Some reactive ad hoc protocols allow the discovery and/or storage of multiple paths to the same destination node. The selection of the path to utilize is commonly based on the criterion of the minimum number of hops. However, some other strategies could be appropriate to improve the network performance. In this paper, we intend to minimize the load in the network by choosing the most stable path, i.e. the path which is expected to have the longest lifetime. With this purpose, we estimate the stability of the path by means of the received signal strength. The simulations show that important improvements associated to the network performance are achieved by the use of this cross-layer information. Categories and Subject Descriptors C.2.2 [Network Protocols]: Routing Protocols General Terms Design, Algorithms, Experimentation, Performance Keywords MANET, Route stability, DSR, Ad Hoc Routing