Pierce Brosnan has pleaded guilty for stepping off a trail in a thermal area during a November visit to Yellowstone National Park. Brosnan, who called in to the court hearing, was fined $500 and ordered to make a $1,000 donation to Yellowstone Forever — a nonprofit organization that supports the park — by April 1, as per court reciepts.
A second petty offense, for violating closures and use limits, was dismissed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephanie Hambrick.
The 70-year-old actor walked in an off-limits area at Mammoth Terraces, in the northern part of Yellowstone near the Wyoming-Montana line, according to the citations. He was in the park on a personal visit and not for film work, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Wyoming has said.
Mammoth Terraces is a scenic spot of mineral-encrusted hot springs bubbling from a hillside. They are just some of the park’s hundreds of thermal features, which range from spouting geysers to gurgling mud pots, with water at or near the boiling point.
Going out-of-bounds in such areas can be dangerous: Some of the millions of people who visit Yellowstone each year get badly burned by ignoring warnings not to stray off the trail. Getting caught can bring legal peril, too, with jail time, hefty fines and bans from the park handed down to trespassers regularly.
