would have been fine in the 70s too, right? When it came out. For sure. So this is one of those times, the first time I ever I know Jason has done this with the Blanc Pon piece, which I loved. But taking a watch from another time, diving something historic, something meaningful, oh yeah. A vintage watch. And you know, using it as if it were a modern watch. So I did that one time. That was a meaningful trip because yeah, the watch made it through just fine as we we would expect. But you might not expect plenty of people would say oh I'm not wearing my vintage watch when it's misty out or and it's true. Some like I remember walking to work one time what Okay. And it was just like misty. It was just raining a little bit, and I looked down and there's fog in the crystal I'm like, ah, Jesus Christ. Like it's just raining. Yeah. But so some watches do. So you have to really take care of it. But watches that were initially made to do these kind of things and have been mainedtain. Maintain. Yeah, for sure. Exactly. If they've been maintained or you get 'em refreshed or whate |
| James Stacy | ver. They can do it just fine. Yeah, the gaskets don't last forever for sure. Even even it doesn't ru doesn't matter what your watch costs. Exactly. How how about you? Give me a story. Ah man. Um I mean I I I very uh consciously picked a watch when I summited Baker uh back uh a few years back. Uh so I had my Explorer 2 on one wrist and I had a Phoenix 3 on the other. So I've all and I like that because now I can look back and in photos, the Explorer 2 is there and you can see the white dial. It looks amazing. You know, it's like a blue Jay Day on the top of Baker and you can see uh three other mountains and perfect visibility, amazing. It was a a a great trip. And then I can also like flip back in my Garmin app and see how long it took and what time we left and like all all this like interesting data that doesn't have the same emotional kind of quotient as as seeing my explorer there and and knowing that I, you know, I I can wear that explorer anytime and I I even have uh an engraving, you know, you you're a big fan of case back engravings. And I have an engraving designed, it hasn't been done yet 'cause I want it done by a certain person in New York. But I have an engraving that'll have the relief of of Baker, uh kind of how it looks on the on the horizon over a short message where I I had got the watch for my 30th. And as a kind of ushering into full-time, like this is my job. I I work in the watch industry and I end uh luckily the timing worked out where I could afford a Rolex and it being the one that I really, really like, a 16570. But man, there's there's like uh there's like a lot. I I was I was chatting with someone recently and just talking about all of the great like big adventure episodes of top gear. Oh man, great. And I get so thrilled when you see how hard those guys work while keeping their watches on. Yeah. Cause like Clarkson's been wearing roughly the same, I think the same planet ocean. It's a 42mm planet ocean on a rubber strap for like a decade now. And and you want to talk about a watch that's that's been that's been everywhere. Like he's literally been ever that watch has been everywhere. Yeah, he literally has. Covered in mud, covered in dirt, deserts, mountains, uh you know, jungles, streams, rivers, o |
| Cole Pennington | ceans, all of it. Tell you it's not it's not the watch I'm concerned about handling environments. It's Clarkson. And somehow he pulls it |
| James Stacy | off. Well I think that's the fun of it, right? Yeah, it's true. But the the watch isn't breaking a sweat, but those guys usually are uh at some point in the journey. But those that that always makes me smile too. And and the other thing I like about it is um, you know, I think there's like classic adventure that's really not that transparent. It's not that accessible. Mountain climbing is expensive, it takes a huge amount of time, it takes a huge amount of training. But I think there's also like, you know, things you can do that that are like less intense and scary that are still a really nice time to enjoy a watch. And it could be like walking in the park. Like sometimes I'll know that I I I need to decompress a little bit the concept is like uh forest bathing. It's like a Japanese concept. My my apologies towards Shinru Yoku or something. Shirin Yoku, yeah. Okay. So I I I didn't I was just gonna apologize for not having the the correct term, but Cole saved me there. And sometimes I'll pick like kind of this is a word I absolutely hate, fancy, but uh kind of my fanciest watch, and I'll go for a stroll in the woods just because it kind of feels I don't know, the m needlessly resplendent. Oh, okay. Nice. And uh and that kind of stuff. But it you know, there's you know, you don't need uh uh an incredible, you know, ten thousand dollar dive watch to go fishing. But what what what do you think of like if it's not going to be a fish finder, what watch would you take fishing? That that can be that's one of those tasks that can be kinda like hiking or even walking where it can be really chill or it can be really intense. Like there's a |
