ONCE, I RAN home from the bar at 11 pm to fix an Apple Watch problem. My friend wears an Apple Watch and was leaving for a backpacking trip in Wyoming’s Wind River Range the next morning. She couldn’t handle the idea of going without a watch for a week, so I wobble-sprinted two blocks back to my house and dug an old Timex out of a drawer for her.

I love the Apple Watch. It’s by far one of the most useful smartwatches and fitness trackers out there, but its utility is severely limited when it comes to outdoor activities. It’s fragile; you need a screen protector and an AppleCare plan. The battery dies in a day. For some of us, the Apple Watch just isn’t worth it if you have to swap it out every weekend for a Garmin.

So it was hard not to feel like the Apple Watch Ultra, the company’s new rugged outdoor smartwatch, was made specifically for me. FedEx dropped it off at 11 am, and by 11:40 I was out the door and headed to the climbing gym. After a week, I can say that the Ultra comes closer to meeting my needs than any other Apple Watch that has come before. It’s not quite there, but it’s very, very close.

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