"Extreme: exceeding the ordinary ... most advanced or thoroughgoing." Webster's has the right idea here. We're not talking about the flashy, daredevil, outrageous-risk stuff that's hawked by the pop-culture concept of extreme. Born as hype, hard-sell extreme wore out its welcome some time ago, and these days its noisome displays just make our eyes hurt. That said, the term extreme does have its significance, its useful resonance — especially if you're searching for ways to characterize the remarkable lives of figures like American Alex Lowe, the world's most complete climber (profiled in this issue by Seattle-based journalist Bruce Barcott) and Canadian Eric Pehota, perhaps the planet's best all-around skier (and the subject of a discerning portrait by contributing editor Daniel Coyle). You won't see either of these guys pinwheeling across the screen on cable; on the other hand, both are fascinating exemplars of a truly radical, satisfyingly soulful, wholly admirable approach to life.

On the sheer, steep surface of things, they are an absorbing study in contrasts. Lowe makes his home in a picture-perfect bungalow in small-town Montana; Pehota lives in rustic splendor in a trailer in British Columbia. Lowe is an engaging corporate-sponsored idol; Pehota goes his own way, not bothering to enter the free-skiing competitions that would advertise his greatness. Lowe thrives on strong lattes and thorny math problems while Pehota butchers sheep and strolls down to the river to enjoy his beer. But both belie the stereotype of extreme in similar ways: as old-fashioned family men, as genuinely nice guys, and as thoughtful practitioners of some of the most dangerous games in the world. Both understand the danger, respect it, and with humility and talent overcome it. Which is our kind of extreme.

Photographing Alex Lowe gave England-born, Toronto-raised Andrew Eccles a glimpse of the climber's legendary vigor: "Alex kept saying everything was just a 15-minute walk, but for me, with all my gear, it would be an hourlong slog through knee-deep snow. He ended up carrying all the cameras and still got everywhere 15 minutes before me." Eccles, whose past Outside cover portraits include Gabrielle Reece and Mark Allen, lives in Manhattan and escapes to his west Texas retreat near Big Bend National Park whenever he gets the chance.

"I wouldn't know anything about this place if it weren't for the fishing," says Ian Frazier, who traded New York for Missoula, Montana, where the Clark Fork and the Bitterroot Rivers flow right through town. Not that the city kept this lifelong angler from casting a line: "I caught the nicest striped bass I've ever caught under the Manhattan Bridge," he says. "I thought I must have snagged an infant car seat or something." This month, Frazier pokes a little fun at guided fly-fishing in "Our Business is People."

Editor-at-large David Quammen first visited Australia 10 years ago and is always ready to return. "It's like Montana," he says, "the independent spiritedness, the unpretentious friendliness, the old-fashioned redneck ethos." This month he reports from Kakadu National Park, where a large uranium mine has a number of Aboriginals and others up in arms ("Looking at X Rays in the Garden of Eden"). The 18-year Outside veteran's new collection of Natural Acts columns, The Boilerplate Rhino, will soon be published by Scribner.

"As a kid, I had one of those yellow banana-seat cruisers with tassels and ape hanger handlebars," says Florence Williams, who culls tech tips from die-hard bike lovers in this month's cycling special ("Live to Ride"). Williams, who now uses a gray midvintage mountain bike for her numerous expeditions to and from her local post office, writes frequently for the magazine: Last April she led readers on an all-night tour of Aspen's ER.

With Quammen in Kakadu were Denis Montalbetti and Gay Campbell, Canadian photographers who moved to Sydney a decade ago but had yet to visit the park. "I don't think we ever shot so much color film," says Campbell. "Nothing else would have done it justice." While the two often shoot landscapes, they're known for their portraits: Two of their black-and-whites, including one of long-distance swimmer Susie Maroney taken on assignment for Outside last year, were just purchased for the permanent collection of Australia's National Portrait Gallery.

"I'm as afraid of bears as ever," says Patrick Symmes, who tried to exorcise his ursine demons in "Remember, Fear Is Your Friend" (Field Notes). More dangerous but less scary to this New Yorker are the motorcycles he's ridden since he was 18. In Ten Thousand Revolutions, which Vintage Departures will publish this fall, he recounts a motorcycle journey through South America in the tracks of Che Guevara, a trip he boils down to "one flat tire, a few crashes, and various mystery illnesses."