Michelino Sunseri | Grand Teton FKT & The Aftermath

(upbeat music) - Hey fam, welcome to the free trail podcast. Of course, I am your host, Dylan Bowman. And if you're hearing this, that means you are not in the member only feed. It's all good, don't worry about it, but we would very much appreciate it if you would consider signing up for free trail pro. As a subscriber, you're gonna get ad free versions of this show along with a bunch of member only content. I'm gonna be doing AMAs and having important and unfiltered conversations with the free trail team, community members, and special guests regularly there on the private feed. Your free trail membership will also give you access to our extremely active Slack community of international trail runners of all levels. You'll get early access to all of our merchant events, exclusive discounts with our brand partners, and a lot more, including some very exciting things to be announced very soon. A membership is only $96 for the year, and you can learn more at freetrail.com/pro or at the link in the show notes. (upbeat music) Today, we're joined by Michelino Sonseri, a professional mountain runner living in Driggs, Idaho. He's a long time friend. This is his first time on the show, but he is here to speak about one topic and one topic only. In September of last year, 2024, Michelino broke the existing FKT on the Grand Teton, held for 12 years by Andy Anderson, one of the longest standing and most iconic up-down speed records in mountain running, a project that Michelino had been working on for years and the biggest goal of his athletic career. But during the attempt, Michelino made the strategic decision to take the old climbers trail, deviating from the official route for a period of time during the descent. When he arrived back in the parking lot, Michelino, of course, thought that he would manage to lower the existing FKT by a little over two minutes. He finished in two hours, 50 minutes and 50 seconds, of course, thinking that he had just achieved his dreams on his home mountain. But a few days after the run, controversy ensued as it related to Michelino's decision to use the old climbers trail, creating a debate about FKT ethics and whether Michelino deserved to retain the record, even though he used a slightly different route from Andy Anderson. A week later, on September 9th, fastest known time, officially rejected the record based on objections from the National Park Service, based again on his decision to use the shortcut trail instead of staying on the officially recognized route. And then on September 25th of last year, the National Park Service charged Michelino with an initial court appearance for breaking a statute that apparently carries a maximum penalty of $5,000 fine and or six months in jail, if you can believe it. In this podcast, we discussed the history of FKTs on the Grand Teton, including Michelino's personal history, projecting the route. We talked through the ethics of FKTs and the gray area that exists and the debate that this event eventually revealed. We discussed the rejection of FKT and the subsequent legal squabble that has ensued and a lot more. While you're listening to this or afterwards, I would definitely encourage you to go check out the show notes to learn more. There are a lot of important details to this story and I did my best to collect resources so that you, the audience can learn more about Michelino and his situation and to draw your own conclusions. Of course, not everybody is going to agree. Also in the show notes, links and discount codes with our great brand partners, Speedland, NeverSecond, Osprey and Keytone IQ, the best products in the game, go take advantage. Thank you so much for listening. See you in the outro. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Michelino Sincere, welcome to the free trial podcast buddy. Thanks for doing this. - Yeah man, long time listener, first time caller, stoked to be on. - My guy, I'm happy to have you and it's been a long time coming and this episode is gonna serve a very particular purpose allowing you to share your story from the Grand Teton FKT that you had been pursuing for years and that you accomplished in September of 2024. I wanna talk about the initial elation of breaking the record, the crazy fallout that ensued in the aftermath and all the things that you've been wrestling with for the last few months. But maybe first to get things started, can you just share your history with the Grand Teton mountain, the roots and the dream of the FKT? - Yeah, totally. Once again, man, thanks for having me on. Super stoked to actually be able to have a platform to really share my experience involving all of this and kind of, yeah, I'm stoked. Thanks for having me on, man. I'm really appreciative. It's been a long time coming, but yeah. So funny story actually, the first time I actually looked at the Grand Teton FKT, I was talking to my buddy, Chris Cloyd, who's planning a trip out to the Tetons in September of 2020. And I was looking at it and I was like, hey dude, I was like, should I just go for the Grand Teton FKT while I'm out there? And he actually laughed at me and he's like, no dude. It's like, that's not something you do on a first time up there. You don't just go up the mountain and get an FKT on that thing. It takes a long time and the guys that have done it are total badasses, you know. Bryce Thatcher, Killian Jornay, Andy Anderson. Like you're gonna need some time. So I was like, okay, yeah, I'll do that. So in its place when I visited, I went for the Teton Crest Trail FKT instead. And actually during that FKT, I can tell you the exact moment going up at a sunset lake up onto a hurricane pass. There's a big old glacier there called Schoolroom Glacier and you have the Tetons to your right. You can see the Grand Middle South and Cascade Canyon. And it's just an absolutely beautiful site. And that was actually the moment that I decided, like, I think I need to move here. Like I, this place is absolutely amazing. I should be here full time. So that started, yeah, that's, you know, literally from that point forward on the drive back home, signed a lease, found a job, moved out within a week or two, and I've been living in the Tetons ever since. So one FKT to another. - You've been projecting the route, we should say. And last time I saw you, well, I guess the only time I've really been through the