Manly Pursuits

For The Past two decades, most men have been hacking and slashing through the corporate rain forest on their way to financial success, rather than plunging through dense jungle on the way to perfect fly-fishing in Costa Rica. But now, out of the blue, scouting is hot. The New Man is a goner. The Man Jack is back. Books and magazines everywhere extol traditional masculine skills: hunting, fishing, rock-climbing and caving. When it comes to talking man stuff, you want to be a man among men--and, more important, a man among women. But one false step conversationally and you are up a creek without a kayak. Here's a guide t o talking the big outdoors without risking injury or death.

Mountain-Bike Talk

You say: Last month I was up on Poison Spider riding this totally tuned Specialized S-Works Ultimate. That single track's the tightest--there's a drop-off the size of a touchdown, and it took a pretty sharp stutter pedal not to crater.

You mean: You look death in the face and hock big green lungies. Poison Spider Mesa, near Moab, Utah, is one of the country's premiere technical trails for mountain biking. That's where you took your $6000 carbon fiber and titanium bicycle (the Specialized S-Works Ultimate, one of only 200 made each year) when you went up a tiny trail only six inches wide (single track) in some places. On one side, the vertical rock climbed to the sun, and on the other, the planet dropped away 300 feet (a touchdown, or length of a football field) straight down. To admire the scenery, you used a technique of gingerly moving the pedals forward and backward (stutter pedal), which allows the bike to stand still, in a wobbly fashion, on the skinny ledge. You crash (crater) if you and the bike free-fall the 300 feet.

Credibility insurance: Don't mention anything about the bike's basket or its cute little bell.

Trek Talk

You say: Really, my most memorable trek was six weeks in the Dolpo. I spent most of my time in the Mustang at the Shey. I thought their thankas rivaled those in the Potola, but they still can't compare to those of the monasteries in Bhutan.

You mean: You're an off-the-beaten-path kind of questing guy. The Dolpo is a region of the Mustang district of Nepal that was only recently opened to foreigners. The Shey monastery, one of the three great centers of Tibetan Buddhism, has walls that are covered with extraordinary religious paintings (thankas). Dropping the names of such obscure, remote places as Potola, Bhutan and the Dolpo shows that you go where Federal Express doesn't.

Credibility insurance: Don't try this while you're knocking back a brewski and puffing on a Camel.

Birding Talk

You say: I was beating cover in an old apple stand with Granddad's Parker 12 side-by, thinking woodies, and--damn!--if I didn't beat a grouse. Dog died.

You mean: You think pheasants are for peasants. Your idea of shooting wildfowl is to tramp (beating cover) through an abandoned orchard (apple stand), hoping against hope to do the nearly impossible--namely, shoot a grouse, the most elusive of all game birds. Your assumption was you'd end up taking potshots at woodcocks (woodies), the bird of choice for desperate amateurs, with your expensive Parker 12-gauge side-by-side double-barreled shotgun, the atom bomb of the tweedy hunter set. When you accidentally flushed (beat) a grouse, you blindly fired a lucky shot. Your trusty hound was so astonished he refused to retrieve.

Credibility insurance: Cornish game hens aren't game at all, and the only place they are in season is at the supermarket.

Windsurfing Talk

You say: Yeah, a month a, I was down in the DR and smashed a logo-high ramp fully powered on my Angulo asymmetrical. Then I pulled off a full loop and sailed away.

You mean: You can licking and keep on kicking. You were on vacation in the Dominican Republic when you sailed (smashed) at great speed into a wave (ramp) the height of the logo on a sail (logo-high) on a specially designed sailboard (the Angulo asymmetrical), which you then flipped end over end in mid-air (pulled off a full loop) and landed sailing before heading back to your office in Dayton.

Credibility insurance: Ho'okipa is a boardsailing mecca on Maui, not drug paraphernalia.

Salmon-Fishing Talk

You say: Went to Reck with my Fisher slat pack, a CFO and an old Hardy, tied on a few Crosses and went to the top.

You mean: When you feel passionate, you know no limits. For" example, to catch dinner, you (concluded on page 166) (continued from page 89) went to Reykjavik, Iceland, capital of the best salmon fishing in the world, a veritable Valhalla for reel-creel water-beaters. Your arsenal: a bamboo (slat) fly rod by Fisher, designed to come apart (pack) in four sections for easy traveling; two famous reels, one modern (the CFO from Orvis) and one ancient (the Hardy); and a collection of flies tied in the late Thirties by Rube Cross, the Arnold Schwarzenegger of fly-tying. You caught more fish (went to the top) than you could keep.

