Published on June 19, 2026 09:05 am
If you just retired and found yourself with an extra $72,000 burning in your pocket, you’d probably buy a boat or sports car. Curtis Jones decided to spend the entire amount on hats.
To date, Jones has distributed more than 2,200 hats to hikers and trail runners around Boulder, Colorado — a random act of kindness that turned out to be something neither he nor Boulder would have ever seen coming. And yet, even though I’ve lived here for 10 years, I’d never heard of it—at least, not until last month.
When I met Jones at the top of Boulder’s Flagstaff Mountain, he gave me a blue runner’s hat emblazoned with the name and elevation of Boulder’s Mount Sanitas, a beloved local peak on the edge of town.
“A gift,” he said to me when I took the hat. “It’s something I do to be nice to people.” I thanked him politely and wore it.
It wasn’t until the next day that I realized the “gift” cost $50 – and that I had crashed into some kind of Boulder secret club.
Whenever I wore a hat, I was stopped. People pulled me aside in the office, on the trail, and at the climbing gym. “You met the hat guy!” He said. Sometimes he also wore the same distinctive blue running cap. The boy with the hat? I wasn’t sure what situation I had gotten myself into.
When I emailed Jones, he said he would explain everything – about the trip. I met him on the trail to Mount Sanitas, which he calls “the greatest mountain in the universe.” He gave me a bag full of 50 caps. (If you’re counting, that’s $2,500 worth of merchandise.)
Our goal for the day: to abandon them all.
hiking through transition
When Jones got his first cap in early 2025, he was struggling with many things. He recently sold the business he’d spent his entire life building, retired forever, and got divorced. It was a huge change, and he found himself repeatedly visiting his local mountain, Sanitas, trying to figure out what to do next with his life. Although he had performed well in business sales, life seemed empty.
“I had a bit of impostor syndrome about how much we sold the business for,” he admits. He won’t say how much, but Botanical Interests was a horticulture company, and Jones and his business partner sold it right after the pandemic (as you’ll recall, horticulture took a bit of a hit).
The buyer, Epic Gardening, had received $17.5 million in funding in 2022, a year before purchasing the botanical interest. If that amount was any indication of the company’s purchasing power, the price was probably much larger.
“You work hard for years at something you love, and then someone gives you a lot of money,” Jones said. “Practically, it makes sense — we employed 60 people, we contributed to the economy, all that — but on a personal level, you’re saying, ‘Why do I deserve this?'”
Friends told him to take his money and travel the world. He didn’t like this idea.
“The journey is good, but it is not the purpose,” he said.
consummate traveler’s retirement plan
Instead, Jones decided to give back. He cut a check to thank his father for his support in the early days of the business. He donated to nonprofits in Boulder and Tucson. Still, it didn’t feel like enough: Donation is often an anonymous effort, and Jones wanted to make a direct impact.
He thought about an encounter a few years ago at Blackett’s Ridge in Tucson. While hiking, Jones met a man who was selling hats, each hat black and emblazoned with Ridge’s name. Jones bought one. He liked that hat very much.
Jones decided to start something similar – but this time for free. And in Technicolor.
“For some reason, people are totally into black hats and bicycles, and I don’t understand that,” Jones said. “There are too many beautiful colors in the world to wear black.”
He chose a design that featured an electric-blue band and red letters. The iconic Sanitas hat was born, and so was Jones’ nickname: The Sanitas Mad Hatter.
That first year, he ordered 25 custom-embroidered hats from the Australian company Fractale. He gave his first gift to a passenger in February 2025. She immediately started crying bitterly. Jones panicked.
“I didn’t know what I did wrong,” he said. But he saw her expression and shook his head.
“Nobody ever gave me anything except for birthdays and Christmas,” he said. The gift meant something to him – and Jones was touched by it. He burnt 25 of his caps in a few days. His next order was for 50. Then 100. Right now, he has 2,500 hats in his garage. And when will he be out of them? He will keep buying more.