area, I came and said, what's up to you? This is the summer of 2021, right after I was on my way home from the Hard Rock 100. And you were telling me about the fact that you were working on the Grand Teton FKT in the summer of 2021. So just for our listeners to know, you've been working on this thing. It's been in the back of your head for years at this point. - It's been a long time coming then. I've spent, I mean, I think if you do the math on it, I've been on that route for over 300 hours. I mean, it's gotten to the point where on my way, once you hit Garnett Meadows and you start climbing up Petzl caves and up into the marines, really the only markings that I have in my head for what the right, the correct route is. And there's no such thing as a correct route, hence the quotations there. But I actually made names for a lot of the rocks. I have like a zebra rock, the square rock. There's a couple of different pointy rocks that go in, you know, up in each direction and you got to shoot for the far one. So yeah, there's been a lot of weirdness that's gone into this naming pet rocks and memorizing handholds left and right. - There's an elegance or beauty in that type of commitment. And I wanted to make sure that we set that foundation with our audience here at the outset to help them understand, especially as we move towards how everything evolved in the aftermath, that this isn't something that you take lightly or it's not a mountain that you approached with any amount of disrespect, but a mountain that you actually view as your home base and sacred probably in a lot of ways. Furthering this conversation on context setting, I want you to also share a little bit about the history of FKTs on the route, because I think this is also important for the audience to understand. - Sure, and yeah, no, you're definitely right when you say, I mean, respect for this mountain in general. I mean, I've never, it's one of those things where I've woken up for four years and depending on if it's cloudy or not, can see the top of that mountain. And there hasn't been a day that's gone by since I did that Teton crystal where I haven't thought about this mountain and this peak. So I definitely did not take this lightly on the advice of my buddy, Chris Floyd, and still don't. But actually the history of the Grand Teton, it's actually had drama going all the way back to just arguing over who ascended the mountain first. There was a group of pioneers that claimed to have done it in the '70s, but they never recorded it. So then when a group of men did it in the late 1800s, that's when the other guys came out and were like, no, we did this first, we're the first to have this recorded. But at the end of the day, it was probably Native Americans that actually climbed the mountain first. And we're just a bunch of white Europeans arguing over it, but in reality, we probably weren't the first to do it anyways. - Always the case, there's always controversy in mountaineering and alphanism, isn't there? - Oh yeah, someone did it first, man. And everyone wants to be that guy or gal. But the actual, the FKT scene on it dates back, I want to say 1939, when Holly Oak and Hawks, they did it and, oh man, I don't have the time right here in front of me, but I want to say it was around five hours and 40 minutes or so, five hours. So John Holly Oak and Joe Hawks in 1939, and then it wasn't invested again, or at least recorded invested until 1972 by a Jock Glidden, who did it in four hours, 11 minutes, a Grand Teton, a Jenny Lake Ranger, who also used the route I did. He recorded a time of four hours, 11 minutes in 1972. And Bryce Thatcher who held the record for 30 minutes, I want to say 30, 29 years possibly. So Bryce Thatcher went, he ran it and got it from Jock Glidden. But then it was taken from him by Creighton King. And then Bryce Thatcher took it again in 1983, I believe. And Bryce actually did the exact same thing I did. He ran up the switchbacks on the way up and then took the climbers trail on his descent. And I was back in 1983. And then from there on, he held it for 29 years until Killian came and took it in 2012. So Killian did his recce route with Anton Kropitschka. And to anyone who hasn't watched that epic video of Killian and Anton going up the Grand Teton in 2012, it's, I don't know. I feel like that, that has its own place in mountain running lore, especially in the U.S. So anyone who hasn't watched that, please go watch it. - I'll include a link. - Sweet. So Killian went and did the, Killian ran it and he took the route I took. He did a couple other things. He spent a lot of time on the glacier, descending the glacier down the middle Teton, which is totally fair game. Part of the FKT and some of the best advice that I ever got regarding the FKT was once you, it's mostly about how efficiently you can move up and down the mountain once you're off the trail from the meadows. And Killian found it most efficient to glissade down the glacier and he did that. Anyways, he had a couple other short cut, supposed shortcuts that he took, but it was never really made into a big deal because 10 days later, Andy Anderson, who is the Rocky Mountain Ranger, as well as a volunteer Jenny Lake Ranger, he came and he got the FKT from Killian 10 days later and bested Killian by 59 seconds, I believe. - Yep. There's big news at the time. - And Andy is actually, oh yeah, definitely. And Andy's such a humble, awesome, goofy, fun guy. Like I've had so many conversations with him leading up to all of this and, you know, and in the aftermath of it all. So he's been a close ally throughout all of this, which is great. - I wanted to get to that in a second. And thanks for just providing that historical context for the audience, but just to add further emphasis to it, it's pretty crazy that Andy's time has stood the test of time from 2012 to 2024, especially in this modern era of trail running and through the height of COVID when everybody was going after FKTs. The fact that it stood so long is I think representative of just how strong the standard was, let alone the fact that he took it from Killian. One final detail before I want to hear more about your relationship with Andy. Jack Kunsel, I think was the last person of your athletic ability to go after the peak in 2023. And he finished in just over three hours missing it, missing Andy's time by nine minutes. Is there anything you want to say