The brash talk didn't end with the race, however. But Johnson's prediction that he would make "millions" from his gold medal was less accurate. He retired from elite level racing in 1989 with the Olympic gold and three World Cup victories, but never achieved the celebrity status or endorsement deals rendered so many other Olympic champions. Instead, he floundered through a brief stint as ski ambassador for Crested Butte Mountain Resort and a lackluster professional racing career on the Jeep King of the Mountain series and other legends events. Friends, family and industry insiders agree that his often impudent personality held his post-Olympic career in check.

"I think just troubles along the way and hard things to deal with made him a little sour," Johnson's mother, DB, said. "With his marriage, things were not always rosy. And he had to fight the U.S. Ski Team along the way, just one battle after the other. He was having hard times."

After undergoing an ugly divorce from his former wife and losing custody of his two sons, Johnson eventually decided to return to the arena where he had found his greatest success. With the words "Ski to Die" tattooed across his right biceps, he returned to ski racing with hopes of qualifying for the Salt Lake City Olympics and jump-starting his life.

"He was lost, just a lost soul flailing around," said DB, adding that Johnson wasn't speaking to her at the time of his crash. "So by the time he decided to go back to skiing and tried to achieve the ultimate again, I thought that was great therapy for him. At least he was doing something he loved to do."

Johnson had made slow but steady progress up the ranks in domestic FIS (Federacion International du Ski) races and had planned to prove himself with a strong showing at the Nationals last year. But something went drastically wrong and he lost his balance on a technical section of the course. The crash took at least six years of his life with it.

Johnson's brain injury won't allow him to remember anything between the years 1995 and 2001. He can't recall the death of his father or the lives of his children. He doesn't understand his divorce, and according to DB, still tells his former wife that he loves her whenever he sees her. Notes on his mirror remind him to brush his teeth and hair, make his bed or take a shower.

"I don't remember anything in the 2000s or a lot from the 1990s. But I have two sons, one who is 7 and one who is 9, so I must have been around," Johnson said. "I remember the gold medal and I remember ski racing for years. I remember that I won."

In addition to thanking the emergency personnel that saved his life, Johnson's return to The Big Mountain from DB's home in Gresham, Ore., was an attempt to spark some sort of memory by revisiting the scene of the crash. He's made remarkable progress in his first year, but the visit demonstrated how far he has yet to go.

Skiing the racecourse with a smile on his face and his mother by his side, he said the slope looked familiar, but asked at one point if he was in Colorado. He recalled skiing the course, "but in another state."

Periodically, there are glimmers of understanding as he struggles to recall a life that seems to belong to someone else.

"I'm not going to regain those years that I lost," he said. "It's kind of like being here at Big Mountain. I was on the hill and it reminded me of being somewhere else."

Ironically, it is after his accident that Johnson is finding success as a spokesperson. The International Brain Injury Association has approached him to speak on its behalf, using his now affable nature to win over the audiences he once spurned. The accident seems to have slapped the badness out of his bad-boy personality.

"He's actually more good-natured than he used to be," said Jimmy Cooper, his stepfather of 24 years. "He's more like when he was a kid," DB Johnson added. "He was always good-natured and happy when he was a kid."

Friends have also helped establish the Bill Johnson Foundation in an effort to help him and other brain injury victims back on their feet through rehabilitation, education and, ideally, re-entry into the workplace.

In spite of his struggles, Johnson has managed to look at his injury in a positive light, and is using the changes it has brought to make a positive impact on others. As he skied this weekend to cheers from the chair lift and pats on the back from folks on the slopes, he seemed to be making new friends along the way.

"It's been very good to me because of the things that have happened to me since that fatal day," he said. "I've had so many people come by me and recognize me. It's impossible to be recognized without falling in this town, I think.

"It's just those people, they love to treat me like I'm somebody else right now. And apparently I am, and apparently I will succeed."

— Scott Willoughby, MountainZone.com Correspondent