Pierce Brosnan Pleads Guilty To Yellowstone Charge

You may or may not recall that Pierce Brosnan made a dumb mistake posting images of his “out of bounds” excursion in the famed national park on social media. The images were swiftly picked up by an Instagram group called TouronsOfYellowstone (tourist + morons = tourons), and news of his unlawful trek quickly made its way to authorities. 

Pierce Brosnan leisurely wandered into a restricted area of Mammoth Terraces in the northern part of Yellowstone National Park, close to the Montana-Wyoming border. The “restricted area” clearly shown in the pictures Brosnan posted (to showcase his purchase of a new hat, but more likely for marketing purposes) is a mineral-encrusted hot spring that bubbles from a hillside. 

Mammoth Terraces is a common tourist stop along the path (even Pierce Brosnan thought it was cool enough to check it out), but Yellowstone authorities strictly prohibit straying off the paths and traversing the mineral deposits. Park rules say that “foot travel in all thermal areas and within the Yellowstone Canyon between the Upper Falls and Inspiration Point must be confined to boardwalks or trails that are maintained for such travel and are marked by official signs.”

Pierce Brosnan may be an award-winning actor, but going out of bounds in Yellowstone can be very dangerous, especially when traversing the mineral deposits of a hot spring. The deposits are not always strong enough to support a person’s weight, and you can easily fall through the crust into the hot (close to or at the boiling point) spring water and get badly burned. 

The park is known for its more than two million acres, adorned with more than 10,000 individual thermal geographic features, including glorious spouting geysers, a range of hot springs, and even a few steam vents. Millions of visitors (including Pierce Brosnan) visit Yellowstone National Park every year, and every year, someone gets injured due to their lack of respect for the posted rules and warnings. 

Ultimately, Pierce Brosnan was charged by federal authorities with one count of foot travel in a thermal area and one count of violating the closure and use limits for his famed Yellowstone trek. In exchange for today’s guilty plea to the foot travel in a thermal area charge, the judge dismissed the closure and use limits charge. 

Pierce Brosnan came out of the courtroom with a $500 fine (plus court costs) and an order to make a $1,000 donation to Yellowstone Forever (a nonprofit organization that supports the park) by April 1st this year. His lawyer probably wasn’t free either, so there’s another addition to the price tag of his forbidden folly. 

All in all, Pierce Brosnan could easily afford to take a hike off the trails of Yellowstone whenever he felt froggy enough to jump, but it’s nice for the “little” people to see that the authorities didn’t turn their heads to his deeds in reverence of his fame. Even James Bond has to face the consequences of his actions.