Pierce Brosnan pleads not guilty to off-trail hike in Yellowstone thermal area

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Pierce Brosnan has pleaded not guilty to charges of walking in a restricted area of Yellowstone National Park.

The 70-year-old star, who famously played James Bond across four movies, was accused of hiking through off-limits “thermal areas” near Mammoth Hot Springs on 1 November last year.

That would have violated several closures in the northern part of Yellowstone, near the Wyoming-Montana border.

On 4 January, Mr Brosnan’s lawyer Karl Knuchel filed court documents to the US District Court of Wyoming issuing not guilty pleas to two charges made against the Irish actor.

Mr Knuchel also requested a cancellation of the scheduled hearing on January 23 to be replaced with a status conference, which was approved by the US magistrate judge, with US outlets reporting it had been rescheduled for 20 February.

Mammoth Hot Springs is a scenic tourist spot with hot springs alongside travertine terraces, while going out of bounds can prove dangerous with water at or near boiling point.

The “thermal areas” refer to Yellowstone’s famous geysers, hot springs, gas vents, and other dangerous but fascinating phenomena borne of its location on top of a gigantic underground reserve of searing molten rock.

The park, which was the first ever national park established in the US, sits within a crater made by the massive Yellowstone Supervolcano around 600,000 years ago and includes roughly half of all known hydrothermal features in the world.

The National Park Service warns tourists to stay on boardwalks and trails lest they become one of the 20 people who have died from burns after taking a dip in or falling into one of Yellowstone’s hot springs.

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“Boardwalks and trails protect you and delicate thermal formations. Water in hot springs can cause severe or fatal burns, and scalding water underlies most of the thin, breakable crust around hot springs,” the service says on its website.

Mr Brosnan was born in Drogheda in Ireland in 1953 and had his breakthrough as an actor with the British spy series Remington Steele in the 1980s, before being cast as James Bond beginning with 1995’s Goldeneye.

He played Bond from 1995 to 2002, before Daniel Craig took over the role. He also starred in the 1980s TV series Remington Steele and is also known for appearing in the films Mrs Doubtfire, The Thomas Crown Affair and Mamma Mia!.

Last year, Mr Brosnan unveiled a “deeply personal” series of paintings in his first solo art exhibition.

Additional reporting by Press Association