about Jack or other people who have attempted the route? - One other quick tidbit of the history that I do want to throw in there, which is I think is a really important piece of this FKT history is I've spoken with everybody who's still alive, who has held this FKT at one point. And Andy is actually the very first person to take the switchbacks up and down, which is a little bit of, that's mad props to Andy. He had his reasons for doing that. And I think it's still totally badass. But to your question, when Jack was here in 2023 going for it, we actually spent a good amount of time on the phone chatting about it. He, Jack's a goofy guy, man. And he actually gave me quite a bit of inspiration for going all in on this thing because Jack, when it comes to the sport and it comes to FKTs, I think Jack is an extremely important character to have. - 100%, yeah. - He goes all in on everything he does and he isn't afraid to share. He isn't afraid to put himself out there. And he did the same thing with the Grand Teton. And we spoke quite a bit, almost multiple times a week while he was here. We were chatting about different route variations, different ways you could climb up and down the mountain, whether or not you're gonna take the brig slab or eye of the needle or go up through the black rocks, or there's so many different routes you can take once you hit the lower saddle and upper saddle that it really comes down to what your strengths are. And I wish I could have at the time spent time with him up on the mountain, but unfortunately I had a bit of an Achilles issue and 7,000 feet of climbing probably wasn't a good idea. So unfortunately I didn't get to spend much time with him on it. A big warm welcome to Never Second, the new performance nutrition sponsor of FreeTrail. We are so excited and grateful for this partnership as the realm of endurance nutrition has taken center stage in the global trail conversation. 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I think your characterization of Jack and his approach to the mountain also itself illustrates the commitment that it takes, the knowledge that it takes, and the dedication that it requires to gather the education information and overall feel of the mountain before you make an attempt. And in your Strava post in the aftermath of your FKT, you mentioned advice that you received from Andy Anderson himself. You've already mentioned a couple of times that you guys have a personal relationship. I'd love to hear more about your communication with Andy and any advice he provided before your attempt. - So I would say one of the years I was running Broken Arrow may have been 2022, I think it was 2022, '23, I asked Andy. I said, Andy, 'cause at the time, his record seemed absolutely impossible. I was like, there's no way. Like, this is just totally mind-blowing. Like, how did you do that, man? So I asked him, I said, Andy, how exactly did you get from the Meadows up to the top, what route, like, what route did you take? Like, there's so many different routes and there's so many different game trails, different little cut-offs that go up, go left, go right, go whatever. And he kind of just, like, I don't know, the way he smirks and smiles sometimes, it's just goofy and funny, but he didn't give me a straight answer. He's just like, you know, the number one piece of advice I can give you is, it's not necessarily about sticking to any one trail, it's about moving uphill as efficiently as possible. And at the time, I thought he was just totally, you know, just like sending me for a wild goose chase kind of thing. And I was like, that doesn't help, what the heck, man? But the more I actually thought about it, and the more I just became even more intimate with the route, the more it made sense what he was saying. And to me, it felt as if what he was saying was, you have to be so confident in knowing which direction you're going, and be confident in every single step of that route, that you don't even give yourself a second to think about whether or not you're going the right or wrong way, you know? You have to be so confident that it doesn't matter if you take, you know, this right or this left, because they all lead to the same place. - As long as you're going uphill. - You just kind of have to, as long as you're going uphill. So it was that, but it was also, for me, for me, what it did was allow me to spend that time and spend the extra hours up there, just like really taking every single direction possible, so that I don't think about it, you know? I didn't want to think about any of the directions or any way that I went. I just wanted to put my head down and go for it, you know? And it took, you know, it took a really, really long time and a lot of hours up there to even get to that place of comfortability and confidence to even try to do it. - Yeah. So in your write-up, you also say that you and Andy had a specific conversation about the switchbacks themselves, and this obviously feels like a very important details. We eventually make our way to talking about the controversy. So please share any and all details of that conversation with Andy, his opinion on the switchbacks, et cetera. - Sure. So I can't, I can't 100% speak for Andy, but from our conversation, he told, he said he doesn't care. He wouldn't care if I took the switchbacks 'cause he doesn't. So also one other important piece of all this that I think does need to be spoken about is the switchbacks. That actually means, like that's a certain part of the trail. There's a series of switchbacks that leads up to the Delta Lake cutoff. And that section of the trail is colloquially known as the switchbacks. So this is one thing that I put in my Strava post that kind of made it seem as if I was running through flora and fauna and possibly destroying vegetation by saying cutting the switchbacks. Essentially what that means is that you're taking the old climbers trail and you're not going up the switchbacks or down the switchbacks in my case. So that's what that means. Cutting the switchbacks essentially means taking the old climbers trail which is a hard pack trail. But anyways, my conversation with Andy regarding that was, he didn't really care. He said, I think it's faster to stay on the official trail and take that route because the old climbers trail does, it's a lot steeper, it has a couple more twists and turns that are a little more, you