We are incredibly proud of our staff of outstanding wilderness guides! We are many things: hikers, mountain bikers, climbers, artists, historians, naturalists, biologists, musicians, explorers, medics. But what we all share in common is a profound love of the outdoors. Our guides spend an average of 150 nights a year in the backcountry leading folks of all ages, backgrounds and abilities on wonderful adventures across the Southwest. In an industry with high turnover, we’re proud of the fact that our guides have been with FSG for an average of seven years! No other guide service in the region can match that level of commitment and we are ever grateful to our staff for coming back year after year.

Each of our professional guides is required to have the following Guide Certifications:

  • Wilderness First Responder or WEMT
  • AHA CPR Certification
  • Backcountry Food Handlers Certification
  • Leave No Trace Outdoor Ethics

Our Tour Guides

Scott Victor

Scott Victor – Operations Manager/Lead Guide

Professional Guiding Experience: 21 years

Born and raised in St. Louis, Scott developed an appreciation for the outdoors in the Ozarks of Missouri and Arkansas. Here he spent many days swatting flies while canoeing down the beautiful waters of the Ozark National Scenic Riverways and hiking the beautiful mountains in the surrounding area. Scott moved to Flagstaff in 1996 to attend Northern Arizona University. The magnificent landscape of northern Arizona only deepened his interest in the outdoors. When he wasn’t attending classes, he spent all of his free time traveling and exploring the west, especially the Four Corners region. By now, Scott has hiked and traveled throughout the Southwest more than most of us will do in our entire lives.

Scott joined FSG in 2003 and has been guiding full-time with us ever since. He is intimately familiar with Grand Canyon, southern Utah and Yosemite National Park and knows every trip we offer inside and out. You would be hard-pressed to find another guide with more experience. Racking up an average of 175 days per year guiding in the backcountry, he is just as much at home in the outdoors as anywhere else. His years of experience, calm demeanor and extensive knowledge of all things ‘Southwest’ has earned him a loyal base of regularly returning guests. When Scott is not in the Southwest carrying a 90 pound backpack, he gets his fix from mountain biking, bouldering and traveling, with a particular interest in Latin and South America.

Bob Cheesman

Bob Cheesman – Lead Guide

Professional Guiding Experience: 23 years

Bob is another of our veteran expert guides and 2024 will mark his 23rd year of professional guiding. Bob started with an early passion for the great outdoors, reinforced by many summers around New England’s lakes and mountains. Several trips as a young man to Colorado’s Rocky Mountains left him dreaming of the West and would eventually lead him to the mountains and canyons of the Colorado Plateau. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Education, with a minor in Art, where he specialized in creating stained glass and painting. While student teaching, Bob lived in a small cabin in New Hampshire’s rugged White Mountains, where he regularly explored the wilds just outside his doorstep. A year after graduation, Bob made a life changing decision to move west to Arizona.

His guiding career began in Grand Canyon leading day hikes, student travel tours and overnight backpacking, with much of the work focused in educational outdoor pursuits. He also worked a number of tours with the National Park Service performing backcountry vegetation surveys and invasive plant removal projects. Bob joined FSG as a full-time guide in 2006. He routinely receives fantastic reviews from his guests, who regularly remark on his fun, easy-going style, great sense of humor, infinite knowledge and notable professionalism. During the off-season, you won’t find him relaxing much! Bob can always be found mountain biking, skiing, hiking and exploring new areas around the Southwest

Matt Rehm

Matt Rehm – Lead Guide

Professional Guiding Experience: 16 years

Matt originally hails from Pennsylvania and moved to Arizona when he was 20. His first backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon proved to be a life changing experience. Over the next several years, he spent as much free time as possible exploring every trail and route the canyon had to offer, many trips as solo adventures. Matt eventually gave his day job as a custom cabinet builder to pursue what he felt was his true calling. Now a veteran guide in the Southwest, Matt spends about 200 days a year hiking, backpacking, and guiding in the canyons of Arizona and southern Utah. His passion for Grand Canyon is palpable and infectious.

In his spare time, Matt enjoys kayaking, rock climbing, mountain biking and of course…backpacking. In February 2016, he finished the final section of a complete Grand Canyon through-hike, an endeavor that perhaps fewer than 50 people have ever accomplished. A truly remarkable feat!

Jeremy Williams

Jeremy Williams – Lead Guidee

Professional Guiding Experience: 16 years

Jeremy has been guiding full-time in Grand Canyon and Yosemite National Parks since 2007. Originally from Mississippi, he found his way out to northern Arizona on a road-trip, stopped by the Grand Canyon and instantly fell in love. Shortly thereafter, he managed to get himself a job as an assistant on a guided backpacking trip and the rest is history. Since then, Jeremy spends about 200 days and nights per year leading folks through the backcountry. His recipe of southern hospitality, charm, and an infectious passion for the outdoors wins over his guests on every trip. When he’s not leading trips, there’s a great chance you’ll find him exploring a new route or summiting a Grand Canyon butte, or perhaps researching a new backpacking trip in the Sierra Mountains in Yosemite.

Karne Snickers

Karne Snickers – Lead Guide

Professional Guiding Experience: 20 years

Karne was born in Whittier, California and moved to Arizona in her teens. She soon found her love for the outdoors when she met her husband John. Immediately falling in love with the Grand Canyon, she abandoned her city and urban lifestyle for the dusty outdoors, picking up hobbies like hunting, fishing, hiking and mountain biking along the Mogollon Rim and surrounding areas. Running became her main focus after settling down in Munds Park, Arizona. Karne has religiously kept her athletic stature as third priority (preceded only by her family and her garden). She has also been a huge influence on her son, Brandon Snickers, another guide at FSG, by dragging him and his sisters through many different outdoor adventures. She has her husband to thank for sparking her love for the outdoors, though she has a naturally adventurous and exciting attitude. Returning to the guiding world from a previous guiding career has reminded her of the passion to be a friendly and motherly figure for the guests. Karne is excited to return for more trips after 8 years of helping the Four Season Guides team as an assistant.

