Hike Maui
It is 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.
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. Inventorying 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.”
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 nighttime 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.
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).
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 joined Hike Maui to pursue his real focus: “helping people fall in love with nature.” After two years he left us for several months to walk the 3,000-mile Continental Divide Trail, a grueling and exhilarating hike through sensational beauty. And thank heavens he came back. “Hike Maui is a natural for me,” he says. “I always want to do what I’m passionate about.”
Ute
“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.
Kahi
Famous for his huge “dive bomb” splash, Kahi claims he’s a guide so he can jump off waterfalls every day. “It’s the adrenaline rush of rushes,” he says. “People ask me what I love about my job. I say: ‘Look around — this is my job!’ I love it. Visitors seem intrigued that I’m a local boy and I also know geology, botany and history.”
Kahi was born on Maui in a taxi cab on the way to the hospital. He’s number six of ten kids and he grew up old style Hawaiian. His mom’s house was “24 hours a day full of kids–all the neighborhood kids.” His 360-pound, 6’ 2” grandmother also raised him. “She was one of the best hula dancers on Maui,” he says. “She taught me to fish and surf at age four, to hula at age six and to chant at age 13. My grandparents lived Hawaiian–plantation house, no TV, kukui nut lamps, chanting when someone came to the door, growing lei flowers, singing Hawaiian songs.”
Kahi is the father of four and is a phenomenal self-taught artist and a professional hula dancer.
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 course, he surfs with the rest of our guides.
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 troop 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.
Randy
At seventeen, Randy joined the Air Force to see the world. Eventually he was stationed in Hawai’i, and fell in love with the islands. When the Air Force began downsizing, Randy opted for early retirement.
By the time Randy came to us, he was already a professional guide. He had worked as a downhill bike guide and driven luxury tour vans on the Hana Highway. He sought out Hike Maui, he says, because of its reputation. “It’s the oldest hiking company in the state with the most knowledgeable guides, and it’s like a family. I was always hiking on my days off, so I figured, why not get paid to do what I really like to do?”
Randy is a true professional. He’s always upbeat, and nothing seems too hard for him. Above all, he likes to share his love of Maui with visitors. “Every day I am reminded of the reasons I live here,” he says, “and I enjoy sharing that.”
Kristin
As an Alaskan, Kristin says: “It took me a while to realize that snapping in the bushes behind me was not large animals, but falling fruit.” Still, she sees similarities in both states: “Both are unique places. With both there is no other place like it on Earth. Both have special energy, special people.”
In Alaska she was a veterinarian tech, a dental assistant, a tour guide and a mom. When son Cory was four, she sold everything to move to Maui and then she eventually found Hike Maui. “I have so much fun in this job,” she enthuses. “I teach in an outdoor office. I love it when I inspire someone about nature. And, I’ve got the best coworkers in the world. This is a phenomenal group of people to work with. I feel lucky every day.”
Her clients feel the same way about her. “On a daily basis, someone says I should be on “Survivor” (the TV show). Because I’m jumping around on rocks, being athletic, jumping off waterfalls. And we’re in the jungle.” But nobody would ever vote Kristin off.