Sun Hats – Full Brim vs Ball cap with neck cape/bandana

[Jim MacDiarmid]

What is the general preference? I can see the pro/con of each. The ball cap with cape/bandana keeps all the sun off your face/neck but traps heat. The full brim hat doesn't trap the heat but isn't necessarily going to provide the same sun protection.

I'm travelling to southern Utah next week for a Bryce-Escalante-Zion drive/hike loop so I'm wondering what the consensus among the desert rats here is.

[Sean Smith]

I'm going there in two weeks and just two days ago bought a OR Sun Runner. It disappeared when atop my head with an adjustable velcro closure, and has the optional snap on cape for ear/neck protection with toggle closure for a snug fit if desired. perfect for my almost never hat wearing head!

[John Almond]

I prefer a visor with a bandanna. Doesn't trap heat, allows the most evaporative cooling from the top of my head when not in direct sunlight, and still keeps the sun out of my eyes for short stretches along with catching spider webs tolerably well.

Weighs ~1.5 oz, plus the weight of the bandanna (which I carry anyway as a multitool).

Hope it helps!

[Dustin Short]

On the Colorado Plateau or in the SW deserts I don't screw around. I usually have a wide-brimmed hat AND a bandana/buff around my lower face. (Think old-timey bandits in Western movies). The buff protects my neck and lower face from UV, filters out dust and sand, and creates a humid microclimate that cools incoming air when I inhale. The wide-brim provides full sun coverage over the top half of my face and ears.

[Richard Cullip]

+1 on the OR Sun Runner. Great coverage from the sun and lightweight to boot.

[Justin Baker]

How about a shemagh with a hat? Might scare off the locals.

[Jeff M.]

I like the sunrunner as well. It breathes pretty well and covers more than a normal wide brimmed hat would. A wide brimmed hat with bandana would be a good option as well.

[Barry P]

You just have to try both styles and see. I so much wanted the OR Sun runner hat to work. It is nice and light. But I was much hotter in that than an open mesh wide brim hat.

Good luck with the hat choice,
-Barry
-The mountains were made for Tevas

[Marko Botsaris]

"But I was much hotter in that than an open mesh wide brim hat."

This!

I was just looking at mine in my hat box a few day back and remembering. The top of it is essentially a thin skull cap. Forget about UV, what about IR. It great for what it blocks, but anything it actually adsorbs gets transferred directly to my noggin, with not too much air to let it escape. Still for high mountains where temp is not necessarily high, but where light is very intense is is probably perfect.

It is of course personal, but for actual sweltering temps as well as intense light I might go for something with a bit more air between the top of the hat and my head.

PS. Escalante country is great this time of year. *envious*

[Matt Jones]

After years of using a regular ballcap, I've grown to love my Sunrunner too. The little neck cape looked really neat when I first bought it, but I've never been able to tolerate it for more than five minutes so I usually just throw the cap on. It's light, and it dries fast too. I occasionally go running with it when there's rain out, which is a nice bonus.

[Paul McLaughlin]

A lot of full brimmed hats have floppy brims – so worthless in the wind, as the brim blows up and now you are exposed. Check carefully for stiffness of brim when looking at full brim hats.

[Andrew Martin]

REI and Tilley both make wide brimmed hats that have neck capes that tuck back into a hidden pocket. The Tilley has a ring of mesh around the top so it should be cooler than a baseball cap and it also has a closure on the neck cape to keep it from blowing around in the wind – that's a must have. The REI hat is neither vented nor does the cape have a closure but it is made from thinner material and is also floppy/packable and about 1/3 the price of Tilley.

I've also owned an ExOfficio ball-cap with neck cape and closure that I find works quite well in the mountains on cooler but sunny and windy days.

Here are links to the two brimmed hats:

Tilley: http://www.tilley.com/LTM6IS-AIRFLO-Hat-with-Insect-Shield.aspx

REI: http://www.rei.com/product/795922/rei-sahara-outback-cape-hat

[Paul Magnanti]

Look to the left. Ugly, dorky looking…but effective for me.

It is what I use anyway. Is it the "best"? Couldn't tell you.

I do know it has worked for me. (Including this past weekend in Dominguez Canyon while backpacking. Oh yeah! :D)

[Nelson Sherry]

I'll take my Tilly brimmed hat over a billed hat any time except in winter under a hood. The brim is way more complete sun protection and rain deflection, and better at holding a mosquito net than a bill, and much cooler in heat. And, you can hang a bandana from the back of either one just fine . . . How about an umbrella? ;)

[Mark Verber]

when it's really hot my favorite is sunday afternoon adventure hat. Huge brim, cape on the back, but with enough space that air freely moves between me and the cape making it cooler wearing that the OR Sun Runner. Downside is that it's ugly and a bit large / awkward.