“Do you have a budget? Or is there any kind of limit on how many hats you’ll give away?” I asked
“No,” he said. “not at all.”
The unique magic of Mount Sanitas
Four other peaks dominate the Boulder horizon, but Jones never contemplated any of them. It was to be Mount Sanitas. “There’s just an energy to it,” he said.
As close as Mount Sanitas is to the city, it is also a social mountain. This is where Boulder locals come to meet, socialize, and get some exercise before or after work.
“Every time I come to Boulder, I have to go to Mount Sanitas,” said a hiker from Florida after Jones and I handed him a hat. “Like every time you’re in New York City, you have to run around Central Park.”
Additionally, the Mount Sanitas Trail claims 1,300 feet of elevation gain in just 1.3 miles. So if you want to grind your own pulp in 45 minutes or less, this is where you should go.
“I’ve been hiking and running Sanitas for a decade,” says Vince Wahla, a local resident who has hiked an estimated 700 times. “This is my favorite Boulder local hill. It means a lot to me. I’ve used it for training, to meet friends, to clear my mind, or to think about a problem. I’ve also met a lot of people on that trail – people I now consider friends.”
change your hat, change your day
Jones tries to climb Mount Sanitas twice per week, and every time he does, he makes someone’s day.
About two months ago, Vahla was hanging out at Sanitas, trying to shake off a bad mood. He was stressed and unwell, and in no mood to stop and chat. But then, midway through his second lap, one of Jones’ fellow pedestrians stuck a sticker in front of Wahala.
“It says something like ‘kindness is contagious,'” Wahala said. “I remember holding it, looking at the sticker, seeing the person and just getting a kick out of it.” He stopped by his place, said hello, and struck up a conversation with Jones, who of course tipped him a hat.
“It changed the trajectory of the next few weeks for me,” Wahla said. “It put me in a much better mood.”
Everyone to whom Jones and I gave the hat along the way seemed to have the same reaction. Most had either heard of Jones and always wanted a hat (he can no longer hike on weekends because he gets stuck in crowds) or already had one.
“Hate!” A trail runner came across us to greet us.
“Hi Curtis!” screamed the mother of two.
I asked Jones how it feels to be a local celebrity. He simply shook his head in disbelief. He said, this never happened. It was always about the feeling of doing something good and expecting nothing in return.
Saying this he gave a cap to a passerby. She smiled, thanked him again and again and went away with her new hat.
“Can you imagine how it changes you when you get that feedback 2,200 times?” Jones said. “I’m not the same person I was before I started doing this.”
kindness high
The Mad Hatter Project gives Jones the sense of purpose he lost after retiring. On top of that, it’s kind of high.
“I’ve read that when you do an act of kindness, there’s actually a physical response,” she said. “There are chemicals that are produced by both the giver and the recipient. After 2,200 hats, whatever that chemical is, it will be coming out of my ears.”
There are actually several, and they are called “feel-good” chemicals. These include serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and natural endorphins. When you give or receive gifts, like Jones’s hat, they flood your brain, resulting in a completely natural euphoria.
Plus, Jones said, in our increasingly digital world, people seem hungry for personal interactions and personal kindness. People love free stuff, he said, but more than that, they just want to be seen and get attention.
“It’s some people’s calling to make a big impact, but (Jones’) way is to spread kindness and happiness one person at a time,” Wahla says. “He’s having a direct impact on the people around him. It’s meaningful.”
But it’s not just about the free stuff, Jones said. The hat only breaks the ice. The real magic happens later.
Ahead of us, Jones and I watch as three people who recently received hats bump into each other on the sidewalk and begin to converse about their hats. They laugh and introduce themselves—and continue hiking together.
“Mother Teresa once said, ‘If you throw a pebble in a pond, it creates a lot of ripples,'” Jones said, looking at her. “This is my pebble.”
