The Hat

During the COVID-19 crisis, in addition to writing and revising my magnum opus, I’ve been doing a lot of hiking and mountain climbing. The other day, as I was leaving the house to hike a portion of the Appalachian Trail, I reached for my trusty hat.

I wore the hat while climbing Mount Washington and other mountains in my late teens and early 20s. I wore it caving a couple of times. I wore it during an epic 80s overnight road trip from New York to Chicago. I wore it hiking through Glacier National Park and Yellowstone. I wore it while fly fishing in New York, Vermont, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. I wore it in the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, and Bryce Canyon. I wore it in the Adirondacks, the White Mountains, the Green Mountains, and the woods of Maine. I wore it while boating on Great Sacandaga Lake and in the Penobscot Bay of Maine.

I’ve had a lot of adventures with this hat, and it just occurred to me that it’s over 30 years old. I got the thing when I was 17 or 18. Here are a few photos from some recent adventures with the hat:
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Chris Orcutt hiking in Lake Minnewaska State Park, NY, fall 2018.

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Kaaterskill Falls, Catskill Mountains, NY. 2018 or 2019.

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A bluff over Canopus Lake, Fahnestock State Park, Appalachian Trail, Feb. 2020.

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Black bear tracks near Iron Mine Pond, Taconic State Park, March 2020.

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Cooking some Beyond Meat Italian sausage over a ‘lil “Indian” fire in Wilcox Park, Pine Plains, NY.

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The NY-MA-CT Tri-State monument, Taconic State Park, April 2020.

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The bluff above Canopus Lake again, but a better picture because I’m in it. :)

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Somewhere in the Green Mountains, 2019.

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By Chris Orcutt

Chris Orcutt is an American novelist and fiction writer with over 30 years' writing experience and more than a dozen books in his oeuvre. He is currently at work on his magnum opus, a 1980s "teen epic."

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