know, 90 degree knife edge. It's not as smooth and buffed out. So that was his rationale. And I think he's even said that in a couple of different articles you can search online. He doesn't think it's faster to go the route I took and take the old climbers trail. He thinks it's faster to stick to the official trail. Yeah, it's a good clarification. And he said in a couple of different places, you're right, that at least for him, he felt that staying on the official trail is faster, which opens up an interesting conversation, which I want to have in a second, just about ethics, you know, FKTs oftentimes do have a bit of gray area in how they are approached or different people bring different perspectives about style and about ethics that they apply to their FKT adventures. Actually, it's a lot like alpinism where we sort of started the conversation in that there often is disagreement and controversy and stuff. I want to get to that a little bit later, but I want to talk about the attempt itself so that we're not just only talking about controversy here. And I also want to just state for the audience here, we don't need to go into too much detail, but you did 44 summits before the attempt. This has been a project of your career, which we've already established. You went on a journey, as you said, from feeling like it was totally impossible to maybe it was possible to ultimately you're ready. And on Labor Day of this year, or of last year, 2024, you went for it. I would encourage everybody to go read your Strava post about it, where you share all the details in a beautiful, written format, and they can admire your fitness and your GPS file there as well. I'll make sure to link to that in the show notes. But maybe cutting to the chase, it seemed to me like you were about four minutes back of Andy at the summit. So maybe if there's any details you want to share about the ascent portion itself, that you think the audience will find relevant, and then also talk about arriving at the top, knowing that you're behind and the decision calculus you're making about the descent and the switchbacks at that point. 'Cause it seems like you're sort of making that decision on the fly. - So I wouldn't say was making the decision, well, kind of making the decision on the fly, but there was part of me that I was telling myself, hey, if I'm under 151, then I do believe that I have the capability of possibly descending faster than Andy did, and I'm gonna stick to the trail that he took out of respect for Andy. And once I realized that he totally kicked my butt on the ascent, and I was four minutes behind him, I put in my head and I said, "Hey, I think I'll take the old climbers trail down." Hence the term, you know, we're cutting the switchbacks. - Cutting the switchbacks. - Yeah, so that's where that terminology came into place, came into play, so that's kind of how that shook out. Got to the summit, realized that I was a bit behind Andy, and I had all the splits in my mind. I knew exactly where I had to be at what time, what I had to do in order to best Andy's time. And what actually happened was, I hit the top four minutes behind him, but in between the summit and the lower saddle, I had actually made up all of that time. And I was actually extremely surprised. I had all of Andy's splits, and I was using them to gauge where I was at. And I saw then and there that it was like, "Oh, like I think I got this thing, and maybe I don't have to take the old climbers trail." So lower saddle down to the meadows, you run through the moraine, the boulder fields, there's another area called Petzold's Caves, with some other switchbacks that I have been called out for for cutting those as well. However, that's all completely unmaintained trail, and that's 100% fair game. So there's really, I don't think there's any need to talk about those, because from a legal standpoint, which is weird that you even have to say that, I didn't think that was ever gonna be a thing. Anyways, so once I hit the boulder fields, the bottom of the boulder field at Garnet, I looked at my watch again, and I was up on his time by 45 seconds or so, and then the thought that starts to go running through my head is I'm about to start hitting all these sections of trail on the switchbacks that multiple times throughout training for this. I've been trying to run fast and rolled ankles, been trying to run fast and have ran into a couple of people a couple of times. And I've been in scenarios like that during other FKTs, where self-injury in terms of jacking up an ankle can completely derail the entire objective. So then the thought going through my head coming up to the turnoff for the climbers trail was crap. This is Labor Day. There's an amazing amount of people on this trail. The only thing that can derail me from getting this FKT at this point is going to be running into somebody, rolling an ankle, or having something happen that isn't necessarily fitness related. 'Cause I got this thing, you know? And I made the decision to take the old climbers trail based off of, like I said, I knew I had the time, but I didn't want to run into a situation where it was derailed by an innocent hiker, a climber just going about their day and some skinny guy running all out, runs into him. Little did you know how consequential of a decision that would be? I had no idea. Right, so I'm glad you established kind of the truth of the nature of the switchback itself. So just to reiterate for the audience, it does cut distance. There's, it's questionable about whether it cuts time. Some people believe it does. Some people have actually done an analysis feeling that it cuts about two minutes. Andy himself, the previous record holder, felt that for him at least, it was not faster. And that it is effectively an established trail, the old climbers route, as you said. Somebody had sent me a photograph of signage that appears on that trail from the top. So basically what you would have run past on your way down. And it simply says on the sign, "Shortcutting causes erosion." But it's a clear trail, like it looks as if many people over many years have used it. And I've actually heard from people in the know that it's a trail that many guides actually use. People who spend the most time on the mountain use this trail. Is that accurate, Mikalina? Is that a fair characterization? - You can go check Strava. I mean, so-- - There's a heat