In a series of interviews and e-mails dating to last January, Kreitler candidly explained how he went from an aging, controversial, always painfully honest pro to a devoted Buddhist whose two years away from skiing set him straight. He finally got to know himself, he said. By leaving Lake Tahoe, Kreitler escaped a bubble of expectations and ego, none more stubborn than his own.

"I felt like I was being called, on a pretty regular basis, to be someone who I was in my 20s and maybe even my early 30s," Kreitler said, "and I really felt like I was ready for myself to fully shift and for other people to shift their perspective of who I was."

It's easy to associate Kreitler with risk -- and conceit. He brought them on himself. The son of a wealthy financial trader in Sun Valley, he won the 1993 U.S. Extremes in Crested Butte, dropped out of college (where he and Shane McConkey met as roommates) and helped pioneer high-speed skiing in huge mountains for more than a decade. In 2004, he helped make a documentary about himself, called "Reverence." But he doesn't see himself as being conceited; he says he simply answers when people ask about his skiing achievements. "I felt like I was on top for quite a while," he said.

Inside, however, he felt like a man with two faces, even when times were good. "I used to sort of split my time between being aligned with my integrity and this other dark, egotistical side," Kreitler said. He finally grew tired of having to impress people for a living -- right about the time his sponsors began to seek his replacement.

He sold his home in Tahoe and most of his belongings. His first winter living in San Francisco, Kreitler skied exactly one day: He bought a ticket at the window, took five runs, then got caught skiing the Tram Chute at Squaw Valley and had his pass pulled. He spent much of last winter in Panama, where he owns 150 acres and wants someone to start a yoga retreat. After returning in March, he borrowed an old pair of Seth Pistols and started skiing again, incognito and sponsorless.

Courtesy of KreitlerKreitler meditates often and says he is aligned with Buddhist thought.

This winter, Kreitler plans to guide heli trips for Southeast Alaska Backcountry Adventures and possibly a trip in the Alps to coincide with the Verbier Xtreme -- a total of about eight weeks of client work, he said. He also designed a ski for the niche Swiss manufacturer Heidiskis. "I'm not diving back in," he insisted. "I'm just stepping lightly back in."

Kreitler's priority, however, hasn't changed from the past few years. He often calls it "aligning" himself; it basically means understanding the depth the world has to offer.

"Here's the deal," he said one day on the phone. "I have a very & well, I'll say Buddhist, but people think of that in terms of religion even though it's more like the study of ultimate truth. My worldview over this period of time we're talking about became more and more aligned with Buddhist thought. They call it a precious human lifetime. If you believe the mind continues even when the body doesn't, then we have our lifetime to elevate, for one, karma, and two, our level of consciousness of what's really going on."

Kreitler is an interesting guy to have a conversation with. He talks about things like "the big accomplishments which occur in our minds" and believes "there is more to accomplish sitting than there is moving." He says being nice to people benefits not just them or you, but the planet.

Courtesy of KreitlerKreitler en route to Panama last winter with a big truck and a 30-foot fifth-wheel trailer.

"I think there's a lot of misery in the world based on just people not being aligned with the truth of what they really need, which is most likely going to be helping each other," he said. "I pretty much give every homeless person I see a dollar. It's fun living in a city because there are constant opportunities to plant seeds of helping people."

Billy Jacobs, who has known Kreitler since the mid-'80s and was his team manager at Spyder, said he sees a refreshingly humbled version of his friend. "Kent's been searching for wisdom, and I think he's found it," Jacobs said.

Money has something to do with Kreitler's return to skiing, but not all. "I'm not broke," he said, "but it's only going out right now. I do need a job." Mainly, it came down to realizing the sport that made him meant more to him than he thought.

"We get the idea that we are what we do," he said. "We are not. It's just what you do and like everything else, your job is eventually a dead end job, just like your life, and will be stripped away from who you really are."