I love to go hiking and kayaking. I'm also a person who sunburns quite easily. So I absolutely always wear a hat. Here's my review of the North Face HyVent Hiker Hat Review.

First off, the basics. This hat is very light and folds up into a small space. That's good for both hiking and kayaking. It's a sturdy construction.

The hat also has velcro tabs on either side of the head. This means that, when you wish, you can fold the edges of the brim up to offer more of a breeze.

Here's the problem. The brim is very light. It easily blows in a breeze. And the way it wants to blow is up - against the velcro. So when I want the brim to be down to block the sun, it is constantly blowing up and connecting itself to the side of my head. And then I'm pulling it back down again - and only moments later it's back up again. This is bad enough when I'm hiking and have free hands, but if I'm kayaking and have my hands occupied with a paddle, it's even more annoying.

I recently was out kayaking on a medium windy day with bright sun, where I definitely needed the hat brim to stay down. But the wind was constantly blowing the brim to connect to the velcro. It was beyond frustrating.

So I'm not sure when I could recommend using the hat. Maybe if you knew it would absolutely be dead calm with no wind - but can we ever really know that? Especially with so many other great hat options out there, I'd pass on this one.

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