The G-SHOCK GGB100 Can Handle the Toughest Jobs on Earth

Created in partnership with G-SHOCK.

For decades, G-SHOCK watches have received praise for their outstanding toughness, but the G-SHOCK GGB100 Mudmaster normally takes the brand’s rugged legacy to a new level. From top rated to base, it’s built for complete toughness to endure tough do the job in the most extreme environments. And for Southern California-based Hotshot firefighter Brian Anderson, tough do the job and extreme environments are just portion of the occupation. For most of the year, he and his crew head to the front strains to incorporate fires in wilderness locations all all-around the place. It’s complicated work—and precisely what the GGB100 was developed for.

Among the wildland firefighters, Hotshots like Anderson are the best of the best—“the Navy SEALs of the wildland neighborhood,” as he puts it—and it’s a reputation they make by functioning in some of the most brutal conditions possible. Hotshots experience unrelenting warmth, smoke, and steep terrain, all though carrying hefty devices and hustling to incorporate a person of nature’s most highly effective and unpredictable forces: wildfire. Even with two decades of knowledge underneath his belt, the incredibly genuine threat of these fires keeps Anderson on his toes each time he and his crew remedy a phone.

“It’s very little but an adrenaline hurry,” he tells Men’s Journal, “just actually intensive.”

We lately caught up with Anderson as he and his crew commenced schooling for this year’s hearth period. It was the excellent chance to learn extra about the incredible do the job they do, and also a good way to place the GGB100 to the take a look at.

Hotshot schooling commences in May possibly and lasts many weeks. During that time, Anderson prospects his twenty-individual crew as a result of lessons to brush up on firefighting competencies and drills to build their exercise and familiarity with devices. A regular working day might involve suiting up in comprehensive firefighting equipment and heading on a lengthy hike as a result of the mountains, clearing brush to make hearth breaks, or simulating a response to a health-related emergency.

“It’s type of the equivalent of what football gamers would phone hell week,” suggests Anderson. “The actual physical need is fairly arduous.”

But it’s a cakewalk as opposed to battling an actual wildfire. To start with, Hotshots have to traverse distant, mountainous terrain though carrying everything they have to have for a sixteen-hour shift—protective devices, foodstuff, drinking water, tools—on their backs.

The moment they arrive on the scene, they situation on their own proper at the edge of the flames. Temps consistently strike triple digits, thick smoke can make respiratory just about unattainable, and they do the job to halt the hearth by clearing brush and trees with very little extra than hand instruments and chainsaws. It’s intensive, backbreaking labor.

“You really do not very have to be a bodybuilder, but you have to have the exact same mentality, and it has to be coupled with a marathon runner’s endurance,” points out Anderson. “It’s an extreme need on the body in a multitude of strategies.”

It also puts an extreme need on the Hotshots’ equipment, like what’s on their wrists. For Anderson, G-SHOCK is the only brand name of view that can make the grade. He bought his initially G-SHOCK shortly immediately after getting a firefighter, and he was shocked by its general performance on the occupation.

“It did not make a difference how undesirable I beat it up, it by no means stopped functioning,” he suggests. “Not even for a second.”

The GGB100 is the latest evolution of G-SHOCK’s dedication to ultra-durable timepieces. Place simply, everything about this view is tough. The scenario is designed from a large-rigidity carbon substance that will not deform even when exposed to bumps and scrapes, and thanks to improvements like protective metallic pipes all-around the buttons and an airtight interior seal, the view can go as a result of dust, mud, and drinking water without the need of missing a beat.

In addition, the GGB100 arrives loaded with tech to aid you maintain your bearings in the wild. Its quad sensor allows it to display genuine time compass headings, temperature, altitude, step count, and barometric tension (in particular valuable for keeping abreast of sudden weather improvements). The G-SHOCK Linked app unlocks even extra operation. There, you can personalize the watch’s settings and use the Mission Log purpose to blend its altimeter details with your phone’s GPS for a in depth look at your route.

For Anderson, all of these options blend to make a view that is amazingly valuable when preventing wildfires. The digital and analog faces make it simple to examine, even in a haze of smoke. He in particular likes the altitude readout, which is suitable for coordinating with helicopters and air tankers in hilly terrain, and possessing temperature details proper on his wrist allows him watch weather conditions that impact a fire’s habits. Following all, keeping a person step forward of the blaze is necessary for finishing the mission.

Of class, toughness is important, much too: Even though digging as a result of brush or laying hose strains, the GGB100 can take care of the warmth, smoke, filth, and mud that come with the occupation.

“Almost everything it has to offer you, we can place into practical application wherever we are,” Anderson suggests.

In purchase to do their occupation successfully, Hotshots like Anderson have to have complete assurance in their equipment, in each and every other, and in on their own. If you’re not prepared for it, suggests Anderson, wildland firefighting can promptly overwhelm you.

“We’re swinging instruments all working day lengthy in some of the most extreme environments wherever the terrain is rugged, it’s steep, footing is uneven, and hearth habits is at its most extreme,” he suggests. “If you really do not have the skill mentally to push your self additional than you assume you can go, then you will not final.”

Whilst Anderson gets quite a few certified candidates each and every year, not absolutely everyone can make the cut. Wildfires have a way of weeding out the much less focused.

“Some of them have had to stand up and say, ‘I’m sorry but this is not for me. I just can’t do this,’” he suggests.

By drilling, mountaineering as a result of the backcountry, and learning the ins and outs of efficient firefighting, Anderson allows his crew build the actual physical and psychological strength they have to have to experience the comprehensive force of a wildfire without the need of breaking down. In his check out, there is no substitute for genuine-globe wildfire knowledge, but the schooling has an additional crucial benefit: It allows the crew do the job superior as a staff. Which is wherever their best strength lies.

“Little by minor we grow to be a person actually efficient and cohesive device,” he suggests.

It’s tough to think about a superior embodiment of complete toughness than Anderson and his crew. Most folks wouldn’t final five minutes in their boots, but their grit and knowledge make them elite professionals at a person of the most complicated work opportunities on earth.

The GGB100 was built to equally large expectations. Other watches might settle for superior adequate, but this one’s developed for folks who place on their own and their equipment to the test—every working day.

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