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It's our guides who make Hike Maui the best. We've always had the top guides in the business, known for their knowledge of Hawaiian botany, geology, culture and history. Our mission is to teach people about Hawai'i, and to do so while having a fun adventure. Anyone can walk you through the woods. When you go with us, it will be the best day of your vacation. Our full-time guides are often asked by Mainland clients: "Is this a real job?" (Most would like to have their office be the great outdoors!) And, yes it is -- a really great job. UteMaui Hiking Guides
"I truly knew I was home when I came here." That's how Ute felt when she arrived on Maui in 1985, drawn here by a dream depicting the place her daughter, Sarah, would be born. She still lives in that jungle area of Maui with no running water and no electricity--"off the grid," as we say. It is a far different life than her upbringing in Germany where she was a dental technician. She left Germany at age 23 and headed for California where for four years she studied to be a master silversmith and goldsmith.
While in California, she studied with two American Indian tribes, and founded a center for native teaching. On Maui, her interest turned to Hawaiian history and culture, and, being a prolific reader, she reads everything written about them.
She also learned Hawaiian hula and African dance, and for five years was a certified movement teacher in the public schools, teaching dance through the metaphor of Hawaiian mythology.Ray 
Ray has always loved adventure. In his "small kid days" (island lingo), growing up on O'ahu, he led his buddies into the ridges and valleys of Ko'olau Mountain, bushwacking, climbing, exploring and camping. This wild man stuff continued when he grew up and joined the Army's 82nd Airborne as a reconnaissance paratrooper (spendingthree years jumping out of planes and helicopters). Then he really grew up: got sensible, got married, had two kids and began working in hotel management. He kept being promoted until he "burned out," he says, "managing too many people, spending too much time at the hotel and too little time where it really counts--at home."
He found the balance he was looking for by guiding visitors for Hike Maui--adventure and service in one job. "I can be outdoors and still deal with customers. I like educating people about our culture and about nature. I like to say I'm saving the world one van-load at a time." Trevor 
A Texan by birth, Trevor has worked and played all over the world. He was a gourmet chef for seven years in the Caribbean island of St. Croix where he had his own catering company. He was a desert naturalist in the American Southwest based out of the red-rock country of Sedona, Arizona.
After tiring of snowy winters in the the high desert, he moved to Maui and crewed as a marine expert on tour boats. He was then hired to develop an off-road jeep adventure tour in Upcountry Maui ranch land. When 9-11 ended that business, we snagged him, and he has been happily hiking ever since.
But wait, we forgot--he has also been deep sea diving in as many major world waters as he could since he was 14. He has also written two novels (not yet published). And, on Maui, of couse, he surfs with the rest of our guides.Roger 
Before settling in Maui in 1986, Roger spent five years as a Montana fly fishing guide. He was also a wildlife biologist hanging out of helicopters counting critters for six years in remote areas of Wyoming and Montana.
After so many quiet years in paradise (Maui) and in the backwoods (Montana), Roger wanted to live in a big city, so he moved to Kobe, Japan, just in time for the earthquake of 1995. He stayed, teaching English, for five years until he was fluent in Japanese.
Back on Maui again, he worked in a state program with Maui's endemic birds. He also did night-time astronomy tours with Japanese tourists. When 9-11 caused Japanese tourism to dwindle in Hawai'i, we wired Roger up on green tea and sent him hiking. His facility with language and science and his love of guiding make him a perfect fit for us.Stephanie 
On the Mainland, Stephanie had numerous interesting and strange wildlife/ biology jobs. Spawning endangered trout and salmon species, for instance (actually putting the eggs and sperm together). Monitoring spotted owls in Oregon. Counting frogs in Idaho. Releasing falcons in Texas. Inventoring and banding song birds. Managing a 200-acre preserve in Idaho for The Nature Conservancy.
"Originally, I wanted to be a fish biologist," she says. "I was enthralled with fish. Then I got interested in wildlife biology, and, on my first job I learned to identify 130 birds by their songs. I didn't know I could do that! That was a real confidence booster."
In Hawai'i she monitored several endemic bird species in two of our national parks. Once here, of course, there was no going back. "I've discovered I can't live in a place where there is no ocean. I have to do my surfing and spear diving now. And, I need to be outside, not in a lab."Chuck 
Forced to take a college botany class for pre-med, Chuck could not believe how boring it was. "I wondered then what kind of personality would want to do this for a living," he says.
Ironically, he is now a botanist, studying for a masters degree at the University of Hawai'i.
The path that led him there was volunteer work at Maui's Haleakala National Park in 1991. He took a year off before med school and found himself "running around a rainforest in Hana--fresh out of Buffalo (New York). I felt like Indiana Jones on a big quest. I couldn't believe how cool the jungle was. It hooked me."