| Cole Pennington | big delta. That's an super, super interesting point. I didn't haven't even thought about this for a lot a long time, but I think we were a I was asked this at some point for a hodinky piece and the truth of the matter is I wear my SBGK007 fishing when I'm by myself and it's light duty. Like uh I did this road trip. Oh, for TGN. I we talked about it. This uh you know road trip through the Ozarks and so forth, and every day I wore that watch in the Homachido River in Mississippi and the White River in Arkansas, you know, just wet in a line. And why? Because you said it's light duty and it's and you said it's needlessly resplendent. I would say it's it's a philosophical and intellectual exercise more than it is a physical exercise, just walk |
| James Stacy | ing through the world. Absolutely. And for those of you who who don't didn't catch that reference number, that's a grand seco from the elegance collection. It is elegant. It's a really gorgeous watch. It's a watch I now attribute to you. One of their most beautiful designs. It also feels in many ways like a classic Grand Seco. And they're that's not typically a watch that you would attribute as an adventurer's piece necess,arily. No. Or even the watch you would find somebody on a boat in, you know, in in the Sea of Cortez, you know, doing some some fishing, and that's what you might have on wrist if we if that's where we found it. It's true. And I Ben likes |
| Cole Pennington | to call Langa a cerebral brand. Like, oh it's a very cerebral brand and so forth. I think Grand Seiko's obviously the same way. It's it's one that kind of entertains the intellectual portion of watch appreciation rather than the physical, like it can get through something. So fishing is the same way. So the sort of congruency between reading the water, appreciating nature, sort of the uh the Emerson vibe and Absolutely then the high horology. I find this interaction needlessly resplendent. |
| James Stacy | I that's how I like as that's how I like as much of my life as possible to be needlessly resplendent. But uh you know, I I'm I'm interested to hear uh something a little bit more concrete, a little bit more um specific. If we're talking about outdoorsy watches, not even watches for adventure or mountain climbing or whatever, but like just outdoorsy watches, then we kind of have that like very simple delegation between land, sea, and air. Uh if you wanted to show somebody the kind of archetype in your mind for each of those things,. What watch like if you said this is kind of the starting point for a land watch, this is the starting point for a seat, like where where do you land on that as far as uh if if you had to paint the picture to uh to somebody new to it. Right. How do you separate these in your mind? |
| Cole Pennington | Field watch, Arabic numerals, Hamilton khaki field, land. This is, you know, derived from soldiers marching. Like land watch. See? I don't want to say sub. I'm just not gonna say it. So let's go blanc pen fifty fathoms. Okay. Let's just say that. Traditional straightforward dive watch. Yeah. Straightforward dive watch. Areas where it gets a little more complicated because I am inclined to say GMT Master, but I bet you you're not. I bet you you're probably inclined to say something different. Yeah, probably Fleager. Probably. Yeah. that within aviation there are so man |
| James Stacy | y applications like yeah I I think the team teamaster is special because it's born of an entirely different era of aviation than the Fleger was or or the Santos before it. It's a dive watch, more or less. It's essentially a dive watch that doesn't have a dive bezel. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Which which I think makes a lot of sense because the the there is this um kind of blurring of the lines these days with ad with adventurous watches, where it seems like we've got field watches that could absolutely be used for diving, aside from not having a bezel. And you've got a pilot's watch that could also be used for you got diving watches that could be used for anything because they're just at this point we've we're just making indestructible things. Most of my dive watches will outlive me uh uh almost certainly yeah they all probably will yeah, but I I would agree with land it,'s you know, in my mind it is the khaki field or something like that that Columbia field watch that I had that kinda kicked off my one day it just stopped running and I was like, Oh, I I has a battery, I guess I need a battery and I went to the store and they're putting a new battery in it, I'm looking at the display case full of Seiko's and citizens and going like I like a lot of these. I think I might need a few more. And uh yeah, the you know uh that that ball is still rolling downhill uh as we speak. But uh and then and then when you get to to see, for me it is probably a sub or a sea dweller. And and it's not so much that the that I would take anything away from the Blancbon. I would argue the Blanc Pon's a better looking watch. Really? Wow. Okay. But there's nothing there's almost nothing more iconic than a submariner. Yeah. Especially once you get to the once they really had figured out, you know, the the the format, the the appearance of the kind of Mercedes hands, and then with later versions the they just really kind of locked into one thing and they're not messing with it at this point. And then for for air it's it's tough because in my mind the other one that jumps to my mind and and and and and I think there's an argument here, it's the it's the speedy. Ooh, well