Wide Brim or Ball Cap? (fixed)

baseball cap and an all-purpose bandana worn safari-style to shield your ears and back of the neck. and perhaps to keep mosquitoes or gnats outta your face. that’s my approach.

Simple answer – BOTH (depends upon conditions or route, or both).

Hooded poncho, P-T, or cape = usually a ball cap (though not always) as hood is a bit more comfortable to wear with ballcap, but still can be worn with a flexible wide-brimmed hat.

hoodless poncho, or very humid conditions before and after rainfall (just roll poncho hood into back of poncho neck opening and lay it along the upper back) = wide-brimmed as even with Rain-X ANTI-FOG my glasses tend to fog up less as the Rain-X ANTI-FOG is wearing off if no hood is worn (particularly if i stop movement to rehydrate when using bottles instead of a bladder.

wide-brimmed if route will be more open and there’s lots of sun (rare in the forest, but some routes might have more openness).

hunting – camo boonie. (haven’t personally hunted in years though).

i also have a fabric neck and side “cap cape” (similar to the link you provided) with an elasticized band that can added to any ball-cap for sun protection. this provides plenty of protection from the sun. It’s actually cooler than having the sun directly strike my neck and face.

Ditto on the ball cap, or visor. Like Anon, I add a bandana or silk scarf tucked under the headband if I need to protect from sunburn over the ears and neck. I’ve actually never owned a wide-brimmed cap, so I can’t make a fair comparison there. But I’ve never had too much trouble with the cap.
-Mark

I regularly have pre-cancerous growths burned off my face due to years of wearing a ball cap. Admittedly I boated all those years in Florida, so maximum sun exposure, but the point is a ball cap does not protect the sides of your face, only your nose and forehead. I now always wear a wide-brimmed hat when outdoors. For backpacking, I currently am using a rain resistant waxed cotton hat and find it adequate in the rain so don’t have to worry about using a hood. I have noted that not using a hood seems cooler and also allows you to more fully enjoy the sights and sounds when trekking in the rain. The only drawback so far is a bit of head stink after a few days on trail, but it is otherwise comfortable and provides the needed protection from sun.

Location, location, location.
Weather, weather, weather.

I recently moved from CA to NM and can say that what works in one climate doesn’t necesarily work in another. In northern CA a ball cap usually worked for me except in high elevation sun. In NM my usual ball cap leads to a sun burnt neck, even on day hikes.

Sun, light rain protection and thermal regulation are the reasons I wear a hat. In NM there doesn’t seem to be any rain but there is plenty of sun; a wide brim is the way to go.

Ditto, ditto on the ballcap/bandanna combo. Soaking the bandanna at stream crossings on a hot day’s hike is oh so refreshing. No brim on the back to conflict w/ a tall pack. The bug pro element is there, too. Works well w/ hoods on my hardshells to extend precip pro– for colder wet conditions, anyway. Low elev. or tropics would be another matter.

It’s lighter (1 oz. for my Patagucci Airius) and less bulky than a wide brim hat.

No sunburns, no worries.

Me:
I’m 5’7″ 155 lbs male. I’m like a furnace. I hike hot… even in cool spring/fall weather.

My Environment:
I hike mostly here in Nova Scotia, Canada… which means coastal hiking and boreal forest with spring/fall temps around 5-15 celcius and summer highs of 20-25 celcius (maybe in the 30’s sometimes… for a few weeks in high summer). Humidity is also very high of course.

My Solution:
For me… I’ve tried technical fabric ball caps, with and without capes and I’ve also tried a Tilley LTM5. I hate the ballcap solution. No air space above my head. I get very hot. A cape is good for the sun but I find a cape very annoying. The Tilley is much better… but I still get hot in it… even in the fall. What I have now is a Henschel Breezer… and I LOVE it!!!! Love it love it love it. It is made completely from open mesh polyester (bucket and brim) with a solid lid. Just under 5oz… crushable… wire brim. It’s very cool and very shady.

Tilley T-5, broad brim, thank you very much. Chin strap keeps it on in the wind, good in the rain, good in the sun, keeps the sun off my face and notably off my ears. Makes me look like a handsome devil too.

Baseball caps are decorative uniform stuff.

<makes me look like a handsome devil too.

Look again.
d;-)>

Wide Brim
Tilley TH4; weighs a little more that the the TH5, but offers much more shade.
I have tried the baseball style hat with a bandana, but it is just to close to the skin for good airflow. Granted a B/B hat does support a poncho hood better, but like others have posted, tuck the poncho hood inside and use the wide brimmed hat.
]:O)

It depends on how much sun exposure you’re willing to subject your face to. A wide brim hat provides much better sun protection. I work outdoors and spend a lot of free time both below and above the treeline. For me, wide brim is the way to go. In fact, I may spring for a Sunday Afternoons Adventure Hat. I’m sure it’ll make me look like a handsome dev… Oh, never mind.

Tilley TH4 for me too. I wear it on my boat and in my jeep when the top is down. It provides excellent rain and sun protection. Tilley hats are kinda like CROCS..you are not impressed until you wear them..then you start wearing them around town so much your friends don’t recognize you without them :)

Tell me more about these Tilley hats. Do they have a fairly stiff brim. I forget the brands but other hats that I have tried over the years had floppy brims that were worthless due to drooping, especially in the rain.