Credibility insurance: You know nothing of bait, whatever that is. Your fingers have never touched a worm.

Rock-Climbing Talk

You say: For me, it's gotten so that anything under 5.11 is for bumblies or trads. I've sent some heinous routes lately, like Throwing the Houlihan. I even pulled through that sick mono doigt sequence without beta.

You mean: You climb walls for fun. In gauging the climbing difficulty of a rock pile, anything less than a 5.11 (on a 14-point scale from 5.1 to 5.14) is a waste of your talent, more suited to beginners or old men (bumblies or trads). Throwing the Houlihan is a 5.14climb in Wyoming. Your preferred method of rock-climbing is to explore as you go (without beta)--no girlie maps or charts for you. On this climb, you hang on by jamming a single finger halfway to the first knuckle into a small pocket in the limestone (sick mono doigt).

Credibility insurance: Remember that any rock-climber worth his chalk regards rappelling with disdain, and he never ever says he climbs "because it's there."

Ocean-Racing Talk

You say: Last year's Newport-Bermuda was uphill--no biggie until it started honking in the Stream. When the breeze clocked ten degrees, I had to go into foot mode to catch our eddy.

You mean: You have money like a lifer has time. When you skippered your sloop in the Newport-to-Bermuda yacht regatta last year, you were moving into the wind (uphill) when it really started blowing (honking) as you hit the Gulf Stream. When the wind shifted slightly clockwise (clocked ten degrees), you had to steer off the wind (go into foot mode) to catch one of the eddies that form along the edges of the Stream. Smart skippers like you spotted the eddies on the latest satellite picture.

Credibility insurance: The bow is not something you do in front of Queen Elizabeth.

Kayaking Talk

You say: If you get a chance, run Sock 'em Dog on section four of the Chattooga. Definitely stay right at the launching pad. The last time I ran it, I got blown left and was maytagged in the hole. Maybe it was because I paddle a Crossfire with that low profile of the back deck, and the jaws of the Dog just dragged me in.

You mean: You have pissed more white water than most kayakers have run. Sock 'em Dog is one of the most notorious rapids--it merits a class five difficulty rating on a scale of six, and six means you won't live--on a particularly difficult stretch (section) of the Chattooga River, on the Alabama-Georgia border. The key is to stay to the right after leaving the point of entry (the launching pad) before the rapids. If you allow the current to pull you the other way (blown left), as you did last time, you get sucked into a section of the river where the water runs backward, which means you'll get tossed around like a load of laundry (maytagged in the hole). The other problem you had was that you were in a Crossfire, a high-priced, low-volume kayak, one likely to be dragged back into the hole where recirculating water (the jaws) could hold it, or even pull it under.

Credibility insurance: Do not use "maytagged in the hole" in polite, non-kayaking conversation.

Caving Talk

You say: Years ago we were up in the Guads--it was late November--for the third trip into the Virgin. This was before they gated it. It was hairy. After the first drop out of th e entrance, we headed past the Pseudo-Tolkien. Out there we started the surveying, which had us chimneying over 100-foot fissures with nothing but the tape as pro. We finished up at the sump after 16 hours nonstop station-to-station.

You mean: Caves R U. You go to hell and back before breakfast. For instance, you traveled to the Guadelupe Mountains (the Guads) in southern New Mexico to visit Virgin Cave, a magnificent hole in the ground--now padlocked (gated)--known only to caving cognoscenti and bats. Once you got to the first chamber (the entrance room), you swung like a blind monkey on a rappel (drop) down to a lower level. You then passed the Pseudo-Tolkien Room, an eerie chamber filled with mud-encrusted stalactites and stalagmites, before starting to survey. Forward progress involved traversing a vast crack in the earth by alternating hand and foot movements, your body forming a big X shape pushing against the walls (chimneying). As a fearless caver, you had no protective devices other than your survey tape, which is utterly useless for that purpose. Finally, after a long and exhausting day of scurrying from one line-of-sight point to another (nonstop station-to-station), you ended up in a tight little spot where the cave ceiling comes down to meet an underground body of water (the sump)--a dead end to everybody but Flipper.

Credibility insurance: Remember, Batman, stalactites pierce your noggin; stalagmites look like the award they give the Proctologist of the Year.

"Remember that any rock-climber worth his chalk never ever says he climbs 'because it's there.'"