that's so A, there's no air in space. There's no air in space, to be fair, but it is that like it's a racing watch, but it was also like arguably the the pillar watch of space travel. And space travel is an extension of flying. Yeah, it is. It's aeronautical pursuit. And then the fun thing is is even within Omega, if it's not a speedy, then it could be a Flight Master, uh, which I know you're a big a big fan of. But I I kind of agree that it's either got to be a Flieger or a GMT master. Um because the two have but they and they define kind of different eras, whereas the the dive watch, I guess the the fleeger version of the dive watch in this would be what? Like a really early panorai? Yeah. So no bezel, but still a watch meant to go underwater, you know, Rolex powered. It's kind of a a a weird thing, but it it's fun to try and think of where everybody lands as like if I say field watch, uh what what comes what pops into your mind? All right. Well we're we're pushing our way towards an hour here. I've got kind of a uh a pseudo quick draft idea that we're gonna try. We haven't tried this. We didn't talk about it um previously. Flying by the seat of our pants here. All right. I want to say uh uh pick a watch that you think aligns And I won't like it'll be a rapid fire, like quick, yeah. Uh we'll just go back and forth. But I I've made a point of not when I wrote when I typed these out, I didn't think of watches that I wanted as my answer. So we'll see if you can influence me or just sell me on uh you know on the idea. So let's start with um one that I think is probably easy. You go and diving in the keys uh for a weekend. You don't need to, you know, you're leaving the office and you can grab an outdoor watch, a diving watch, presumably. What are you taking in the keys |
| Cole Pennington | ? The mito or mito decompression, the colorful thing to match the Caribbean vibe. What is this called new one for you, the with the blue di |
| James Stacy | al or the older one? Yeah, the turquoise. Yeah. Yeah. I think that new one is a remarkably good looking watch. Same. Me too. And I've had a couple people who like aren't watch people write me and go like, Hey, what's up with this? Is this any good? And I'm like, it's I think it's really good. I haven't seen in person, but I love the coloring. So I think that's a pretty good pick. You know, I would lean towards you know, forever be a micro brand. Yeah. Stan. I just I just love it. So give me, give me the you know, synchron Military or maybe I'm I've got my um my Aquastar Deep Star remake. I'm not sure that counts as a micro brand, um, but I think in its modern context, it's probably run by a couple people, so why not? Just a beautiful watch that also looks kind of right at home in and around the scene of diving. And then for a lot of my dives in Vancouver, it was always a Seiko. SKX 0007 or later on, you know, a lot, lots with an SRP 7 Which I'm I'm very excited to take that diving uh at some point in the in the near future. All right, we're gonna mix it up a bit. You're going foraging for mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest. What are you taking with you? This is more of like a chill. Maybe you're alone, maybe you're out there with a with a dog or two or a friend, you're strolling in the woods, pipe or a cigar, looking for you know what? |
| Cole Pennington | A vintage geophysic actually is the answer. I think that's a sick pull for sure. Yeah. It's yeah. Low stress activity. Yeah. What would I take? What would I |
| James Stacy | take? Um field watch, perhaps? Yeah, maybe like a dirty dozen. Ooh, great choice. Excellent. You know, like you got like a barber jacket on, it's a little bit cool out and you've got the uh a nice old dirty dozen. You know you're not gonna hurt it. Yeah. This is a really good choice. And it can be it can be like an important thing, but y it gets it back out in the woods. So I think I probab'lyll go like a dirty dozen. All right. Uh let's up the any a little bit. This time we're going hiking in the Rockies. You're making a bid for Long's Peak. You're worried about time because the afternoons are full of thunderstorms. But you also want to get to the top of that 14er. So uh how's this working out? This is gonna be a wat |
| Cole Pennington | ch I wrote about the uh SUF field watch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know the one I'm talking about? I would say yeah, this is just a a good opportunity for a field watch if you're up the mountains and so forth. And |
| James Stacy | uh that one yeah it'll work for me. I think with the possibility of you know, you never really know what's gonna happen in the mountains. You might be there overnight. Um, you've got the gear in the back in case that happens. I'd go like uh marathon navigator, something I could read at night really easily that weighs nothing on my wrist, that I don't have to really worry about. I mean the the truth is I'd probably be wearing a garmin and also have like an a a tied in in reach. Yeah. You know, now that they're that you can get them integrated. But if we're talking more of like a classic mechanical or or quartz watch, then yeah, probably like a marathon navigator, which I think is like a real sneaky watch that sits right in the the like deepest part of the the kind of divide between a dive watch and a a field watch. And I think they're slept on, you know, plastic case, tritium tubes, great looking watch. It's actually a a pilot's watch though, which is neither one of us. True enough, it's a pilot's watch.. Yeah So maybe it's all three. Maybe maybe that's like the is that that is. That's the it is. The gleaming the cube of of uh of outdoor watches. It's just a I think so. All right. So um we'll take it back to where you are these days. You're going off roading in Utah for a few days. So mostly low stress. Um but you'll you know some obstacles, camping, that sort of thing |
