Native Eyewear Silencer Sunglasses

Native Eyewear Silencer Sunglasses
$120 with four lenses

I see the world through soot-colored glasses, so often taking the dim view that I forget the sun also rises. Then, I find myself surprised by that great ball of fire, bearing down with its life-affirming heat, thawing my icy soul, but also blinding me.

Here, in mountainous Colorado, with its rarified air and 300 splitter days a year, sunglasses are key. While some models supposedly change with the light, I’ve yet to find much veracity (or efficacy) to those claims. Enter Native Eyewear, with its sleek Silencer Sunglasses, which come with four different flavors of easily interchangeable lenses. The polarized grey is perfect for bluebird days; the orange crystal has 57 percent visual light transmittance (VLT), awesome in the gloaming or under mildly overcast skies; the yellow crystal, with 80 percent VLT, brings a rainy or snowy day to sparkling life; and the clear crystal, at 98 percent VLT, is good in a windstorm or blizzard.

I tested the Silencer at the crags and on the slopes. Although the shades tended to steam up with exertion (but no more so than other sunglasses), their feather weight (0.7 ounces) and all-day comfort more than offset this deficiency. These aren’t, however, for the fast-and-light crowd—you need to pack the slim glasses case and extra lenses with you to take advantage of the Silencer’s finest feature. These shades are better out cragging (where the yellow and orange lenses really bring out micro features in low light) or for mellow summer mountaineering. And, if dealing with all those lenses becomes too much, just pick your favorite color and wear it, leaving the others at home. nativeyewear.com.

—MATT SAMET