map? - There is, oh yeah. And there's, yeah, there's guides that work for, I don't wanna, I'm not gonna call anybody out by name, of course, because that's just not cool. But there's guides who have used it and it's on the internet and you can see it. - Okay. - That's, yeah. And it's used by hundreds, if not thousands of people every single year. And it's been, I think one, since we're on the topic of the signage right now, I think it's important to note that that erroneous signage has actually been installed and there without any actual closure of the trail for over 40 years now. So that signage by good authority has been there for 40 years and there's still, and I think one important thing so that we're not hiding anything from anyone is to also share that there is a sign at the bottom of the trail that does say closed for regrowth. That is a sign that, I mean, I've never been under the impression that this was a closed trail. I've been running trails my entire life. I know what a closed trail is. This is not a closed trail. And having a sign at the bottom, a little sign that says closed for regrowth that's supposedly been there for over 40 years with zero effort to actually have any type of regrowth is a little bit, it brings up even more questions. Which are all questions we're trying to find the answers to. Yeah, but that makes it easy for the National Park Service to point to that and say, it says closed for regrowth. And I think it is important that we do confront some of this stuff head on here. And I think for the purposes of steelmanning the argument of people who are critical with your approach and the decision that you made, you say that you would 100% do it again. And I'm sure you've had months now to play this through your mind a million times to consider alternatives or what would have happened had you not taken the old climbers route. Do you still feel confident in that statement that you would 100% do it again? Are there any other thoughts that have swirled in your head? Any regret in the interim time? So that's a great question. Still to this day, I am still confused as to how that is even considered a closed trail 'cause we can dive into the legality of it and all that if you'd like to. But I am still confused as to how that's considered a closed trail. However, based off of everything that's happened and the investigation that has resulted in my personal messages being confiscated by the federal government, my data, pictures, et cetera, all being used against me in a court of law. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. Knowing what I know now that this type of fallout would happen, I wouldn't have taken it. No, I would have stuck to the National Park's official trail and done it their way, I guess. And it is always easy to do the counterfactual, but in the heat of the moment, when you're screaming downhill as fast as you can, chasing this 12-year-old FKT, which has not really been challenged since 2012 and having projected it for four years yourself with 40-plus summits, I just want the audience to imagine themselves in that same situation, charging down the mountain, chasing a livestream and having a black and white decision to make. And in hindsight, it's easy to second-guess yourself, but in the heat of the moment, we all make our own decisions. And I think it's so important also to just talk about the ethics of FKT. Before we started recording, we were talking about kind of the difference between kind of trail FKT versus mountain running FKT. I'd love for you to expand on that for the audience. - Yeah, I mean, and this is all my opinion. I'm definitely not an authority on everything FKT, but the way that I have perceived the FKT world has been mountain FKTs, up-down FKTs. A lot of the time, it's, you know, who can get up and down and tag the summit as fast as possible. And there's a lot of mountains that, that's A-OK. A couple, you know, one of the big ones that a lot of people go for is that long-speak FKT. And most of that FKT isn't even on a trail. Like that's in Rocky Mountain National Park and that also uses a rangers trail. And it doesn't use the official trail and it cuts a ridiculous amount of switchbacks. And that FKT is kind of known as like, yeah, whoever the heck can get to the top and back down as fast as possible, whatever route necessary, go for it. - This is why it's so confusing. And for the audience, just repeating the fact that everybody except for Andy, the previous record holder had used the route that you used. - Correct. - Right. So there was precedent. - At least in one direction. - If not both. - Yeah. If not both, exactly. - Okay. - So then, I mean, so then the difference with a trail FKT, for instance, you know, if you're doing the Appalachian Trail or John Muir Trail, the PCT, so many of these trails that are, they're long, like these are all long trails, the Grand Canyon, rim to rim to rim. Like these are all, there aren't really ways that you can make them faster unless you're on the trail, right? Whereas so many of these mountain FKTs, they become faster by taking your own route. - And that's also part of the fun of it, you know? - Yeah. - Kind of the main idea is to get up and down as fast as possible. And the route finding is part of the challenge, you know? Taking the way that fits you best. - Yeah, part of the challenge of your situation is that reasonable people can disagree. You know, there are people who carry that mindset of trailhead summit to trailhead, however you want to take it, especially with examples like Long's Peak, where that's the precedent that's used on other iconic peaks. Why doesn't it apply to the Grand Teton in this case, especially when there's precedent of previous records on the Grand Teton using that style? But also reasonable people could say, "Hey, Andy Anderson did it without cutting that switch back. Why are you doing it, Miklino?" And so anyway, I think it's just important that we can agree it's not totally clear cut, it's not black and white, and that reasonable people can disagree in their approaches here. - You all know the best shoes in the game. Well, the Quiver just got even deeper. Speedland is about to begin shipping on three new commissions of their category leading footwear, two of which are entirely new platforms, the GL PDX, and the GL SVT are mountain slang. Weapons lower to the ground with an aggressive outsole. 