Michelino Sunseri has had a strange year. He set a Fastest Known Time (FKT) record on Grand Teton in September 2024, then had that record revoked, was charged by the National Park Service (NPS) for cutting a switchback, had to go to federal court in Washington, D.C., was found guilty, just received a presidential pardon from Donald Trump, and is now having a feature-length documentary film made about him.
Between all of that, he’s also been competing in ultra-marathons around the U.S. and ran with Team U.S.A. at the World Mountain & Trail Running Championship in Spain.
“It was a pretty fun year of travel,” he said. “I’ve been kind of all over.”
Despite the fun parts, it has also been a challenging year. Sunseri has been the subject of massive media attention, fought an ongoing legal battle, and was the target of widespread internet hate. The choice he made to cut a switchback during his 2024 FKT attempt on Grand Teton changed his life, and it may have set a presidential precedent for future FKT attempts.
During my conversation with him, Sunseri made it clear he doesn’t regret anything.
The last time GearJunkie spoke with Sunseri, it was just days after his infamous Grand Teton FKT, and days before his record was revoked and NPS filed charges against him. Since then, he has been relatively quiet in the media. He repeatedly declined to comment on GearJunkie’s own coverage of his case over the last 12 months.
So after he received a presidential pardon on Tuesday, with all of his legal woes behind him, we reached out to debrief with the athlete. And Sunseri obliged.
Q&A With Michelino Sunseri
GearJunkie: How does it feel to be the recipient of a presidential pardon?
Michelino Sunseri: I still don’t know how to answer that question because it still seems pretty surreal. Literally, when it happened, I thought Alex Rienzi [from my legal team] was screwing with me. I thought he photoshopped it and was playing a joke on me. I’m still wrapping my head around it, but it’s pretty freaking cool to be able to say you got a presidential pardon.
It’s kind of a weird resume bullet for a mountain athlete. You’re kind of among a rogue’s gallery of high-level con men and criminals.
It’s an interesting place to be, that’s for sure. But I think it’s just a testament to how totally crazy and blown out of proportion this has been from the start … And I think for it to end in an equally insane, silly, and surreal way is kind of just icing on the cake for the entire situation.
What were your feelings about Donald Trump before all this? And has your presidential pardon changed them?
I’ve been bartending for 12 years and working behind the bar, and there’s a rule: You don’t talk politics or religion. You avoid topics of that nature. And that’s kind of been how I’ve lived my life, not only at work, but also publicly on social media. I’m a firm believer that the way our politics and our system is run right now, it’s very binary. And it’s unfortunate because most of us all agree on 80% of the same things.
And I’m not a fan of any politician. I’ve never been a fan of politicians. Am I a fan of Donald Trump now? I mean, I 100% agree with him on this. So, I think we found common ground here. There are other issues I also agree with him on, and there are issues I don’t agree with him on. And I don’t have to label myself. I refuse to put myself into a political box.
What kind of precedent do you think this case and Trump’s presidential pardon have set for future athletes and FKT pursuits?
Sometime in the spring, there was an executive order signed that was trying to limit the amount of government spending spent in these exact types of cases: nonviolent criminal charges. Decriminalizing actions that should not see a federal courtroom …
The amount of federal funds that were spent on this case, we could have closed that trail a hundred times over. We could have completely done a massive renovation on all of Grand Teton National Park…
And the unfortunate part of all of that is that my team and I have been trying. Since 8 days after the FKT, we’ve been trying every single chance we got to work on some type of project with [NPS] and with the federal government to rectify the situation, and to do right and to do something that is equal to the perceived crime. And unfortunately, that was never a possibility.
So, I hope that this sets a precedent for our government to work toward decriminalizing things that should not be considered federal criminal misdemeanor offenses, and spending so much money pursuing something so small …
What did you think when your lawyers discovered that NPS had revoked its support for this case against you, back in May?
I think if the people in charge of the park aren’t supportive of the charges anymore, that’s telling in and of itself. But, you know, I’m still getting quite a bit of hate messages and all that good stuff. It’s crazy how, even with that, people still have their opinions.
With everything over and in the rearview mirror, are you glad you went through all of this? Or do you wish you’d just never cut that damn switchback?
Some people hate me for saying this and think that I haven’t learned my lesson, which I think is the problem to begin with, that that phrasing is even used. But I still don’t think I did anything wrong in using that trail. It’s a hard-packed trail. It’s been there since before our grandparents were born.
I don’t understand why it was closed to begin with, and I would welcome any opportunity to either reopen the trail or revegetate the trail. But I think just leaving it as is, is a disservice to the lands that we supposedly love. Leaving any type of hard-packed trail in that state without doing manual revegetation opens it up to invasive species and doesn’t actually solve the problem. It makes it worse.
So I think just what they’re doing in terms of leaving it there clearly isn’t what’s best for that land itself.
You’ve gotten a lot of press over this situation. How are you going to carry that momentum forward?
I’m going to keep doing what I have been doing. I’ve spent years living in Driggs [Idaho]. I put on at least one or two fundraisers every single year. I try to give back to my trail running community and any place that I live.
If I can use this momentum to do that at a larger scale, then obviously that’s my next move. And that’s what I will do.
Anything you want to say to people now that everything is over?
Life is nuanced. Articles on the Internet that you read are nuanced. Everybody should do themselves a favor and look past the headlines. I think we’re very quick these days to pick sides. Politics has especially fueled that problem.
And I think if we all just slow down and not keep scrolling from one thing to the next to find things to aggravate us and get our blood boiling; take time to stop, think, breathe, digest the information, and maybe do a little deeper digging and talk to people that we don’t necessarily agree with. I think that’s going to solve a lot of these issues we have in this world, in this country today.
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