| Cole Pennington | . Oh man, I don't have one at the ready for this. But I actually so I've thought about doing this with a number of watches for articles. And I will say, okay, I got one. And hey hell, I might even do this. The new Seiko Alpinist. I think it's a great uh |
| James Stacy | SPB two four three? Is that that the I don't know the I don't know the the uh reference offhand. The fifties inspired one. Right. Yeah, with the triangular north south east west marker and yeah, uh a great looking thing, a little on the pricey side uh for the L E and then they have a standardized version that is also one I'd love to see in person and have been tempted to pick up a couple times. They're good looking things. What you bringing? Off-roading in Utah. I w I want my um I want my uh brightling Aerospace, my E56062, which I think is one of the sweetest things the company's ever made. This is their thinnest, smallest one. So it's 40 millimeters. It's like 11 thick. It's on that titanium bullet style bracelet. I know it. I know it. Yeah, yeah. I'm worth I've I owned one and it's one of the few watches in the last five years that I actually regret having sold. Uh I had the full gray, gray dial, no gold, gray, gray, gray, gray, gray. It was already beat up by the time I got it. It looked like someone had left it in a stream and just let you know erosion take so it's a little smoothed out, but th that really suits the titanium and and it's just um it's just such a a a perfect like sports watch that has a few other things. So if I needed a chronograph, if I needed a second time zone, if you wanted an alarm to make sure you could get up at a certain time for your trip or whatever, I think that would work. And also I it's so thin and light that if I had to reach under my car or be digging with a shovel, it's not going to be flopping around on my wrists. I'm not scratching it against everything if I reach into the engine bay to, you know, replace a cable or a tube or something. So I think it aligns nicely with that sort of this the the space in which you might be doing some uh some overlanding in Utah. Great pick. All right. This one's a little bit more chill. We're just cycling a quiet back road in the French countryside. Ah you know, you got a baguette and a bottle of wine. Oh yeah. Okay, I know what I'm going then. A lady or a fellow on your mind. All right. Ding ding as they go by, right? Just kind of waving, waving at the farmers, looking at cows |
| Cole Pennington | . Um I think I'm gonna go a vintage leap or L I P chronograph? Oh sure. Is that how do you say that? Leap, right? |
| James Stacy | Yeah. I always said lip, but I'm I'm I'm cultured, so I mean w what is there to say? I don't pronounce anything correctly |
| Cole Pennington | . Bicompacts or or two register chronographs like in pink and blue and like all sorts of weird colors and so forth. I think this would A honor the French. B would be, you know, fit in with the vibe of cycling, maybe a Peugeot, an old uh Reynolds tubing Peugeot bike, you know, just cruising along there. I think that would be fantastic. All right. |
| James Stacy | Okay. What about you? I think this is where I would want a field watch, I think would kind of work. You know, if you're off going off to do the kind of picnic thing, maybe a little ride through the countryside. I think a ham Hamilton khaki field would look would work pretty well in that in that scenario. It's like no fuss, no must, but also just like simple and easy. And if you end up biking back during sundown, you get good loom and and the rest of it. So I |
| Cole Pennington | I think that would work. Would you go standard steel, earth tone, black dial, PVD, white dial? What combo are we talking about? I do white dial. |
| James Stacy | It's usually my mode. White dial. But I like the standard steel one's excellent. I th there's not really a bad one. It's just like whatever whatever you decided. You know, I'm probably wearing a a nice striped shirt. Oh yeah. What's that? The uh the French Sa |
| Cole Pennington | ilor Yeah. The br Breton or something? A Jaunty hat. Yeah. Oh yeah. This is uh this is a nice vibe. I can get maybe pick up a little Dijon mustard from the shop down the street. Exactly, yeah |
| James Stacy | . Yeah, I like it. I'd like a nice aged or not like an aged but a smoky cheese like a douanier maybe. Uh yeah. Something with a nice ash line. I think that's the direction I would go. The outside doesn't have to mean hard or climbing something or trying to breathe air that's not yours All right, let's say uh we're doing some reasonably intense fishing in Thailand. W |
| Cole Pennington | ell maybe even a liveaboard. Ooh, liveaboard. Okay. Um tell you what watch I'm not gonna bring. It's that fish finder watch. I'm not gonna bring that |