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So I can close down the day feeling productive before I embrace evening dad mode. I can't recommend these products enough. As always, ketone.com/freetrail30 for 30% off, ketone.com/freetrail30. Now moving to the aftermath here. You collapse in the parking lot, pure joy and elation, four-year dream, 40 summits coming to a spectacular and satisfying conclusion for you. At what points did you realize that this wasn't gonna be just a clear cut new posting on fkt.com, but there was more waiting for you on the other side? - I didn't think anything of it for days. Maybe five or six days later, I got an email back from FKT saying that multiple individuals had reached out to them surrounding my FKT and had said that I cut a switchback, which was alarming to me. And I was like, I stayed on a trail the entire time. What are you talking about? Like this doesn't make any sense. That's not fair. It was like you have on your website, you have Killian Jornay, Emily Forsberg, Jenday Denton, they all did the exact Bryce Thatcher. If you go look at the FKT website for the Grand Teton right now, it's an absolute mess. Once I did-- - I'll link to that also. - Yeah, once I took the route that I took, which pretty much everybody else has in the history of the route, they decided to retroactively go back and flag all of these routes and then deny my submission. And part of that was they had actually reached out to, they sent an email to the Jenny Lake Rangers and asked about that trail in question. And then via email, the Jenny Lake Rangers responded to them saying that that is a closed trail that we have been working hard to close for the last 12 years since Killian Jornay made his attempt. And I guess that was all that they needed to reject my record. - Yeah, and again, I can see thinking, putting my reasonable person hat on. If I were working at Fastest Known Time and the National Park Service, in the jurisdiction where this FKT took place, got in touch with me voicing concern for the style that was used in this particular attempt, that it would be difficult for them to publish it. And then at that point, they do have to retroactively flag the previous attempts from people like Killian and others. So again, not a totally clear cut situation. Tell me about your decision to remain silent. I've been trying to have this conversation with you publicly, and obviously you were in the thick of trying to navigate things behind the scenes, but you were intentionally quiet about it. And to me, that felt like, I don't know, there was intention behind it. And I'd love to hear what that intention was. - I think the biggest reason for being quiet about it is the fact that I had a lot of emotions going on. I mean, I worked really, really hard for this thing. And I was extremely happy when I got it. I was so happy. I was like, I spent years and years going after this goal that I didn't think was possible. And I finally frickin' did it, you know? And I was just proud of myself. I was stoked, happy, like totally living on cloud nine. And then all of a sudden, I start seeing articles coming out about me that are completely untrue, that are, you know, extremely character-defaming and just upsetting to read that kind of thing about yourself. And when you start to see that, it kind of, I don't know, it hit in a way that made me feel just completely, I don't know, demoralized, a little depressed, pissed off. So many emotions going on. I didn't really know what to say. And I didn't want to lash out after having, you know, I needed more time to think about all of this and to really let it all sit and digest with me. And really that as well as, you know, the fact that a National Parks spokesperson went out and, you know, gave local newspapers a quote saying that they're gonna be pursuing criminal action against me. And that was definitely alarming. I mean, I never thought that he'd get criminal charges for going for an FKT. So I have, I do have a lawyer. I have spoken, I've had quite a few conversations about all this with my lawyer. And part of it was, you know, not wanting to come out and say anything that, you know, could theoretically be used against me in a courtroom, but at the end of the day, after me and my lawyer talked about it quite extensively, we realized that he told me at this point, he's like, there's nothing really that you can say. I mean, your Strava files out there, you know, clearly it shows that you ran down this trail. That's what the charges are. So. - And in the Strava file, like I said, you very clearly talk about making this live decision. So when you published that, it was totally transparent, open, all the evidence is there. And again, the chips fell in the way that they did, but what I think was surprising to you and to a lot of people was the fact that this didn't necessarily become a debate about the ethics of FKTs, but that there was potentially criminal liability associated with it, including from what has been publicly reported, you being offered a plea deal, which would have made you accept a five year ban from Grand Teton National Park. Is that accurate or what else can you say about whatever plea deal they've been offering you or the feeling of, you know, having potential legal consequences attached to this? - Yeah, so I was told by one of the rangers over the phone that his goal was to get me in front of a judge and to publicly apologize for taking that trail. That's what a ranger told me over the phone. And long story short, I with my first lawyer who was helping me out pro bono, he doesn't have a lot of criminal litigation experience, but he went to the district attorney and essentially offered, hey, my client is 100% down to help to close this trail to do what's necessary to either rehabilitate this trail and reopen it or to go and properly close it so that, you know, if it is closed for, you know, for environmental reasons, you know, we can maybe even do something as small as go and put logs in front of it, you know, do something to close the trail. And the district attorney came back and said, no, no, no, no, no, the best we can offer is no jail time, a fine and five year probation from Grand Teton National Park, which, you know, the park and the Grand Teton are the main reason why I moved here. And accepting a deal that involves banishment from these mountains is completely unacceptable. And it essentially