Michelino Sunseri has had a wierd 12 months. He set a Quickest Identified Time (FKT) document on Grand Teton in September 2024, then had that document revoked, was charged by the Nationwide Park Service (NPS) for chopping a switchback, needed to go to federal courtroom in Washington, D.C., was discovered responsible, simply acquired a presidential pardon from Donald Trump, and is now having a feature-length documentary movie made about him.
Between all of that, he’s additionally been competing in ultra-marathons across the U.S. and ran with Workforce U.S.A. on the World Mountain & Path Working Championship in Spain.
“It was a fairly enjoyable 12 months of journey,” he mentioned. “I’ve been sort of throughout.”
Regardless of the enjoyable elements, it has additionally been a difficult 12 months. Sunseri has been the topic of huge media consideration, fought an ongoing authorized battle, and was the goal of widespread web hate. The selection he made to chop a switchback throughout his 2024 FKT try on Grand Teton modified his life, and it could have set a presidential precedent for future FKT makes an attempt.
Throughout my dialog with him, Sunseri made it clear he doesn’t remorse something.
The final time GearJunkie spoke with Sunseri, it was simply days after his notorious Grand Teton FKT, and days earlier than his document was revoked and NPS filed fees in opposition to him. Since then, he has been comparatively quiet within the media. He repeatedly declined to touch upon GearJunkie’s personal protection of his case during the last 12 months.
So after he acquired a presidential pardon on Tuesday, with all of his authorized woes behind him, we reached out to debrief with the athlete. And Sunseri obliged.
Q&A With Michelino Sunseri
GearJunkie: How does it really feel to be the recipient of a presidential pardon?
Michelino Sunseri: I nonetheless don’t know easy methods to reply that query as a result of it nonetheless appears fairly surreal. Actually, when it occurred, I believed Alex Rienzi [from my legal team] was screwing with me. I believed he photoshopped it and was taking part in a joke on me. I’m nonetheless wrapping my head round it, however it’s fairly freaking cool to have the ability to say you bought a presidential pardon.
It’s sort of a bizarre resume bullet for a mountain athlete. You’re sort of amongst a rogue’s gallery of high-level con males and criminals.
It’s an attention-grabbing place to be, that’s for positive. However I feel it’s only a testomony to how completely loopy and blown out of proportion this has been from the beginning … And I feel for it to finish in an equally insane, foolish, and surreal manner is sort of simply icing on the cake for your complete scenario.
What have been your emotions about Donald Trump earlier than all this? And has your presidential pardon modified them?
I’ve been bartending for 12 years and dealing behind the bar, and there’s a rule: You don’t speak politics or faith. You keep away from subjects of that nature. And that’s sort of been how I’ve lived my life, not solely at work, but in addition publicly on social media. I’m a agency believer that the best way our politics and our system is run proper now, it’s very binary. And it’s unlucky as a result of most of us all agree on 80% of the identical issues.
And I’m not a fan of any politician. I’ve by no means been a fan of politicians. Am I a fan of Donald Trump now? I imply, I 100% agree with him on this. So, I feel we discovered widespread floor right here. There are different points I additionally agree with him on, and there are points I don’t agree with him on. And I don’t need to label myself. I refuse to place myself right into a political field.
What sort of precedent do you assume this case and Trump’s presidential pardon have set for future athletes and FKT pursuits?
Someday within the spring, there was an government order signed that was making an attempt to restrict the quantity of presidency spending spent in these precise forms of instances: nonviolent legal fees. Decriminalizing actions that ought to not see a federal courtroom …
The quantity of federal funds that have been spent on this case, we might have closed that path 100 occasions over. We might have fully completed a large renovation on all of Grand Teton Nationwide Park…
And the unlucky a part of all of that’s that my staff and I’ve been making an attempt. Since 8 days after the FKT, we’ve been making an attempt each single probability we started working on some sort of challenge with [NPS] and with the federal authorities to rectify the scenario, and to do proper and to do one thing that is the same as the perceived crime. And sadly, that was by no means a chance.
So, I hope that this units a precedent for our authorities to work towards decriminalizing issues that shouldn’t be thought of federal legal misdemeanor offenses, and spending a lot cash pursuing one thing so small …
What did you assume when your attorneys found that NPS had revoked its help for this case in opposition to you, again in Could?
I feel if the folks accountable for the park aren’t supportive of the costs anymore, that’s telling in and of itself. However, you understand, I’m nonetheless getting fairly a little bit of hate messages and all that great things. It’s loopy how, even with that, folks nonetheless have their opinions.
With every part over and within the rearview mirror, are you glad you went by means of all of this? Or do you want you’d simply by no means lower that rattling switchback?
Some folks hate me for saying this and assume that I haven’t discovered my lesson, which I feel is the issue to start with, that that phrasing is even used. However I nonetheless don’t assume I did something improper in utilizing that path. It’s a hard-packed path. It’s been there since earlier than our grandparents have been born.
I don’t perceive why it was closed to start with, and I’d welcome any alternative to both reopen the path or revegetate the path. However I feel simply leaving it as is, is a disservice to the lands that we supposedly love. Leaving any sort of hard-packed path in that state with out doing handbook revegetation opens it as much as invasive species and doesn’t truly remedy the issue. It makes it worse.
So I feel simply what they’re doing when it comes to leaving it there clearly isn’t what’s greatest for that land itself.
You’ve gotten loads of press over this case. How are you going to hold that momentum ahead?
I’m going to maintain doing what I’ve been doing. I’ve spent years dwelling in Driggs [Idaho]. I placed on no less than one or two fundraisers each single 12 months. I attempt to give again to my path working group and anywhere that I stay.
If I can use this momentum to do this at a bigger scale, then clearly that’s my subsequent transfer. And that’s what I’ll do.
Something you need to say to folks now that every part is over?
Life is nuanced. Articles on the Web that you just learn are nuanced. All people ought to do themselves a favor and look previous the headlines. I feel we’re very fast nowadays to select sides. Politics has particularly fueled that downside.
And I feel if all of us simply decelerate and never preserve scrolling from one factor to the following to search out issues to irritate us and get our blood boiling; take time to cease, assume, breathe, digest the knowledge, and possibly do some deeper digging and speak to those that we don’t essentially agree with. I feel that’s going to unravel loads of these points we’ve on this world, on this nation right now.