At first, "the plants were all green to me," he says, but then, as he hung out with Hawaiian researchers and scientists, he learned how special each plant is. "They are each a work of art. They're what supports life on this planet. They are a tapestry of life," he raves in his quiet way. "And Hawai'i is such a unique place. I feel very protective of Hawai'i. It's my home now."Doug 
"I wanted to understand how things work," Doug says of his magna cum laude degree in physics. "My love of nature hadn't connected yet." So he taught high school physics until he moved to Colorado to become an Outward Bound instructor. With nature as the true teacher there was no returning to the classroom. He climbed nearly 200 peaks in Colorado, including the highest 100 peaks (more than 13,000 feet each).
"I spent every second I could in wilderness," Doug says. And then another adventure beckoned -- the famous Pacific Crest Trail on the west coast. "I wanted to spend a big chunk of time in the wilderness to see who I would become," he says, so he spent 4.5 months walking the 2650-mile trail from Mexico to Canada. "I became really at peace."
He moved to Maui to explore another environment -- "where I could be outside all year round and not be land locked." He first learned the ocean as a kayaking guide, then joined Hike Maui to pursue his real focus: "helping people fall in love with nature."
"Hike Maui is a natural for me," he says. "I always want to do what I'm passionate about."Part-Time Guides
We have several part-time guides who work one to three days a week with us. They balance school, other jobs, raising children or teaching with hiking. Three have been with us more than a decade.Cathy 
Cathy teaches botany and ethnobotany (how native peoples use plants) at Maui's local college. She also works part-time as an archaeologist, and, on her own time, studies hula and Hawaiian language.
Stories of the Polynesian navigators brought her from New England to Hawai'i years ago. "These people who lived so close to the earth and sea impressed me and I decided to come here and learn about them," Cathy says. So she enrolled in a master's degree program in anthropology at the University of Hawai'i.
In 1991, she was awarded a grant by Honolulu's Bishop Museum to study olona, a native plant that produces the strongest natural plant fiber in the world. Cathy was the first in this century to research this important plant, once so plentiful, but now a rare find in the deep rainforests of Hawai'i.
Cathy is instrumental in keeping the Hawaiian Endemic Plant Society thriving, and on weekends she works in remote areas replanting native upland forests.Helga 
Helga arrived on Maui in 1979 with $2 in her pocket. She had fallen in love with rainforests in South America when she lived with the Sequoia and Quechuan Indians, so she came to Hawai'i searching for more rainforest life. Immediately, she began homesteading six acres of low-land forest on Maui. There, she kept the jungle back enough to plant nearly 1500 rainforest species from around the world. She also planted 40 species of fruit trees and hundreds of flowering plants. Her extensive knowledge of botany comes from these years of research and personal hard work on the land.
After 13 years, Helga left her jungle paradise and moved to the old sugar plantation town of Pa'ia where she lives with her young son. She has worked for us since 1994, which makes her our most senior guide.Wayne 
Wayne is remarkably upbeat, known for his constant good humor and cheery manner. Ironic and inspiring considering his past. In 1967 his helicopter was shot down in Cambodia. After 10 days in a 4 by 4 bamboo cage, he realized he would die there as a POW, So, he began chewing on the bamboo bars. Took him 23 days, but he escaped and released 14 other guys. After 21 days wandering in the jungle, they found a troup of Marines and got out.
"I would have made a career of the Army," he says. "But, I didn't want to go back to Vietnam. When I left in March of '68, the morale was going down."
Instead, he had a 25-year career in the trucking business, in sales and operations, both on the East Coast and in California. He came to Maui in 1988 and worked in the tour business for 13 years, driving 2,748 trips to Hana (yes, he counted). We knew his reputation as a top tour guide, so we got him out of the driver's seat and hiked him back into the jungle.Marko 
He calls himself "Marko Polo." He's even listed that way in the phone book. Marko is an adventurer and a scientist, and has lived in Hawai'i since 1979. He does service work for the Nature Conservancy and is on the executive board of the local Sierra Club. With a degree in marine biology from UC Berkeley, Marko spent seven years teaching high school biology and environmental science. But the adventurer kept resurfacing to take him across the globe: crewing for a year around Africa on an oil supply vessel, exploring Asia, researching plants in the Amazon. He also worked for seven years as a fire fighter, doing land and sea rescues.
He was with us full time for years, then needed to go back to his first love -- teaching science to kids. Often accused of being a big kid himself, Marko will leap off any and all rocks and waterfalls. He'll let you come out and play with him on weekends and summers when he returns to us from his school job.
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