| James Stacy | . It's just uh you know guys, this thing's always going off. We gotta get our lines in the water. I mean, like we're missing we're missing stuff here. Oh man. There's fish everywhere |
| Cole Pennington | . I would think uh I would bring so you know what I would do? Given this, I would actually do one of the Thai limited edition mini turtles. There are there's a yellow one and a green one and they come in a set. And they're it's an SRP C based watch. Yeah. The Spar SRP C fours and so on. And I would do one of the tie LE's there. Um or hell a yellow monster if I can get my hands on |
| James Stacy | it. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. That's the way. Well yeah I mean in the same price range as that yellow monster that you uncovered. I mean, but not quite, but close. Um I I would lean, I would this is where I want a I want a pelegos. I want it on the rubber strap. Just a good choice. Zero, zero fuss, like super modern, really great at everything. And if you bang it on a gunwale or uh, you know, g get it caught in something or get it covered in fish guts, it like none of it matters. It's a palagos. It's the tough it's as tough as they get. It's a great one. Um I think these these are are great answers. That's all I've got on the list. Did anything come to your mind? You want to throw one in? Any scenarios? Uh sure. I'll I'll give you a |
| Cole Pennington | quick one here. You're uh this is this will be a great finish here. Back to the beginning when you said you were building a fire up at the cabin or cottage. Cabin cottage, you know. So about a month from now, you're up there chopping wood. So you're putting your watch through some abuse, I would say. Chopping wood to build a fire uh in the morning. That's the morning duty. And then the afternoon you're gonna be making a really nice game stew uh using some cast iron cookware. And at night actually after that you put the stew on and then you go out for a brief shoot. Maybe you wanna, you know, unload a few shells in the backyard and so forth. So again, this is this this it's not gonna be a dress watch. Right. You come in, have your stew and enjoy you know a fine fine scotch by the fire you just built. Sure. That's that's the vibe. What watch are you gonna wear doing this |
| James Stacy | ? I mean, outside of the stew, this is pretty much in my methodology for how I spend my cottage weekend.s That's what I was going for. Uh a little bit of fire, a little bit of little bit of shooting, uh and and and some and some late night drinking for sure. Uh yeah, probably the Explore too. That feels like a nice route well-rounded, you know, day where I I I want I want to wear something that makes me happy when I look at it, but otherwise I don't want to think about it or or be like have it be part of my my relaxation. And I think for me, like to be honest, answer the most of these. My answer is the explorer too. I just love I love that watch, but um yeah, I think I'd probably go explore too. Um, how about you for fire, stew, shooting and drinking? Uh yeah, it's answer just the GMT. There you go. Uh I'm bringing my my equivalent of the Explorer too, you know. I love seeing you wear that watch. I I love it. I've always wanted one. I have a huge love of the 16710. Uh I think it's like one of the best Rolexes ever made. And then of course the pricing just got crazy in the last five to ten years, five years, let's call it, six, seven years. Um and and never really sourced one. But when when I saw you get that watch and and it's the new one, I think it's probably one of my favorite six digit Rolexes, the the current uh Pepsi. And just uh that's a winner, and it's cool to see you wear it and get some use out of it for |
| Cole Pennington | sure. You have to. Otherwise, you know, some some speculator will be flipping it if I'm not wearing it hard, you |
| James Stacy | know? So someone's got to do it. Well, Cole, I think we've probably each been inside long enough recording this. Maybe we uh follow up with uh a little bit of forest bathing or otherwise uh and be sure to pick a great watch. But uh as always it's a treat to have you on the show and to kind of dig into the idea of watches and outside. This is could be the theme of an entire podcast. I I would be one to know in in some metric. But I'm glad I got to chat about it with you. And uh as always it's it's a treat to see you and I I hope your your year has a lot of um a |
| Cole Pennington | Likewise. It's been an absolute pleasure. And I do recall that at one point we did agree to do a little uh off-roading overland trip up to Tobermori that we have not gotten to do yet. So we have not, and I still need you to |
| James Stacy | teach me how to spear fish. All right. Well those those two, those two are on the list. So do some spear fishing and uh and some some driving up here. But uh yeah, the border uh is more open by the day, so let's uh let's see if we can make Tobermore happen before it's under ice and snow, which uh you know could be any minute now. I'll sign off with that commitment. Thank you, James. Cool man. Great to see you and uh to everyone listening, hit us up in the comments if you have any feedback for the show and if you're enjoying it all I'd ask is that you uh tell a friend. Other than that, uh we'll chat to you in a week and from the entire team at Hodenki we hope you love the uh great outdoors. Au revoir see ya |