–mark

[Rick M]

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[Gregory Stein]

My Nike dri-fit running cap is 47 gram. Add to it very light dri-fit fabric and you get UL hat which is very airy and protects from sun.

I live in Israel. Believe me we have enough of that UV radiation.

[Joel Benford]

Millonas wrote: "The top of it is essentially a thin skull cap. Forget about UV, what about IR. It great for what it blocks, but anything it actually adsorbs gets transferred directly to my noggin, with not too much air to let it escape. Still for high mountains where temp is not necessarily high, but where light is very intense is is probably perfect."

Yup. A ballcap is an insulating piece, just like a very thin fleece hoodie. If the problem is UV rather than excess heat-minus-windchill, all well and good — I've never walked above 4000 feet, but I can imagine it would be good for that.

If you're just hot and sweaty, you want shade and ventilation. Get a grimmed hat with several square inches of mesh, or better still a reflective umbrella if it's practical (wind etc).

And if you just want to keep sun out of your eyes, get a strap on sun visor.

[Fun fact for desert rats: in Britain we have fifty times as many deaths invloving a lack of UV as a surplus.]

[Martin M. Clark]

So it's pretty funny this was brought up as I will be hiking the PCT next weekend. I have gone back and forth on what would be the est headwear system. I initially was planning on hiking in a visor/bandana, but after some careful deliberation relized that this would likely leave me sunburned. So I was contemplating the northface bad water, or the arcteryx spiro. I ended up going to dicks (i'm bored at my parents while I'm waiting to leave) and they happened to have the northface badwater hat on sale for 8.00! I really like the hat itself and think that the way the cloth buttons under the chin is an excellent solution as well. The cloth is lightweight and airy. I have a few gripes: the hat is a little small for my large noggin, and the brim could be a little wider. It's roughly the size of an average hat. good luck in choosing your headwear

[Jim MacDiarmid]

Thanks for all input.

It seems like a fully brimmed hat might be the way to go so long as long as the brim is stiff in the wind. I had/have a fully brimmed OR rain hat(not the Seattle Sombrero) that I really liked for rain protection, it would just be too hot, I think, for desert wear.

How is the brim on the OR Sombriolet? I know Tilley makes the Cadillac of brimmed hats, but that's a bit more than I'd like to spend.

[Rick M]

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[Dale Wambaugh]

There was a thread where we discussed adding a bandana under or over a ball cap, so that is one way to test that design.

The ball cap variations are light, compact and usually less expensive. Wide brimmed hats with a vented crown will give more cooling, like hauling your own shade. The Sunday Afternoon Adventure hat does it all and are quite light. The neck cape works well with a backpack sticking up behind. Ugly enough to be first level birth control, but effective :)

I keep forgetting the Kavu Chilba, which can double as a rain hat. Surpassed only by the Sunday Afternoons hat for quirky good looks ;)

A GoLite Chrome Dome umbrella is a option too, cooling your whole upper body, good for rain and a partial shield for one end of a tarp.

[Joel Benford]

The Kavu Chilba comes with the warning "Do not leave in direct sun or a hot car = foam melts when hot."

That is… a bit of an eyebrow raiser for a sun hat.

[Rick Reno]

With a great, absorbent sweat band. Dunk it in a puddle for extra cooling. Once In a while a merino buff for sunburn protection.

[Brian Lewis]

I too like the sunrunner, with the French Foreign legion (or Ferengi?) neck flap attached.

A couple of reasons I haven't heard mentioned already:

On a longer trip where one goes into towns for resupply, I like being able to remove the neck flap and turn it into a more conventional looking baseball hat. Yes, I shouldn't concern myself with "looks", but my theory is that if I can clean up a bit and look less like a hobo, I might get treated a little better (?) and perhaps it will be easier to hitch a ride that way. Who knows for sure.

Another advantage over a wide brimmed hat is that a coat or poncho hood fits comfortably over it when there's wind-driven rain (or sleet or snow).

I've logged a lot of miles with my OR sunrunner; I actually bought a second one when the fabric of the first started getting thin/worn enough that I was getting tanned on my bald head under the hat. That took a good deal of miles & time, however, I don't mean to say that durability is a problem in normal use. I'm just saying that after quite a lot of use I'm still a fan.

Oh, one other thing it has over some types of wide-brimmed hat — it can be put into a mode where you essentially have a chinstrap so that it won't blow off in high wind. In that mode, just the neck flap alone helps a lot when cold wind is blowing by your ears. And then it can be changed to wear it in a more "easy on, easy off" mode.

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