This work presents a cross-layer modification to the DSR protocol which discovers high throughput paths on multi-hop wireless mesh networks. The modified DSR incorporates a metric based upon the bandwidth availability at a node into the routing discovery mechanism. We introduce the Access Efficiency Factor (AEF) as an alternative metric to the hop-count for the routing selection mechanism. In this modification, the selected path is identified by finding a path with the highest minimum AEF value. The OPNET modeler has been employed to investigate the performance of the modified DSR protocol on randomly generated network topologies of different node densities. Our results suggest that employing the AEF as a routing discovery metric can significantly increase the average global throughput of wireless mesh networks. Categories and Subject Descriptors C.2.1: COMPUTER-OMMUNICATION NETWORKS: Network Architecture and Design, Wireless communication; Network communications General Terms Algorit...