BY LATE WINTER, I'm suffering from outdoor-dating fatigue. I've responded to 15 e-mails and haven't heard from anyone I'd want to belay me in the sack. I'm convinced these adventure men are too self-interested and care more about sports than they do about girls.

But in a last-ditch effort, I reply to a flirt from a snowboard bro, who writes, "I like to ride my motorcycle in the summer and snowboard in the winter."

Hi, I say. Got a photo?

A minute later, he sends a picture of himself at a bar in Hoboken, New Jersey, arm in arm with the most recent ultimate-fighting champion on the Spike TV show UFC Unleashed. He's cute in a baby-faced, townie kind of way—too much hair gel. But I give him my number anyway. He calls within seconds.

"That was quick," I say.

"You wanna come boarding tonight?" he says. This guy obviously likes fast action.

"Um, maybe you could tell me a little about yourself first."

"I like to snowboard with my iPod on," he replies. "I like to jam tunes and go up and down the mountain without stopping."

"How are we going to get to know each other?"

"We'll talk on the chairlift."

I agree to meet him that Wednesday night at Mountain Creek Resort, in Vernon, New Jersey. He greets me at the entrance of the Hex Bar, one of the resort's watering holes, and holds the door open. The neon-tangerine jacket he's wearing makes him look like he should be directing traffic on a runway. We sit down and, almost immediately, he pulls up his sleeve and rips off a large bandage to display his new, still-raw forearm tattoo—a black skull with red eyes, surrounded by the words RECON SCOUT.

Rawhide explains that he spent three years on active duty at an Army base in Louisiana, which leaves me to presume that he did some reconnaissance work and scouting. It's hard to tell. Rawhide isn't the elaborative type.

Despite the tough-guy act, though, he's a sweetheart and a gentleman. As we walk to the lift, he offers to carry my snowboard; during the ride up, he compliments me on my jacket. At the top of the mountain, he flies ahead of me, showing off his style. He's recently gotten into extreme carving, a technique that lets you lean against the slope until your body touches the snow.

After the show, he lets me catch up so we can board the rest of the trail side by side. When we start to approach one particularly sharp turn, he speeds ahead, stops, and points the way, as if he's steering me in for a landing.

Turns out, he kinda is. When we get to the bottom, he grabs me around the waist and attempts a tackle, which strikes me as pretty funny. If seduction skills were assigned grade levels, this guy would be in junior high.

After we grab a few beers, I give him a ride to his Saturn. "Can I see you again?" he asks. I don't have the heart to tell him that the tattoo just didn't turn me on.