Before this weekend, I wouldn't think of a watch as a useful tool. But after going on a short backpacking trip, I've now changed my mind, I would definitely include a watch in your kit.

This weekend I decided to try out some bare minimum backpacking up in the mountains (at around 8-10K ft), just to see what I would and would not be useful if it was an emergency. I wasn't out to survive on just my EDC, but I did carry a lot less than usual. The one thing both me and my friend commented on was that we were definitely going to bring watches next time. Normally i don't even wear a watch, so it never occured to me to bring one when camping. But as everyone else mentioned, knowing how much time until sunset can be very important, and being able to estimate the time when it's overcast or you're deep in the forest is impossible. There were at least 3 times during this overnight trip that we both wished we had a watch.

1) Arrived at the campsite around 1 pm, set up camp, and both of us took a nap. After waking up, we were trying to decide whether we had enough time to hike up to the summit and back (5 hour trip), but neither of us knew how long we had slept and if it was 2 pm or 6 pm, so we didn't want to be stuck on the trail at night.

2) Cooking dinner. After boing water and dumping it in the freeze dried bag, we were supposed to wait for 10 minutes or so for every 5000 feet of elevation. We basically just waited a lot longer than necessary because we didn't want to keep opening the bag and let the heat out, but a watch could have been handy.

3) Waking up the in the morning to start hiking before sunrise, again, we didn't know whether it was 2 am or 6 am. When I woke up, it was pitch black, so I wasn't really sure how long I'd been asleep. We waited until it started getting lighter just so we knew it was morning, but a watch (with an alarm) would have been better, because we could've started the hike an hour or two earlier.

The few things I learned was it's not always easy to estimate what time it is from the sun, especially if there is no sun (at night). And you lose all sense of time when you're away from civilization, ten minutes can feel like an hour, or four hours can feel like one hour. From now on, I'm going to start carrying a cheap battery operated watch in my backpack.