This is a copy of an old Thread started by Kanoes many years back.

What is your favorite hat to trip with? My go to hat is an "Ultimate hat" I bought in 1994. Waxed canvas. It has been on many trips in the BWCA and across the world. It needs some refurbishing.

Filson waxed canvas, just starting to get broken in after a dozen years.

I bought this canvas hat at a craft fair around 1987. Wish the couple had kept making them. It is now sweat stained but going strong and I still love it. Also my favorite sunglasses and super light chair.

Duh.

I like a simple baseball cap clipped to my shirt, so I don't have to turn the canoe around and fetch it before it sinks when the wind removes it.

Outdoor Research Swift cap - lightweight, plenty of ventilation.

Switched from a Tiley to a Stetson canvas hat that I waxed. Only 6 months old, but happy so far.

This Broner canvas hat is more than 25 years old and still going strong.

For quite a few years I wore various brands of "boonie" style hats. Problem for me was when they got wet they were totally floppy and collapsed. Still keep one around as a bug hat for wearing in camp (sprayed with Off or whatever)

Then quoting from the original kanoes topic...

HighPlainsDrifter: "True confessions........ I avoided Tilley hats for many years...... The name "Tilley"..... it just sounded too yuppie for me. I finally gave in.

These hats have great wide brims (too many years of sun has caused some skin problems) and tie downs that keep them on your head in the worst of weather.
"

Bought a Tilley Air flow hat in 2016, similar comments as above...

I really like my Tilley Air flow hat. It covers my ears from the sun. It has two straps that keep it on during strong winds. A ventilated mesh part in the top keeps my head cooler than other solid hats. Even when soaking wet it holds its shape and keeps rain off my glasses. You can toss it in your pack and flatten it out and pull it out and put it on and it still looks good.

This Flying Moose hat was my favorite until I lost it last May somewhere between Tin Can Mike and Mudrow.


This is my new favorite.

For the BWCA, the Tilley is the most versatile.

Given to me by my Favorite Outfitter Owner. Thanks, Deb!

I resisted the "Tilley thing" in favor of a fitted ball cap for years. After hearing my son rave about his Tilley though, I caved and bought one of the Air Flows. Wish I hadn't been so stubborn early now!

Those here who know me find it hard to remember any times I'm not wearing a type of wide full brim topper. Gotta protect that Scandinavian skin and thinning hairline, from "dem ole cozmic ray's"!

butthead

Like Walllee I wear a Outdoor Research Swift Cap for warmer weather tripping.

It weighs 2.5 oz. and gives UPF 50+ sun protection on the crown of the head. It has mesh panels on the side of the hat for superior ventilation. I like that is has a low profile and that helps to keep it on your head in windy conditions.

I've got a Stetson brand nylon adjustable ball cap that is spf 50 and permithrin treated. Interestingly, I can't find one on the internet to copy a picture. I add a buff when needed.

Outdoor Research - Seattle Sombrero

My wife hates this hat, but in July and August I love this cheap mesh crown hat from Cabelas.

A Shelta hat - it is the Seahawk model - these hats are made for water - truly love it - not the cheapest hat - but seems like it will last forever - I got it as a Father’s Day gift a few years back.

I always wear souvenir hats from my Wabakimi Project trips. The 2009 model, grey on grey with the Turbo Otter was my favourite. I've worn two of them out.

I got this waxed canvas hat in 2001 and wore it until 2009. I made the mistake of leaving it out and my two dogs decided to play tug of war with it. The result was a penny size hole. I still have it and plan on using it again this September. I also have a waxed baseball style hat from Frost River that I love. I trade off wearing these on trips depending on conditions.

Tilley!

First, I flat out hate hats; always have. As a kid, my baseball coaches would get angry with my when I refused to wear my hat. That said, when paddling, I always wear one, and it is a Tilley air flow. Recall someone here at some point making a comment that that is an old man hat. If the hat fits...!

A Tilley hat for me when I'm travelling. I burnt my ears one time a few years ago so I made the switch from a baseball cap, In camp it's still a baseball cap though.

I am working on my second TILLEY hat. I seldom wear it but what I think of my high school principal, Tilley M. Yes she was a tough older pro you did not want to go to her office to see. That HS time was in the early 1960's.