Owen Sivitz

Owen Sivitz – Lead Guide

Professional Guiding Experience: 14 years

Raised on a small horse farm in New Jersey, Owen gained an appreciation for the wilderness at a young age after spending nights solo-camping in the woods as a free-range child. His first backpacking experiences were along the legendary Appalachian Trail. Upon working for a conservation corps in Australia, Owen knew that he would end up pursuing a career involving the outdoors. After graduating Rutgers University, Owen moved to Grand Canyon National Park for 5 years, where he worked in hospitality as well as with the Preventative Search and Rescue team. This eventually led to his first guiding job leading hiking and backpacking trips in Grand Canyon. Now with over a decade of professional guiding experience, Owen is an expert in Grand Canyon and across southern Utah. Owen’s passions include geology, history, ethnobotany, land ethic and in his free time, he enjoys art, poetry, and travel.

Brandon Snickers

Brandon Snickers- Warehouse Manger/Lead Guide

Professional Guiding Experience: 12 years

Brandon joined the team at Four Season Guides at a young age, knowing most of the crew from past trips. Ever since the age of 5 or 6, he has been in and out of Grand Canyon with his parents, who share a love for the outdoors. Having hiked a majority of the trails within Grand Canyon and much of the backcountry throughout Arizona, Brandon has a wealth of experience and knowledge of the backcountry. He joined FSG at the age of 16, assisting on large group trips in Havasu Canyon and instantly proved himself a hard worker and quick learner. He soon found his way into the warehouse and is now warehouse manager.

In 2016, Brandon began leading trips in Havasu Falls and Grand Canyon. He now splits his time between the warehouse and leading trips, and continues to expand his guiding knowledge into the canyons of southern Utah and the mountains of Yosemite.

Lily Styrmoe

Lily Styrmoe – Lead Guide

Professional Guiding Experience: 10 years

Lily Styrmoe grew up in Tucson, Arizona. She was lucky enough to have a father who showed her the beauty of fly-fishing, hiking and camping when she was young. As a student, she loved to play tennis, club soccer, and hike on the weekends. She attended Northern Arizona University and graduated with a degree in Environmental Studies and Spanish. Lily has extensive knowledge about local wildlife, geology and sustainability. While at university, she worked as a trip leader guiding students on backpacking trips around the Southwest for NAU Outdoors. During her junior year, Lily traveled abroad to southern Spain, expanding her horizons and traveling all around Europe for half a year. She loves kayaking, backpacking, paddle boarding, yoga and rock climbing. Back in Flagstaff, she is enjoys sharing her love of the outdoors and continuing to explore the Southwest.

Drew Schlachter

Drew Schlacter – Lead Guide

Professional Guiding Experience: 16 years

Born and raised in Chicago, Drew has explored North America far and wide. From Michigan to California, from the Yukon to the southwest, this father of two boys has conducted wilderness programs of all sorts, for all kinds of people, for over fifteen years.
Drew is a graduate from Northern Arizona University where he studied Anthropology, Botany, Geology, and Forestry. He has earned his Wilderness First Responder medical certificate, received his Interpretive Guide certification from the National Association of Interpretation, as well as completing two internships with the US Forest Service; one in the White River National Forest in Colorado, the other in the Coconino National Forest in Arizona.

His professional achievements also include being an instructor of Ropes Courses, Corporate Team Building programs, Wilderness Challenge Courses, Wilderness Therapy Leadership programs, as well as an instructor of Therapeutic Recreation programs for At-Risk Youths and people with disabilities.

“Basically, I believe in the transformative power of outdoor recreation. I am personally intrigued and awed by natural areas and the opportunities to learn and connect with them. I hope I find ways to help clients experience the Colorado Plateau in safe, fun, and engaging ways.”

Michael Wichman

Michael Wichman – Lead Guide

Professional Guiding Experience: 16 years

Michael’s first trip below the rim in Grand Canyon was in October 2004 and he hasn’t looked back since. He’s passionate about the Southwest, and especially Grand Canyon, with a love of hiking, climbing, and paddling on and below its rims. He’s dedicated to lifelong learning: an avid reader of all things associated with Grand Canyon, his favorite topics are geology, canyon inhabitants, and river stories. He also loves meeting new people — of all backgrounds, ethnicities, and origins. He finds shared group experiences extremely enriching especially when that experience is in nature. Michael earned a B.A. in psychology from UCLA, where he worked with children with Autism. He also studied at Northern Arizona University, focusing on Environmental Science & Policy in the Southwest. He is also an accomplished photographer and spends a portion of each year leading wilderness-based photography workshops across North America. Michael looks forward to the opportunity to share an adventure with you!

Brian Cresson

Brian Cresson- Lead Guide

Professional Guiding Experience: 6 years

Brian has been exploring the great outdoors and chasing adventure from a young age. Raised in Illinois, he moved to Northern Arizona in 2004 after falling in love with the area. He quickly took to backpacking following his first outing in Yosemite National Park, which was a 100-mile solo trek through the High Sierras. Brian spends most of his free time backpacking in the Grand Canyon, summiting notable canyon peaks, and chasing Grand Canyon history. In addition to hiking and backpacking, Brian is an avid rock climber and enjoys climbing with friends throughout Arizona, California, and the great Southwest. Before joining Four Season Guides, he worked in the Phoenix area as an Emergency Department Technician, EMT, and artist. Brian finds true joy in sharing his adventures, experiences, and stories with others and looks forward to meeting new adventurers and making new friends on every trip!