Do UV Jackets Work? What to Wear for Sun Protection on Moorland Walks and Mountain Treks

Ask anyone who has walked up to Top Withens on a bright May morning and they will tell you the same story. The wind off the moor keeps you cool, the cloud comes and goes, and by the time you are back in Haworth for a pint the backs of your hands and the tops of your ears are pink. The moors are not the Mediterranean, but they catch people out every year, and it is worth understanding why before you decide what to wear.

Why walkers burn on the moors without noticing

Sunburn is caused by ultraviolet light, not heat, and the two do not travel together. A stiff breeze across Penistone Hill takes the warmth off your skin, so you never get the hot, prickling feeling that would normally send you looking for shade. The UV keeps arriving regardless.

Cloud is the other trap. The NHS is blunt about it: you can burn in the UK even when it is cloudy, and the sun is strong enough to damage skin from March to October, especially between 11am and 3pm. Thick grey cloud does knock UV back, but the thin, broken cloud that drifts over Haworth Moor on a spring day barely dents it. The World Health Organization notes that light cloud can even increase UV at ground level, because the droplets scatter it.

Spring and early summer are the worst months for this. The sun is already high by late April, but the air is cool, the heather is still brown and nobody feels like it is sun cream weather. The simplest habit is to check the UV index in your phone’s weather app before you set off. NHS advice is that once it reaches 3 or higher your skin needs protecting, and on a clear day in Yorkshire that happens well before the schools break up.

Do UV jackets work? What clothes block UV rays, and what doesn’t

Most walkers already cover up, and that is the right instinct. Clothing and shade are the first line of defence the British Association of Dermatologists recommends, ahead of sunscreen. The catch is that not all clothing does the same job.

A thin white cotton T-shirt, the sort most of us pull on for a warm day, has an ultraviolet protection factor (UPF) of around 5. That means roughly a fifth of the UV hitting the fabric passes straight through to your skin. Get it damp with sweat or a shower and the figure drops further, to about UPF 3. You are covered, but you are still taking a steady dose all day. Tightly woven, darker fabrics do far better, which is why nobody burns through their jeans, but heavy fabric is the last thing you want on a long climb.

So do UV jackets work? Yes, provided the fabric carries a tested rating. Sun protective fabric is measured in a laboratory to see how much UV gets through it. In Europe, a garment can only carry the EN 13758 mark for UV protection if it reaches at least UPF 40, which blocks more than 97.5 per cent of UV. A UPF 50+ fabric blocks at least 98 per cent, and unlike sunscreen it does not wear off, rub off or need reapplying at the trig point.

For walking, a lightweight long-sleeved UV protection jacket in a breathable fabric is the most useful single item you can own. It covers the forearms, shoulders and chest, the places a walker burns first, and a good one weighs less than a fleece and dries quickly if you get caught in a shower. Look for a UPF number on the label rather than vague wording like “sun smart” or “UV resistant”. UK specialists such as equatorsun, which has been making sun protective clothing since 2006, have their fabric independently tested and print the rating on the garment, so you are not guessing.

Walking with children: a hat and sleeves beat the sunscreen wrestle

Children burn faster than adults, and the damage matters more. The British Association of Dermatologists estimates that around a quarter of a person’s lifetime UV damage happens before the age of 20, and sunburn in childhood raises the risk of skin cancer later in life. Anyone who has tried to reapply sunscreen to a wriggling six-year-old halfway along the path to the Brontë Waterfall will also know it rarely goes on evenly, and it comes straight off on the next rock they climb.

Clothing solves most of this. A long-sleeved rated top and a proper hat cover the areas that burn, and they stay put. For the hat, shape matters more than brand. A baseball cap shades the forehead and little else; the ears, cheeks and back of the neck are left in full sun, and those are exactly the places children burn. Dermatologists recommend a brim that covers the back of the neck and the ears. For a walk, the most practical style is a legionnaire hat: a cap with a fabric flap that hangs over the neck and ears. It stays on in wind better than a wide brim, and children tend to tolerate it because it does not flop into their eyes. When choosing children’s sun hats for a full day out, a UPF rating on the fabric, a chin strap and a peak that will not droop when wet are the three things worth checking.

That leaves the face and the backs of the hands for sunscreen, which is a far smaller and quicker job.

Hats for adults: wide brim or cap?

Grown-ups get this wrong too. A cap is fine for keeping glare out of your eyes, but on a six-hour circuit of Haworth Moor the sun moves round you, and the back of the neck, the tops of the ears and the sides of the face take the brunt. A wide brim of around 7.5cm shades all of them at once. The NHS makes the same point about thinning hair: sunscreen on the scalp helps, but a wide-brimmed hat is better.

The practical problem on the moors is wind, so look for a chin cord and a brim stiff enough to hold its shape. A packable hat that can be stuffed into a rucksack pocket when the cloud closes in is worth a few pounds more than a straw one that blows into a peat bog.

Sunscreen still matters, for the bits clothing misses

None of this means leaving the sunscreen at home. It is still needed on the face, ears, neck and the backs of the hands, which spend all day gripping walking poles in full sun. The NHS recommends at least SPF 30 with a 4 or 5 star UVA rating, applied generously and reapplied regularly, and more often if you are sweating.

That last point is where clothing and sunscreen work best together. On a hard climb you sweat, the sunscreen thins and runs, and most people do not stop to put more on. Rated clothing does not have that problem. Cover the big areas with fabric, use sunscreen on the small areas, and the amount you need to carry and reapply drops to a pocket-sized tube.

Trekking at altitude: the sun gets stronger as you climb

If you are reading this ahead of a trip to Annapurna or Manaslu, the same rules apply with the volume turned up. The World Health Organization puts the increase in UV at roughly 10 per cent for every 1,000 metres of altitude, because there is less atmosphere above you to absorb it. At Annapurna Base Camp, a little over 4,000 metres, that is around 40 per cent more UV than at sea level, and Thorong La is higher still. Snow makes it worse: fresh snow reflects most of the UV that hits it back up at you and can almost double your exposure, catching the underside of the chin, the nostrils and the lips.

Trekkers tend to remember the cold and forget the sun, then come down the valley with burnt faces. Long sleeves, a hat with a brim or neck flap, wraparound sunglasses and sunscreen on every bit of exposed skin are standard kit for good reason. If you are buying a sun protective jacket for a trek, choose one that layers under a fleece and breathes when you are working hard, because you will be wearing it most of the day.

Frequently asked questions

Can you get sunburned through clothes?

Yes. A thin, light-coloured cotton top has a UPF of around 5, so about 20 per cent of UV passes through it, and wet or stretched fabric lets through even more. Fabric that has been tested and labelled UPF 40 or UPF 50+ blocks at least 97.5 to 98 per cent of UV and is the reliable way to avoid burning through your clothes.

Are UV jackets effective in the UK?

Yes. UK UV levels are high enough to damage skin from March to October, and a rated UV jacket blocks the same proportion of UV in Yorkshire as it does in Spain. It is most useful on long spring and summer walks, when wind and cloud hide how strong the sun is.

What is the best sun hat for children on a walk?

A legionnaire-style hat with a neck flap, or a wide-brimmed hat with a chin strap, made from UPF-rated fabric. Both shade the ears, cheeks and neck, which a baseball cap leaves exposed, and both stay on in the wind.

Do clothes block UV rays when they are wet?

Ordinary cotton loses much of its already low protection when wet, dropping from about UPF 5 to around 3. Tightly woven synthetic sun protective fabrics keep far more of their rating when damp and dry quickly, so if you expect showers or sweat, choose a garment whose label states the UPF for wet as well as dry.