A baseball cap will do most of the time, but my favorite hat to wear up there is my Stetson Wool Felt Fedora. It only goes on spring and fall trips, but its my fave.

Tilley

Tilley hat, one of two pieces of gear that has traveled the JMT, PCT, CT and TRT with me over the past six years. And now the BWCA! Best. Hat. Ever.

Don’t leave home within my Tilley! Think I bought it off someone on this site!

My old long billed flat hat with the extra neck cowl....A really long bill.

Another view...same hat.

Military style boonie hat.

shawhh: "Military style boonie hat."

Yes, me too. I have several surplus military boonie hats which I like. But I lost my favorite one on the Big Rv (Wabakimi area) in 2016. Not really "lost" because I hung it on a tree at a portage landing during a lunch stop. So I know exactly where it is. When I realized I didn't have it I was not going to ask my partner to go back 2 portages and an hour+ paddling. But I found a boonie hat on Elliot Lk(Wabakimi area) in 2008 so I guess I am even.

Tilley of course. I need the sun protection and it’s just a great hat.

My Tilly is nice in cooler weather, but I'll be going with some light weight OR brimmed hat this year for the warmer summer days

A great hat in cooler weather but when it turns warm, I go with a breezer

I wear a hat any time I am outdoors. Warmer weather it's usually a baseball style cap and in the winter, it's a Stormy Kromer.

My Alaskan bear hat

Spalding and I are aligned on this issue.

I wrote this story on the way home from a canoe trip in 2010. The hat never was refurbished, and he has adapted well to his Columbia SPF 50 hat with brim and also neck protection.

But this was Spartan1's favorite hat:

THE HAT

(A Short Story)

It has always been special to him. A US Army jungle hat. He brought it back from his shortened tour in Viet Nam in 1969 (shortened by two Purple Hearts; two traumatic but non-life-threatening injuries) and its distinguishing feature is the South Vietnamese 1st Lieutenant’s insignia pinned upon its band—a pin given to him by his counterpart “in country”. It went on our first trip in 1971, and it has gone on every journey into the canoe country since. For forty years it has been, simply put, his signature.

There are a few anecdotes to relate. Like the one and only trip we made with our teenage children back in 1988. We were at Fall Lake Landing, with our canoes loaded up and all ready to push off on our six-day trip when suddenly he clapped his hand to his head and cried, “My hat!” Of course a quick search ensued, and it was decided that when he lifted the rented Alumacraft to his shoulders at Babe’s Bait and Canoe Rental in Ely it must have fallen to the ground. So. . .we all waited at the E P while he drove back to retrieve THE HAT.

A few years later (2006) it was forgotten under his chair at Journey’s End Café in Ely when we had breakfast before a Lake One trip. Press replay. I remained at the landing and photographed the canoe, the ducks, the view, while he drove back for THE HAT.

Once or twice it blew off in the wind and we paddled to fish it out of the water. THE HAT floated fairly well, thank God.

It has become dirty and sweat-stained, so I have gently washed it from time to time. I have tried to mend small tears. But forty years take their toll. This year as we were preparing for our trip, unbeknownst to me, he took THE HAT to our local sewing shop for repairs. And they did a great job of securing the brim to the crown where it had pulled away—it is well reinforced. Unfortunately, however, the sun-bleached olive drab fabric on the crown has now split open from the stress of handling and it no longer adequately protects his bald spot from the sun. This is unacceptable.

Spartan1 is a trouper. He is very susceptible to skin cancer now, due to his anti-rejection meds, and he is well aware of it. He wore his new, protective Columbia hat on his fishing trip and on our recent six-day canoe trip, and I know it broke his heart. It broke mine, too.

But after the trip when we were going in to the Trestle Inn for our big greasy hamburgers and beer, I looked over at him standing by my side, and there on his head was THE HAT.

And now, as I am in the car riding along on Hwy 17 in Canada, on that beautiful drive along the northern shore of Lake Superior that will finally take us home to Michigan after spending almost a month in Minnesota, I am writing this story and he is driving home from his time in the Boundary Waters wearing THE HAT.

I think I will have to find a way to put a lining in that fragile crown before our next canoe trip.

Spartan2,

Great Hat story.

Wally13: "Spartan2,

Great Hat story. "

+1 loved tHAT story

Field hat from the Navy.

I love my Tilley.