Kai Jones Talks About Recovering From Pre-Season Surgery

Kai Jones has just had eight screws removed from his legs, over a year after his initial incident where he broke both of his legs after dropping a large cliff seven miles into the backcountry.

The recovery process has been ongoing, but Jones expressed relief at finally having the hardware removed: “Man, it feels good to be natty again! I will be back to shredding soon, for now I’ve got some recovering to do.”

We checked in with Jones to see where he is in his recovery journey and his plans for the upcoming winter season.

The photo Jones posted on Instagram caused some confusion, with people thinking he had seriously injured himself again. “A lot of people thought that I messed myself up again,” he clarified. “I went for the drama.”

But this is not drama. Jones had the operation on the second of this month and is excited to be on the mend. “I’m super stoked. Definitely relieved. It feels good to have it out of my body. Before, in my knees, I could feel the metal. I’ve been waiting to get the surgery done because I felt so good, but I knew that if I didn’t need metal in my body, then I should get it out. Screws in your legs can lead to arthritis faster,” he explained.

“It would hurt when I would kneel on hardwood floor. A cool fact that I recently learned is that your body is naturally designed to absorb force. When I had the screws in my knees, those force waves were being disrupted by the screws.”

Currently, Jones is just over a week out of surgery and is still recovering from the incisions. However, he is not expected to lose much strength due to the mobility he had regained prior to the operation.

Jones is doing physical therapy two to three days a week and will begin strength training next week. By September, he aims to resume all of his normal activities.

While he’s not heavily restricted, he mentioned, “The main thing is staying away from impact sports for the first four weeks.”

Reflecting on last year’s experience, he said this recovery process is much easier: “Obviously, you want to take all these things super seriously, but there aren’t a lot of restrictions.”

Jones is understandably eager to get back to a normal ski season: “I’m just so stoked to be able to have a full winter and just get back to where I was.”

“The season was a little slower than normal, and I’m just super motivated to push myself and travel and just ski a bunch, so I’m really hyped for a good winter with a lot of pow days.”

We share Kai’s excitement for his return to skiing, which means more clips from this talented young freeskier.

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