Best watches for hiking

A 42mm titanium case is light enough to forget on a long day, and sapphire, 100m and an 80-hour automatic cover weather, water and a night off the wrist.

The black PVD coating wears at the edges — which, on a hiking watch, is character rather than failure.

Titanium plus PVD is the combination to think hardest about: the metal underneath is light and hypoallergenic, but a coating is a consumable — once it wears through at the lug edges, it is a refinish, not a polish.

Timex's Expedition line was made for exactly this, and the North Titanium brings sapphire and 200m to it — enough for river crossings without a thought.

An unnamed caliber and a one-year warranty with exclusions are the costs. The 50mm lug-to-lug is long for a 41mm case.

65 grams, sapphire and 200m is a spec sheet Timex has no business hitting. The one-year warranty is the reason to think about it: everything else here is covered for two to five.

The Seiko 5 field case is legible, 100m and serviceable by almost any watchmaker in the country at a published $176.

Steel and Hardlex rather than titanium and sapphire.

The 39.4mm case reads small, but the 48.1mm lug-to-lug does not — this wears longer than its diameter suggests. Measure your wrist before you buy on the diameter alone.

No battery, no winding, 200m and a surface-hardened titanium case — the watch for a trip where nothing can be charged or wound.

44mm across and mineral glass.

Citizen's Super Titanium is surface-hardened, which is the point — plain titanium marks more easily than steel, and this does not. It is the closest thing on this list to a watch you can stop thinking about.

Sapphire, 100m and solar power at 36mm and 44.5mm lug-to-lug — the hiking watch for a smaller wrist.

Timex's one-year warranty with its exclusions is the weak point.

The smallest genuinely good watch here. Sapphire, solar, 100m and 44.5mm across the lugs — if you have a small wrist and want to stop thinking about batteries, start here.

A 37mm field watch that runs on light, rated 100m, with Citizen's five-year warranty and an 18mm strap that takes any nylon.

Mineral crystal.

37mm, 18mm lugs, 100m, no battery, five years of cover. There is very little here to go wrong and almost nothing that will date.