The Casio Pathfinder PAW1500T-7V is the latest addition to my hiking and backpacking arsenal.  There are a few reasons to purchase this watch, the main one being it makes you feel eerily like James Bond with a new gadget.

Getting back to all seriousness, this watch is fantastic to take out on the trails. The range of functions that this watch can perform will stagger the senses.  I will list just a few for you;

Multi-Band Atomic Timekeeping

It automatically calls out to the national atomic time broadcast towers and updates itself up to 6 times a night, so your time is always accurate.

Solar Power

How do you make a watch better?  Make it run off the sun!  With as little as 5 minutes a day exposure to direct sunlight, this watch will keep it’s main charge for up to 5 months.  Just with 5 minutes a day!  Any more than that, it will always keep the battery fresh and charged.

600ft Water Resistant

For those tough days hiking in a horrible, driving rain.

Tide Graph

I haven’t really figured out how this will benefit me, but I’ll admit I find myself checking EXACTLY what the current tide is every hour!  I suppose it would be useful for beach hiking, but around Michigan that’s not exactly our main trail system…

Moon Data

Notably, one of the best functions ever put into a watch.  You may be asking yourself “Why the hell would I want to know the phase of the moon when I’m backpacking?”  Well I’ll tell you!  There are several good reasons, such as you can more accurately predict the movement of nocturnal animals (i.e. deer, bear) as corresponds to the moon and moonlight rating.  Also, you can tell when there is going to be a full moon, so you can plan a romantic moon-watching session on the beach!… or turn into a werewolf.  Both are interesting, and this watch will help!

Digital Compass

This wonderful bond-esqe watch comes with a live compass that will change the main directions, as well as the compass degrees as you walk.  Given a proper map, you can actually use this watch to find your compass bearings and location, therefore combining NEW technology, with TRUSTED paper.

Altimeter

Climb a lot of mountains?  Yeah, me neither.  I try to keep it to at least one a year though!  So when you do, this watch will tell you exactly how high you are, and how much further you have to go.  As an added bonus, it will store the max altitude reached, so when your friends don’t believe you just came back from that easy stroll up K2, bust out the watch and show them EXACTLY how high you were!

Barometer

My favorite function.  Not only will the Pathfinder tell you the current barometric pressure, but it graphs the changes in pressure too!  With simply a push of one button, you can see the barometric change over the last 18 hours.  I can not begin to tell you how handy this is when you’re stuck on a trail and the clouds turn iffy.  It’s like having a weatherman strapped to your wrist!  …only lighter, and less hair gel.

Thermometer

Ok, I’m not terribly thrilled with this function, but it still doesn’t turn me off of the watch as a whole.  The temperature is very inaccurate, mostly because it’s strapped to a big sweaty Polish wrist when I keep hitting the button.  Even in the user’s guide, it says to take off the watch and let it set for at least 5 minutes in order to get an accurate temp.  I guess it’s a small price to pay, and when taken off and let stand, the watch does read very accurately.  It’s just a bit of a hassle.

Low Temperature Resistant (For those really, REALLY cold mornings.  You know which ones I’m talking about.)

World Time (29 times zones for when you’re hiking abroad)

So basically as I’m wrapping this up, this watch is a wonderful toy to have.  Not necessary on the trail, but given the opportunity, it would be a nice addition to anyone’s repertoire of hiking goodies.  At a retail price of $400, it’s… well… very expensive.  You can find it on sale quite a bit, and with as many vendors that carry it, you shouldn’t pay more than $230 for it.

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