forces me to bring this into a courtroom. And at this point, I think your trial is scheduled for, is it May of 2025? - Yeah, it's May 20th in Jackson Hole. - Okay. So I want to talk about the petition, but before we get to it, I think it's important to talk about your friends 'cause it seems like the folks who had your back and supporting and documenting your FKT attempt are also in the trenches with you as you navigate these criminal charges. Say a few words about your friends and how they're supporting you. - I got the best friends in the world, man. If anything, they've been almost bothered by my lack of, like, I guess my lack of standing up for myself and standing up for all of this. And they've been kind of doing all of that in my absence and support-wise they've been there the entire time. I mean, Connor and Alex, they're not only mountaineering and running buddies, but through all of this, they've been my main support. Yeah, I'm a super lucky guy to have them in my corner, that's for sure. And then not only that, but even just all the other friends and people in the mountaineering world that who have been heroes of mine for a really long time, that have all reached out and congratulated me and been like, "Hey, man, this is total BS. Like I feel so bad for what's going on, but we all know that the FKT is yours and we're all here if you need us, so let us know." - And they are also the duo that were documenting your attempts for a potential future film or documentary, right? - Correct, yeah. - Okay. - And yeah, so, and they were actually, I've known these guys since before all of this started. They were actually hoping to do this type of film with Jack last year. And they had also reached out to Grand Teton National Park for a permitting last year and were denied last year, got denied this year, and yeah, but they're in the thick of it too with their own civil lawsuit against Grand Teton National Park. - Okay, we don't need to go down that rabbit hole. - Yeah, we don't. - The petition itself, I don't know how much, yeah, there is more to say other that there is an online petition to drop the criminal charges against Michelino Sensari. I'll put a link in the show notes. So feel free to say anything you want to about that, Michelino, but what I would love to know is like, how do you want to see this resolved? Because I think one of the only things that you have said publicly is that you accept the decision from fastestknowntime.com to not ratify your record and that you would go for it again next year, if given the opportunity. Of course, criminal charges are proposing that you be banned for five years, which would not make that possible. But what would like removing just a straightforward ratification and recognition of your FKT, how do you think this should proceed? - I mean, I don't, how it should, how it could, how it would, I don't know. I mean, I've tried offering community service and taking, taking the higher road and, you know, working together on a project to do something. And I was, you know, pretty much told to kick rocks. I don't want to fight Grand Teton National Park. That's not, that's not, and that's never something that I would expect to even say. I think a reasonable solution to a lot of this. If you, if you go into Grand Teton National Park, if you continue and follow those switchbacks up to where it either cuts left, goes up to Garnet, goes up to Grand Middle South, or it goes right and it goes up to Delta Lake, there's very, very clear signage up to Delta Lake that, that says this is an un-maintained trail. It can be extremely dangerous. Use at your own risk, essentially, right? I don't see why there's any reason why that exact same terminology and signage can't be used for the old climbers trail. I think that using it and saying it's closed for regrowth and using that as an excuse to close the trail for over 40 years with zero signs of visible regrowth and seemingly zero, we've, you know, we've put together a Freedom of Information Act request to get any documents relating to trail work or anything on that trail and still haven't received a response. So maybe we will, maybe we won't, but I think claiming that it's closed for regrowth is, I think to anyone who can obviously see through this knows that that's not the truth, because if that was the case, it'd be done by now. It would be regrown, it's been over 40 years. I think if it's an accessibility issue or a safety issue, that would make more sense, you know? But install the proper signage that actually says why, as opposed to, you know, like I said, the terminology that they use saying it's closed for regrowth and then essentially blasting me saying I'm running through an area that's closed for regrowth, it makes it sound as if I hate nature, you know? Like I'm running through some alpine vegetation that will never regrow when in reality, like you said, you know, park employees, guides and tourists, mountaineers, alpinists, all alike, all use that same exact trail on a daily basis in the summer. - It reminds me of a quote I heard one time, something to the effect of the only real rules or the only real laws are those that are enforced. And if there is the rule to not use this trail but it's never enforced, it's not really a rule, right? And if it was enforced, that thing would be regrown by now to the point where it definitely would not be faster to take that what would be probably a grassy slope and not a steep trail. - Anyone that's interested in what this trail looks like and how quickly you can move through it, go check out Anton's video. Anton and Killian's video, they have a full minute of footage of them running through the trail and you can see just how buffed out it is. That was 12 years ago. I can tell you now that no regrowth and no trail work has taken place since then. And it's just as runnable as it was back in 2012 when those two did it. Well, as we wind down here, again, a reminder, people can go check that out. I'll put a link in the show notes. Is there anything else that you want people to know here, Mikalina, anything we haven't covered yet that you think is important? - We definitely don't need to dive into any of the legality of all of this. But if anybody is interested in the legal side of this, I think checking out Alex Rienzi's write up on Grizzlies and Avalanches to go see how, technically speaking, by their own rules and regulations, this