The brims are quite stiff – on both the cotton and nylon T5 models the brim blows up at about a 20mph wind.

For rain, they are excellent, especially for glasses wearers.

No droop, but they will catch wind. I had an Outdoor Research Seattle Sombrero and gave it up as it was too hot and way too floopy– really useless in the wind.

If you want a hat with a really stiff brim, the Filson “Tin” hats are great. They make one with a chin strap too: http://www.filson.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2156785

Duluth Trading Co has some knock-offs too. http://www.duluthtrading.com/search/searchresults/98754.aspx?feature=Product_2

The other hat I like is the military “boonie” hat. Any surplus store will have a bunch and they come in khaki, camo, green, and black. Should run about $11-$12. They come with a lanyard, made of rip-stop cotton. Fold up it and stuff in a pocket, biner it on your pack, throw it in the washing machine, wet it in a stream and cool off your noggin, use it for picking berries… I like khaki flavor– better in the sun and not as scary as the other colors.

Tilley hats are meant to be sized 2 fingers larger than your head size. The weight will keep it on your head and this will be much more comfortable than a tight fitting hat.

Good to see that as a group we are conflicted over head gear. I keep bouncing around, myself. No one thing seems to do the job.

In Texas heat, where sunlight has weight, I need a wide-brimmed hat even in the woods, a Columbia Bora-bora (with a silnylon cover for rain).

On the AT I like a visor. In heat, a wet bandanna under the visor band keeps me cool. A fleece helmet fits under in cold weather. A W/B whatchacallit, bandanna like thing, goes under the band in the rain. None of this will work as well as a brimmed hat in Texas or elsewhere in the Southwest. The visor is not enough sun protection and the wet bandanna trick doesn’t let in enough air.

Seriously check out the Henschel hats! They are almost a third the price of a Tilley with a wider brim (without looking goofy) and they hold their shape much better. They are also much cooler… if that’s an issue for you. I have a Tilley LTM5 which is a wonderful hat… but the cheap and brezzy Henschel is always my hat of choice now.

Here’s a link… Canadian pricing

And here is me weaing it… click for bigger versions if you want…

At only 3 oz the Sunday Afternoon Hat is great sun protection and it crushes in your pack easily.

I’ve tried others, but have found nothing better.

http://www.sundayafternoons.com/index.cgi?id=84015124788&d=single&item_id=MH-AH&c=Men’s_Hats&sc=Outdoor_Active&nr=&pc=

David, the hat looks interesting, especially for the very humid weather here in Japan. I take it that it doesn’t do much for rain protection, though? (I guess I could fit it with a silnylon cover)

I took a look through your photos. You have a really good compositional eye and take the time to set up from unusual alternative angles. I especially liked the birch tree grove photo (though that red tag or whatever it is is a little distracting), and the photo of the narrow peninsula (though I kept wishing for that tree to move a little to the right…). Do you have a collection somewhere of your best photos? I’m a fellow photography enthusiast.

Some questions about your gear. I take it the beige colored pack is a MLD Prophet? Is the orange cloth one of those viscous cloth towels? And your black vest… may I ask what that is?

Hey Miguel,

I think it would be ok in the rain… the mesh would be tight enough I think to break up the drops… and the lid is solid… and in a hard rain I’d break out my hooded jacket anyway.

The pack is an MLD Prophet 30… yes. The cloth is an MSR mini towel (smallest they sell). The black vest is a MEC Northern Lite. Good value vest for the money / weight.

Thanks for the photo comments. All my hiking photos are on that flickr site. I’m not a photographer at all… and I should probably take more time sometimes (like to clean up the loose brush around that trunk photo). I just think I have an eye for what to shoot… but they are still basically just snapshots with a little point and shoot digital.

Re: the red thing… trail marker. Need to remind myself to watch out for those when taking shots. Would have been easy to avoid. Re: the tree… it’s very hard to get shots at Chignecto (unless at a lookout spot) without trees in the way. Most of the cliff edge is thick with trees and you can’t really shoot thru them most of the times without risking your life :)

>At only 3 oz the Sunday Afternoon Hat is great sun protection and it crushes in your pack easily.

Ditto. I used mine in Hawaii for many hot and humid hikes and my head still stayed cool (cooler than a Lands End nylon ball cap). I add a Novara windstopper liner below +50F because it can get too cool. After fifteen years of surfing in Hawaii (wearing a Prey For Surf jockey cap) I’m now paying the price for too much sun on the side of my face. The wide brim on the Sunday Afternoons hat keeps the sun off my face and neck in almost all situations. Also, a size Large will just fit over a Petzl Ecrin Roc helmet. Now _that’s_ stylish!

I am a confirmed hat freak and use both but mainly the ball cap if I am wearing my rainwear with hood in a downpour. Otherwise I like a brim hat with mesh ventilation and about a 2 1/2″ brim. Tilleys are great hats, expensive but great. I also had a straw hat that lasted years, looked good,handled the breezes well and kept me head ventilated.

Miguel,
You sew, so consider making a silnylon cover for a wide-brimmed hat. What keeps it on is to make 2 brims. The hat brim fits between them. Mine weighs 0.5 oz. Makes my Borabora into a rain hat.