Ad hoc networks are deployed in situations where no base station is available and a network has to be built impromptu. Since there is no wired backbone, each host is a router and a packet forwarder. Each node may be mobile, and topology changes frequently and unpredictably. Routing protocol development has received much attention because mobility management and efficient bandwidth and power usage are critical in ad hoc networks. No existing protocol however, considers the load as the main route selection criteria. This routing philosophy can lead to network congestion and create bottlenecks. We present Dynamic Load-Aware Routing (DLAR) protocol that considers intermediate node routing loads as the primary route selection metric. The protocol also monitors the congestion status of active routes and reconstructs the path when nodes of the route have their interface queue overloaded. We describe three DLAR algorithms and show their effectiveness by presenting and comparing simulation results with an ad hoc routing protocol that uses the shortest paths.