Trip Leader Tuesday: Adam Reimer
Back again with another awesome Trip Leader Tuesday bio! We absolutely love our guides who dedicate their lives to showing people how to see sacred, wild places through their eyes. Our guides, who are passionate, professional, avid advocates for the land and keepers of the wild, are the main facilitators in making each trip an unforgettable one.
Adam Reimer is here to share with us his passion, background and knowledge to offer insight on what it is like to lead hiking tours with Wildland Trekking!
Give us some details about you.
I’ve been a guide with Wildland Trekking for a year and a half, and I’ve gotta say that I still have a hard time believing that this is really what I do for a living. I was born and raised in Nacogdoches, the oldest town in Texas. Right out of college I was hit with a wanderlust and ended up in Northern California working with salmon in the Sacramento River. I fell in love with the west and, after a few trips back and forth to Texas, the wind blew me out to Southern Utah. Being out in the desert, my background in fisheries was bound to dry up, so I thought I would try to find a job doing something I’ve always loved: hiking. Now I get to be an outdoor expert, a hiker, and a teacher all in one. In my free time, I like to fly fish, play Indiana Jones looking for Native American rock art with my daughter and otherwise just be outside.
What is your favorite Wildland Trekking HIKING TOUR? Any specific story or memory you can share?
Every new trip I do seems to be my favorite, but if I had to pick one, I would say the hike through Paria Canyon to Lee’s Ferry tops them all! I really enjoy the challenge of the hike, covering over 40 miles in 5 days, and the landscape gets grander and grander every day. Navajo Sandstone walls climb either side of you from the beginning, you hike into the deepest and longest known slot canyon in the world, become disoriented within the towering walls of the Paria and then burst out into a literal crescendo of light and color at the very beginning of the Grand Canyon.
Join Adam on an awesome Hiking Tour in southern Utah.
Where is one place in the world that you haven’t been to, but would like to go?
It depends on the day of the week! My list of places to go gets longer every day, but Madagascar is the dream trip for me. Aside from all the incredible diversity of plant and wildlife found on this wonder of geographic isolation, it just happens to also have some once-in-a lifetime fly fishing potential.
Any advice or insight you’d like to share as an experienced trip leader for future hikers?
Listen to your guide, whether you’re on a day hike, inn-based tour, camping-based tour or backpacking trip. It’s a guide’s passion to bring folks out to experience the great outdoors in a safe and responsible manner, so maybe pay close attention to what they’ve got to say.
Give us an interesting fact.
There ‘ain’t no saguaro in Texas’! On a more serious note, since I hike in Zion National Park more than anywhere else, I’ll tell you a little about that. In the early 20th century, very few people knew about Zion. In fact, at the 1904 St. Louis World Fair, Frederick Dellenbaugh was criticized for the paintings he showcased of this fantastic, whimsical, fairytale landscape. No one believed that such a place could possibly exist on Earth. His works, photographs, articles and reports helped usher in the designation of the place as a national monument and, eventually, the national park we know and love today!
