But Schlimmer learned greater life lessons during his military detour. “In the Army, it was ‘discipline, discipline, discipline,’” says friend Ryman McLane, who worked with Schlimmer at the U.S. Forest Service in New Hampshire. “Everybody has to look the same, eat the same, and dress the same. That experience turned him off wanting to be like everyone else.” In 1994 Schlimmer was granted an honorable discharge and eventually enrolled in Plattsburgh State University where he graduated in 2001 with a BA in speech communication. Then it was on to the string of seasonal jobs that remain Schlimmer’s principal source of income: backcountry ranger, AT ridgerunner, AMC trail crew member, wilderness instructor, wild lands firefighter.

Schlimmer works hard not to be, as he puts it, another blade of grass in a giant lawn. He has closely shorn reddish-blonde hair, multiple piercings (two in his right ear, one in his left), and a compact-but-powerful frame that seems purpose-built for bushwhacking up trailless mountains or pedaling his hard-tail bike across desert terrain. He also sets himself apart by measuring the success of his adventures in originality rather than vertical feet or degree of difficulty. Everything hasn’t been done; you just need to know where to look. “The 3,000-foot peaks is a great example,” explains Schlimmer. AMC’s Four Thousand-Footer Club was formed 50 years ago to introduce hikers to what once were lesser-known areas in the White Mountains. “But no one had climbed the Northeast’s 3,000-footers until 1995,” he says. “Adventure’s not dead. All it takes is a little creativity.”

With much of this creativity occurring off-trail, those who consider bushwhacking a high-impact activity have occasionally taken exception to Schlimmer’s backcountry travel. Schlimmer’s loose definition of adventure also opens him up to critics who look at his made-up routes-with names like Borderland Mountain Bike Expedition-and ask one question: So what? A few people I spoke with even questioned his motivation, suggesting his adventures might simply be a means to drum up sales of his thru-hiker’s guide. I’m not nearly as cynical. But listening to Schlimmer talk, it’s clear he’s given plenty of thought on how to best position himself. “You have the super elite off in their own little world doing their own thing. And they’re the core of media attention when it comes to adventure. On the other end, you have a regular Joe hiking the AT who is not going to get any attention at all. Then there’s this guy-me-who’s doing firsts, climbing really big lists of mountains, thru-hiking trails that are unpopular. It’s not rad enough for the [mountaineer] Ed Viesturs crowd, but it’s a little too un-established for the people who hike the AT. I don’t know where I fit in so I’ve been trying to create my own world.”

Whatever his reasons, it’s hard not to admire his threshold for suffering. When Schlimmer designs a route, he’s not always looking for the easiest way to get from A to B. He will purposely seek out hobblebush-tangled trails or plot cycling routes that require backtracking if the net result is a wild and unique experience. If Schlimmer were a runner, his event would be the steeplechase. “I’m kind of the black sheep of the adventure world,” he continues. “You won’t find me on Denali, you won’t find me on Everest. You would never find me on the Appalachian Trail. If I could be the first one to do the kind of project I want to do, that’s great. But it’s not for my ego at all. It’s to have a feeling of exploration, adventure, first tracks.”

Schlimmer was already an accomplished peak bagger when somebody suggested he try hiking every 3,000-plus-foot peak in the Northeast. There are 770 such peaks between Pennsylvania and Maine. Four hundred and twenty have no clear routes to their summits; 70 alone have no official names. Only three people had ever completed this list, which fills 13 pages when printed out. Finishing became a multi-year obsession for Schlimmer. “I went down to the Catskills with him in 2003 and we did three peaks a day for 10 days,” says McLane. “It was 20 below the whole time and we were car camping. Anyone else would have just cracked. But every day, it was ‘get up and hike.’” Schlimmer reached No. 770 in the fall of 2004. Alone atop a trailless, 3,588-foot summit in western Maine, he celebrated by downing a can of Coke and then went home. “Many people go out into the woods for solitude, to find some sort of inner quiet or inner peace,” says friend Nick Gully. “He finds it better when he’s out there on his own.”

Rising a vertical mile out of the central Utah desert, the Wasatch Plateau is an 11,000-foot tabletop brushed with bristlecone pine and rimmed by cascading stands of juniper and aspen. Schlimmer awoke on the morning of September 6, 2005 refreshed and ready to take it on after spending the night in the home of a Provo, Utah newspaper editor he’d met a few months earlier.

It was Day 23 of his Western States Mountain Bike ride and Schlimmer was making stubborn progress along his invented off-road route from Montana to Arizona. By piecing together portions of the Great Western and Arizona trails with ATV routes and sections of unmapped singletrack, Schlimmer was hoping to establish the longest off-pavement bike route in the world. So far, so good. Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming were behind him. Ahead lay the 170-mile long Wasatch Plateau after which it would be all downhill to the borderlands of Arizona.

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