isn't a closed trail. If you look into the legal side of it, the park hasn't done any of the steps necessary in order to have this be considered a closed trail. So legally speaking, this is not a closed trail. And I hope that in court, that's what we're going to be arguing. And I hope that I still hope, regardless of the outcome, that I can find a way to work with Grand Teton National Park and the Jenny Lake Rangers to make this turn into something that's positive for all of us. - Yeah, yeah, and no doubt this will have downstream implications for the way people approach FKTs too. And unfortunately, your situation as unpleasant as it is for you will probably add some more clarity to rules around this stuff. And that's probably a good thing in the long term, even though it causes immense pain for you personally, Michelino, but again, I've known you for a long time. I can speak for your personal character. And I know you did not be somebody who would do something that would intentionally or flagrantly fly in the face of ethics or hurt nature or do anything like that. And I'm grateful you would come on the podcast and talk about it with me in such an open and honest fashion. And again, reasonable people can disagree with your decision. Speaking for myself and myself only, I can understand being somebody at fastestknowntime.com and being like, we just can't accept this with the National Park breathing down our neck. Michelino can take another stab at this next year, but we can't ratify it. What is hard for me to understand is for criminal charges to be brought into the picture here on something that is clearly just an innocent mistake, if you want to call that, made in the heat of the battle, of athletic battle, in a moment when, yeah, you're definitely not thinking with 100% of your brain. And my hope is that you are exonerated or at least that these charges are dropped so that you're not battling this and spending whatever resources are gonna be necessary to defend yourself. I do also want to give you a big shout out and kudos, podium spot at Ultra Trail Cape Town. You probably got to exercise a lot of frustration at the end of the season. I don't know if there's anything you want to say about that race in particular or goals for 2025, just so we have something to look forward to as we sign off here. - I think the number one thing I had to say about Cape Town is I don't know how guys like you do it. 100K is a really long way to race. (laughs) That was an experience, yeah. That heat, everything, Cape Town, anyone listening seriously, go race Cape Town. Have you done that one before, D-ville? - I went in 2017 and I got super sick when I was there. So I started, but I dropped out at 10K. - Oh no. - I shouldn't have even started, but I flew all the way across the world to do it. So I was like, I gotta at least start. - You gotta at least try. No, that race is epic. Cape Town's epic, the trail community there is amazing. Had such a great time. I would, it wouldn't be hard to go back. That's for sure. - Yeah. What are you looking at for this year for 25? - So I'm signed up currently for Canyon's 100K. I think it'd be really fun to try to train for 100K and see if I can keep up with the fast guys. And definitely not going for a golden ticket because if I got one, I don't know what my answer would be 'cause that's terrifying. - Come on, dude. You're from the Tahoe Truckee area, aren't you? - I am, I grew up in Kings Beach. But that's like terrifying, man. That's a long ways to run. But I'm signed up for that. I'm signed up for Broken Arrow 46K to try to get on the world's team again. That's it right now. I mean, I would, I do got some other cool FKT projects that I've been wanting to do for a long time. And then, you know, we'll see what happens with all these legal, you know, mishappenings, I guess, and see if maybe I can go back to the Grand Teton and I really don't want to run it again because that's not something that should be taken lightly. It's terrifying and it hurts and I don't want to do it again, but I think I have to. So we'll see what happens with all that. - All right. Well, again, buddy, thanks for coming on the podcast. Thanks for trusting me to have this conversation publicly. Hope it's valuable for our listeners. And yeah, good luck with everything that you're dealing with and everything that you're confronting this year. And I guess if it don't see, I'll see you at the Cane is under Cane in the spring. - Yeah, buddy, I'll see you there. (upbeat music) - There you have it, folks. Michelino speaks. I've been waiting to do this for a few months and I hope we did a good job even with sensitive subject matter. Again, please let me know if you have any feedback. The best place to reach me is in the free trial Slack channel or via Instagram direct message. Again, make sure you check out the show notes of this one. It's very important. I link to all of the following things. Michelino's Strava file from the attempt which includes his long form written race report. I link to the Grand Teton FKT page at fastestknowntime.com where you can see the flagged activities and the history of speed records on this iconic route. I linked also to a written recap of the timeline which appeared on grizzliesandavalanches.com, something that I really used for helpful research and getting ready for this conversation. I linked the petition to drop the charges against Michelino. So if you were inspired by his story or feel compelled to have his back, you can do so via the link in the show notes. And finally, I linked to the video that Michelino referenced of Anton and Killian projecting the route from 2012. In that video, you can actually see the old climbers trail that we talk about so much in the conversation. Before we go, a big thank you to our sponsors. Use code Freetrail10 for 10% off the best footwear in the game with Speedland. Go get a trail running pack from Osprey or your next piece of luggage, osprey.com. Use code Freetrail25 for 25% off your first order from second, never second nutrition, excuse me, never2.com, Freetrail25. And finally, KeepToneIQ, go to keeptone.com/freetrail30 for 30% off your subscription. A big thank you to everybody who listened and who listened with an open mind. I love you guys for doing it. That's why we do this. I appreciate you guys for being such a great audience. All right, talk soon, love you, bye. (upbeat music) you